Mimi Kuo-Deemer is an author, yoga and Qigong instructor. She is the co-founder of Beijing’s first and leading Yoga Studio and teaches regular Yoga and Qigong classes in London. In this conversation, we speak about the lessons we can learn from nature, and how self-cultivation builds on the concept of self-care.
Trigger warning: Mimi speaks about her personal journey of miscarriage/pregnancy loss, and the impact this can have on the body and a relationship. She shares what helped her heal through the shame and self-blame of multiple miscarriages to move into a place of self-compassion and wholeness.
Mimi has such an aura of calm and she speaks with such grace and clarity, I really hope you gain as much wisdom from this episode as I did.
Key Themes:
- Often in Yoga, we’ve been handed down a practice that doesn’t have quite as much focus on energy and intention.
- Qigong comes out of a Taoist tradition and within Taoism, there is always been the celebration and importance placed on the feminine and the Yin. There has never been an absence of priestesses. Women have never been excluded from the practices and they’ve always had a very celebrated role.
- Tao te ching has great quotes, but one of them that I love is “Know the male but keep to the female, know the yang but keep to be yin, the Tao is the mother of all things, a great matrix.”
- Nature was something we conquer, we master or we control. Which, if you say I want to be at one with the natural world it sounds great, but if you unpack that and carefully think about that, that’s a radical idea if you’ve grown up in the West.
- Do we want to keep bandaging wounds? People want that they want to feel kind of, they’ve almost hurt themselves, and therefore there’s some benefit.
- How do we grow good food? Well, we start by having really good soil. How do we be a good mother? Well, we start by making sure we’re not calling out for constant need, care and, burnt out, we are able to grow our children, support them in their growth, because we’ve got a good stable base.
Resources mentioned:
About Mimi Kuo Deemer
- Check Mimi’s website here
- Watch Mimi on Youtube
- Follow Mimi on Instagram
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Thank you and Much Love,
Nehanda xx
“We’ve got this golden moment, this beautiful bright consciousness, this awakening possibility, this generous and loving heart. Are we going to squander that or are we going to cultivate that? Are we going to allow from our own practices our own way of looking at the world, some flourishing within ourselves and let it ripple out, are we going to squash it? And ultimately, that’s kind of the choice we’re faced with when we really sit deeply with change and control resists change.“
Mimi Kuo-Deemer