I often work with human beings who are holding a very deep, hidden place within them. It might be an actual secret, or more usually something so painful that it must be protected at all costs: a sense of total unworthiness, a fear of devastating loss, the heartbreak of never being met by a primary caregiver.
When we stay the course together—and both keep showing up—there comes a moment when the human being I am sitting with finally feels safe enough to tell the truth. Not to me, but to themselves. If that buried truth can surface and become available for work, it swiftly unlocks a process of root-level healing.
Think for a moment about how much energy it takes to protect a wound, to hold down trauma, to make absolutely sure that your core vulnerability never comes to light. Then imagine how much energy could be liberated when you stop resisting what you’re carrying and instead begin to face it. Most of the time this protective state is an entirely unconscious process—we don’t realise we are managing our humanity, because it is how we learnt to survive.
Recently, just before the summer break, a client spoke aloud a truth that had defined their entire existence and family field. It was a powerful revelation that explained years of symptoms, behaviours, loops, and stuck patterns. But more than new understanding, I witnessed the sudden liberation of energy in their life.
They came back to me a few weeks later and said: everything feels like it’s moving so fast, everything is changing so much.
I listened. I paused. And I asked:
Is life moving fast, or is it just finally moving?
We both knew the answer. The sense of speed was only the unfamiliarity of flow.
Because life is a river. Like the seasons, life is in perpetual movement: growth, expansion, decay, renewal, rebirth. We are no different. But we get in the way of that cycle. We tighten. We resist. We try to hold life still.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine—which is the backbone of Chi Kung and my practice as a whole—the five elements are aligned with the five seasons. And yes, there are five seasons, because Late Summer is its own turning point. As Summer (the Fire Element) settles, the abundance of Late Summer (the Earth Element) nourishes and steadies us, preparing us for the descent into Autumn (the Metal Element). Autumn’s surrender guides us down into the stillness and replenishment of Winter (the Water Element), and after the long dark, Spring (the Wood Element) inevitably rises, once again becoming the full bloom of Summer. Look at any process in our world and you will find this cycle—a human life, a creative project, a well told story.
Life moves this way. And yet the human mind, built for survival, clings to control, and specifically clings to the past, because it is known. It scans and checks constantly, building a blueprint of what has been safe or unsafe, then lays that blueprint over the present as if it were the now. The past becomes the filter, the lens, through which everything is seen. But it is fixed, old, and dead.
The liberation of energy—that feeling of aliveness—comes when we stop trying not to die. When we are willing to feel the knots and nodules of survival we carry within us, and to see them for what they are, rather than being unconsciously led by them. Our bodies remember everything, and they hold it all until they feel safe enough to let go. So seek out a place that can really hold you, because when that letting go comes, there is always an opening.
At first it can feel like whitewater rapids, frightening in its force and abundance. But that’s just the natural fluidity of a life that is no longer being fixed. It is the unknown, and it is being in the presence of the present, without trying to control it.
Without enough support and consciousness of this new experience, the fluidity can be terrifying, and we easily retreat to the safety of the old map. But in doing so, we limit who we can be, how we can be, and ultimately, the world we get.
So I return to the question, and I offer it to you.
Think of a moment when you felt suddenly in flow—after a really honest conversation, or taking a leap outside your comfort zone, or simply allowing yourself to cry deep tears of grief. That sense of expansion afterwards, the feeling of so much moving at once—
Was life moving fast?
Or was it finally flowing?
To live this way is to let life come to us, rather than trying to survive it. It is to welcome what IS, and actively choose to surface the ache or emptiness we habitually try to hide. As we do this, we step back into the peace we were born with, before rupture, before conditioning, and before resistance.
That peace is always there. We regress, we tighten, and we forget, because we have a human mind. But the peace (and flow) is always waiting.
I write these fortnightly posts for three reasons: because I love to write; because I want to share the power, efficacy, and creativity of the modalities I practise; and, perhaps most importantly, to communicate the depth of the space I hold, so that it might reach someone who needs it. I work with up to four 1:1 Maturation clients at a time (minimum one year), and have one space opening in October—if you’d like to explore the possibility, you can apply here.
I’m also forming a new weekly therapy group for doctors starting next year. I’m accepting referrals now and beginning preparatory 1:1 work. If this is you—or a medic you know—please email emma@emmareicher.com to find out more and begin the conversation.
Every time we release control, something shifts beyond us, in the wider field. And often the first step is as simple as reaching out.