Nei Gong Notes, August 8, 2023

I went to see a hand specialist on Friday; things are going fine, nothing to worry about. I’m in a removable splint now that leaves three fingers free, so it’s easier for me to do more things (including typing) and I can take it off to shower. So that’s nice; and my abrasions are healing noticeable, I’ve gotten rid of more than half my bandages. I’ll go back for another look in two and a half weeks, hopefully I’ll get a still smaller thing on my hand then.

In terms of practice, I’m basically avoiding anything with my hands. So I’m alternating between Observing the Breath, Anchoring the Breath, and Calm-Abiding; and I’m trying to work in a Self-Healing as well, though I’m only finding time for that maybe half the days?

I’m actually a little nervous about that one: the lesson talks about how, if you apply too much intention, it can cause problems? Having said that, I haven’t had it cause more pain when I’ve tried it out this week, and sometimes there’s been a relaxed, slightly liquid feel that seems to me like it’s in the right direction. So tomorrow I’ll see if I can do a longer session and poke at that more.

I also don’t want to backslide more than necessary on other parts of my conditioning. I was thinking I should do Silk Reeling, but most of those moves involve my hands too much. There are some I can do, though, and that also reminded me that Spinal Waves should be fine. So I’ll try to spend time doing that for a while each day, hopefully that will help.