I came to Aiping initially entirely out of curiosity, didn’t understand what it was, knew nothing really at all about it, just came along to see what it was. I think the biggest initial experience was just a general feeling of life beginning to change in the right direction, being calmer, more positive, more organized, more hopeful, less fearful – generic things that sound a bit nebulous but add up to pretty significant changes.
And after that….one of the first things I asked Aiping Wang for help with was my inability to be able to communicate with people without becoming very nervous. For example, sitting and talking to people I didn’t know was very difficult. Sitting and talking in front of a camera doing this would have been impossible without getting too nervous and being unable to speak. So that was the first significant result. After that other results include being able to sleep. I used to be awake a lot of the night listening to the radio. The World Service was a good friend and I can now sleep pretty cleanly through the night and that hasn’t happened for fifteen years plus.
My wife’s changes have included being able to eat normal foods on a normal varied diet rather than obsessional thinking about foods and not being able to eat virtually everything. She can eat a normal diet with very few exceptions and she doesn’t spend her whole life discussing what she can’t eat which is one of the most boring things to listen to. I would say flourishing, growing up, physically better, eating better, sleeping better, calming down but also becoming a little bit wilder in a freer sort of way. So it’s a mix – a calmer within but also expressing wildness at the same time. – a good mix.
The family: in general the problems and the anger and the fights are disappearing and slowing evolving into a morehappy lifestyle as a whole family. My expectations are really to stay fit and healthy on a day to day basis, not to need to go to the doctor, not to be continually struck down with the usual viruses and bugs that we all get which I haven’t had for a year that I’ve been coming, and for my family to maintain that as well. And also really the biggest picture is to not have any fear about change in life to be able to meet any challenges that emerge with confidence, to be able to change to reinvent myself and to keep on moving forward rather than being stagnant and stopped and stuck and frightened and fearful of change and fearful of challenge which is probably what was happening before.
In my last job, when I was working in the city, I would get up around five having been awake a lot of the night. Force yourself into the office, working probably usually about a twelve, thirteen, fourteen hour day in the office. A lot of that time would be under a lot of stress feeling the usual day to day stomach anxiety, exhaustion and nervousness. Working hard in terms of the number of hours but obviously not being very functional because you were never really focussed on the job. You were caught up in the stress and tension of the process. So a lot of hours unproductive but just playing the game of putting in an appearance and being unable to actually detach from the job and therefore do a better job. A lot of stomach nervousness, a lot of nausea type situations. I was trading interest rates. A lot of stomach ailments, a lot of periodic vomiting, periodic nausea, a lot of vulnerability to viruses – the usual sort of continuous exposure and catching of coughs and colds and anything the children got I would get. Anything anybody got I would get. Bad sleeping, bad temper, bad communication. No time for the children, no time for my wife, no time for anybody really apart from work, a bit of socialising at work, a lot of work at work and no energy or interest for anything else. No life outside the office, all work and no play. Just a general, work work work and I would say basically now it’s clear it’s pretty much a dead inside feeling with regard to anything else. No external stimulus produced any effect apart from the work stimulus. Work was all you did.
“When I was working in the city my expectations of the future were generally viewed around making enough money to stop working. To get through each year, really to get through each day, to get through each month, to get through each quarter, to get through each year, to get paid some more money to give yourself a chance to stop doing this anymore because it was hard work. But it was also addictive; it was also enjoyable in a bizarre way, a painful way. It’s clear that the experiences at E Rejuvenation Centre in terms of a more relaxed approach to life, relaxation sessions, could help most city professionals by allowing them to have a position where they actually enjoy work rather than are working as an automatic process. They can actually enjoy it rather than hate it. They can stay fit and healthy. They can avoid this nervous stomach disorder. They can avoid the fear. They can actually do the job but also have a life. I think a lot of these guys in the city – the job is their life. There’s no time for anything else. There’s no energy for recreation. There’s no energy for fun. There’s no creativity for life outside. There’s very little energy for their children, very little energy for their family.
I think it’s possible to take the job, do it in a more relaxed way to enjoy it and not for it to become an obsession, and as a result of that to do a much better job. And to be able to do it for longer without its unfortunate process of self-destruction.
We recommend people to come here. The problem about city professionals is the strong ego. Even if a successful person in the city knows he has some problems, he knows he drinks too much, he knows he’s taking drugs, he knows he doesn’t sleep, he knows he throws up at night, he knows he’s got a bad temper, he knows he doesn’t see his children, he knows he can’t remember his wife’s name his ego is such or her ego is such that they find it very difficult to admit there’s a problem. So for sure I recommend the relaxation, the talking sessions, the healing sessions to many people but the big barrier is pride and ego. People don’t want to admit they have any problems – they just want to keep on going, keep on going, keep on going and that’s the biggest barrier.
“For the last ten years I’ve been doing various non-city work, quite a lot of voluntary work, quite a lot of time with my family and kids who I hadn’t seen for a long time. I’ve been doing some trading for myself and some travelling. But a lot of burning time and a lot of sort of like chilling out and trying to find a bit of peace and quiet and get fit and healthy and get recharged. I think working in the city a long time seriously takes a lot of long term energy out of you and it does take a very long time for those energies to be replaced. Obviously I couldn’t become a brain surgeon tomorrow or an architect but I feel pretty clear that I could respond to any task or job that needed to be done over a reasonable skill set. I could pick up those skills and be creative in any chosen career as I’m now finding this possible. The one thing I would say about E Rejuvenation Centre and Aiping to people who are in my position i.e. work in the city is just to be honest and don’t have such a strong ego. Everybody knows that some people are earning a lot of money but that doesn’t mean that inside everything is fine, just be honest. Be honest and you can have a much more balanced life.
