Job: Social Worker, fostering team, an inner city London borough

Until a couple of years ago, apart from the odd cold and minor ear infections I had never been ill in my life. By the time I reached my 30^th birthday I had developed chronic gastritis, chronic IBS and a year later I started to experience severe attacks of vertigo, which was eventually diagnosed as labyrinthitis, a form of virus that affects the inner ear.

I felt unwell every day. At times the vertigo and the gastritis symptoms would subside but the IBS symptoms were always present. I was put on a very restricted diet, but I was still in pain and I felt constantly bloated and uncomfortable. I stopped socialising and against my wishes I had to give up work. I was a counsellor/social worker and loved my job very much. Due to the stress that I was experiencing with my symptoms my relationship with my partner broke down and he moved out of our flat.
I saw doctors on a weekly basis. I was fortunate enough to have private insurance and was able to see many consultants and specialists. I also saw homeopaths, herbalists, naturopaths and dieticians. I had numerous tests and did physiotherapy for the vertigo, but nothing was really helping.
The gastric symptoms felt as if my stomach was burning away. I could not digest any food due to the IBS and the vertigo attacks were reducing me to a very helpless mood. I felt totally burnt out.
In the back of my mind I knew that I had been very stressed at work. I had not been happy in my relationship (which started a year before I got ill), my diet had been quite poor for a long time and I was overall pushing myself too much.
My feelings of helplessness and anxieties increased. I was eventually referred to a clinical psychologist who put me on anti-depressants. I could not cope with the side effects (increased anxiety) and gave them up. I saw a hypnotherapist who helped me with my anxieties. The sessions gave me some relief but my health was not improving. The more ill I felt, the more desperate I became.
One day I woke up feeling even worse. My vertigo symptoms were really becoming overwhelming and I was crying most of the time. That morning I remembered picking up a leaflet a week earlier, advertising a self-healing course at Centre with Master Aiping Wang. I rang them up and went along to the course.
Ms Wang claimed to be able to help me with all my symptoms, through relaxations and healing sessions.
Their work is based on the Chinese understanding of energy and health. Ms Wang told me that by raising my positive energy level, I would slowly release the negative energy that was blocking my healing.
I did my first healing session and felt very relaxed but nothing more. It was the confidence of Ms Wang and the testimonies of clients that persuaded me to come back. I knew nothing about energy healing but I felt so desperate for a solution that I decided to give it a try.
I have now been coming to the centre on a daily basis for 4 months. After two months of healing and relaxation sessions all my symptoms of IBS disappeared and slowly but surely my gastritis symptoms diminished. I still have vertigo but I am lot less fearful of the symptoms. I am now able to go swimming three times a week and I socialise at the weekend (day-time). I started to do some physiotherapy for the vertigo again (I had to stop physiotherapy since it used to worsen my symptoms and increased my anxiety).
My depression has lifted and my feelings of anxieties have dramatically reduced. I have not fully recovered but I feel on the way to recovery. I do not feel desperate any more. I am no longer crying and I am coping a lot better with every aspect of my life. Instead of feeling as if there was no way out, I am not looking forward to a brighter future. I am hopeful and as a result I feel much stronger.
The process of healing naturally has helped me to recognise the connection between mind and body and how my emotions have had such a big impact on the physical health. I have understood that by healing my emotions I am healing my body.
My experience of healing at Centre often feels as if a miracle is taking place.

The instructors at Centre have provided me with 100% support every step of the way and have show a great deal of understanding, compassion and patience during difficult times. (Written in November 2002).

May 2007

Much has changed since writing my testimonial in November 2002.
I continued to attend early morning healing and relaxation sessions for a further two years until December 2004, when I gave birth to my first child

Isaac.

During these two years, every area of my life improved:
In June 2003 I felt strong enough to go back to full-time work and began to work for Islington Fostering service as a social worker, supporting and training families to care for foster children. At about the same time, I met my partner Peter, with whom I still enjoy a fulfilling relationship.
But most importantly, I got my health back. With each healing and relaxation session I felt stronger and more positive.

Increasingly, the sessions helped me to change my negative thoughts into positive ones. My depression completely lifted and I continually felt physically stronger.
I also began to run every morning at 7.30am before work (this was suggested to me by my instructor). Running was hard at first because it triggered strong vertigo symptoms. With regular running practice and after many months, I was able to run for over an hour without feeling any symptoms.
The birth of my son Isaac took 10 hours and was an easy delivery. The relaxation technique learned at Centre, helped me to remain calm during most of the labour (almost!)
At that time, I only had one fear remaining: I was concerned about post-natal depression. I had experienced such low moods when I was ill and I was scared that those feelings would all come flowing back.

I can now say that even during the most challenging times at home and this includes no sleep, a crying baby, a kitchen full of washing up and a partner working late most evenings, that I never fell back into depression, not once. The reasons for this are very clear to me: I had acquired the skills to change my feelings of depression into positive thought and positive actions. Every time I felt low, I told myself that this was negative and not useful. I would then force myself to think in a positive way and used every possible free moment to relax.
I now use these techniques in every part of my life. With time, any challenge, any difficulty, is eventually turned into a positive learning experience as opposed to a problem I can’t solve.
Today I work four days a week for the fostering service for the fostering recruitment and assessment team. I enjoy my work and feel that I am able to manage work/home balance well. I have just completed a PQ1 award course in Social work. It is a challenging degree level course in social work which is famously renowned amongst social workers to be hard to manage when working – not to mention caring for a toddler).
Following Isaac’s birth, I did not attend any sessions for 17 months. A year ago, I began to do some sessions online. Doing sessions from home makes it a lot easier for me as I lead a busy life and would not be able to go to Centre.

The online sessions help me to increase my awareness about relaxation techniques and about how to manage my own health and increase my energy levels. Overall, I am always learning new skills with regards to improving all areas of my life. Those skills also include how to manage my son’s behaviour in ways which increase his self-confidence and self-esteem.

I still run 4 times a week and mostly feel very fulfilled and happy in my life. I firmly believe that the above is a direct result of learning how to ‘be’ different in the world in order to connect to a more ‘positive energy field’ to lead a fulfilling life. My aim and goal for the future is to teach this knowledge and wisdom to help others to solve their problems and to improve their quality of lives.

Names have been changed to protect the client’s identity

“From the age of 16, I was addicted to drugs like marijuana, amphetamines, heroin, cocaine, crack and also alcohol and cigarettes.”

From the age of 16, I was addicted to drugs like marijuana, amphetamines, heroin, cocaine, crack and also alcohol and cigarettes. I became addicted to eating and dieting, and finally developed bulimia. After over 10 years of drug abuse, I got pregnant and was forced to go into rehabilitation. I also caught the blood-transmitted disease hepatitis C.

I managed to stop all drugs, but was still addicted to cigarettes and still had my food problems. I was clean for about one and a half years, but eventually ‘hit a brick wall’ and became addicted to love and sex as well; I tried everything I could find, from self help groups to spiritual paths to counselling, but they all failed to really help, and I entered into deep depression. I again started to take marijuana, drink heavily and occasionally take drugs. My family and I were destroyed – I was suicidal, and had to give away my young child. I was hopelessly lost.

Then a friend told me about Shen Qi and Aiping Wang Fuelpp. After my first session, I experienced an immediate change in myself. My cravings dried up, and I felt for the first time a kind of happiness that I’d been searching for all my life. In three months, I’ve been getting stronger and stronger, and have a new faith in life. My relationship problems are also clearing up, and unexpectedly, my bulimia automatically stopped.”

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.

Job: Director, Institutional Client Service

I first came across Aiping Wang Fulepp’s Centre in 2002 (quite literally as I walked past one day) and have been an avid supporter ever since! I have been pampered, manipulated, rejuvenated and relaxed over this period of time and thoroughly enjoyed all of it – even those more painful sport massages we all have to endure after particular tough exercise regimes. After every treatment, there is a sense of well-being – you feel that you’ve given yourself a good service by treating your body and mind to a little treat, a little “me” time.

The staff are friendly, courteous and knowledgeable without being patronising or condescending. There is a genuine interest in your well-being – they really do care how you are, how you feel and how they can help make you feel even better!

I have recommended their services to anyone who cares to listen – even roping in Mum and Dad to make them feel a little bit younger and give them back a little spring in their step.

Job: Interior designer/stylist

I started using Aiping Wang Fulepp services right from their beginning and with my first appointment I was taken by its magnificent energy.

Every day the life race for money, work and clients brings a lot of stress and inevitably takes your energy, patience and health. Aiping Wang Fulepp helped me bring back a relaxed and sane and patient mind. It helped me be less nervous and more concentrated on my health. The more relaxed I am the more clearly I think, more relaxed I am,  more clients I attract and more work. The more relaxed I am the more efficiently I take care of things.

Following those sessions panic and drama left my life and things automatically started to get better. This has proved not only in my business life but in every day life, love and relationship life – in every single field. The more you are relaxed, the more you smile, the more people want to deal with you because you are providing them with positive vibration. That way you keep your health and keep going. That’s the biggest wealth I have got from Aiping Wang Fulepp services.

I guess I’m a person of great pleasures as well so relaxation sessions followed by the massage is always a winner. Only two years ago I started to use a combination of both and I’m a regular monthly client of her sessions which really helped me rejuvenate not only the inside but the outside as well.

I strongly believe that services like these are the future of a healthy society. I have been reading a lot of magazines and it seems that it is getting scientifically proved that relaxation really helps our health and our well-being.

I really trust and am a life time committed client to Aiping Wang Fulepp as I really enjoy her sessions. I believe their services have improved a lot throughout the years.

I came to Centre and Aiping Wang Fulepp to help solve my depression. I had panic attacks and was suffering from anxiety. I couldn’t travel in the underground and going out of my flat was a challenge.

After a few Aiping’s sessions I became more calm and relaxed. I had been in counselling for one year and it helped but I felt the counselling was patching me up but not dealing with the real root of the problem. By having the sessions, I learned not only to relax deeply but also I was taught about life. Those sessions were real education for me. I learned to value health and was taught the principles of good health. I had very painful period pain.  I needed to take 6 nurofen for 2 days during my period. Now it is not at all painful. I never take any painkillers anymore. My depression simply faded in the background. I used to feel sorry for myself when I couldn’t achieve my dreams. Now I have learned the tools to achieve what I want in life. I am motivated and persistent and know I will be successful in all areas of my life. When problems arise, I get fired up by the challenges.

I can honestly say that my life changed totally since I started using the services at Centre. Before I had no direction in my life, I was not participating fully in living. I felt numb. I didn’t like my job but was incapable to make steps towards changing it. Centre helped me to become more confident and I now feel much healthier than before. I have not taken any days off sick in 5 years.

My initial reason for going to Centre and Aiping Wang Fulepp Sessions was simply curiosity.  I had been feeling restless for many years, like there was something missing from my life, I could do better but lacked direction, but I didn’t go to  Aiping Wang Fulepp feeling any of those things could be improved.

Over the years I have used many services, massage, relaxation, beauty treatments and on line. For the purpose of this, however I will focus on relaxation.

I had always considered myself a fairly relaxed person until I was taught how to truly relax which I now try and do every day.  When I tell friends that I wake up early to relax, they look at me as if I must be mad; surely the best way to relax is to get more sleep!  However I find half an hour relaxation better than 4 hours sleep.  Sometimes while relaxing ideas come to me, I get clarity about things I had been struggling to work out and often feel a weight has been lifted from me.  I feel light, bright and refreshed.  My morning starts with a smile while other peoples’ start with a cup of coffee and a grunt.  I use relaxation techniques throughout the day (you don’t have to sit crossed legged, eyes closed, making strange noises), from controlling the effects of hay fever to managing difficult meetings.  Learning to relax properly is one of the most beneficial things I have ever done.

The service I receive from Centre is excellent!  The surroundings are clean, the staff are courteous and friendly and the atmosphere is charged with positive energy. I am grateful to whatever led me to discover Centre and Aiping. I feel calmer, I know what I want to do and have the courage to do it, and can honestly say that my life at the moment is better than it has ever been.  Is this the result of using the services of Centre? I can’t prove that it is, but I believe that it is.

I initially came to Aiping Wang Fulepp because I had been unwell for about five years.  I had a lot of problems with my bowels and bladder, with painful urination and very loose bowels.

I saw a doctor about five years ago and she just told me to stop drinking beer and to come back in six months.  This wasn’t really the answer I was looking for.  I saw a nutritionist and changed my diet but it didn’t have a major effect.  Then I went to see an acupuncturist and started doing yoga and gave up drinking.

I have been taking a lot drugs for ten years, including cocaine, ecstasy, smoking pot every day and smoking cigarettes as well.  I came across Aiping Wang Fulepp by doing Yoga as it had opened my mind a lot.  I wanted to cure myself in another way besides going to the doctor.

A typical week

I would get up on Monday morning and roll a joint before going to work and then maybe smoke another during the day.  Then I would smoke five to eight joints in the evening.  That routine lasted from Monday to Thursday.

Friday afternoon at work, I would start doing cocaine and this would last until seven or eight.  After that I would go out drinking and then stay out for most of the night drinking, doing cocaine and maybe doing some ecstasy.  I would get a few hours of sleep and then do the same thing on Saturday during the day and night and mostly on Sundays as well.  That takes us back to Monday.  I felt a bit rough on Monday through to Wednesday or Thursday but I would feel better by Friday and then back out onto the town.

First Session…

When I first came to Centre I felt straight away more content and happy with myself.

Two Weeks…

And within about two weeks, I found that I had just completely given up smoking, cigarettes and smoking dope, which is something I have been doing for a long time. And then I was still going out drinking.  I didn’t come to Centre for a couple of weeks and one night went out drinking and took an ecstasy tablet and I felt terrible again.

One month…

Within about a month I felt no desire to do any drugs or drink any alcohol.

Three months…

It’s been about three months now that I haven’t touched any alcohol, smoked any cigarettes or dope, or taken any class A drugs.  I don’t feel any desire or need to.  I feel so much happier and so much more content with myself. I look at people who smoke now and I wonder why they do that to themselves.  This has been quite a dramatic change in a short period of time.

My physical condition has improved quite dramatically.  My bowels are much better.  I had liver spots quite badly for about two or three months and they have cleared up. I have become much clearer, more focused on what I want to be doing and feeling really content.  Before that I wanted to escape by smoking and taking drugs.  Now I am much more happy and content.

I spent much of my life asking particular questions – “what I am doing with my life? Is this it? What is my purpose?”.

I had studied for two degrees, began and quit a career in design, worked creatively as a performer, but was always askng the questions, and never fully satisfied with any answer.

I had reached 33 and on the whole I was confused, secretely frightened and quite lost. It was only when I started with Aiping Wang Fulepp than I stopped – immediately, automatically asking these questions. I know this sounds a little evangelical, but from my first Aiping session, I knew I had found an answer and at last I had direction and purpose.

Two years later, what does it mean? Firstly in very simple terms I’m learning to be happy, realxed, accepting, healthy, peaceful, positive, natural, creative, and confident. Yes all of these! And secondly I’m reasearching and re-learning life. Life the full package – including physical health, love, realtionships, money, work and creativity. My purpose is to be all of the first in order to have success in the second. As I believe this is available to everyone (and is infact our collective goal) part of my dream is to help other people to achieve this.

I am part of what has been termed generation X, a generation of lost, cynical souls born in the 60’s, now totally bewildered in their 30’s. For me drugs and alcohol provided the escape I needed from a disappointing and damaging society, but of course this only furthered my own disappointment and damage. Shen Qi provided a way in which I could begin to stand tall, take the proverbial sword in my hand and cutaway the garbage that had infused my life.

Of course I don’t always have the answer, at times I am something like my old confused self, but less and less. And the point is, whatever I am going through, I no longer ask those questions anymore.

One of my main problems was a fear of having “no future” and I carefully guarded my savings with terror. Since Shen Qi I have invested into the possibility of having a healthy, successful and inspiring life.

When I first came to Shen Qi and Aiping Wang Fulepp’s teaching I was very lost in life. I was always inspired to be useful and dreamed of helping society in some way, i.e. working with young people with problems or people on the street who had lost hope. I knew I could offer my enthusiasm but I didn’t how to commit myself to one person or idea. I always ended up doing nothing, but talking great philosophy. I never had a job for more than 6 months and usually became bored very quickly.

I wandered and travelled searching for the key to make me happy. Playing music on the street served me for a while, but winter and the same old songs crushed my spirit. I searched harder and faster and grew colder and more bitter, becoming more and more afraid of people, the harshness of life, the injustice and the ever-looming grey future, which oozed from inside somewhere where I didn’t want to look.

Eventually something pulled the plug and I became physically sick suffering from ulcerative colitis (a condition that the hospital told me was incurable and eventual colostomy was inevitable after loads of steroids). I had given up trying and depression saturated everything. Soon I was unable to eat and eventually I couldn’t even walk. I had no choice but to learn how to live.

Shen Qi found me in my own village where I landed at home after travelling. I learned how to relax, and to be more honest about what is really happening in my life rather than what I’d chosen to believe – that I had it all worked out and it’s just the rest of the planet that’s screwed! I also learned how to move more naturally with life rather then against it.

My health has now improved so much that I am working harder and longer and more constantly that I ever have in my life before. One of my main problems was a fear of having “no future” and I carefully guarded my savings with terror. Since Shen Qi and Aiping Wang Fulepp I’m inspired with possibility of having a healthy, successful and inspiring life and I will work with people in the future, helping them discover how to release their problems, be creative and enjoy an expansive and bright life!