Later this month we are hosting our very first wellbeing circle for men. In his new blog, Tim Johnson from i-Qi-coaching and the Breathe Better Clinic shares some of his journey towards finding foundation.
Finding foundation…
This is quite a tricky issue, especially if a person has grown up and the foundational care of the parents was not there.
My parents divorced when I was five and my mother moved out of the family home with my brother, sister and myself to a place 25 miles from our previous home. I understand why she did it and absolutely agree with her choice to do so. My father was an alcoholic. Thankfully not a violent drunk, but certainly a womanising one, and when your parents ran a pub, well, you can see the temptations.
Over the years I developed that ability to fit in with my surroundings, be that new school, social life, environment etc. I developed layer after layer of artifice to deflect and give out that everything was alright. Indeed, it mostly was, I was always cheery, easy going and the epitome of contentment. But inside, I was struggling to understand who I was and where I fitted in with the world. The outbursts of anger were a bit of a give-away.
There are spectrums for this sort of thought process.
I most certainly missed a father figure, someone who would teach me the ways of the world from a masculine perspective. My mum had to put up with a lot. Menopause, me, my siblings and trying to work and parent at the same time. She was a woman of great humanity and compassion and my memory of her is of someone who grafted all her life and thought so much more of others rather than herself. I had an uncle, my mum’s brother-in-law, rather than a euphemistic relationship, and then a stepdad, both truly excellent men, who in hindsight, I learnt a tremendous amount from. However…
To this day, if there is a particular scene in a tv programme or film with a father & son, I have to try and stop my eyes from tearing. I left home at 18 and did some hitchhiking and travelling and experienced all the sorts of things that you would wish to at that sort of age. My ability to fit in held me in good stead and people accepted me for who I was, which was great and mighty decent of them. I used to brush off those thoughts of who I was and what that meant.
So, I hope you can see in a few brittle sentences how, whilst on the surface, I was knowing, confident, arrogant some might say, and knew what to do. Inside, I was the antithesis of those things and was flailing around not knowing what I wanted out of life or which direction to turn to try and find out. Absolutely without foundation.
I did, amazingly enough, end up married and having my first child at 35 and my second at 38. This definitely helped solidify in my mind that I was struggling.
Tai Chi and me
Although having kids, was the absolute best thing to happen to me. I was just dad, they didn’t care about other shit, they loved me because I was their dad. That simplicity is part of what drew me to tai chi, and also part of what tai chi is about. I had always wanted to explore it, however an early 20’s experience of it left me cold. I did not know then, but I needed to understand the WHY and not just the WHAT. It was only after speaking with a physio who was helping me, who suggested the practice to help strengthen my sciatic nerve that I revisited.
It took me 6 months to find a class. In fact, the class found me. Someone put a flyer through the door of the place I was working, and the class was just around the corner. After 8 weeks of finding out the WHY behind the moves and really enjoying the class even though I found it intimidating, I stopped going. I would get to the bottom of the steps to go into the building and found I could not go up and would return home puzzled and confused.
It took me another two months to figure out why I could not do it.
I realised the movements and the thought process were making me begin to look at myself. I cannot tell you as to why this happens, but it does, and it can be disconcerting to say the least. I guess as the movements and the philosophy are all about rootedness and foundation and I did not have any of that within me, it was inviting me to participate more fully. I struggled with this. I had a choice to make. Not do the tai chi class and remain floating in the wind, or do the tai chi class and peel away the layers of artifice and create roots within myself.
I am ashamed to say, it took far longer for me to decide than it should have done. For two months I went back and forth, creating way too much tension within me. I just did not want to look at myself, as I really did not like what I was looking at. Thankfully for me and my family, I made the decision to embrace whatever the moonlit pathway of tai chi was going to show me. It was a decision I have never regretted. I now teach tai chi and qigong, I also teach breathing, all to the point in creating foundations, roots, anchors, call it what you will.
When you are able to learn those tools, it builds grounding and resilience. When we have those gifts, our body tells us what to do, because we feel it, we are able to leave our overactive minds behind and feel where and what we should be doing.
And whilst we will still get stressed, anxious or agitated, our abilities to deal with such feelings are deeper and more mature and so those feelings do not feel as significant.
This is true foundation.
About Tim…
Tim Johnson worked within the luxury industry, for nearly 30 years and began to reimagine a different life during Covid. Being able to reconnect with his wife and children through lockdown established a need to seek a working life outside of a corporate environment.
Having studied tai chi and qigong for 21 years, Tim turned to that and taking several breathing courses to establish a new foundation. He trained with Patrick McKeown at the Buteyko Clinic International and is a certified Buteyko & Oxygen Advantage breathing instructor. He founded i-Qi-coaching in 2021, and latterly the Breathe Better Clinic to help people with respiratory illnesses overcome those issues and bring comfort, confidence and control to peoples breathing.
Tim gives, talks, workshops, runs courses, both in person and online as well as 1:1’s and working with corporations to bring wellbeing to that environment. Tim has also worked with a number of charities to help bring a better understanding to how breathing can affect how we feel. MacMillan Cancer Support, Brighton & Hove Albion Foundation, the Hangleton & Knoll Project and Andy’s Angels are some who have learnt to breathe better. Tim is also studying with the Breathing Space breathwork school to expand his breathing abilities and facilitation.
Tim also currently teaches three tai chi and qigong classes, helping to create foundation through breath and movement.
When he is not doing all that wellbeing stuff…, Tim likes to cycle, cold water swim with the dog and listen to podcasts, current favourite, the Blindboy podcast.
Email: tim@i-qi-coaching.com
website: www.i-qi-coaching.com
Social Media
LinkedIn: Tim Johnson
Instagram: iqicoaching
Facebook: i-Qi-coaching
TikTok: Tim Johnson173
