Mieke Corry Praet
CHILDHOOD DISCOVERIES
I guess I’ve always been this sensitive. As a kid I felt information as energy entering my body through my crown down my spine and limbs. No need to study. I just knew. I used to play with the interconnectedness of remote spots on my body. Where will I feel it else if I press or caress here? I observed where the energy was passing, the path. It was a game. I was exploring what I know now to be fascia and meridians. I used to get weird thoughts that wouldn’t fit my thought patterns and discover later on that they weren’t mine. I felt that I took sick energy from others, filtered it and gave it back. There would also be a moment around my twenties when I would know the filter got saturated. It wouldn’t do the job anymore.
When I was 11 my parents suffered a bankruptcy. That’s when I decided to give up my first passion for ballet. I found some old yoga books of my mother and was highly intrigued with the more spectacular aspects of this art. I practiced headstands, lotus postures and bandhas (body locks) on my own. I hoped that one day I would master my heart muscle, so that I would be able to stop and start it whenever I wanted.
WOUNDED HEALER
When I got really sick after the removal of my ovaries (in 2014) there was no other option than to investigate the origin of this disease. There seems to be no end to the different layers of disease. Of course there’s the obvious reason that hormones got out of balance, thus the whole defense and immune system. My organs failed and the production of my white blood cells had stagnated. The specialists in the hospital told me that there was no real cure. They could merely monitor this. First I accepted this truth just as I had layed my destiny with full faith in the hands of the surgeons who had convinced me to remove my breasts and ovaries preventively.
I was actually in a Prana Yoga Flow Teacher Training at that moment. A very competent physiotherapist told me to first stop accepting this destiny. He sent me a Mantak Chia book on Bone Marrow Nei Kung. A way to stimulate your bone marrow thus your white blood cells through Qi breathing and tapping the bones. In the same training I met an ayurvedic and macrobiotic nutritionist who had written an article about radiation. She mentored me for the ayurvedic diet. I wrote down every observation as I started eating like a baby again, adding one ingredient at a time. Still, it wasn’t until a Chinese doctor took away the radiation in my house that I regained control over my jaw and that life came back to my eyes.
"Your way to harmonious health"
INVESTIGATING YOGA
I had stopped my Prana Yoga Flow Teacher training realizing that this very active flow with warrior breathing didn’t respect or heal the depleted state my body was in. Recovering I did resonate much more with the Insight Yoga of Sarah Powers. This branch combines stretches and compression in long held postures with mindfulness. In this stillness we work the yin or deeper tissues of our body, such as joints, fascia, meridians or energy channels. When I would feel empty after a long day of teaching in High School, the practice of Yin Yoga would help me to retrieve the appropriate energy level to prepare for the next day. The bodily sensations of this energy flow brought me back to my childhood games.
PRANIC SINGER
Throughout the whole process of this recovering period and even before I had been taking singing classes. Initially I felt musicians were divine. Something I could never achieve. I always had this natural sense of letting go and going around a given structure though. Still my voice was very small and weak. As if I was afraid of bothering anybody. When I lost my patience in front of a class my voice would become very high and uncontrolled. I realized that this was not very soothing nor appropriate to solve a chaotic situation. Singing helped me a great deal in letting go of the fear of being heard. It also made me become aware of the need to ground.
I took several jazz and other workshops where I would learn about uppertones, the bliss of blending voices. I started becoming aware of bodily and other traumas hidden behind certain tones and structures of voices.
PLAYING WITH QI
Through my main singing teacher Henk de Laat I discovered mantras and Circle Songs. When I was in Omega Institute in Rhinebeck New York for a Circle Song workshop, the resonances of the voices of all 150 singers there penetrated my recovering organs. This released a lot of emotions. In the mornings there was the option to take a Qi Gong class. I think it was the second morning that my Qi Gong teacher and dear friend Vince Sauter dared us to actually feel the Qi of life energy. I was mesmerized. This was coming home for me. I instantly became aware of my healing competences. I tried it on everybody. I tested it in the subway in NY. I selected 2 passengers I wanted to heal while seemingly staring out of the window. Directing my hand on my lap to these 2. Both of these persons blessed me when I got out of the subway. I often reminded myself of that event whenever I have been in doubt afterwards.