A Story That’s Not About Coronavirus

For those who would like to see an uplifting article after having read too many stories about a certain pandemic, I decided to post the following true story of healing.

My mother began to suffer from Type I diabetes when she was 21. Although the condition was manageable, it led to debilitating symptoms as the years and decades went by.

After many years, she suffered from headaches, weakness, fatigue, and other symptoms from brittle diabetes and was unable to work. At 35, she felt as if she were already an old lady facing death. She began to eat a raw food diet with superfoods and supplements, which improved her health for another 8 or 10 years.

After that, however, the diet and supplements were no longer enough. Her health deteriorated further until she again felt like she was facing death at 45.

She tried to hide her deteriorating health from me and her other family members as she searched for a cure. She found an even more restrictive diet, eating raw vegan and low-carb, which again brought her back from the brink of death, easing her symptoms and giving her more energy. However, she began having symptoms of fibromyalgia, which caused muscle pain.

Around that time, she went for a walk with me and my sister (both teenagers then) under the Foresthill Bridge, the tallest bridge in California. She thought she might be able to do it because of her improved health. My sister and I wanted to climb down the hill to the river below, but our mother was unable to do it. She walked a short distance down and couldn’t climb back up. She linked arms with us, and we towed her back up the hill.

A few months later, however, my mother learned something that changed her life: the Chinese meditation and self-improvement practice known as Falun Dafa.

Falun Dafa, also called Falun Gong, includes four standing exercises and a sitting meditation exercise as well as teachings on how to follow the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance in daily life. The practice is known for its physical and mental health benefits.

My mother read “Zhuan Falun,” the main book of Falun Dafa, and started doing the exercises most days. Within a short time, she felt light and energetic. She later quit the special restrictive diet, as she didn’t need it anymore.

She no longer worried that she needed to get her affairs in order. She knew Falun Dafa had given her life back to her.

After a few months of doing the exercises, she happily hiked all the way down the Foresthill Bridge canyon and back up with me and my sister, with no assistance.

One day she sprinted from the store to her car “because I can,” she said. She felt like she was floating on air.

“I was really floating!” she said. “I felt like I was floating, though my feet were touching the ground.”

Since 1999, Falun Dafa has been violently persecuted in China by the Chinese Communist Party, as some Party officials feared the immense popularity of a group outside the Party’s control.

However, there are still people all over China and around the world who practice Falun Dafa, enjoying its health benefits and living according to its peaceful principles, just as my mother does.