What we can carry, what we cannot

By Simone Claridge · True Better You

Luofu Mountain, in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, is known as the greatest mountain in the Lingnan region of southern China. Taoists consider it the seventh grotto-heaven — the Grotto Heaven of Vermillion Brightness and Shining Perfection, a place where immortals live and deepen their practice.

In the Eastern Jin dynasty, the famous physician and Taoist Ge Hong lived here in seclusion. He collected herbs, practiced alchemy, and completed his masterwork Baopuzi — works that had a profound impact on ancient Chinese medicine and Taoist theory. Over 1,240 types of traditional Chinese herbs grow on this mountain. His contemporaries believed that when he died here, it was a feigned death — that he had in fact achieved immortality.

This is where the teaching I am about to share arrived.

Something happened at the retreat that I want to tell you about honestly.

I felt excluded.

Not dramatically. Just — a moment where I found myself on the outside of something, and the familiar voice arrived immediately: not good enough. Again.

The moment itself passed quickly. It was small. Manageable. A few breaths and it was already over.

But then I let the story come back in.

This has happened to me so many times. In so many places. All my life, excluded.

And the emotions came with it — all the accumulated weight of every other time. The heart tightened. The familiar ache.

And then something unexpected. I let them move through instead of pushing them away. As they moved, the heart actually softened. The story, having been felt, could drift. The moment came back. Small, ordinary, already past.

What I noticed: the moment itself was never the problem. The story built around it — layered with every similar moment from the past — was where the suffering lived.

Bitterness lives in the story

In Chinese tradition, the word for heart and the word for mind are the same: xin — 心. The clarity of the heart is the clarity of the mind. When that clarity is clouded by accumulated stories, old pain, resentment never released — what this teaching calls bitterness — the whole system suffers. Not just emotionally. Physically.

Teacher Xu told us about his father this week.

His father is 85. For the last five years, he stopped practicing. The qigong that had kept him strong and vital for most of his life was quietly put down. He got lazy. His health declined. He became bitter — trapped in the story of his age, his limitations, what he could no longer do.

Teacher Xu looked at his father with love. And with that love, he spoke clearly.

All your children love you. But none of us can take your bitterness away.

He did not soften it. He did not color it to make it easier to hear. He named what was happening directly, gently, without pushing. And then he said: you cannot continue like this. Otherwise, you will die.

That kind of love requires courage. The courage to tell the truth to someone you love without dressing it up. Without making it more comfortable than it is. And without forcing — because ultimately the choice belongs entirely to the other person.

His father heard it. He said: I can’t do what I did before.

Teacher Xu said: then do something small. A few minutes. Whatever you can. Start there. Then practice for a couple of minutes and again on top of the next hour. Increase the practice time each time a bit more.

Within one month: his strength returned. His sleep improved. His posture came upright. The constipation disappeared. He began riding his bicycle again.

One month of small movements. Because the bitterness had somewhere to go.

What this means for those of us who love someone who is struggling

Many of us are in some version of this.

A parent, a partner, a sibling — someone we love who has quietly put their torch down. Who is hiding behind an age or a diagnosis or a story about why things cannot change. And we carry their suffering alongside our own, trying to fill the gap they have left. There is something Teacher Xu’s story names clearly:

You can offer your presence. You can speak the truth with love — without coloring it, without making it gentler than it actually is. You can make the invitation, clearly, kindly, once.

And then you let go of the outcome.

Not because you don’t love them. Because you do. Real love does not carry what the other person needs to carry themselves. It stands close, speaks honestly, and releases.

The caregiver who keeps absorbing, keeps softening, keeps carrying eventually becomes depleted. And a depleted caregiver cannot offer real support. Knowing what you can carry and what you cannot is not abandonment. It is clarity. And clarity offered gently is one of the most loving things you can give.

What becomes possible inside a field

And yet — one person offering clarity and love is sometimes not enough.

Sometimes what is needed cannot be carried by one pair of hands. Sometimes we need a whole team. Sometimes we need to place ourselves inside an environment that holds the field of warmth and collective care — so that healing can happen inside something larger than the individual effort.

I have witnessed this here in just one week.

People arrived from many different countries, speaking different languages, carrying different stories about what was possible for their health. Within days the complexion of faces brightened. Eyes began to sparkle. Postures became more upright. Tears returned — not tears of suffering, but the kind that come when something long-held finally releases. Movement increased. Energy returned. People became visibly stronger. Even weight began to shift. Within one week they were supporting each other more quickly and naturally than people who have known each other for years.

This is not coincidence. This is what happens inside a field that genuinely holds warmth and care — where no one is alone in their effort to become well.

The mountain is part of this. This area has been used for healing for over 1,600 years — Ge Hong himself collecting herbs and treating local people here. We visited his temple and his herb gardens. The air is different. It is much easier to connect with finer levels of qi here. You feel it in the body from the first day.

We also receive treatments from skilled practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine — moxibustion, acupuncture, massage combined with qi treatment. The food is outstanding and deeply nourishing. The surroundings are beautiful. None of this is separate from the healing. All of it is part of the field.

And underneath everything: people from different cultures, different languages, different views on life — all with one common intention. To become healthier. To become happier. To learn and grow together. To support each other across every difference.

This is what I believe we need as a civilization. Not just one person offering clarity to one other person — but whole environments designed to hold collective care. Where individual healing happens inside something larger than the individual.

You do not have to come to China. But you do need to find it somewhere. A community. A retreat. A group of people practicing together with genuine intention. The field you practice inside matters as much as the practice itself.

We are not meant to do this alone.

The practice — when the story rises

Whether inside a retreat or inside your own home, the practice is the same.

When the old story comes — about the person you are caring for, about yourself, about all the times this has happened before — you don't fight it. You let it be felt, briefly. The heart often softens when you do.

And then you return to now.

N…

Come back to this moment — which is almost always smaller and more manageable than the story about it. This moment does not contain every other moment. It is just this one.

Then expand. Feel the ground beneath you — the Earth, which has been holding everything long before this problem arrived. Give it to the Earth. Then the sky — open, blue, without limit. Give it there too. Like a plane lifting off the runway — the houses, the roads, the problems get smaller. Then smaller still. Then they are just shapes in the landscape. Then they disappear entirely.

You are still here. Clear. Returned.

With Mingjue LOVE and warmth — from the field,

Simone

This teaching arrived at Luofu Mountain, Huizhou, China — the seventh grotto-heaven of the Taoist tradition, where Ge Hong practiced, healed, and wrote for centuries. Teacher Xu’s teaching on bitterness and small movements is his own, shared in the first week of the retreat. The retreat includes traditional Chinese medicine: moxibustion, acupuncture, massage with qi treatment. Grandmaster Pang Ming, Hunyuan Entirety Theory. Teacher Wei Qi Feng — Mingjue Gongfu 2026.