71-Year-Old Reclaims Health and Vitality Through Qigong and Gut Health Programs

I feel great. I feel really good. I'm 71 now, so I'm like, "Hey, I feel like I did the work. I'm reaping the rewards, and I don't want to lose what I've learned." So I would always say absolutely give it a try. My name is Cindy Woodcock. I live in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and I am retired. I was hitting a wall of turning 70 and felt really like I was losing good health. I just didn't feel as good as I felt I should, and I really couldn't put my finger on it, and having exhausted doctors testing and stuff, I just felt like there was more. And I stumbled into Urban Monk and found Interconnected series, and that was fascinating. So that got me into joining Urban Monk and going through the GUT program, which I've just graduated from. And at the end of it, I was given the opportunity to go to Austin and participate in his retreat, which I was pretty excited about doing. I took my husband with me, and we had a nice time. It was very cool for me. My husband had no clue what to expect, but he was pretty happy with it too. Learned a lot. You know, for old dogs, we can still learn new tricks. [chuckles] It was like a little oasis in the middle of Austin. The venue itself was this campus of trees and vines and flowers and woods. It was very cute, like a little nirvana in the woods. It was really sweet. And they had some shops and things there, selling smoothies and wheatgrass. And then the venue where we were in the auditorium where Pedram ran the two-day retreat was also very nice. You know, it was... I had a very good impression of the place. It was very much like a family vibe and a really welcoming environment. In the second day of the retreat, we were really focusing on these qigong movements and the breathing. The feelings that he was talking about, which would be like that you're in control, everything's peaceful, just empowered in the moment. I really did feel that when he was going through some of the positions in qigong, and then we would hold that position and then concentrate. I don't know whether it's meditating or concentrating 'cause my mind's always popping, but I felt like, "Wow, this is working. I feel like this is not, you know, hocus pocus. This is working. I can feel the difference in myself." And the fact that I was aware that I could feel it made me even happier. I was really happy with meeting Pedram and his wife, and feel like I learned quite a bit. He's extremely welcoming, reassuring, obviously super intelligent, and no question was ever, you know, a dumb question. So he's really available to answer and sort of smooth out any of your concerns, and I found that really very rewarding to be like, "Wow, this is great. I, I didn't have to worry about anything." And then learning the things from him, coming home now, I am doing a gong of completing qigong for the next 100 days, and I'm on day 18. So I'm excited about that, so I feel really good about it. And I think this experience has been... made me open my eyes to a lot of things about mind/body healing and just being connected and being aware of your situations and how your body feels, and I'm really tuned into it now. So I don't see where I'm gonna let that go anytime soon. I'm gonna, like, continue with this. It met all of my expectations and then some in the sense of what I got out of it. You know, it's not too hard. It's not over your head. Pedram Shojai opens the door to say, "Hey, come on in. Try these things out. Give it a whirl, and if it works for you, this is how you can continue, and you will feel better." And you do reap the rewards. So I would say why not go try this? Give it a whirl and see how you feel. You can't go wrong, and the things you can learn and the way you can enhance the way you feel and your health is, I think, pretty impressive.