Tasks, Fields & the Freedom to Live From Within
Sometimes two teachings from entirely different worlds suddenly meet inside you, and you realise they’ve been pointing to the same truth – even though they never heard of each other.
For me, this connection appeared in an unexpected place: a bookshop in Berkhamsted with Teacher Xie Chuan.
One afternoon, during one of Teacher Xie’s visits, we wandered into a local bookshop. A book immediately caught my eye: The Courage to Be Disliked.
I picked it up with excitement and showed it to Teacher Xie. We had been talking about authenticity in a recent workshop and finding your inner lighthouse.
He looked at the cover, paused, and said in his typical direct way:
“You don’t need to read this.
The title already gives you everything.
Just practise.”
Classic Xie – cutting straight through concept, straight through the mind’s tendency to collect information instead of living.
But being curious, I eventually read the book anyway.
And to my surprise, I discovered it was about the psychology of Adler – and it mirrored something Xie had been teaching in a completely different language.
This is where the meeting happened.
Adler’s Life Tasks: A Framework for Being Human
At the heart of Adler’s approach is a simple yet radical insight:
most psychological problems arise within our relationships, and genuine happiness comes from developing the courage to be disliked (or rather not seeking approval) while cultivating social interest – a sense of contribution, belonging, and community.
Adlerian psychology emphasises that well-being is not defined by past traumas or circumstances, but by our present goals and our capacity to connect with others and contribute to the wider community.
This invites an honest question:
What purpose does our attachment to illness or trauma serve?
Is it a way of avoiding life tasks or withdrawing from interpersonal relationships?
According to Adler, we are the ones who give meaning to our experiences. It is the meaning we assign – not the events themselves – that shapes our direction and our way of living.
Adler on Children & Non-Interference
The idea becomes especially powerful when applied to children.
Adler says children also have their own tasks – and interfering with those tasks creates vertical, controlling relationships.
Parents often believe they’re helping when they step in to fix, manage, protect, or decide. But Adler warns:
The moment you interfere with a child’s task, you create a superior–inferior dynamic.
Even praise can create this dynamic.
When we praise a child excessively, we take the position of judge and jury, teaching them that their worth comes from external evaluation.
Adler suggests something subtler and healthier:
Encouragement instead of praise.
Encouragement strengthens a child’s inner confidence and sense of agency, without placing them beneath the adult’s judgement.
Children grow strong only when they stand inside their own tasks – their own choices, effort, learning, and mistakes.
The parent’s role is:
- to support without taking over
- to guide without replacing the child’s initiative
This is not permissiveness.
This is respect.
And the same holds true in adult relationships.
We may tell ourselves we are “only trying to help,” yet in doing so we often create a subtle vertical relationship – one driven by our own needs or our own idea of how things should be.
Adler reminds us that each person must focus on their own life tasks, without stepping into the tasks that belong to someone else. We can support others – but through encouragement, not interference.
Teacher Xie’s Workshops: Return to Your Own Field
At first glance, Adler and Xie come from entirely different universes.
Adler uses psychological language.
Xie speaks in the energetic and experiential language of Zhineng Qigong, the system founded by Dr Pang Ming, Xie’s own teacher.
But reading Adler suddenly made my bookshop moment make sense.
Because it seemed that, in his own way, Teacher Xie was teaching something parallel.
Where Adler speaks of tasks,
Zhineng Qigong speaks of fields.
Where Adler warns about approval-seeking,
Xie warns about being kidnapped by the outside field.
Where Adler encourages self-acceptance,
Xie points toward inner connection and the inner lighthouse.
Where Adler speaks of spiritual orientation,
Xie speaks of formless practice – the place where concept drops away.
Two frameworks.
Two vocabularies.
But something in the middle overlaps.
Dr Pang Ming: Consciousness Shapes Life
Bringing in Dr Pang – the source of Teacher Xie’s lineage – the bridge becomes even clearer.
Dr Pang taught that the foundation of Zhineng Qigong is not technique, but consciousness:
“Mastery of Qi is really achieved through mastery of consciousness.
We use consciousness in a careful, craftsman-like way
to shape our life, to attain our goals.”
– Dr Pang Ming
He also described Pure Consciousness as the natural, unclouded state of the mind:
“Pure consciousness is the state in which the mind is totally open, without fixation, without concept.
In this state, you can see the nature of things more clearly.”
– Dr Pang Ming
When you hear this, you can feel the resonance:
- Adler invites us to live our own tasks, free from approval-seeking.
- Teacher Xie invites us to stay inside our own field, free from external kidnapping.
- Dr Pang invites us to drop fixation and return to pure consciousness.
Different traditions. Different language.
But both of them turning us gently in the same direction:
Back inside.
Back to clarity.
Back to the place where life is shaped from within.
The teachings of Adler and Zhineng Qigong are not identical –
but they all point to the same inner orientation:
from concept to clarity,
from outside to inside,
from distortion to essence.
The Meeting Point: A Life Led From Within
Both teachings seem to point to one central truth:
Freedom begins when you stop living from the outside.
Freedom grows when you return to your own ground.
Freedom flourishes when you rely on your inner lighthouse.
Adler names this psychologically.
Dr Pang gives the theoretical structure in consciousness.
Zhineng Qigong teachers like Xie give the direct experience – through body, qi, awareness.
All three say in their own way:
- Stay with what is yours.
- Let go of what is not.
- Don’t live through other people’s eyes.
- Don’t interfere with the life tasks or fields that belong to others.
- Each person’s path is their own – not bigger, not smaller, simply their own.
When you drop value judgements, you stop creating hierarchy
and return to entirety and naturalness.
The Courage to Be Ordinary
Adler observed that many psychological problems come from avoiding ordinariness.
The attempt to be exceptional becomes a mask for deep inferiority.
In Xie’s language, this becomes beautifully simple:
“Ordinary is formless. Natural.”
Zen teachers echo this:
“After the ecstasy, the laundry.”
Don’t chase the extraordinary.
Return to the ordinary.
Return to the simple movement of life.
Enlightenment is not something added –
it is our natural pure consciousness when we are no longer pulled outside.
This doesn’t mean you have to be mediocre. It just means you focus on your task and do it to the best of your ability.
Vertical & Horizontal: How Adler Explains Relationship Structure
In The Courage to Be Disliked, the Adlerian philosopher distinguishes between:
- Vertical relationships: comparison, hierarchy, approval
- Horizontal relationships: equality, authenticity, mutual respect
This doesn’t erase difference in skill or role – just the value hierarchy.
This mirrors what we explore with Teacher Xie:
- Outside Field = ego labels, emotional turbulence
- Inside Field = grounding, formlessness, essence
Again – not because the systems are identical,
but because reality reveals itself in multiple languages.
And language itself is only a finger pointing at the moon – never the moon.
Where I Landed With All This
My bookshop moment with Teacher Xie created an unexpected inner bridge.
Not a perfect match.
Not a neat theory.
Not an attempt to force East and West together.
Just a simple realisation:
Teachers from different traditions have pointed me back to the same place:
my own field, my own task, my own life.
Adler showed the psychological structure.
Dr Pang articulated the consciousness framework he learned from the 19 Grandmasters who taught him – including Daoist and Buddhist.
Zhineng Qigong/Teacher Xie showed me the lived experience.
The book title was enough.
The practice is what matters.
And this entire reflection – like everything – is simply:
According to my own understanding.
We are the ones who give meaning to our life and to our experiences.
Upcoming online workshops with teacher Xie 24th January – 27th January & 28 Feb – 3rd March 2026. Retreat in Spain 6th – 14th April 2026 https://heartsqi.com/retreatspain/