When walking between 20-25 kilometres per day on the Camino you appreciate carrying as little as possible in your back pack. You have to go lean to go far which applies very much to life as well. The Hospitales Route or Hospital Route which we crossed yesterday is tough and called that because during the Middle Ages there were several hospitals on the mountain where ailing pilgrims were nursed.
Day Five: Go lean to go far
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Camino Day Four. Living Life
Day four of our walk on the Camino de Santiago. We left the mountain village of La Espina this morning. A pilgrim wrote on a marker stone: ”You don’t choose a life. You live one.” It got me thinking. Happiness has so much to do with Being rather than Wanting. And, Being for me is opening yourself to the miracles of the moment. In the daily treadmill of distractions pulling at us from all sides we miss the magic.
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The Camino: An analogy of life
The Camino experience is an anology of life – a crash course in self-development. Each day is a lesson in life. On the second day of our 21.5 km walk in the Asturian countryside of steep mountains and rolling green countryside, we had our ups-and-downs. Watch our video we took near the town of Grado:
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First day Camino: Taking it slow
On the first day of the Camino it is so important to go slow and find the right rhythm. Its about feeling into the body and mind, especially if you know you will be walking a couple of weeks.
There is a saying that if you dont approach the Path with humility the Path will humble you. So here is a short video from my wife Alyce and myself while walking 12.5 kilometres from Oviedo to the small village of Escamplero on our first day:
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Time out: Why a pilgrimage?
Next week I will be leaving for my ninth walk on the Camino de Santiago. Its become an annual must-do-event because I am convinced that such a time-out period is essential in boosting my energy, my creativity and general feeling of well-being.
In our modern world our energies are constantly being depleted by countless distractions that make us forget who we are and what soul purpose we have. Worse still: We imitate “role models” hyped by mass media, making us look foolishly unauthentic.
The tradition of walking the Camino is many centuries old. In the Middle Ages, when life was cheap and short, people had a deeply ingrained fear of burning in the fires of hell in the after life. The best possible way of gaining redemption was in walking the Camino.
Today thousands of people are rediscovering the Camino as a perfect analogy of life and a fast-track course in self-development. Here are only some of the lessons I learned on the Camino:
- The less weight you carry, the easier your walk
- The ups-and-downs are cyclical like the ups and downs of life
- If you get lost you always find someone to help you
- Be open for the miraculous often hidden in the common
Never mind the enormous health benefits. I’ve noticed that walking between 20-25 kilometers a day not only detoxes the body but also the mind. It is truly “walking things off” and getting rid of the clutter, opening the channels and the senses of hearing, smell, touch and sight.
I will keep you posted on this site.
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
Awakening the Fire Within – key principles of health and success. Enrolling now will give you a 25 per cent discount.
NEW RELEASE: “Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
Feeling stressed out?
Mankind is living in its best era yet, experiencing better health, peace and higher standard of living than all generations before. So why do so many people suffer from stress and chronic fatigue? Has the “comfortable” life made us less resilient? Other generations experienced war, famine, disease and all sorts of challenges that we do not have to deal with.
My take on this is that stress is not really the problem but that a host of factors come into play, especially the lack of recuperation in today’s fast track world. Here are some tips to make you more resilient in riding the storm during those tough times. We cannot avoid stress. It is part of life, but we can learn to deal with stressful situations differently.
- Body movement: When you are under stress your body is flooded with a stress hormone called cortisol. The more cortisol in your system, the more your adrenal glands on the kidneys become fatigued. Try body arts that relax you both mentally and physically and bring your entire body metabolism into balance. Yoga, taiji, qi gong, pilates and meditation are ancient proven methods that work. But even a gentle walk in nature and jogging at a gentle pace will help bring down your stress level.
- Eating good foods: Too much sugar and salts in processed foods is wreaking havoc in your body. White sugars rob the body of phosphates which are vitally important in almost every intra-cellular reaction. Too much salt interferes with the natural absorption of water in the body, causing constipation, accumulation of toxins and higher blood pressure. You can’t go wrong with a good mixture of fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit. The supplement spirulina is loaded with beta carotene, iron, magnesium and other trace materials which your body really needs during times of stress.
- Healing rituals: When everything around us appears to be in disarray or collapse a ritual can restore balance and sense of belonging and connection. It could be a religious prayer, the lighting of a candle, a meditation or any other regularly performed daily action at a certain time or place of the day. Rituals have been part of human life and social interaction since the dawn of mankind but we seem to have forgotten the significance of them in the rat-race of modern times.
- Friends and family: A typical symptom of burnout caused by stress is the withdrawal from social interaction. We are social animals and need to talk and interact with our fellow human beings, who give us important feedback, empathy, sense of meaning and comfort. Sharing and volunteering your help for a non-profit organisation, church, neighborhood initiative or any other group that serves a higher purpose often brings you “back to earth”.
If you can learn to ride the storm, change can positively enrich your life in many ways. The challenge lies in dealing with those defining moments of transition from a position of strength and power. During tough times we more than ever need time for recuperation, a time out and activities or hobbies that take the mind away from obsessive worry.
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
Awakening the Fire Within – key principles of health and success. Enrolling now will give you a 25 per cent discount.
NEW RELEASE: “Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
Flying cars and plastic hearts
Could anyone have predicted in the world of 1997 the profound effects that social media and the digital revolution would have on the world of today? Then think ahead of what our world might look like in two decades.
Some years from now it will be quite normal to have flying electric cars as a mode of transportation. Food might be grown in greenhouses in city skyscrapers and human organs and body parts produced by 4D technology.
Technological revolutions always have cataclysmic effects on whole industry sectors with winners and losers on both ends. But it also changes society on many levels, the way we live, our relationships and state of mind.
Is it something to embrace or something to be afraid of? Depending on your mindset it could be either of the two, depending on your willingness to adapt. Do you accept the inevitability of certain changes as an opportunity or do you prefer to reject anything that you perceive as a threat to the status quo?
The point is that it is an inevitability of life that nothing remains static and that change is part of life like the seasonal changes of the year. Life is an a constant state of flux and evolution. Those species that accept the change and adapt to the new situation the fastest are the ones that survive.
We humans are very much animals of habit. How we exercise, the foods we eat, where we work or live and in what relationships we remain committed to, is mostly determined by habit. Even if we know on a rational level that some of those habits are not doing us any good.
The choice is simple: Do you bear with the pain in an increasingly difficult comfort zone of the status quo or do you take on the pain that comes with change and adaption to new circumstances?
Embracing change is embracing opportunity of growth, constant learning, self-development and evolution of human spirit. So lets go for it!
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
Awakening the Fire Within – key principles of health and success. Enrolling now will give you a 25 per cent discount.
NEW RELEASE: “Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
Hamburg: Reflections on a city burning
Torched cars, running street battles and burning street barricades are scenes not uncommon in strife-torn countries with major social problems. This time however it hit the wealthy northern German port city of Hamburg during the G20 summit last week with many friends witnessing the violent scenes.
The violent mob had no qualms in torching and ransacking the premises of hard-working small shop-owners, beating up journalists filming the scene and setting on fire a small car with a baby seat in the back. Numerous people were injured – miraculously nobody got killed.
Politicians and the mass media are quick to blame a small minority of criminal elements and left-wing radicals from all over Europe out to stir trouble. Whatever the experts say, there appears to be a thin line between civil behavior and anarchy.
As humanity moves to higher consciousness we will experience setbacks. We will go back two step
s to take one step forward. Mankind is going through a major transition with a leap in technology and information at your fingertips that only a decade ago could only be accessed in cumbersome library research. Entire industries are changing with once secure jobs being lost and new ones being created.
A lot of people stuck in old thinking are being left behind and part of the old thinking is the entitlement culture and failing to take responsibility. Its always the OTHERS responsible for ones own mishaps and failings: the parents, the school, the state, former friends and associates, the employer. And, conceded, it makes me angry.
Never before has humanity experienced such abundance, wealth, peace and liberty. The opportunities are immense and yet a crowd out there seems to have a mindset that it all needs to be a freeload without personal commitment. Life is not like that. What you are is a result of your mindset and thought process. If you eat junk food and refuse to exercise you will inevitably end up with bad health. If you fail to commit yourself to hard work and continuous learning, stay stuck in “blaming culture”, you will lose out.
If you adopt positive daily habits and a positive mindset your life will become positive. We do have the freedom of choice. We are only to a very limited extent “helpless victims” to external circumstance.
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
Awakening the Fire Within – key principles of health and success. Enrolling now will give you a 25 per cent discount.
NEW RELEASE: “Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
Do you have a weight issue?
Every third person on earth has a weight problem. Its a pandemic that is causing major health problems for individuals, societies and the economic future of many countries.
The data released recently by the New England Journal of Medicine is particularly alarming because it shows a major increase in obesity among children. A diet of mainly processed foods with a high sugar content coupled with a mainly sedentary lifestyle spent behind the steering wheel of a car or on an office chair are cited as major reasons for being overweight.
The other factor is that our fast-paced Western lifestyle is flooding our bodies with stress hormones that stimulate the building up of fat reserves in the lower belly. In previous generations humans were stressed by the fear of suffering from drought or famine, which is why the stress hormone cortisol is designed to tell the body: “Alert: Store fat because hard times are coming.”
How do you determine whether you are overweight? Take your body length. Lets say 176 cm, divide that by half which is 88 cm. Your belly at the height of your navel should therefore not measure more than 88 cm.
Why should you watch your weight? Obesity is the major cause of cardiovascular disease, diabetes II and a host of skeletal problems. The fat tissue in your lower belly is creating pressure on all your body organs which increases your blood pressure and the danger of suffering a stroke. Obesity also affects our mental state of mind, our self-image, self-esteem, vitality, libido and most of all your longevity.
Motivate yourself by writing down at least three major reasons why you want to live a long and healthy life!
So what do I do to reduce weight? Don’t postpone action. Start today by clearing your fridge and kitchen cabinet from all processed foods. Educate yourself on a low-carb diet. Try and avoid completely all sugars. Start exercising by at least taking brisk walks during the day. Best download an app on your smart phone so that you can monitor yourself by taking at least 10,000 steps a day. Try sticking to that plan rigidly for at least 40 days and you will notice a significant improvement.
If you want to kick-start your vitality and health check out my my online course: Awakening the Fire Within – key principles of health and success. Enrolling now will give you a 25 per cent discount.
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
NEW RELEASE: “Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
Filed under blood pressure, cortisol, exercise mental health, obesity, stress hormones, Uncategorized
Count your blessings – our peaceful era
Mass media influences us in a negative sense more than we think. The emphasis is mostly on deviant behavior of the “rich and famous” or some catastrophic event , mostly in a far-off place that does not directly affect us or where we have never been.
How would you answer when asked to estimate between 40 and 80 per cent how many people in the world cannot read or write? Most people put the figure at below 60 per cent. The truth is that some 87 per cent of people in the world today can read and write. What an astounding achievement!
You would, also not know it from the headlines that we’re currently living through one of the most peaceful times in human history. This chart by Max Roser from Oxford University shows the global death rate from war over the past 600-plus years.
Most people view the European Union as a bureaucratic monster. This fake-news emphasis was largely responsible for the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the E.U. The truth is that the EU with its consensus-building policy and inter-dependent structures between nations has largely been responsible for the longest period of peace and prosperity in central Europe ever. Whatever its faults this for me is the one major reason to keep preserving the concept of a European unity between nations.
Negative or fake news is designed to appeal to our lower instincts. It does more than that. Fear-mongering and negative thoughts directly affect our immune system. Stress hormones that induce flight or fight symptoms in the body are steered by the reptilian or instinctive part of the brain. It does not react rationally or with logic. The reptilian brain’s only job is to decide whether the information is threatening, edible or sexually attractive. Does that ring a bell next time you open the pages of your gossip rag?
We need to guard our mind against all the negativity thrown at us from all sides because whatever information we feed our brain is that what we become, consciously or subconsciously.
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
NEW RELEASE: “Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
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