Tag Archives: burnout

by | February 4, 2024 · 1:15 pm

Do what you love

“You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.”

– Michael Ende, Momo

Are you finding yourself on a frustrating treadmill of doing a job that you hate and counting the years until retirement? There are millions of people out there wasting the most precious years of their lives for all the wrong reasons.

On average about half of your lifetime will be spent working, assuming you retire in your mid-60s and have a typical lifespan between 70 and 80. It therefore makes sense that you spend your best years doing what you love and what you are passionate about.

If you are stuck in grievance culture, unhappy in your job, or your relationship, and have problems with your self-esteem the universe will be sending you many signs that you need to change direction.

A job environment with constant high-stress levels will not only cause mental and physical exhaustion but eventually lead to a host of other health problems that will severely impact your lifespan and quality of life. Some typical red flags:

  • Your personal values are no longer in alignment with the values of the organization
  • All your efforts go unnoticed or unappreciated
  • You feel undervalued and underpaid for what you are doing
  • You have reached a dead end in personal growth. The job lacks growth opportunity, meaning, and purpose.

You might have started a particular career or job with a passion, but it has meanwhile outlived its purpose. It has become a grinding chore and is exhausting you physically and mentally. That might be the time for you to move on. One path is often the stepping stone or learning curve for you to move on to another path.

In doing what you love, you will discover that the true richness of life is not just in the paycheck, but in the fulfillment of your soul. When you are doing what you are passionate about your higher vibrational frequency will automatically attract all the abundance and the money you need.

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Even in carrying out the most mundane tasks your mindset and perspective are key, according to the 13th-century Mystic Meister Eckhart. Being in alignment is the discovery of mysticism in all of your activities in a “joyful experiential presence”.

Eckart’s formula for happiness was liberation from attachment and complete surrender to “dedication” in giving yourself wholeheartedly to a cause, person, or activity. This, he argues, is only possible if you create space for contemplative “emptiness”.

The more in alignment “the more powerful, dignified, useful, commendable, and perfect is the prayer and the work,” Eckart writes in one of his sermons.

Similarly, Zen Buddhism encourages practitioners to cultivate mindfulness, which involves paying full attention to each moment, fully immersing yourself in the present experience, and extending to all activities whether it’s walking, eating, working, or any other daily task.

Mindful activity involves being fully present in the current moment, paying attention to thoughts, feelings, and sensations without becoming entangled by attachment or judgment. Developing a kind and compassionate attitude is integral to the spiritual path.

In a busy world, you are constantly being pulled into a thousand different directions, becoming a playball for social media and the “glitter of the shiny things.” Distraction and addiction are trying to stifle the voice of your soul yearning to accomplish that which it was destined to bring forth and create from the day you were born.

Reino Gevers – Author – Mentor – Speaker

P.S. I’m excited to announce the release of my latest book, “The Turning of the Circle: Embracing Nature’s Wisdom for Purposeful Living.” If you enjoy it, you might also be interested in my previous works, “Deep Walking for Body, Mind and Soul” and “Walking on Edge: A Pilgrimage to Santiago.” You can find all of these titles at reputable bookstores near you.

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by | March 21, 2023 · 5:27 am

Debunking the myths on job burnout

Burnout is a state of complete mental and physical exhaustion after prolonged exposure to emotional or physical stressors. It can affect entire institutions and wreak havoc on personal lives to the extent that individuals in extreme cases are no longer able to cope with the challenges of a normal life.

But there appear to still be many myths around the topic, especially in the corporate world where those affected by job burnout are regarded as lacking in stress resilience.

Chronic burnout can include a high level of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids, catecholamines, and prolactin. These are needed for the body’s natural fight and flight response but if you have too much of them it can lead to serious health problems and even life-threatening diseases because vital organs don’t get the necessary nutrients.

Having spent more than half of my life in an employment capacity in the media industry, I went through the complete cycle of passionately enjoying my job to utter frustration and pulling the plug shortly before burnout.

One of the most common myths is that job burnout is related to work stress caused by short deadlines, overly high productivity demands, and unrealistic management or customer demands.

This is only part of the story. If you are passionate about your job and have a high degree of independence in deciding when to do what and for him, you will not perceive stress as such. Instead, you will feel pumped up, and energetically vibrant. We all know that feeling, of having accomplished something in a game or sporting event. It is the same feeling you will be getting if you truly feel that you are doing something that is aligned with your soul purpose.

The modern-day working place has become essentially dehumanized

Most corporate jobs have been dehumanized to such an extent that individuals find themselves stuck in big offices with several hundred other people. Furnishings are standardized and employees are prohibited from decorating their desk with personal items such as pics of their loved ones. Employees don’t burn out overnight. It is mostly a process lasting several years where employees consistently lose the sense of meaning for what they are doing and their personal value system is in disconnect from the values of the company.

In my case, I became a journalist in apartheid South Africa, feeling the need to give a voice to those suffering discrimination. Later , after joining an international news agency in Germany I was able to write extensively on topics close to my heart such as Third World and environmental issues. Journalism, in some media at least, was tasked with informing, educating and acting as a watchdog over those in power. The disillusion began when more and more media shifted from education to entertainment of the worst kind. Today we witness the absurdity of mass media clouding the minds of millions with information trash and gossip. It is much the same disconnect when a nurse or doctor is prescribed how much time they can spend with a patient or a social worker or a priest spends more time dealing with bureaucracy than with real people in need.

The body tells the truth

At some point your inner soul truth will send out warning signals that you have climbed up the wrong ladder. Your body reacts with sleepless nights, digestive problems or other ailments. But you will ignore those early warning signs and push them away until you can no longer ignore them or you have a life-threatening diagnosis that acts as a wake-up call where you change everything.

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Stress always starts with a thought until the thought gets trapped in the treadmill of the monkey mind in constant fear of what might happen in the future like losing your job. Work should be one of the most enjoyable things you do because you spend most of your life working. It makes an enormous difference to your overall happiness if you are working for a living or really enjoying what you are doing. In some cultures spared from the industrial revolution, people still work sixteen-hour days. But it could also be argued that they never work. Daily chores, family life, and free time are closely intertwined.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” the more a job inherently resembles a game – “with variety, appropriate and flexible challenged, clear goals, and immediate feedback – the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker’s level of development.”

As human beings we evolve and grow with the challenge, the resistance, the problems and the transmuting thereof.

Mental and physical exhaustion seems to lie more in the employee’s relation to the job, how he/she perceives personal goals in relation to it.

Burnout and shift in consciousness

Burnout can be addressed with a shift in consciousness. Conflict at the workplace often arises when there is poor leadership. Employees are not trusted in doing what they can as best as they can. Better communication, better organization, delegation of responsibility and improved self-care habits can do much to alleviate internal and external stressors.

If you spend most of your leisure time in the passive consumption of negativity on mass media, it will absorb a large portion of your lifeblood and energy. You will be much more happy and content in spending quality time with good friends, family and community.

At the job many people experience the opportunity of using their skillset. They are challenged and validated and this will make them feel happy, strong and satisfied. Paradoxically while spending their free time these same people will feel sad, weak and dull because of the way they are spending their time.

Reino Gevers – Author – Mentor – Speaker

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by | October 25, 2021 · 7:48 pm

A lifetime wasted on the treadmill?

With only a few weeks left to the end of another year you might once again have thoughts of how “time flies” and feel a little melancholy sadness about the things you had on your to-do-list and have had to postpone.

Our culture is obsessed with time as we rush from one appointment to another or try to squash as much activity as possible into leisure hours.

During this week I did a workshop with participants from diverse establishments ranging from public service to production with some of the companies registering absenteeism due to illness of up to twenty per cent. Our hurried and just-in-time economies are not only unsustainable but are having a major impact on physical and mental health.

A life spent in haste is a wasted life

In Germany alone the number of mental illnesses, mainly job-burnout, has doubled in the past decade. In the United States a study revealed that a frighteningly high number of employees are experiencing symptoms of fatigue and burn-out. It is seldom talked about but many victims of the pandemic have been people with an already weakened immune system caused by work stress and other factors.

When your body is flooded with stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline you will have difficulty slowing down, relaxing and spending time alone in solitude.  Moreover if stress hormones remain at a constantly high level over months and even years your body’s natural defense systems and key body organs are being steadily weakened.

I know people who feel extremely uneasy if they don’t have the television in the house switched on 24-7 or don’t have loud music playing in the background. On a subliminal level the body senses never have time to recuperate.

Time for the soul to catch up

You think you might just google a quick question and already you have been hooked and sidetracked into  spending hours of precious “lifetime” on social media.

During my childhood my grandfather, a farmer in South Africa, loved to tell the story when he gave a lift  to an elderly Zulu man. After sitting quietly next to my grandfather in the pickup truck the Zulu man asked my grandfather to stop for a minute to help his soul catch up as it had been left behind by the speed at which they had been travelling.

The Zulu people at the time lived with their senses closely attuned to the laws of nature, getting up at sunrise and retiring for sleep soon after sunset. They often joked about the ways of the white man and why he always seemed  to be in a hurry and living life according to the clock.

Hurried people make mistakes

It’s an old wisdom. When we are in a hurry we are more likely to make mistakes. We miss important way markers along the road when we go into a stressed-out tunnel vision. We fail to hear the whispers from the universe telling us that we have placed our ladder against the wrong wall.

It brings to mind that in the pre-industrial era the main mode of transport for most people was walking from A to B with the body finding its natural rhythm during walking. The advances of technology have given mankind the possibility of flying from one continent to another within hours. We can cover a journey by car that took our ancestors weeks or months on horseback or carriage. The downside is that our mode of travel is contributing to the warming of the earth’s atmosphere and that the speed at which we are travelling is giving us less time to reflect and internalize the experience of the immediate surroundings.

Eternity lies in the full experience of the here-and now

The great spiritual masters throughout the ages teach us that eternity lies in the experience of the “here-and-now.” It is when we are aligned completely with the activity we are doing and time somehow seems to have become irrelevant. It is when we find peace in meditation and feel the immediacy of each in and out breath. Or, when we feel at one and in synchronicity with a natural sound of nature.

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One of the blessings of the pandemic lockdowns is that it has forced millions of people to slow down and reflect. What do I want to do with the rest of the days of my life that I have left? Do I really want to spend a good portion of my day stressing in a commute to an unfulfilling job while I’m not  seeing my children growing up? What contribution can I make to make a positive impact on the world?  What is depleting my mental and physical energy  and what is boosting my energy on all levels?

Life is too short to be wasted with things unimportant on the journey that is life.  More and more people are realizing the importance of slowing down, realigning and just enjoying the beauty of autumn colors reflected in a stream or the sound of migrating geese flying above.  Priorities are starting to shift and it’s a good thing.

Reino Gevers – Author – Mentor – Speaker

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by | April 13, 2021 · 6:07 am

The broken modern workplace

The more a job inherently resembles a game – with variety, appropriate and flexible challenges, clear goals, and immediate feedback – the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker’s level of development.

– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi –

Roughly two-thirds of employees hate their jobs, according to a global Gallup poll conducted two years ago. Clinical burnout, depression and suicide are only some of the effects of the broken workplace. Many people simply find no meaning or purpose in what they are doing for most of their lives.

The modern workplace has not only alienated many people from their inner being and purpose but is having a huge toll on productivity and long-term prosperity. The complexity of the individual becomes reduced to a role within an institution which is seldom congruent with core values and soul elevation.

People want to be seen and to be validated

Basic human emotional needs are to be seen, to be heard and to be validated. If these needs are met from an early age the child will thrive, and feel protected by the parents leading by example.

Especially if there has been a pattern of emotional neglect in childhood with parents giving recognition and validation only with achievement, the “inner child” will desperately seek validation through career achievement. The tragedy is that many a modern workplace implies that the employee is a “family member” but ruthlessly discards that member when it no longer performs or when times get tough.

With the person’s identity becoming closely intertwined with the corporate identity there comes a disconnect to soul purpose, as individual talent and the need for elevation of consciousness find no room for growth and expression.

Photo by Ian on Unsplash

The modern workplace stifles creativity

Clockwork performance parameters, the rapidity and the bland similarity of job descriptions stifle imagination and creativity that is so much the food for the soul.

Over the past decade I have conducted countless workshops in the corporate environment on topics such as “stress resilience” burnout-prevention, reintegration of absentees after long-term illness and the creation of a healthy work environment.

My key take-aways are that much of the problem can be found in lack of leadership or failed leadership. Most companies still have a top-down approach to management. Supervisors and managers are often chosen on the basis of job performance skills rather than people skills. They are then not even trained in the basic skills of coaching, mentoring and guidance of people.

The other, not to be neglected aspect, is how we spend our leisure time. Over-consumption of negative mass media absorb a huge amount of psychic energy, leaving little time for inner reflection, recuperation and alignment.

The need for new leaders

The good news is that the pandemic is changing the way we work in more ways than we could ever have imagined. Working flexible hours mainly from home not only reduces the stress of commuting, and looking after family but is visibly illustrating that people work more effectively in their own time and space if they are not micro-managed in a big office.

While the baby-boomer generation looked at work primarily as “a job” with clear boundaries between work and life, the millennial generation places far more emphasis on a company culture of personal growth, and self-development. The new managers are mentors and coaches with a social skill set that takes cognizance of individual expression and visibility within the company matrix.

Are you selling your soul?

If you currently find yourself mired in a structure that is making you feel unhappy, unfulfilled and constantly fatigued and tired then hard questions need to be asked. You could well be in an environment or a company that has outlived its purpose for you. It is a tragedy to see people selling their soul. They wither away in a life of misery and ultimately fall seriously ill because they are deeply unhappy in the environment where they spend much of their most valuable productive years. The remaining energy is drawn primarily on focusing on the next vacation and counting the years to retirement in the illusion that life begins after a career is over.

On the long term you cannot suppress the presence and inner needs of the soul, crying out for imagination, creativity and growth. It is in those moments when we feel energized, empowered and in flow with our inner truth and our being that we are on the right track.

Reino Gevers – Author – Mentor – Speaker

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by | September 28, 2016 · 8:07 am

Where is your attention?

harmony

by Reino Gevers

When you practise the martial art of “taiji push hands” you instantly become aware when your mind is wandering elsewhere. As soon as your attention slips your opponent has easy play in finding the gap and pushing you over. Its all about:

Where your attention goes your energy goes.

In our connected world the power of distraction lurks everywhere. Our mind becomes like a butterfly constantly fluttering from one short attention span to the next. We search for something on google and suddenly a pop-up diverts our attention elsewhere and before we know it, we have spent hours surfing meaninglessly on the Internet.

Mass media is brainwashing us 24-7 with drama and catastrophes. The objective is to shock and awe. The result: more clicks, more viewers, a higher circulation and more advertising revenue. Good news is no news. I know what I’m talking about because I worked in the news industry for more than 26 years. Don’t get me wrong. Its not about sticking your head in the sand and avoiding the world’s problems. Its the dosage of negativity in relation to positivity.

Human nature has a habit of looking first on what is bad than on what is wonderful and on what we can be grateful for in our lives. If your mind is filled with thoughts on wars, riots, crime, the antics of the rich and famous and all the other shadow sides of humanity your subconscious mind will begin to confirm all this as the reality of existence. The end result is often depression and a sense of hopelessness. Moreover, negativity hurts us on the physical level, weakening our immune system and causing many of our modern day plagues such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The truth is that we live in a world of polarity – of yin and yang. For every bad event being flashed across the globe you can be sure there is another positive thing happening at the same time. Its just not receiving our attention. There is so much distraction, brainwashing and mind control from external forces that we spend less and less time in reflecting on what is happening to us. The end result is living a life behind a veil of negativity and emptyness.

You have the power! Draw your boundary on what you want inside your “room” and what needs to stay out:

  • By anchoring yourself with meditation you are extracting yourself from distraction. Meditation is a powerful tool in helping you perceive that inner voice that keeps you connected to your Soul Path.
  • As you meditate you will observe your thoughts. Are they mostly of a positive or negative nature?
  • Are the people you surround yourself with kind and compassionate? Do they exude positive vibes or are they abusing you as a refuse bucket in venting all their anger and frustration? Remember you are the sum of the people you surround yourself with.
  • How much time are you spending in nature? Are you exercising enough? Taking a walk in nature, doing yoga or taiji,  will hugely improve your mood and help you realign.
  • Are you nourishing your body and mind with healthy foods and liquids?

In training your awareness by doing the right things every day, of every week of every month and of every year you will be aligned and become immune to energy-sucking distractions.

By Reino Gevers – Health Mentor for Leaders and Achievers

http://www.reinogevers.com

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by | June 8, 2016 · 9:46 am

Why you need to take a break

IMG_1197With work pressure increasing in practically all sectors its not uncommen for people to remain stuck at their desk for hours and taking their “lunch” while tapping away at the computer or taking a call. On the long term this is wreaking havoc on concentration levels, health and productivity.

Under stress your sympathetic nervous system is on alert flooding your body with stress hormones that accelerate your heart beat, increase your blood pressure, dilate your pupils and inhibit other body functions like your digestion. At some stage however the calming side of your body, the parasympathetic nervous system, will want to reduce the arousal system, bringing everything back into balance and tiredness creeping in. Its a natural body reaction that you can’t control.

We need a good balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system – between the arousal and recuperation phases.

Research has indicated that most concentration levels start sinking rapidly after about 50 minutes of uninterrupted work on a computer. At the latest after 70 minutes your parasympathetic nervous system will start taking over. This is the time to take a short 5-10 minute break. And a break is only really a break if you interrupt your work and do something completely different, like opening a window, taking a deep breath, looking at the bird in the tree across the road or chatting to a colleague.

If you have an office job you will have spent some 80,000 hours of your lifetime in a sitting position until you reach retirement age. This is an enormous strain on your back, neck, skeletal and body alignment system. Interrupting your work for 15-20 minutes a day to do some active stretching movements, will work wonders for your health, your mood and your concentration and work ability.

Pushing your break of say half an hour until the end of the work day practically has no recuperation effect. Regular shorter breaks after every hour are far more effective. Taking a power nap of between 15-20 minutes in the early afternoon works very well for some people. It should however not be longer as you then fall into the deep-sleep mode and will wake up more fatigued.

If you have had days, weeks or months of high stress, your body will very likely have high cortisol levels. It means vital organs in your body are being undernourished because your body is in a “fight or flight” mode. You need recuperation, a time out, to bring those stress hormones back to normal. Best you choose a place where you can lock away your cell phone and focus your mind on anything else but work. Check out also our outdoor coaching programmes.

Reino Gevers, coach, trainer, author

PowerBodyMind – Gevers Consulting

http://www.reinogevers.com

 

 

 

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by | May 20, 2016 · 12:35 pm

Reconnecting with nature – 8 point health plan

IMG_2264Constant emotional stress is extremely harmful, especially over an extended period of time. The result: Our body is on permanent alert  with many body functions more or less in standby-mode.

We are naturally programmed to react to perceived dangerous situations with our bodies being put on alert by such hormones as adrenaline and cortisol that increase heartbeat  and blood pressure, in turn triggering flight or fight responses.

When the threat has passed these stress hormones are supposed to return to normal levels so that all body organs can resume their normal functions.  In our modern world that is often not the case because we are not taking time-out for exercise, good nutrition, breaks etc. An over-exposure to the main stress hormone cortisol can lead to a host of health problems including high blood pressure, the risk of heart attack, an immune-system breakdown, anxiety, mood changes and weight gain. An excellent way of getting those cortisol levels down is by taking a time-out in nature.

We come from and are part of nature. Living in cramped, noisy and stressful big city environments is only a recent phenomenon in human evolution. Re-atuning our senses of hearing, smell and touch by taking a walk in a park or forest can be of enormous benefit in winding down from the onslaught of external stressors.

Take a real break by leaving the office desk and taking a 15-20 minute walk. Awaken your senses to the sounds of nature. You can stop by giving all your attention to just one pleasant sound of nature: a bird singing, the rushing of a stream or fountain. Try and inhale the smell of a blooming flower or wild herbs next to a path. Feel the warmth of the sun on your skin or a gust of cool air.

The benefit of all this: Our immediate environment is responsible for stress increase or reduction. It influences our immune, endocrine and nervous systems. Numerous research concludes that positive nature experience reduces anxiety, fear, lowers blood pressure and has a positive influence on the heart beat and muscle pressure and especially helps to bring down those cortisol levels.

Reino Gevers – consultant, coach, author

http://www.powerbodymind.de

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by | May 4, 2016 · 3:21 pm

Employee vitality – the human factor

Happiness and joy. Young happy female

Its a common fallacy that technology alone and the cost factor are key ingredients on the global corporate playing field. Yet when looking at highly successful companies its the vitality and positive-mindset of its people who have that slight but crucial edge.

These are the corporates with a high stress resilience in rough times, open to innovation and change and who go into positive resonance with clients.

The mindset of key players in a company is crucial. This means having a permanent learning culture of self-development, reflection and positive feedback. Investment in the well-being of employees makes itself paid on all levels.

As the lines between work, family and leisure time become increasingly blurred in the digital world of today, it is all the more necessary to keep in mind essential human needs. We are social animals who feel a great need to interconnect positively with those immediately around us. It gives us a feeling of safety and security because humans have depended on each other for survival since the earliest of times.

Old style management that leads with fear and intimidation creates an environment that stifles all form of healthy human communication, inevitably stirring basic human survival instincts that lead to mobbing, burnout and other psychological fallouts. On the long-run companies that rule by fear are doomed.

A healthy work environment has room for recuperation phases and encourages them. There needs to be a healthy cycle between intensive work sessions, times of stress and rest periods. Its old school thinking not to include private issues at the work place. Immediate colleagues are often the first support network we fall back on when we have tough times at home. So how do you create a healthy corporate culture?

  • Its a long-term learning process. Supervisors and managers need  to keep their ears close to the ground in addressing the needs of their employees. Listening is one of the most important yet least found ingredients among leaders.
  • Self-development, team training and investment in soft-skills training is a crucial element.
  • Self-responsibility on personal health, nutrition, recuperation and lifestyle management can be actively nurtured in a learning environment.
  • Creating a culture of mindfulness and attentiveness is a high ideal but can be learned and creates a highly positive resonance with clients. We are after all dealing with humans.

We spend most of our lives at the workplace and it is sad to see that so little effort is being made in investing in the “human factor”. Do we live to work or work to live?  To quote Studs Terkel:

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”

Reino Gevers – coach, author, trainer

http://www.reinogevers.com

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by | September 29, 2015 · 8:56 am

Back from the Camino – what now?

Its been some weeks since we returned from our hike on the Spanish Camino and I’m still astounded at how much the experience still resonates in our lives.

We have just heard from Jim who walked the entire Camino Frances from Jean Pied de Port, arriving in Santiago last week after 40 days of walking.

The many interesting and fascinating people you meet on the Camino is part of part of what I would describe as one of the most precious gifts of the Camino. This is why many Peregrinos decide to give something back in volunteering to work a summer in one of the pilgrims’ hostels.

Many people walk the Camino to find an answer to a life-important question they are dealing with. Mostly they find the answer, sometimes after weeks or months after the walk, with the answer to a question needing time to ripen.

On my first Camino I was somewhat disappointed at not having found “my answer”. The lesson to learn was patience and to open the mind to the so many of the mysteries and lessons of the Path.

The first lesson I learned was that it needs time to “walk things off” and get rid of the old emotional baggage that you often carry with you for years. My theory is that the body has an “emotional memory” just like the emotional mind in holding onto “traumatic” experiences on a cellular level. This is why the first days of walking are so hard, even for people who have prepared well physically.

When this “emotional garbage” comes to the surface on the “path of crucifixion” that often comes during the first week of arduous walking through blisters, sore knees and back pain, the transformation process can begin. Then walking, even through difficult terrain, becomes an easy ride and you can actually start enjoying daily walks of 25-30 kilometres and more.

There were so many images, smells and meetings of mind on this centuries old path that this space is too short to fill them.

There was the father walking the path with two mules in fulfilling a dream that his daughter had on her death bed when dying of cancer. There are the brave young folk in the Aragon province fighting a dam project that will flood a pristine valley and one of the oldest parts of the Camino. There are the faces of people you look at where you know they have just gone through a very hard time in their lives and that they have come through, stronger.

On a physical level, I feel much fitter. My skin seems smoother and my senses of smell and hearing different. In my dreams I am still walking and when I wake up I know that I will soon be making plans for the next walk on the Camino.

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by | March 23, 2015 · 11:54 am

Reconnecting to the web of life

Humanity’s disconnect to the web of life, the lack of respect and awareness for the many parts of the bigger whole, has got us into a pretty dire predicament.

Some theorists would argue that man is a predator by nature and that it is all about the survival of the fittest, falsely quoting Darwin who was in reality very much aware of the intricate inter-connection of all living things.

Any species which fails to find its niche in the web of life becomes extinct because the earth or “creation intelligence” always finds a means of discarding that which becomes a threat to everything else. It is something you become acutely aware of by spending alone time in nature or in the wilds.

I’ve had some of my deepest spiritual experiences while hiking alone in the Pyrenees mountains, the Spanish Camino and the African bush where simply by observation you begin to realize that every plant, beetle, bird, antelope or predator is there for a reason and plays its small part in sustaining life as a whole.

Lichtblick

My theory is that humanity’s disconnect from the web of life is partly the result of alienation from nature and the “materialist-theoretical” approach to religion rather than intuitive spirituality that our forebears practised in the mystic traditions.

As hundreds of millions of people continue to move to urban areas there is a real danger that the alienation from our true destiny will continue. A growing number of people in the wealthier countries are living alone in apartments and getting lonelier and lonelier as they grow older and their already fragile support network of friends starts falling away.

In my previous blog I mentioned how much we are influenced and shaped by the people around us. Our health, our happiness and our lifespan depend on how well we are accepted, integrated and valued in that community we cherish. Loneliness is perceived as physical pain and is responsible for many psychological disorders. Read this interesting report on what people in Sardinia seem to be getting just right and why many of them stay healthy well over the age of a 100.

The biggest challenge faced by humanity is to rediscover that bond to the web of life and to make the switch from predator to custodian, protector and nurturer. Here are just some ways of reconnecting:

  • Sitting meditation with emphasis on the natural breathing sequence of inhaling and exhaling
  • Walking “things off” and reconnecting with your natural rhythm on a longer hike, preferably for several days. Its a wonderful way of detoxing your mind and body.
  • Any of the body arts such as yoga, taiji and qi gong have been practised and perfected over many generations as a way of reconnecting with your mind and body.
  • When outdoors in nature find just one sound to concentrate your mind on. It could be a bird chirping or the wind blowing through the trees. You will feel very relaxed after only a few minutes.

I had an amazing experience on one of my walks when I connected to a blackbird singing in a tree nearby. It responded by following me for several kilometres, hopping from tree to tree and on the track ahead. It was an amazing experience of connection.

Info:

Why face-to-face contact matters in a digital world

Yield and Overcome – How change can positively impact our lives

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