Oil!? You do not know the value of what you got? Don't find it. It’s already there! Be more healthy.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up with a tremendous pain in my left knee. I could not bend my leg anymore and had big problems to go downstairs because I could not walk. A very strange experience.

It took a day and actually I wanted to go to the hospital to make some x-rays to see what was wrong. The voice of my dad in my head told me (as he always said to his patients in his massage practice); “Go on moving. Do it gently. If it’s hard to do, give it a try taking a warm shower or try to go for a swim.”

With a swimming pool in my backyard not hard to go for a swim. Though it took me a while to reach the pool and to enter the water. Very, very slowly, I felt disabled , I tried to move but could not really swim. Believe it or not. The next day I woke up and everything was totally fine and without any problem I could walk again. So far it did not appear again.

This experience made me aware of the fact I do not even value what I got. Never worried about the vitality of my life. But actually it is a wonder, you know? Most of us do not take the time, are not even aware, of this wonders of life. We take health for granted when we are healthy. We do not care and go on living our life like; breakfast, lunch, dinner, work and so on in a repeating and continuing, unaware process. Not at all connected anymore about what life really is all about. Until the day it is ‘ocean view’, the final rest…

We only get worry when we get to that stage. When we are healthy we think that that stage is too far off. I am still OK. I am still walking. You do not know the value of your limbs until you cann't walk or hold something with your hands anymore. You do not know the value of your eyesight until you lose them. You do not value what you have got.

We forget that health needs a holistic approach and there need to be a personal balance in that. Physical body, Mind, Emotion, the Spiritual part and Causal (environmental) part (your relation to energy givers / energy drainers in your habitat). All five need to get (at least some) attention.

And when we think about or want to work on our health most of the time it is connected with the physical body. We go to the gym, start running, start moving, do fitness programs, etc. Some people tell themselves this even helps to empty their mind… Possibly this can be but most of the time you can see it as a temporary change of your attention from your regular worrying thoughts. 

Getting older we experience the physical part of our self is getting older. Just accept this natural process. You will never win a kind of battle to keep a young body forever as marketing tries you to believe. You will always lose this battle.

The mind, on the other hand is able to become more and more vital. Spirituality (and please refer to a wider range of experiences than only the traditional religious approach) is part of being in good health as well. It helps you to connect with meaning of life and with the value of all that is stored in you.

You do not know the value of air until you cannot breath anymore. When you are aware of breathing, for instance during meditation, you are visualizing the molecules flowing inside and outside again, feeling the air going in to cleans and out to let go. Ever thought about the meaning of that?

That visualization gives you the vitality of life! It makes you understand the vitality of life. What is life? That in and out breath? You take that breath for granted. Because it’s free. If the government starts to charge us for air, give us the bill every month for every m³ of breathing air we used, we will worry about it and start complaining.

We start worrying when something fails. During our regular “breakfast, lunch, dinner, work life” we are improving our ego, improving our greediness and… increasing our problems. We do not contemplate on our life very often. Torturing ourselves without even knowing. Losing our real self.

During one of my last classes I followed a teacher explained.

Think about this; When a person is very happy telling you: “I found oil!”  Actually what is he telling you?

It is the wrong expression. It’s not true. Even before he found it, it was already there. The oil is always underground. It does not matter if he found it or not. It’s misnamed to say I found the oil. No, it’s already there. You extracted it by using other means.

With contemplation and meditation we work on our health. We extract that ‘oil’ in ourselves. That oil of meaning. That ‘oil’ of direction. That ‘oil’ of uniqueness. That ‘oil’ of answers. That ‘oil’ of spirituality.

The question is are you interested in extracting that ‘oil’, or do you not really care now?

My experience... Don’t wait till ‘ocean view’ to learn, use and share the great values you got.


Frans Captijn
Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com