Did you ever met your private doorkeeper?

At least once a day we take a shower or wash ourselves. We take care of our body. Lots of people join fitness programs on a daily or weekly base or work on and with their physical body to try to keep it healthy. We are more aware of what we eat and so forth.

But what about our mind? We forget that the real ‘computer’ of our body is the mind (and not the heart). What, on a daily base, do you do to take care of your mind? I think lots of people do not know what to answer on this question. And some maybe will say I meditate. And yes at least that’s something but how do you keep free space in the mind?

Our mind is full, most of the time more than full and even overflowing. At a certain moment we want to take a break or a holiday. A one, two or three week period of rest or something else. Most of the time it creates some space and rest but only for a very short time. Being back and going on living the way we did before brings us back on the same track of stress and mental overflow soon again. Disturbing our sleep etc..

Even during our holidays we do not really take time and give attention to a form of mental cleaning. We cannot live without our mobile devices anymore because we are addicted to them. They are more and more related with a lifestyle that support us to fly away from ourselves. Marketing supports us to ‘help’ us to give attention to all kind of things we have to believe they make and or keep us happy and healthy. Quicker and more information. And what we actually do is throwing more and more rubbish in our mental garden called mind. Not strange we get a headache sometimes or are not really connected with our love ones and environment anymore.

Did you ever met your private guard, your personal doorkeeper? We do not even know her/him and if we know do not give attention or listen to this personal guard.

YOU are the only one who can reign your own life. So manage your life. And one of the things in managing your own life is to make use of your private guard. She/he is the one who is in charge of all the information that comes in and goes out of your mind. So switching off, disconnect to connect, actually is not a bad thing. What are the things in your life that are really worthwhile to know and to support your personal well-being and growth?

Do not disturb! Be your personal guard / doorkeeper and make the decision of what comes in. You will see, after making up your room first, - empty and organize your ‘personal backpack’, clean the garden of your mind, letting go of things from the past that do not support you in your grow any longer -, you are able to keep space in your mind. It gives you resilience, freedom to breath, clarity and less stress.

Manage to be less disturbed less. Reduce (get rid of) the unorganized rubbish in your head - make up 'room' - and use your private guard to keep things organized, with space, neat and clean. Nothing wrong with also paying attention and taking care of your brain on a daily base.

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

The value of taking the time for at least once a day enjoying a meal as a family together

For lots of people just a normal fact for lots not at all.

During a Dhamma talk (Buddhist teaching) I was told that according to Thai tradition, even though you might have three meals a day, there should be at least one of those meals when the whole family is together. To be aware of being together, to share thoughts and to learn from each other and from Dhamma (how to live life without suffering) and to be aware of eating. No television, no mobile devices. It is just a common way to truly connect.

It is a way of making your home a receptive and safe habitat.

“Some people claim that they are overburdened with work. However if you consider that the only reason that you spend so much time at work is to be a (or one of the) breadwinner(s) for your family to send your child to day care, to drive in an even more expensive car or a to live in a bigger bigger or even more comfortable house – then think again. If you are left with no time to bring up your children properly and your child gets addicted to heroin because of your negligence, a million dollars or Euro’s would be insufficient to rectify the problem”, the teacher told.   

He went on: “If on the contrary, you can get by while still finding sufficient time to give full attention to your child’s upbringing, then you will be rewarded (and you help the child to reward him/her self) when your child grows up into a virtuous example of a human being.”

Many parents make themselves ill in the rat race earning money for even more luxury and when they have the time to spend their money with their family they still are not even connected together. They still are connected with work because they think the work and the world cannot miss them. People call themselves manager but they cannot even manage their own life in a proper way (as was my own personal discovery years ago about my own life).

Bringing up children means more than just seeing that there is food on their plate, a roof above their head, that they can join all kind of clubs - where you have to organize or to stress-up to bring and pick them up again -, that they have the newest mobile devices (electronic nanny’s) so they can keep themselves busy and will not disturb you. The monk added.

Many parents, when it is too late, discover that they cannot change the past and are disappointed about what went wrong and why they did not see it. Actually at that moment it is a mirror that they didn’t take the ‘trouble’ to bring up the child properly, the monk told us.

The Buddhist teaching is that parents need to instil their children with virtue and to this end, both children and parents should see each other’s’ faces and take the time to deeply connect with each other across the dining table at least once a day. No mobile devices, no television, real personal connection open and willing not to hear each others talk but to understand."

This talk touched me. Thinking about my life in The Netherlands for a long time. Every morning seeing parents in a rush to sometimes literally ‘drop’ their children at day-care. Just before closing time of day care in the same or even more rush because they had to prepare for their personal evening activities, pick them up again.

My parents both were busy and hardworking people but they felt responsible and understood the art of raising a family and that there was time needed to stay connected with that what was going on in their household. So yes, we had at least one meal a day together and had really quality family time as the pictures showed to connect with each other (no mobile phone to see and indeed television switched off). 

And yes, even I got their wonderful example, I made in my early career years exactly the same mistakes as the monk described. Work was my life and to be honest it took its toll. Happy to took really the time for my children to connect with them. Nice when they are here to dive into lots of envelops full of pictures of the past that shows why we still have a strong connection with each other and with living life.

Be aware and take care. Time flies and never comes back again. Disconnect to connect…

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

Our blindness for the destroying of our sensitivity

This week some personal wanderings around our fading away sensitivity in relation to life after reading a book I borrowed from my neighbors.

When you deal with blind people you can discover that they are accustomed to realities we cannot even imagine. Their sensitivity to the world of touch, smell, taste and sound is such, as to make the rest of us seem like boring chunks. We pity persons who have lost their sight but rarely take into account the enrichment that their other senses offer them. It is a misfortune that those riches are ‘bought’ at the heavy price of blindness and it is quite conceivable that we could be as alive and finely attuned to the world as blind people are without the loss of our eyes.

We connect with the outside world with our senses. Watching takes about 70% of our so called ‘sense energy’ so when you close your eyes automatically there is more energy available to raise the sensitivity of the other senses. And with them the awareness and connection with the world around us raises. Tasting, touching, smelling and listening – and even being aware of the energy around you - become more and more a journey of discovering and real connection.

Once we got mobile devices to support us and make things easier for us. Nowadays they seems to be the meaning of life. We cannot live without them anymore. They are not only attachments but became to be the new addiction, a drug.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not against use of ‘social’ media. I use them myself. I feel sad about the addiction, the drug that people need to feel connected but actually to show they are not connected at all anymore.

I know, everything you give attention grows. Walking around in shopping malls, in the city, in restaurants, during the service in our church and, sad to say, also more and more at the health location I live and work, everybody only the greater part of the day seems to be connected with his or her mobile ‘lifeline to the world’.

Lusting eyes, being afraid to miss any experiences of what’s going on, the feeling of being connected, the idea the device gives meaning to our existence.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a famous Vietnamese monk, calls them devises to help us to flee home. To help us to not connect with ourselves. We are afraid of going home. Because we are anxious, feel lonely, we are afraid, in doubt, uncertain, feel lost, jealous, possessive and carry our sorrows and pain. So this is a means we think it is the passport to lasting joy, peace and freedom. Actually destroying the sensitivity of the senses that really connect with people, our environment, with life.

They help us to come into a cycle starting with attraction. From attraction to pleasure, then to attachment, to satisfaction, which finally leads to boredom and frustration. Mixed with the anxieties, the jealousies, the loneliness, the sorrow, the pain, that makes the cycle a roller coaster. And we are not even aware anymore of this.  Our attachment to our digital devises more and more nowadays is a need, a clinging that blunts your sensitivity, a drug that clouds your perception. A sensitivity destroyer.

Awareness caries the key. To strike the destroyer of sensitivity and real connection with life.

See the suffering that this drug is causing you. The ups and downs, the thrills, the anxieties and disappointments, the boredom to which it must inevitably lead. Where is your time to do nothing?

Realize what this drug is cheating you out of, namely the freedom to really connect and enjoy every minute in life.

Understand how, because of your addiction and your programming, you have invested the devise with the beauty and value it simply does not have. What you are so charmed of is in your head, not in your device.

Awareness breaks the spell. So, not even in a playful way, the device is no longer ruler of your life or the meaning of living. Switch it of more often to help, like a blind person does, and keep all your senses sensitive. To connect (and when this is nothing for you then to show respect at least for the cook who prepared your diner).

Maybe strange to say. Let’s say, to make it easy, it’s an addiction. So you will have to deal with withdrawal symptoms for sure. But there is a wonderful gift waiting for you.

You will learn you start to enjoy more and more and finally everything (instead of nothing). You make the great discovery that what you are enjoying on the occasion of each thing and person is something within yourself. The orchestra is within you and you carry it, like the devise, wherever you go. The stories on your device about things and people outside you merely determined what particular melody the orchestra would play. And when there is the awareness that your device – so no one or nothing - has your attention the orchestra will play a music of its own; it needs no outside stimulation.  You now carry in your heart a happiness that nothing outside of you can put there, and nothing can take away.

You suddenly become sensitive to realities whose existence you have never suspected and respect them. Real sympathy and concern for others. Real connection. Not respond from need but from sensitivity.

Be aware of the use of (and start switching off more) your digital supporting equipment. When you call yourself a manager and think about the idea this is not possible ask yourself what manager you are of your life....
Be as alive and finely attuned to the world as blind people are without the loss of your eyes.


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

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com

Music and singing, language that connects with the symphony called life.

“Music is a language that connects”. Music is the red thread through everyone’s life. It gives energy, strength, comfort, joy and cherishes memories of all kinds."

I got the inspiration for the title of this blog by a message from an old friend of mine, Everdien Berendsen, in the Netherlands. She is president of a Dutch music association. This music association had chosen this theme for the New Year's reception of this year.

The title intrigued me to think about it even deeper and some of these thoughts I want to share this week in our blog. Music and in my opinion also singing, language that connects.

Thinking of “language” mainly speaking and writing are plopping up in my mind. When I look deeper, I come to the word communication. A transmitting and receiving so, when open to it, connection. But can you see music as a kind of talking? Is it a language all those notes on staves that you write? Anywhere in the world it's written the same and you can read it wherever you are in the world. It's a kind of worldwide language and thus inviting to connect worldwide. A language that has the possibility to express things that lots of times can not be told.

Music and singing for me are vibrations that can bring something into turmoil. Like spoken language it has to do with frequencies. The frequency of music and singing, out of my experience, is so much more. Sound creates wonders, sound has the energy and possibility to heal. The combination of sounds in music or by using the voice in song (much stronger than speaking) connects with emotion, with feeling. It is not for no reason that Tibetan monks beside chanting also use sound (singing bowls) for meditation. They free the mind and have a healing effect. 
Masaru Emoto, with his water experiments, showed  the enormous influence music, sounds and intentions can have on the molecular structure / crystal structure of water (think about the idea we are about 80% water). So music and singing literally have an influence on our well-being.

Real connection has to do with energy, with emotion. How different as, nowadays, the ‘emotion’ of  gently touching a screen of any supporting mobile device in your right or left hand... 
Fortunately, I know quite a few people who know the art of touching and connecting by music and singing. My former secretary is one of them. She sometimes just is her music instrument (piano) and shares, with heart and soul, her deeply rooted talent with passion. She is also teaching how to play piano. Just last Monday she wrote to me: “For me it’s ongoing incredibly fun to experience how I can learn people (especially children) a new language / environment / emotion which permanently enriched their lives.”. For me this is certainly true. 

Several years ago I attended a course named "Aristotle, music and mastery." Victor Müller and Erik Boers were the inspirational hosts. A combination of discovering the power of the application of philosophy in organizations, and connection and flow through music. I still use experiences and insights from this course in my programs here. One of my beautiful experiences, by singing at work, believe it or not, was simply getting a playful connection again. In Great Britain,  during a fire officers training  it helped to get an even better team spirit and even mayors who joined out of interest spontaneously and with a relaxed smile on the face started to sing again. And what about singing at scouting (or in the army). It's a powerful beat to connect.

Music and singing support energy to flow again. To get the experience you only just have to give room to the art of stopping so you give yourself the opportunity to experience this beauty. And it’s useless to debate about taste, music you like or not, but for 100% there is always to find some music or song that completely resonates with you. 

How simple you can give yourself a wonderful gift. Many thanks to all those people who just share this unique talents and make others happy with it or be supportive in flow or dealing with emotions in the rhythm of life.

Just feel invited to really stop and open your sensations for being touched and connected with music and singing. The road to connection with the symphony of life. Music and singing in fact creates natural space to connect with your inner world and outer world on a much deeper level widening your world. 
And a great Buddhist understanding. Music brings you in connection with the now. You cannot look backwards but are willing to stop clinging to attachments (present tones you hear) and open up for the new tones to come in harmony.

An example? How talent in music and singing can rely. More than enough examples. This one just happened to cross my path this week (Andrea Bocelli - Solomia | Voice Kids 2015). It’s all a matter of being and showing yourself and to share your uniqueness within.

Enjoy what’s called the symphony of LIFE in sincere connection.

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

“I don’t have the time for it!” Ever took the time to give attention to this expression?

Recently, two guests wanted to do a health program of two weeks. They made the choice to only spend 10 days on it. They knew, it was even scientifically proven they told me, the best effects could only be reached doing the program two weeks but ... they did not have time for it because of busy work and life.

The sentence; "I do not have time." stayed in my mind the rest of the day ongoing circling around in my head. What do you actually say?

I have no time for it. I do not have time for it now. I do not yet have time for it. In fact it are all excuses you make in your mind not to do that what you actually want to dot. And of course, it may also be true sometimes you come up with this general apology because you actually do not want to do something at all.

That sentence shows something about your personal choices. My father and mother often told me if I spoke the same sentence; "Then create the time for it." Indeed, there is always time and it is all about where you lay your priorities. Now they would probably complementary say: "If you are a little bit less available on the Internet you will discover you have plenty time for yourself left."

We periodically organize a program "Time is everything" here in Thailand. A wonderful theme to discover. Time is not faster or slower than before. We think we can or should do more with our time. We strive and compete in life because we think it is necessary for the reason that everyone around us does do the same. So we think it is normal and necessary.

Just for fun practice aimlessness for just five minutes, and you will see how happy you are during those five minutes. Maybe you may experience a sense of joy and room to breathe. Not crawl into the countless distractions that you are even carrying on your girdle or in your pocket. Just do nothing. Perhaps as well a sense of disquiet out of a form of anxiety to connect with yourself. In aimlessness, you can explore that you do not lack anything, that you already be what you want to become. So all your striving can come to an end. You may experience a sense of joy and room to breathe.

If you have no time - or not have time yet - to do things that are especially good for you, as working on your holistic health, your long-term happiness, your ‘ME-time” (timeout to make up your balance sheet and to recharge), breathing again, turn around and be proud of yourself of what you already achieved in life, to determine what life for you really is all about, your only goal in life called 'LIVING' (instead of running)... then something is wrong with your priorities in life.

There is more than enough time, even now. It has everything to do with making the right choices (for yourself and that’s not an egoistic thing). In your life there is nothing else to do than to live and fulfil your mission. To share your unique contribution and to make yourself and the world around more happy. There is nothing to attain, nothing to realize, no program, no agenda for life. You do not have to wait for the next signal, shock or wake-up call from your outside world (or maybe even your inside world) to make facts visible what life really is all about.

You want to gain time for yourself right now? Just a fact. An exercise I regularly do about holistic time balance with guests shows that people have time left during the span of a day. Every time a strange discovery. They find out that this is due to time-consuming use of social media and about twenty minutes per hour watching television which marketing steals from them. Maybe a an option to switch off more often.

Stop your general apology and immediately just now take the time for what really matters to you. Do not plan it, as I said already there is no agenda or program, make it your nature. Do not wait too long and certainly not till it will be too late (even though you yourself will not realize that anymore). And thing about that specific moment can be very soon. For sure that’s not a wish but just a statement.

Take your time to LIVE life NOW. Do what you have to do in the understanding there is nothing to attain. 

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

Back to basics. Facing the roots of (un)happiness

One and a half week ago, on a day off, I drove with my motorbike high up into the mountains. Green, clean air and nicer temperatures this time of the year for me. The final part of my nearly two hours trip the road was nearly impassable. I ended up in a small, not known by the tourist-industry, village, parked my bike and walked around greeting and connecting with the villagers my way. And I got connection.

I decided to make use of the possibility to join this village life for a short while and was even offered to be more ‘part of the community’ and dressed to be a - temporary - member. First it looked fun but after it felt much more comfortable. A great experience to connect with the basics of living life. Real connection, no mobile devices, actually this people lived the basic needs of Maslow’s pyramid and felt happy. For me a peaceful energy without any worries, insecurity and stress. It’s hard to describe happiness but for me it was.

On my way back home, passing the centre of the crowdie and full of tourist busy city Chiang Mai, I felt a total different energy.

It took me a while after being back home again to think things that happened to me over. Actually I asked myself the question who is really more happy? What is real happiness all about?

I think we are brainwashed to see and feel as a base unhappy and bound to fail. We are told to invest to find and keep some happiness over and over again. On a daily base we are dealing, not even aware of the distortion this brings in unhappy feelings, with how we are programmed. Beliefs and roots put into us by our parents, ancestors, culture, tradition, religion, society and the ongoing screaming marketing industry. We do not even face it. Open your eyes!

Those believes are false. They are not reality or facts. They are only your reality and facts. Connected for you with fear, guilt, social expectations, ambition, worries and so forth. They block you from being happy in a sustainable way. The biggest disturbances to be happy are our ongoing desires, ‘needs’, and maybe even more our attachments to things and persons. We are always focussing on things we do not have yet and think this things will make us (more) happy. You are not even aware you are standing on top of your happiness. Because of this, and you are not looking down, you do not see.

We are trained to blame ourselves and never blame the way we are programmed. I think most people do not even realized because of this how unhappy they actually are. They discover when it’s too late and are not even able at that time to make a change.

What makes you unhappy is not the world around you or the situation you are in but your thoughts. The whole program arranged for you (not by you) in your head. This program forces you to always want and get more or to change the situation you are in to feel happy. If you do not succeed you feel miserable. But it’s an unrealistic thing to think you can change the world. This is not under your control. Maybe it’s much easier to change yourself and change your believes. Be open and curious to discover the same world in a different way a enlarge your truth.

An attachment isn’t a fact. It is an emotional state of clinging. Believing that without a specific thing or person(s) you cannot be happy. It is a believe, a fantasy in your head, acquired by your programming. If the desire is fulfilled it will bring you a flash of pleasure but also fear (in relation to persons jealousy) to lose it.

In the village community there was not so much to attach or to desire. It was all about family life, a roof above their heads, community support and connection. Very basic needs. I cannot answer my question if they are more happy than me or us. In many respects I think they are. The experience was great and it showed me a wider ‘truth’.

Attachments can and will not survive, Enjoy things and persons in life. Keep your freedom to grow and flourish and respect the same in your friendship or relationship. Refuse the believe that you will not or cannot be happy without them.

The roots of (un)happiness are related to your believes, attachments and clinging…

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

Managing expectations. Do not make a compromise with yourself to please your environment.

For the third time in a period of not even one week I got guests on my path who are suffering about this question; “How to find a compromise with myself to live a life that is in line with the expectations of my parents or my environment?”. Actually this question makes me a little bit sad. So it’s an invitation to share my thoughts about it because for sure many women and men are suffering about the same thing and possibly it will give them some or another insight. Maybe a little bit a longer story than normal but... I hope it's worth reading it.

I am a parent myself, I have parents – and even now they are not physically around me anymore – I want to respect and to honor them for the rest of my life. They offered me life. But does this say I have to make, or my children have to make for themselves, a compromise to make myself happy?

Let’s first trust that parents and your environment out of their best intentions want the best for you. The voices in your head you hear about the thing you are suffering about are actually not your voices. It are the voices of your parents, ancestors, masters in life, friends, relationships, etc.. Voices you only think they express your intuition, your inner wisdom. But they are not. So actually you are having a fight or maybe even a war inside yourself between soul and thought.

You want to live your life and to make the choices in it to explore, to grow, to flourish, in a for you best suitable way. Without even knowing you are trying to find the best way for your soul to fulfill your personal mission. And being already far beyond the time of puberty you face you are still in it. You are rebelling and the child in the soul is giving you the impulses to explore - and actually to be happy - with that and who you really are. But… you do not want to hurt your love ones or people with expectations of you so… When your way does not fit them, you think the best option is to find a compromise.  

Be aware you are always of a different generation than your parents and most of the time also than people in your environment. Be aware culture, pride of family name and maybe even religious background have great impact in the way other generations think about the best way of living life and make it a merit. But life goes on, the world changes and people have to adapt to the ever changing situation called growth (even if you cannot see it as growth yet). There is no way back. Trying to keep everything the same will show to be a lost battle. Actually people who do not want to accept change do not accept growth.

Status and position, I know from my own parents, can be a big deal in the freedom people have to live the life they actually want to live. I think in nearly every culture, I see it around me with children at international schools, for parents it is nice to tell great stories about what their children already reached in life. It’s all of positive stories so the parents can feel proud and show the world around they are proud. And yes, this can be a nice thing. But is does not have to ruin a life to go on with a lot of times a show still called life. Smiling on the picture on social media but actually poor inside.

Status and position have to do with the outside show and do not anymore, if they already did, show real happiness, well-being and living in connection with life and purpose. They are worldly soulless feelings invented by our society and culture to make us productive and controllable. 

A compromise between that what you really want and the expectations of the world around you does not exist. What you do is you are not serving yourself and not serving your parents and/or environment in the best possible way. There is nothing wrong to work on personal well-being and happiness first. It is not an egoistic thing. When you do not take care of yourself in the first place (and this is not in relation to materialistic things) you cannot be there for the world around you for your full 100%.

Parents have to understand that their children are not their children. They come through them but they do not belong to them. They may house their bodies but not their souls (a saying of Khalil Gibran I started to understand and live about six years ago). When you do not start to love yourself in the first place and to make yourself happy, how can you share your energy and how can you ever fulfill that what is the meaning of your life.

Your underlying intention is not to hurt your parents or environment. So making the choice of a compromise does say at the long term you make yourself and your environment sustainable not happy. So you only create more ‘victims’ by not being straight and clear to yourself.

When you are in a transition in life, you are in front of a threshold you have to pass. It’s called; in for a change. Not passing this threshold will hurt you more and more. Sometimes even so much that you become physically sick. Passing this threshold is accepting the change and go with your flow.

You start your personal heroes journey and yes, ‘friends’ and relatives maybe do not understand (yet) your choices. It has to be the respect from them to you to keep the door always open when there is unconditional underlying love. If the door will be closed (for ever or hopefully only for a while) it is a sad decision but still it is their decision and only your choice to live your life. Again, it is not your intention to hurt them.

When people make the choice not to be your friends anymore because of your choices how you want to live life or even do not support you anymore, you can see it as a challenge. First of all try not to hold on for too long time. Accept the emotion but do not start to hurt yourself. Accept it is better to let go because you create space for something new that is already waiting for you (but you just do not see yet).

The second thing, let it be a challenge to proof your way of living life gives not only you but also the world around real happiness out of yourself. Be the example, bring the change, be the change. Share what you have to share because the world is waiting for it (but maybe you are not at the right place yet). At the long run it will make even the people who had other expectations for you in mind happy. Not to please now possibly makes more happy finally.

What is success for you, what is success for the world around you? Happiness.

You are a free living human being with a task to fulfill. Listen to your inner source. Connect with silence. Follow your path. Your life cannot go wrong. There is nothing to manage, nothing to attain, no agenda, only to live. 

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

Trust and respect. Easy job.

Beginning of April I wanted to rest at our poolside to read a book for a couple of hours. I did not succeed. Normally it’s always quiet around the pool with people relaxing during their health programs. This time there were 6 Americans, partners in business (three men and three women) working in the same company on a project. One of them seemed to be the project leader. The other five were team leaders in the same project.

Particularly their speech was loud. In my opinion nobody was listening. It was good to see that when one of the group was telling something, the others were touched by a single word of their speech and started to make up their mind to share their thoughts immediately after the former one stopped it’s talk. Adding or taking away things or bringing in even better thoughts. Unrest and struggle. Not a single dialogue, only debate to find out who was right or maybe even more… the strongest. Trying to find the winner of the game that did not show up the period I stayed at the pool. I walked back home and even there I could hear the loud voices blaring over the water. They stayed, only the six of them, for a longer period. All the other guests left step by step.

The team has to trust and respect me...???
One of the team leaders dropped the theme he did not get any trust and respect from the team members. For him it was a struggle to manage the team this way and he asked his colleagues for counsel and advice. If necessary even to enforce.

After his request a kind of drama worked out. All kind of answers and skills mentioned in management books came up. One solution showed up even better and more suitable than another. And when this solutions should not work it was all about the team members and you had to work on the individual members. A girl named Bianca in his team, for instance, did not show respect or trust to any of the other team leaders in the same organization. They all agreed. This had nothing to do with the team leader itself but with this girl. Better if she should leave the organization. So they started to talk about how to do that the most easiest and cheapest way. A real and meaningful solution – but who am I? - that could help did not show up for me.

Trust and respect? An easy job. It is what you get!

Sometimes you hear the story you have to earn it. I only partly connect with that thought. When this is true, you have to work for it. Trust and respect have nothing to do with that. It is all about the energy people give / send to attract and make them enthusiastic and to lead by example. You have to show your purity in who you are and in what you are doing. It’s not working with a box full of tips and tricks.

You do good and you do not feel concerned, you are concerned and available. With that what’s going on in the project, with the team (well-being and growth) and the surroundings of the project. It is all about the purpose of the overall thing. Everybody need to get a chance to grow by sharing their individual unique contribution. The value is more than the sum of the individual parts. Narcissistic and dominant behavior do not fit in and are killing in that what we call "team spirit". 

Ever thought about the meaning of the word respect? It's build up out of two parts "re" (again) and "spect" (watching, in relation to the ongoing good things a person shows). 

If you have to build up trust, you can ask yourself when trust is 100%. If you can only reach 98% - I do not know actually how to measure – then trust still is 0. Trust is about only 100% or nothing. It is there or it is not there. And if trust in employees or in managers is damaged, or in general a relation is damaged, then there is no trust. There is nothing in between.

This does not say you always have to agree. If the boss, who has and need to be boss (just out of trust), makes another decision than thought or personally wanted this does not say there is a loss in trust. It is about the connection and the explanation (if possible before) about the decision.

You show respect to somebody else. If this respect is sincere, so no show in the game we call networking to get ‘friends’, then three main things are involved. Respect in relation to the other persons wisdom (more than knowledge), his/her compassion and his/her purity in thought and action.

To the group of Americans… good luck with trying to build or maybe even force it the way you suggest… Show your true and pure self in connection to get it. If you do not get it most of the time it has nothing to do with the other team members and maybe not even with you. There is also something that’s called ‘Click’. Trying to force is as already signing your own dismissal. Maybe, to grow again and give you new opportunities, better for you and for the team. 

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

Join the “Purpose Economy”. The harvest? Bigger, durable and much more valuable.

Triggered by a Dutch television program last week I feel inspired to write this week blog. 

End of 2009, at that moment as "Villa-Asia", we started to organize work- and retreat-programs being a catalyst in developing tranquility & insight to get well-being, purpose and new sustainable flow. This to help individuals, couples, groups and organizations to live or work happier, engaged and out of inner (latent) strength. 

By sharing their new energy, in my opinion, they step by step create a happier world and less misery. In Thailand we will go on with our programs. Nowadays I think our approach should totally fit in the “Actions for Happiness” organization methodology.  

The economic crises, in my opinion, for sure brought something good. More and more people and organizations started to discover that 'profit' is more than just only a financial thing. Profit is more and more connected with well-being, purpose, contribution and social significance. Happily an ongoing and spreading theme of and in the new Millennium generation now a days. Finally a new course to sail because the thought of becoming financial richer does not say also becoming happier. Actually it works out to be an old and ridiculous thought.

Think and do different. What is life all about? What is the deeper meaning? What shows your 'underwater profile'? What does the world need? These are all things that are not on the table leaf but are more or less hidden underneath and not always visible. Those things that inspire you from within to serve the world outside.

When you are more engaged with your job, with your uniqueness to contribute, to share and to grow in a natural way, you will feel well more and more. When you build purpose in the things you do it excites, engages, stimulates and connect people because of your unique contribution. Actually you create sustainable social progress. Things start to have real and valuable social impact.

Purpose economy is more and more about the theme; “How to improve our lives together in a more valuable way” (social progress) and not only about how our economy financially is rising or falling.

Sustainable success does not come because of more money, it arises out of happiness. Social significance makes persons and organizations sustainable more valuable. The change from welfare thinking to well-being feeling. Be aware economic prosperity is linked with happiness. Something you do not find in much study-books yet.

Start to make your life and work meaning-ful. What is your life all about? Make the difference as well and join the group who wants to create a more and more beautiful and happier world.

Be a member of the Purpose Economy and make the change.
You are worth is and the world already is waiting for you a long time.

Interested in one of our programs about this subject we periodically organize in Thailand? Click here.

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

Want to feel more comfortable and energetic? Be two times home.

This week I worked with an American couple who for five years lived and worked in Shanghai. Passionate people with a young child. They are in for a transition in life because life and lifestyle do not ‘fit’ them anymore. They go back to an area in America, a small town with a nice small stream in nature, where tourists - most of them American as well - come to breath again and recharge. They did not feel home any longer.

What is this? This “home” feeling?

Actually it is the most easiest thing to create and we are not even aware of it.

The environment you live in, your habitat, without even knowing is an energy giver or energy drainer. Every person has his or her own specific habitat. Colors, use of materials, space, design, light, air, temperature, smell, maybe even arts are elements creating that specific personal habitat.

When you do not have influence on your habitat, as examples your workplace or the waiting room in a hospital, this makes you feel more or less comfortable. And here it starts.

When I talk about myself, for the first time I really felt ‘home’ was when I visited a house (I think I lived there maybe earlier) in Vietnam during one of my travels. At June 12th 2015 I wrote a blog about that.

When you are not comfortable at the place you live or work actually it can and will make you sick. And, forget about your general excuses, it is easier than you think to make a change or shift in that environment. It is just bringing in some elements (maybe even a change of the color of the light-bulbs from white into warm white light for instance) that creates an atmosphere (energy) that serves you much better so you are more at ease and living in a for you higher energetic environment. And yes, I know, that’s hard to do in a waiting room of a hospital but happy enough you stay there not for too long.

There is another element that needs to be done to feel comfortable. Essentially it is the basic thing in being ‘home’. A pré-home feeling. And most of the time we do not take care of that feeling as well. We always run away because we are afraid to come home.

It is the coming home in and feeling comfortable with ourselves.

Do you feel comfortable with yourself? You are the one who spend 24-hours a day with yourself. Do you know yourself? Do you know that inner silent place within where you feel comfortable?

And again, it is easy to find. There is only one thing that sometimes is a hindrance. To find that place, to find that inner home, we have to face the war that’s going on in ourselves. The war between (heart) feeling and thoughts.

Feeling home with yourself. Think about a vagabond. A vagabond, without having a destination, always reaches a destination. A place to survive and for a while stay safe. When he or she does not trust him/herself, does not feel home with him/herself it is not even possible to survive any longer. Lots of people, luckily, have a vagabond inside.

Do you want to feel more comfortable and energetic (again)? First feel at home with yourself (Possibly meditation can be a helping hand). Connect with yourself, skip desires only created for you in the outside world and make you just temporary happy. You cannot find yourself in the outside world full of show and judgement. Find yourself, be yourself (on the outside ánd on the inside). Do not try to show a different personality at home and at work.

Make your own change. Create your specific comfort zone on the outside and start on the inside.

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