Adjust? Why not?

It all seems so simple. Living the life that is meant for you. And in essence, it's simple, too. The trick, however, is to see if you are open to no longer thinking one thing is right and another is wrong. Because then very quickly you go from simple to tremendously complicated. I'm trying to explain this whole process a little bit based on a situation I'm in right now.

 

Simplicity is being healthy, that everything in your body is functioning as it should and therefore you experience no limitations when it comes to your physical and mental state of being. Having a healthy body is so valuable. But the remarkable thing is that we often just take it for granted, until something happens that makes it clear that it is not so obvious at all. And then, as a human being, you suddenly have to adapt to a new situation.

 

A practical case
Last Monday I was walking my dog on our evening walk and, just like all the other evenings, I stepped off a wall about half a meter high. This time, however, my foot followed a different route. Because upon coming down, it flipped inward and I fell to the ground. The first thing one does then is look around to see if no one has seen you (why really???) and then the pain comes and one thinks why doesn't anyone see me here and just cycle by? That is the first moment of judgment. Because those people are wrong. You can stop when someone is on the ground, right?

 

Then I hoisted myself up, my dog was also happy to move on because he hadn't passed several more trees and I stumbled home. Adrenaline is then a fantastic hormone that your body releases to you so that you can just accomplish that too, even though the way home then suddenly seems much longer than it otherwise is. Again, my Mind judges that the adrenaline release is right and the long way home is very wrong.

 

Back home the realization dawns that hopping through the house on one foot does cause some discomfort in the foot itself, but also in the mind, because it then goes into a frenzy and tells you that it will probably be over tomorrow, that this is not at all convenient in the situation in which we find ourselves at home, that it is also not at all convenient for the phase in which I find myself with my business and that tomorrow I will have to take the train to a book launch in Eindhoven instead of going by car... Oh yeah, and that this will be over after the cooling of the foot and a night's sleep. So, hey, no whining, just get on with it. Not complaining and being big and tough is right, feeling sorry for yourself and acknowledging that it really hurts a lot is wrong.

 

When, after some insistence, a friend advises me to call the doctor because the emerging swelling on my foot looks very much like a fracture (after I have received a link via the app to a website where all the disadvantages of breaking a foot bone are listed), I realize that it might be wise to do so.

Long story short after that: metatarsal broken from my right foot, entire lower leg in a cast and no straining for the next 7 to 10 days and maybe walking cast after that. And that's it. And then, when you get to that point, when you have surrendered to the situation as it is, then the little miracles happen.

Then the neighbors come and offer to walk the dog for the next few weeks, because they are going for a walk twice a day every day anyway, then family comes to help you with all kinds of chores around the house and ride along with your husband who is getting his chemotherapy treatment, then your children start to help you automatically and you realize that it's all fine. Different, but fine different. Not right or wrong, but just different.

 

A human being is unimaginably capable of adapting to a new situation. The new situation causes things to be different. But if, after you have been briefly made aware again of the value of health and of a well-functioning body, you can look at the new situation without thinking anything of it, then adapting is the most beautiful quality a human being can have.

 

Being yourself means in all circumstances, every situation that arises, to accept that it is there and that you cannot avoid it. That you don't go looking for all kinds of reasons why it shouldn't be that way again and that it's wrong. It's about learning to watch the movie of your life. And that as an actor you have a role that fits the scenes that are happening. Every scene has its own charm. Not right, not wrong, all it is is a moment of transformation. And transformation is another word for life.

 

Oh yes, and work? That's fine, online you only see the top half anyway :-).

 

If you would like to work with me, please check this page, maybe I can do something for you.