A MISSION TO HELP
Do you like stories? I love them. There are many educational messages to be found in them.
Let’s look at a story about who we can really help and how.
A very bright boy, with an important mission, was born in a village. When he was ten years old, he gathered his nearest and dearest. He told them he was going out into the world. He was going to help people, to save the world. He was going to do something great. That is his mission.
Ten years later, he came back. He said the world is huge. Too big for him. He won’t be able to save it. So he decided to reduce his area of action. He would limit himself to his own continent. He left.
Ten years have passed again. When he came back, he said that even his home continent was too big. So he decided that he would only deal with the people in his own country. And he left.
Ten years later, he came back. He found that the country was big. It has a huge population. It would be best for him to confine himself to the province from which he comes. Happy with his wise decision, he left to fulfil his mission.
Ten years later, he came back to tell us how he was doing. He explained that the size of the landscape was beyond his capacity. He would only work in his hometown.
After ten years, he gathered his loved ones again. He admitted that he did not know whether he would succeed. The number of people in the city is huge, and their problems even greater. He will only work in his own neighbourhood. That way he has more chance to help.
After another ten years, at a meeting with his loved ones he said, that he had seen a lot of the world, met a lot of people and, based on all his experiences, he had found that even a whole city district was too big for him. From now on, he will only help people in his own street. He knows them best, so his chances of fulfilling his mission are better.
Ten years have passed again. His closest loved ones, as many as were still alive, were waiting anxiously to meet him. He confided to them that he had overestimated his powers. He saw that even the street was too much of a burden. He would only help his family.Ten years later, they met again. The now the 90-year-old told them that he had come to a key insight that he wanted to share with them.
I realised that I had made a big mistake. I had deluded myself that I could save the whole world and its people. Now I know I should have started with myself. First, to know and understand myself. To help myself. Then maybe I would be wise and experienced enough to help someone else – my family, my neighbours down the street, the people in my neighbourhood, maybe one of the townspeople…
End of story. A new beginning. A lesson to reflect on. How about us? Do we help ourselves?
(Excerpt from the book “Zdravje in Jaz – Prijatelja” by Nena Veber)
INSTANT POLENTA – INSTANT MEDITATION?
Do you ever cook polenta?
The classic kind that takes 2 hours to cook? Instant in 2-3 minutes?
Do you meditate? Classical way for 1-2 hours? Not at all? And would you if you could relax in less time?
In a couple of minutes? Instant meditation?
I was taught that to meditate, one had to go into “isolation”, to focus on oneself, on one’s feelings, on relaxation. Ideally, we should meditate every day, for an hour or two …
Our reality nowadays is different. We live in an era of fast pace, progress and change, when more and more things in our lives are becoming “instant”: from polenta and bagels, to SMS greetings, to FB friends and relationships. Why not relax?
3 suggestions for instant relaxation
Can you imagine how relaxed you would be if you meditated 5-8 times a day? Ideal.
1. Every time you go to the toilet is your new meditation time.
Imagine that all your tensions, worries, problems are flowing away with all your excrements. As you wash your hands, take a few deep breaths and imagine that the clean water fills you with peace and energy. Take a minute longer than usual and feel how much more relaxed you are after this “mini-ritual” compared to before when you didn’t do it. You will be surprised at how it works, even though it may seem too simple or even ridiculous at first.
2. Make the most of the time when you are waiting (in a bank, at a traffic light, in a queue, on a bus…).
You will see that even in the minute you are waiting, you can do a lot for yourself: feel your body, find out where you are tense. Breathe consciously into that part, imagining that the exhaled air dissolves your shrinking and tiredness. Each new breath fills you with fresh energy, relaxation, calmness.
3. When you come home from work tired, with a head full of problems, it is ideal to go to the shower and change your clothes, imagining that this ritual is a way of breaking the energy of work and entering your own world, where there is peace, where time passes more slowly.
Imagine that the water washes away all the tiredness and the fresh clean water nourishes your body and cells, restores them and calms you. Imagine that water and air bring you everything you need.
Don’t start doing everything at once, less is more! When you are able to calm down in the midst of the noise, stimuli and stress of which you are a part, this will help you reduce stress the fastest.
