It is shortly after X-mas. Most of us got presents. And most of us gave presents. Mostly to the same people they got one. Still, sometimes happens what happened to one of my friends lately: she surprisingly got a present from someone; but didn’t have one for the giver. Why does this feel so uncomfortable to us? Why do we automatically assume the giver gave it with the expectation to get something back? Is it something what we somehow internalized by ourselves, even if we don’t want to confess?
This led me to the question ‘what does it mean to truly give’.
For this discovery journey I ask you to step a bit aside and not only think of X-mas presents but also of other things you can give like compliments, love, money,…
Only giving our time or support to secretly get back leads into a state of fear. Fear? Yes, fear of not getting back what we deserve, being exploited or even cheated. How often did you think ‘I gave so much, what do I get back from her?’ or ‘ I took so much time to help them, but they never come when I need something’, or something similar? At any point we start controlling the relationship account: do I get back enough?
When doing this we might feel helpless, angry, jealous or unfulfilled. We fear of not being seen, cared, loved or even of being left alone. Not knowing how to help ourselves we work out our own strategies to handle this situation somehow.
Friends with children told me that kids are excellent in manipulating their parents. I think there is still a bit of that childlike behavior in all of us. If now it isn’t your father or mother it is maybe your line manager, your husband or wife, your best friend or a colleague. Do you recognize the patterns you bring up in such situations nowadays from your childhood? Be honest with yourself…
In the beginning our strategy might be trying to give more with the intention to get back what we want.
In some cases we are successfull with that – at least for the time being. But in others we are not getting back what we think we deserve from others. We crouch, we become smaller and close our hearts to the world in fear of disappointment without digging deeper if the emptiness we sense can be filled by someone else at all. Out of that state we can’t truly give. People who fear cannot give sincerely. It seems we overdid in learning not to be exploited. So how do we get out of this downward and closing spiral?
When I was traveling during my sabbatical, I got presents from many people I met. Not everywhere and not from everyone, but always in the poor countries and nearly every time it were people who didn’t seem to be rich according to our western standards. It were small things, not big ones. Mostly a memory of the places we were or things that were handy. As it comes as traveler I mostly couldn’t give back anything although I thought I should also give something back. But – and I thought about it deeply – I am sure they never expected to get anything back. It made them happy to give although they didn’t have much. Seems like I was wrong: they have and can give truly. But more about that in another post.
True giving feels good and is unselfish. It comes from a position of love or sympathy not of expectation.
But of course we need to have something so that we can give. But what does it mean ‘to have’? What is it that we should ‘have’? Do we need money to give? That would contradict my experience abroad…
Did you ever feel the pleasure to give someone a present and hit the mark? Do you remember the last time? That joy you gave the person with your present but also your own delight about that? For sure you remember…
Turning that around, doesn’t it mean: to lose the fear of scarcity you have to do the opposite of what seems logical in the first moment. Yes, it means instead of clinging desperately to everything, you should ease up, let go and even give away. Trust. Life is not about finding out what you get. It is about discovering what you can give.
So let’s realize what we have and focus on how much we already get. Then we can sincerely give. Then we feel fulfilled. Then we are secure. And feeling secure doesn’t mean to have money or attention or whatever it is for you. It means you know that you can handle your situation, your life without it. Others taking what you give, gives meaning to you and your life. Therefore they earn your gratitude. Your gratitude? Yes, sure.
So…, can you give?
I am sitting in a café opposite a fire department. It is Friday afternoon and the firemen are washing one fire truck after the other with a hose. It is a hot day. A splash of water would be fun, I think. There is a cute little boy with his Dad watching the men washing their trucks. The boy is fascinated and watches every little step they do, laughing and fidgeting around. The firemen – the opposite. They seem not to take any notice of the little boy. Their faces serious. None of them talks. None of them smiles.
Wouldn’t it be fun for everyone to smile a little? To splash a bit of water over to the boy? To say „Hello“ or to wave their hands?
I understand they definitely have a hard job and actually it doesn’t take long until they jump into one of their cars and drive away with siren sound.
But still… It might mean nothing for the firemen; but it probably means a world of memory for the little boy. And I am pretty sure – it would have light-up the day of the firemen as well.
What I want to say is, yes, our lives are meaningful, what we do matters and might not be easy. And yes in all our lifes there are happening some really bad things.
Nevertheless let’s not blur the limits and make everything hard to bear. Let’s more often think back to our childhood days and see the playful part of what we do. Let’s feel more lightness in more situations and that way have more energy to handle the really difficult challenges of life.
Life is just far too important to be taken seriously – and I mean that – serious! 😉
They say, when the journey has come to an end you come back to your old world but with new eyes…
These are my insights of the last months travelling that changed my way to see things.
It is how it is.
This little sentence helped me in so many situations in all countries I visited throughout my whole journey. It stopped me to complain, calmed me down, made me accept the circumstances and helped me to focus on what I can do now.
Expect nothing and be grateful for everything.
We have so many expectations of how something should be like. We draw pictures in our minds and totally forget, it is only our picture. So often I found, things were different to what I thought they would be. And so often I was surprised that ‘different’ can also mean ‘good’ once you free yourself from your imagination and just get involved.
It doesn’t need much to be happy.
I have seen little children singing, dancing and laughing in torn clothing, living in a very simple form of hut, where they surely didn’t have water and probably froze at night. If they can be happy, we can be happy as well. I also asked many people I met along my journey, what happiness means to them – community, sharing, caring for and helping each other were the most important factors for them.
We are all one.
Everyone does one’s best to live a good life. No one is better or worse. Be open and don’t judge others.
Sometimes the best is to sit and take a break.
There are too many things to do – you can’t make it all. Pause. Decide what is really important to you. Then do what you do with full focus and joy.
Life is colorful.
With colors everything is more vivid, easier and just more beautiful
And… whatever you do, do it out of love.
Fear is a bad advisor.
PS: No, I haven’t found out how many miles a rucksack carries – and it is actually easier to write this than to apply everything. But that’s not bad for the beginning.
My journey just continues… 🙂
“We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life”. This is the first sentence of a farewell essay of Marina Keegan a young woman about to graduate at Yale University shortly before her death in a car accident with the age of 22 years.
In these days of social distancing, to show consideration for each other, all of us probably experience a little bit the feeling of loneliness whilst longing for “the opposite of loneliness”.
The consequences of the covid19 virus affect us all – so of course also I stranded at home in Germany, where I came across these lines from Marina Keegan from 2012.
Contrary to her I wouldn’t say there is no word for “the opposite of lonely”. I would rather say there are many words describing “the opposite of lonely” – each touching another aspect. Each expressing a bit of the whole that actually, can’t be described in one word.
Traveling alone has shown me both sides in different shades. And with these experiences I can say, both sides can be beautiful. And both can be ugly. And without getting to know the one side you don’t know the other side.
What I mean is feeling lonely whilst being among others. And vice verca feeling complete without anyone around you. Sometimes one person is all you long for. Another time you enjoy the connection with several people in a community or team. And in turn another time you yourself are enough.
A bit further in her essay, Marina also describes one aspect of this missing word as “It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team.” And later as “These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights (…)”.
I think these days are even a form of being lonely together that is kind of new to most or even all of us. Many families and couples come as close as they didn’t for long time. Others might find out how lonely it can feel to be at home – alone or together.
To feel happy scientists found out that relationships – in all forms – are key. Surprisingly statistics show that singles are less feeling lonely than ones living as partners, as they often care more for relationships like friends or are socially more active.
When I go out for a walk lately, I feel the respect and acknowledgement for one another. That impresses me a lot. From time to time there is even a smile from a stranger passing by showing me, we are all going through the same things, more or less. I hope that one thing we gain out of this situation we are facing at the moment, is deep gratefulness for the feeling of loneliness as well as for the feeling of its opposite, whatever it means for you in this moment, likewise. To be happy I think we need both. Was I before this, from time to time longing for some quiet lone time, I am now dreaming of meeting friends. So when this is over please let’s meet and not postpone it to tomorrow or next week or so. Because who knows when the next chance is coming to see and laugh together…
As I was traveling on my own for some months, let me give you one advice: don’t travel alone.
Because when you travel alone, you will arrive at some foreign places, feeling tired and alone, not knowing anyone around, having to ask for help and being surprised how kind strangers can be.
Because when you travel alone, you might face some problems with your bank account, your credit card or the ATM and find out there are friends, old and new ones, on which you can count.
Because when you travel alone, you will have to talk to strangers, get to know them and find out they know something you don’t.
Because when you travel alone, you will have no one to complain about the cold water for a shower or the steep mountains. Maybe you will learn that it works better without it and would rather laugh at it with new friends.
Because when you travel alone, you will have some weird experiences, like ending locked-up in a hotel, finding some crazy enough people that help you getting out.
Because when you travel alone, you might have to say good-bye to some kind souls that invited you to their home.
Because when you travel alone, you are never alone.
Text inspired by Hannah Wei
After the first three months of traveling around I wonder: what will remain of all of this afterwards? Will it have some meaning to me – even in some years? Will it make a difference?
To be honest: I don’t know, yet. Who knows what will be important to me, to us in some years.
But let me share some second thoughts.
What are the things that make me the happiest on my travels? What are the things that make me ponder? That make my travels meaningful to me?
They are the small encounters with people I meet along the way. The exchange of honest thoughts and views about life. With good intentions for one another. Without any second thoughts, comparison with each other or envy. The things that make the difference to me are the small connections which occur.
It is not to being in the trendiest place or doing the most adventurous, most thrilling things. Anyway there is always someone who is doing something fancier than you.
From time to time of course I also make myself hard times to decide which country to travel best or what other people might think. In these moments it helps me to not take myself too serious. To zoom out, away from the problem, which is viewed from another perspective anyway so often only a luxury problem. Zoom out, high above the clouds – make a molehill out of the mountain. And not the other way round.
Thanks to the people in my life that remind me of this from time to time…
One day at Jambiani Beach I got-up very early in the morning, went out in the dark to the seaside and waited for the sun rising over the ocean. Except for some fishermen and very few early risers I was the only one at the beach, being able to enjoy the sunrise in total stillness. When the sun came up behind some clouds and diving the horizon into this warm yellow and orange, reddish tone it was just amazing. A unique and steadily changing interplay of the colors of the sun, the water as well as the shapes of the clouds and those fishermen going to their boat… Do you know that feeling when you want to stop the march of time? When you just want to stay forever in a great moment of yours? Keeping the feeling of it forever and ever?
Something like that I felt this morning at the beach.
But firstly the sunrise is over faster than we assume and never comes back in exact that way and with that feelings and thoughts like this very morning; Secondly there comes the time we have to leave this moment behind and let it go to be open for the next one.
At first glance it seems to be a pitty not being able to keep those experiences, to repeat them as often as we like to or to pull them out later whenever we want to.
But there is not even one single moment in our life – good and beautiful or hard and unbearable – we can repeat. And I think that this one-time character makes moments, experiences and even life just to what it is – unique and beautiful.
Is the experience of this beautiful moment lost forever? If you ask me – No, for me definitely not. It has just changed its form. It stays with us as long as we want to as a beautiful memory which we can revive in our minds whenever we want to.
Accepting and understanding this natural cycle of change and decay, which is omnipresent in nature, helps me a lot to take the plunge of life. Isn’t it also very calming to know that nothing will ever be lost and always continuing in different forms?And vice versa… that things will never stay the same but transform in maybe something useful in the future? Just, like today’s moments are tomorrow’s memories….
“Jambiani Beach? Oh, Jambiani Beach is the worst beach here…” says Thani, my driver in Zanzibar, while approaching Jambiani Beach – my home for the next days.
Coming from Kiwengwa Beach, which was just the most perfect dream beach I have ever seen, this message made me a bit insecure about my choice.
When Jambiani Beach is in sight, I actually have to admit that it isn’t the perfect postcard-like beach. But while walking along the ocean for some time I start somehow to like it: the sound of the waves, the fine white sand, the endless stillness… I even like that beach more than any of the other apparently perfect ones before. I liked it for what it is: emerald blue water and finest white sand – both with black and green seaweed spots, as well as water coming and going with ebb and flow. This place gives me the feeling to be safe, to have arrived, to be satisfied.
How that?
Most of us strive to be better, prettier, richer, stronger,thinner, … Probably because we assume that when we are, we will be more liked and loved by others… or even by ourselves? Whereas showing vulnerability is often considered as weakness, failure or something bad, we better hide to stay lovable.
Do you remember the last new thing you have tried to learn? Wasn’t it fun, making mistakes and then succeeding after trying it again and again? Wouldn’t it have been boring doing it perfectly right at the first time? You probably wouldn’t have stayed with it for long.
Having the courage to be our authentic selves, meaning saying and doing what we really think no matter what our counterpart thinks, because we have accepted who we are and maybe even like it, creates somehow a space where others can feel safe to be theirselves too.
It is our imperfections that make us unique and lovable. So just be you – like Jambiani Beach is just Jambiani Beach.
Vor Kurzem hat mich meine Reise nach Kathmandu in Nepal geführt. Ich kam Mitten in der Nacht an. Die Straßen waren leer und verlassen, es war kalt und ungemütlich. Ich weiß noch wie ich dachte: “Ohje, wo bin ich da gelandet…”. Dennoch wollte ich der Stadt am nächsten Tag eine Chance geben – zum Glück.
Schon am nächsten Morgen während ich durch die Gassen lief, habe ich mich in die Stadt verliebt – wenn man das bei einer doch so dreckigen Stadt wie Kathmandu so nennen kann.
Kathmandu ist chaotisch, verrückt, geprägt vom geschäftigen Treiben der Straßenverkäufer, laut vom ständigen Hupen vorbeifahrender Autos und Motorräder sowie vom Lachen und Schnattern der Menschen, die sich zwischen den Autos und Kutschen durch die Gassen drängen. Es ist staubig und dreckig und stinkt nach Abgasen. Wie kann man diese Stadt also mögen? Genau deshalb.
Genau deshalb? Ja, richtig. Deshalb und natürlich auch wegen der offenen und willkommen heißenden Art der Nepalesen und der bunten Farben überall. Aber vor allem “genau deshalb”.
Denn genau dieses scheinbar keiner Ordnung gehorchende Gewusel, das bunte Treiben und das Durcheiander dieser Stadt, genau das macht diesen Ort so wahnsinnig lebendig, so pulsierend und echt.
Vielleicht ist das auch das, was die Sinnsuchenden hier eigentlich Finden: das Erlebnis sich lebendig zu fühlen, so in den Moment einzutauchen, dass man nicht an Gestern oder Morgen denkt, einfach nur zu genießen, wo man gerade ist und was man gerade tut.
1 Monat, 30 Tage, 300 Stunden: es ist geschafft. Es hat mich viel, nein sehr viel Schweiß gekostet. Es hat mein Durchhaltevermögen auf den Prüfstand gestellt. Ich musste akzeptieren was möglich ist und loslassen was nicht möglich ist. Doch jeden Tag wieder auf meine Yogamatte zu gehen, hat mich schließlich ans Ziel gebracht: ich habe mein Yoga Teacher Training erfolgreich abgeschlossen.
An einigen Tagen fiel es mir schwer zum Yoga zu gehen: Gedanken wie “Wenn ich nur etwas stärker wäre, flexibler oder noch mehr daran arbeiten würde, vielleicht würde ich es dann besser können…”, oder auch die Gedanken beim Blick zur Nachbarmatte… all das hat mich das ein oder andere Mal herausgefordert.
Aber ich bin jeden Tag wieder auf der Matte gestanden, habe immer wieder an meinen Themen gearbeitet und war offen für neue Wege. Denn wer weiß, ob es nicht bereits beim nächsten Versuch schon klappt?
Ebenfalls gelernt habe ich, manche Ziele sind nicht erreichbar und das müssen sie vielleicht auch gar nicht sein. Durchhalten heißt für mich auch, loslassen zu können, sich nicht zu verkrampfen oder an einem bestimmten Punkt zu verbeißen. Oftmals klappt es genau dann am besten: wenn man loslässt, den Spaß an der Sache nicht vergisst. Und auf einmal kann man dann das, woran man schon so lange gearbeitet hat. Das Glücksgefühl so etwas zu schaffen – versprochen – entlohnt die ganzen Mühen.
Wichtig ist es also die Balance zu finden und offen zu bleiben für Möglichkeiten, die sich unterwegs ergeben. Denn ohne Balance fällt man – nicht nur im Yoga sondern auch im Leben.