Reino Gevers's Blog, page 39
June 2, 2017
How important is your health?
Most personal bankruptcies in the United States are directly linked to a health issue. I have seen so many good friends, leaders and experts in their fields hitting a wall with a life-threatening disease in the prime of their lives.
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This doesn’t come overnight. In most cases poor or good health is directly linked to lifestyle choices.
Less than ten per cent of major health issues are triggered by fate such as accidents or hereditary factors.
When asked, most people will tell you their health is very important. Asked what they are doing to stay healthy, the question gets a little more difficult to answer.
The truth is that bad lifestyle habits such as poor nutrition and lack of exercise are seeing diseases such as diabetes, cancer, obesity and mental illnesses such as depression skyrocketing in all of the industrialised countries.
I have myself been on the brink of burnout, overburdened by work demands and relationship issues, so I know what I’m talking about. Poor health doesn’t come overnight. Its a slow degenerative process that sets in when you stop looking after yourself and external demands or distractions start controlling your life.
So, its become my passion, my personal mission to tell people what they can do, to lead a much healthier and happier life.
I firmly believe that it all starts from within. Do you love and respect yourself? What is your self image. Your body will reflect what is going on inside you. Facial expressions and body posture can be telling. What mental and physical clutter are you carrying around with you? How do you deal with stress? Are you following your soul purpose? These are questions that need to be answered before you start a diet and it is the main reason why most weight-reduction and exercise programmes fail.
In the many workshops and trainings I have done with people at all levels in the corporate world, the issue its not the lack of awareness. All of us have heard and read about these things. But there is a huge gap between awareness and taking concrete action. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Why do people avoid action when it comes to the most important aspect in their lives with personal health literally affecting every facet of life.
One reason is that you don’t see the effect of bad lifestyle habits immediately. If I told you that drinking that sugar-laced “energy drink” is a poison that will kill you in the next few hours, you wouldn’t touch it. Toxic foods and negative mental distractions are all around us. Its become a huge challenge of our time to avoid these and to focus our mind on positive thoughts.
To have a healthy body metabolism you need a walk of between five and eight kilometres per day. Most people don’t even manage two in walking from the house to the car and from the car to the office. The compound effect – good or bad is what does it.
I have gleaned and finetuned from my workshops what I believe are the key principles of good health. I have put all this together in a seven-part online course with a clear positive habit forming plan to set you up for a much healthier lifestyle. You can check it out here and watch a free video preview
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
Get my free E-Booklet “Resilience: What makes us strong”.
May 17, 2017
Walking on Edge
[image error] The Camino in Spain has in many respects been a life-changing experience for me. The lessons learned on the pilgrimage are in so many ways an analogy of life. My book “Walking on Edge”, a work of fiction, takes up many autobiographical cues and is dedicated to some of the most amazing people I have met on the Path.
For many centuries Christian pilgrims walked thousands of kilometres from the doorstep of their homes throughout Europe to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, where according to legend lie the remains of one of Jesus apostles St. James. Fear of landing in the fires of hell after death was deeply entrenched in the minds of the people of the Middle Ages. The church at the time promised those folk that they and their families would be cleansed of all sin and have a wonderful afterlife in heaven if they did the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime.
Today hundreds of thousands of people are rediscovering this ancient route as a wonderful way of self discovery and through that deep look inside, finding their own inner spirituality and soul purpose.
In my book I have changed the characters but some of those modern day miracles are based on true experience. Yes, I am convinced that miracles are still happening, if we open our senses and look around us. For me the Camino was not one massive bolt of enlightenment striking on a hill, but the sum of many exceptional experiences over a period of several walks on different paths in Spain and France.
Since the days of my childhood I have agonised over the teachings of religion telling us to believe this or that or to follow this or that teaching. It’s all external. One major lesson I have taken from the Camino is that there is a major difference between religion and personal spiritual experience. In my book the pilgrim Chuck calls it the difference between head and heart mind. The soul path cannot be understood with rational thought and can only be felt with the heart. And, a growing number of people are saying: “Let me go out and seek an answer to why I am here and who I really am.” Through this self-recognition comes what I will call “God recognition” and what is a very personal and individual experience.
Suffering inevitably leads us to go out looking for answers. A lot of people are getting lost and feeling left behind in the digital revolution. In some ways mankind is facing a similar dilemma as the people in the Middle Ages. Its no longer the church that rules over our lives but the information overload of countless distractions polluting our minds with clutter we don’t need.
Ronaldo was one of those pilgrims “walking things off” by going at a pace most others could not keep up with, avoiding all conversation as the emotional clutter gradually released itself, opening up space for new experience.
And it was that space, as Chuck called it “that can then be nourished with inner peace, forgiveness and compassion. You in fact are working on becoming a better human being.”
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
“Walking on Edge – A Pilgrimage to Santiago” available both in Kindle and paperback.
April 27, 2017
Who do you hang around with?
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The famous motivational coach Jim Rohn once said that you are the average of the five people you most hang around with. This can be either good or bad. We set our parameters according to those set by our tribe. Either your tribe pulls you down or pulls you up.
We tend to even have the same dress code, mannerisms, speech patterns, hobbies, views and even eating habits of our tribe.
But as you start to move on to a raised consciousness you will notice that old friends and even close family members feel threatened and will do everything, mostly at a subconscious level, to pull you back to their level with derogatory remarks, negative statements and fear mongering.
We attract exactly those people around us who are similar to us in sharing our views, values, likes and dislikes. If you are a positive person you will attract positive people around you and if you are a negative person you will attract people around you with a negative outlook on life.
Its worth remembering when you decide to move out of the treadmill and to change things in your life. We often stay too long in relationships that have long outlived their purpose. The question that needs to be asked is: Do I feel comfortable, uplifted and energized when I’m in the company of that person? Or do I feel emotionally drained, exhausted and in a bad mood after spending time with him or her?
Who is your main refererence group that influences you on many levels? Every so often it might be necessary to reflect on this. Its not that you want to hurt and exclude some people from your life. But the time might have come just to spend much less time with them and to spend more time with those people who really uplift you.
Reino Gevers – Mentor for Leaders and Achievers – Your Health Matters
Get my free E-Booklet “Resilience: What makes us strong”.
