Fish can Fly – SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 5

fish can fly - blog post in the SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort series by Chris Remspecher in 2017.SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 5 ”“ fish can fly

Fish can fly!! Imagine you sit totally chillaxed on the veranda after two hours of Ayurveda treatment. The world is good. Out of nowhere, a fish falls from the sky and lands in front of you with a big, fat”™n”™wet SPLAT!!! The near to realtime Big Data analysis of this unstructured data revealed the obvious: the fish did not survive the rough landing.
Since the cosmos sometimes is very funny, it did wait a few seconds more to present his miracle. A bunch of crows were showing up and debating who owns the fish. For a moment they seemed to be unsure, if the fish now belongs to me. A quick check of the poor fish made it clear – definitely for the crows.
Half an hour later, their fast food was still in the entrance area enriching the flavour of pure Indian air. Picked up the phone, pressed #9 and I talked to the guy at the reception:

Guy: ”¦”¦ ??? ”¦. (did not understand) ”¦ how can I help you?
Me: Hello, this is room #201. First of all, this is NO joke! There is a fish on the veranda.
Guy: (WTF)??? A WHAT?
Me: A fish.
Guy: A fish.
Me: Yes, a fish. Some crows dropped it.
Guy: Aaaaaaah! Housekeeping will remove it.
Me: Thank you.

Hey! I warned him, that its no joke. Oh well.

Today I noticed a strange looking mark on my left ankle.

It looked like a mini vampire bite. Or a snake bite (not the drink). My 10-fingers Ayurveda doctor examined it in detail. Brave me asks “is it a snake bite?” Doctor “no, they look different”. And then comes the strange part: Doctor “did you see an ANIMAL?” A what?
Finally I got a detoxicating Ayurveda medicine. So far, I feel OK. Knock, knock, knock. On wood.

Alaa from Kuwait proposed it might have been a tiny dragon. Maybe. It”™s India and coming back from dinner, a crab crossed my path. A crab.

Today I got my slimming water in a pink (?) thermos can. The waiter had this invisible smirk in his face. Hm. Since my diet doctor “proposed” me to drink slimming water, I eat two plates for lunch. And maybe dinner. Ayurveda is about balance, right?

Talking about food – in Ayurveda the general rule for a meal is:

  • 2/4 solid food (potatoes, rice, ”¦)
  • 1/4 fluid food (soup, warm tea, ”¦)
  • 1/4 empty (space, nothing, nada, ”¦)

If you ate too much, like me in the past, you feel like a balloon after the meals. In addition BE with the meal. Look at it, chew slowly. Why? Your stomach has NO idea what you fill in unless you scan your food/ meal. At least half of your eating time.

To help your body system, it would be great if you can implement 3 eating time windows. For example:

  • 6-9am: breakfast
  • 11am-2pm: lunch
  • 6-8pm: dinner

No snacking in between. It was, and still is, hard for me. Depending on what time you get up in the morning, try to finish dinner early like before 8pm. Hi to all the French and Spanish guys! 🙂

So why? Because your stomach needs some time to digest and then needs rest. If you eat too late, digestion and sleep will overlap. Often resulting in low quality sleep. Reminds me of somebody”¦
Let”™s say digestion is done by 10pm, the body can rest, or fast, until 6am. Time to break the fasting with”¦ breakfast! When you wake up, can you immediately hold your best presentation of the year? Maybe not. Same for the stomach. A slow start with, e.g. an oatmeal and an apple would be delightful. Oh, I forgot, start breakfast with a glas of warm water. Yes, I did laugh, too. In the past.

Being tired – SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 4

Being tired picture by Chris Remspecher in India 2016.SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 4 ”“ being tired

Today I was SO tired. My UP-Coach tells me I reached my sleeping goal by 109%! Still, I feel tired. At breakfast, the waiter asked me “How are you, sir?”, I always answer with the truth. People who answer with “all fine” or “thank you, how are you?” are suspicious to me.

Some years ago, a good friend of mine started to answer “all is super great!” and smiled. It was obvious, that it wasn”™t a true smile. He got divorced 12 months later. From later, back to the waiter.

So I told him, how tired I am. Surprisingly he said, he did not sleep well the last two days. He felt tired, too. Good man.
At the Ayurveda center, I am still tired. My cosmic doctor with 11 fingers asks me “how do you feel today?”, you guess the answer. Finally she reveals the explanation “yes, powder massages are very tiring”.

Sometimes, it”™s refreshing when you know WHY you feel so tired.

Did you know the roots of Ayurveda are traced back to the Himalaya where some Aryan dudes came over with horses from”¦ ? I was quite baffled when the guide talked about it. Also, it totally surprised me that he seemed to like a “German connection”, too. His eyes were glowing when he showed us an OLD Grundig pocket radio: “It still works!”
Anil is a great curator, enchanting and his heart beats for Ayurveda. It makes my heart jump when I see such lovely beings 🙂 When in Kerala, make sure to stop by the www.ayurvedamuseum.com. Bring 3 hours of time with you. And remember, only drink bottled water, originally sealed. And your feet will get wet. Or washed.

And there is even another sort of basil. Amazing – I wonder if the Italians are aware of so many different sorts. Will have to ask Massimo.

Finding Happiness – SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 3

Picture by Chris Remspecher in 2016 on the way finding happiness.SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 3 – finding happiness

A rainy day, filled with finding happiness and even more frogs :) In the past, rain has never been my best friend. That changed when I got to know Ala”™aa from Kuwait. She loves rain! Since I send her clouds and rain, oh and snow, videos whenever possible, my perception of rain changed drastically. In Europe we tend to complain when it rains. If you think about it, every plant needs rain and the sun. We breathe in and out. All the time only sun is”¦ well – Kuwait :) Today was a very rainy day and surprisingly, it made at least 3 people happy.

This brings us directly to the Ayurveda center.

Today the information sign had the following message:

“The answer lies within ourselves. If we can”™t find peace and happiness then it”™s not going to come from outside”¦”

Take rain. It made me sad in the past. Rain these days is still wet but makes me smile now. The rain did not change. Experience and knowledge changed my pre-programmed reaction towards rain. How can we change our coding? Let”™s keep it easy and have a look at our routine “Rain”:

Rain {
       mood=okay;

       weather = what_is_the_weather_outside?

       if weather=rain
           then
              mood=sad
           else
              mood=happy
           endif
     }

The trick and problem we have is our bandwidth for mood$. Horrible, desperate, sad, bored, yeah, ok-ish, okey, good, great, supergreat, awesome, terrific, bombastic and YUM! A lot of choices. If you want to sell marmalade don”™t present the customer more than 5 different flavours. If you present more, they will be confused, too much information, and finally the brain will lock-down and start the escape routine – they run away.

A ZEN proposal: can we reduce the code variables for mood$, say down to 3?

sad – smile – happy

Next time it rains, you might still be sad. Around the 3rd time you notice the new code still has a bug. That”™s OK. Our brains need some time to compile the new code. You reached the next level when you suddenly notice yourself watching or standing in the rain and you smile :) When you are happy with your new rain routine, you can move on with the next one on your path finding happiness.

SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort Day 1

SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort picture by Chris Remspecher in 2016.SleepyOne Ayurveda Beach Resort, Day #1.

My Ayurveda doctor has 6 fingers but only on her left hand. When I first saw it, better, when my eyes first saw it, I did not see it. It took my brain some time to find something similar to bring it to my attention. Suddenly a scene from the movie GATTACA popped into my mind. A genetically ”žoptimised“ piano player had 6 fingers but on both of his hands. There were special piano concerts for two hands with 6 fingers. Is she a better doctor with 11 fingers? Why am I here?

Today I was wondering when we stop to ask important questions, why are bananas yellow, why is the sky blue, are red chilies spicier than the green ones, why is the upload of this wifi connection so slow? Today I ate a green banana! And yes, it was 100% ready and super yummy! There are green bananas on earth!

So when and why do we stop?

Why do we settle for mediocre knowledge and TV-wisdom? Guess we, include me, got lazy. No more standing up to switch a TV-channel. If you read this later than 2030”¦ well a TV was something like Youtube. But only with 3 channels. Fixed. In content and time. The future was very predictive, two weeks ahead, no surprises. Is surprise a negative or positive feeling for you”¦ and why?

In the evolution of mankind surprises could mean: a tiger jumps into your cave and eats your BAE for dinner. Not funny, unless you are the tiger. Building fences helped to minimise surprises. Oh! And a gate, we need a great GATE.

Can you see a connection between the evolution of remotes and the rise of fast food? With only 3 channels, the marketing departments would have had a hard time to explain the use of the buttons 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. So we got more TV-channels. When we passed around 30+ channels, the print media got a bit nervous. The TV-future became more and more less predictive. TV-shows and movies on demand changed the way we lived, how we shop and when. The fixed plan to prepare meals got corrupted and et voilà, fast food is here!

Why waste time for cooking? Just plug in something, pizza, chips”¦ even eatable in the dark.

These days, 2016, the remotes – we call them ”žsmart“-phones now – can also display the content. In other words, we eliminated the way from the couch to the TV. Less steps, great! That”™s why we need fitness trackers now to tell us if we reached our goals. Smart.

In an Ayurveda lesson today, a 10-finger doctor spoke about several rules or daily routines. One was about sweating. His point was: people hop from one AC to the next. Automatic climate controlled spaces everywhere. Home, car, work. If you live in Iceland, well, think about something else.

Our skin is like a firewall, or a security system. If we don”™t sweat on a regular basis, daily”¦, we don’t get rid of stinky stuff. Nature designed our temple, the body, very intelligently but we are smart a$$es these days. Maybe that”™s why we don”™t like surprises. The ”ževerything under control“ feeling is much more powerful. I guess, that is why we get some illnesses from time to time. To teach us modesty.

Lessons learned in 2016

Lessons learned in 2016 by Chris Remspecher.

Lessons learned in 2016

My personal keyword for 2016 is: health. So essential and yet so overlooked, underestimated and out of focus in our busy lives. We take it for granted, most times we take little responsibility but feel huge anger when our body gives us signals. How did my Ayurveda chief doctor in India say ”žour bodies are wonderful machines“. Again, all starts with the monkeys in our head.

”žYou are what you think.“ Buddha, Ghandi, your brain, any TV, ”¦

What”™s going on inside your head? Are you the BOSS of your neurons? How do you sleep? Some say, we are all connected. If we talk about the internet, nobody would disagree. And then again, is your consciousness connected to your body signals? Do you notice them AND do you take action according to them?

Maybe you like to work a lot to feel needed. Your body is your greatest supporter and delivers more for less over a real long period. A day filled with 8 hours of work, or 9, 10, well, more is possible, too. At one point, you feel out of balance but that’s a relative feeling. There are a lot of tricky things to make you feel ”žback in the game“. They even work for a little while and your body keeps sending you signals. Off course, you can also ignore the red flashing low fuel sign in your car. Finally, your body will tell you when it needs your immediate attention and pulls in the hard brakes. You know it: ”žoh hello sickness“ or if you are on the professional level ”žoh hello hospital“.

Do we learn from it? Hopefully. For a little while in the aftershock we are super sensible, cautious, enlightened and eat super healthy, treat our body first class, pray and what else is needed to get it back on track. And then, laziness strikes back. No signals, no attention, bring on the champagne and potato chips!

In the last few years, I seen too many good people die way too early. Life is short. And just recently I had to disagree with my best friend in London about ”ževerything is under control“. Nothing is under control. Think about it. We don”™t even know if our galaxy is inside a dream of a squirrel and thats the real reason why the world is going nuts these days!

My lessons learned in 2016?

  • Life is short.
  • Your health is your wealth.
  • Life is a journey, only travel with those, who will catch you in case you fall.
  • Your brain is your world: shit in, shit out.
  • You can”™t buy happiness. Yeah, no real news.
  • Ayurveda is kick-ass science!

If I have useless suggestions for 2017?

  • Get your brain in order. Train it, own it. Re-write your code. Meditate. You create your world.
  • Be crazy. Intelligent. Love your-self.
  • Let all energy suckers go. Yes Steph, also you!
  • No need to save the world. Save your own ass and drag some others with you.
  • Travel. Life is a journey. If physical not possible for you, feed your brain with new nuts.
  • SMILE! 😊

Hope this is somehow useful for you. And thank you to all those lovely souls worldwide who kick my ass to write more on my blog. Bizous!

Namaste Chris

Another day in paradise or why life is so lovely

Another day in paradise picture for the blog post by Chris Remspecher in 2016.Another day in paradise or why life is so lovely

Not everyday feels like another day in paradise. Some start weird, tired, sad or a mixture of all. Recently a workmate died very unexpectedly and way too early. Most of us were shocked, sad or just did not want to believe it.

Right now, it”™s just like he is still on holidays.

Yesterday was his funeral. It was sunny, hot and a bit windy. If you wear a black suit with a tie while standing in the direct sunlight, it”™s like waiting for the overheating alert on your mobile phone. My brain was about to complain not being within acceptable operating temperatures, but thankfully the ZEN switch kicked in and suddenly I was very happy to be alive!

Life is so lovely outside your comfort zone!

Why do we (I) need funerals or serious illnesses to really understand that each day is another day in paradise? When you wake up tired or feel totally like a sleepy one, there are at least two options:

  • hating the day, work, life and every mosquito on the planet
  • modeling a micro grin and being thankful for another day in paradise

Do you remember how many training lessons your brain needed to keep you in balance on a bicycle? Our brain needs our help for a better morning routine! Some ideas of a better foundation for your day:

  1. realize you are awake, breathe in and out, smile
  2. stand up (slowly) and drink a glass of (warm) water
  3. do a short meditation for 1-2 minutes
  4. eat something light like an oatmeal with an apple
  5. surprise somebody with a special smile 🙂

At the end of the day, or your life, all those little things changed us. A smile, a motivating ”žwe will make it!“ or a friendly ”žgood morning“. Thank you!

Speed of Light

Speed of Light picture taken by Chris Remspecher in 2014.Speed of Light

The speed of light is, well, fast. And then again, it still can be way too slow, when you are stuck in the dark.

Recently several people told me, they feel like they wasted too much time or they live in slow motion for years now. What happens when you come from the light into a dark room? It’s dark. Would it be intelligent to immediately run around? Maybe not.

So you stand still. Look around, give your eyes and your-self some time to adjust. Then move. Sometimes, a tiny light is already enough to give you a rough direction. More than often, you meet friendly beings who join your journey at the speed of light. Hey, it’s gonna be alright!

 

Lessons learned in 2013

Picture for lessons learned in 2013. Picture and blog post by Chris Remspecher in 2013.Wow, here we go! Hello 2014, thank you 2013 – what a ride.

So what were the lessons learned in 2013?

  • Relax or die trying.
  • Focus or get lost.
  • Smile, even when no one is watching.
  • Calm your mind or monkeys will be your boss.
  • Hug a friend. And then do it again. Repeat.

Since I lose track of my own lessons learned in 2013 from time to time, I made a desktop wallpaper for you and me. Download the picture in full size (2048 x 1365 px) if you like. I hope it is useful for you, too. Namaste 🙂

Lessons learned in 2013, iPhone iOS7 parallax wallpaper by Chris Remspecher in 2014.

/edit: By public (an my own) request, I made an iPhone iOS7 parallax wallpaper. Yes, looks great on Android, too 😉 Click it for full size and download it for your daily reminder..

Best friends with your mind

Picture of Lama Kelzang.Lucky me, just yesterday I could attend a teaching by Lama Kelzang. “How to train your mind?” and “How to get a good friendship with the mind?” were his initial questions. According to Lama Kelzang, our mind is funny or even interesting. It”™s like a camera, it takes many pictures. Maybe, it”™s even like a CCTV, always active on a subtle level, even in our sleep.

If our mind takes nice pictures, we are in peace. If our mind is overloaded we get crazy and suffer. Craziness or harmony, peace or bullshit; it”™s the mind which picks between suicide or Buddha.

How can we be more stabilized? How do we become best friends with our mind? First, it”™s about compassion. Second, we need wisdom. When we are more balanced, we transform ourselves in a more relaxed person. So how do we get there?

Through formal and informal meditation, we give a full education to our mind. Yes, there are many methods. Think of a potato. You can cook it, make French fries, salad or chips from it. But at the end, it”™s a potato. When you are more relaxed, you have more compassion with you, your surroundings and even with your sickness. Oh and don”™t smile, when you don”™t feel like it!

Compassion is no theory. Remember: “Anger is really painful!” If you transform your angry mind, which is most probably full of fears, into compassion, something can change. “This anger is really important for me right now!” Sounds strange? Maybe, but this can also be a starting point for your journey of compassion, your very own compassion project.

Imagine yourself like a network hub of compassion. The more you open, the more you can send out. “When you are stronger, your lines get stronger!” When we suffer, everybody else suffers; our partner, our friends and family. How can we recharge our compassion battery?

“How many people work for one potato to get it on your plate?” Everybody is contributing a lot. Think like; everybody wants to support you! Everybody? What do you do with the person who throws bad words at you? Ask yourself: what”™s my weak point?

If you manage to remove the borders around you, the more you become like at home. And you relax, when you are home.

Compassion alone is already a fine thing. If you team it up with wisdom, you rock! With wisdom, you have compassion at the right moment which is very effective. “Wisdom we need. And clarity.” Remember: everybody wants to benefit to you. So how do we apply wisdom?

“No judgment, no expectations, no conception.”

Remember the shouting person? After the loud acoustic waves did hit you, go into your room, sit down, relax and say “wow”. Hint from Lama Kelzang; if you can”™t go into “your room”, e.g. at work, go to the toilet and lock the door. Wisdom is knowing clearly. If you are right into an emotional discussion, it”™s very hard to say, who is right or wrong. Remember: “Only you go with YOUR ideas.” Try to give up anything and just see what is happening (at least for a moment).

Here”™s a tiny summary, how to rest your mind:

  • Compassion: Everybody is a supporter for you.
  • Wisdom: Don”™t take them for too real.
  • Network: nothing is separate from me. It”™s a connected network.

“When it”™s all so easy, why do we do it wrong all the time?” The answer is: Habit. Meditation on the one side and everyday life on the other side have to come together. We fail, that”™s normal. If we start with 1% meditation in our everyday life and slowly increase it to 2, 3, 4, 5% – we experience more peace and more harmony. Nobody can steal it!

Why are there so many meditation techniques?” Having only one meditation technique would make us crazy. Imagine: one doctor would have the same patient for 10 hours a day. Crazy! Finally, become a deeper explorer. If meditation techniques 1, 2, 3, 4 did not work, go out and get some fresh air!

Thanks Lama Kelzang. Namaste!

Lessons learned in 2012

ecole by Chris Remspecher.Some say, time is a healer. Maybe time is also a teacher. What did 2012 teach you?

Let me recall some of my lessons learned:

  • Maya apocalypse done. Survived. Another “end of the world” is over. I wonder how much stress it did sell…
  • You can”™t be happy for somebody else. If they decided to be unhappy, which leads to illnesses on the long run, there is nothing you can do. Ok, you can wait. By the way, being unhappy often precedes a long series of decisions. Consciously, or unconsciously.
  • There is a final frontier of what you can give, personally or work wise. It”™s not a point of no return, for some it”™s just the “you are here” point and you have no idea, how you made it to that point. Most probably, your inner light is burned out. Without any light, it gets difficult and often dangerous to see and pick a healthy way to go on. Make sure you have an emergency candle with you”¦
  • There are more people out there, who need a good friend. They don”™t even look like they have a problem. They are just good actors. Listen carefully to what they say and be a good friend. (Reminder: listening, that”™s the thing where you don”™t talk”¦)
  • Travel. Leave your home, switch off the phones and tablets, and give the World Wide Web a break, at least for 2-3 days (I know, I know”¦). Learn new stuff, take photos to remind you for the time, when you can”™t travel anymore. That time will come. Eckhart Tolle would say: “”¦it will come, soon. Twenty, fifty years, that is soon”¦”

On top of all this, visit yourself. Check frequently, how you are doing. You also invest enough money in your car services, right?

Hope this is useful for you. Have a great 2013! Namaste