Ga jij er vol voor?
Door de poep rijden, door prikkers heen lopen, door een onbegaanbaar pad met metershoge bebossing heen laveren. Het leven test me hoe diep ik wil gaan. Hoe ver wil ik gaan. Wil ik alles ontdekken? Of hou ik ergens nog wat terug. Ben ik bereid tot het gaatje te gaan? Of haak ik halverwege af.
I want it all! Ik wil het weten. Ik ga net zo lang door totdat ik er ben. Omdat ik ergens weet dat dit mijn weg is. Omdat ik weet dat dit de capaciteiten zijn die ik klaarblijkelijk nodig heb. En waarvoor? Ik weet het niet. Gevoelsmatig staat er iets te gebeuren in de toekomst waarvoor we worden klaargestoomd. Voorbij aan onze comfort-zones, voorbij aan ‘being small’, alsof het leven ons vraagt volledig verantwoordelijkheid te nemen voor wie we zijn en de potentie die we in ons dragen.
En zo loop ik tijdens m’n verblijf in India op blote voeten, over vieze wegen, kokende asfalten en stenige paden. Ik besef me dat het de metafoor is voor mijn beweging in het leven; ik stap er vol in. Ook als het me pijnigt, beangstigd en voorziet van de nodige weerstand. Omdat ik weet dat dit de enige weg is. Je kunt er omheen. Je kunt er van weg. Maar uiteindelijk haalt het leven je in en krijg je waarvoor je hebt getekend. Dus daarom liever, direct springen in het diepe en weten dat het leven me ondersteunt.
Het is weerstand trainen. Maximaal. Leren zijn met onprettigheden. Ervoor gaan zitten, je openen en erdoorheen ademen. Dat is in mijn optiek de weg naar vrijheid. Zolang we blijven weglopen voor bedreigingen, onwenselijke gevoelens en weerstand, leven we altijd in angst. Leven we in plaats van in potentie, in zwakte. Ontdekken we in plaats van onze kracht, onze ontoereikendheid. Een staat van zijn die niemand gelukkig maakt. De staat van afhankelijkheid, altijd ergens omheen gaan met daarbij de wetenschap dat je altijd op de vlucht bent.
En het is mogelijk. Wij als mens zijn gemaakt om onze grootste angsten te overwinnen. In dit leven hebben we alle capaciteiten gekregen om deze, als kolossaal-aanvoelende-obstakels, te overwinnen. Alles begint bij het weer leren voelen. Dat is de enige manier om gevoelens en angsten te releasen. En het hoeft niet allemaal ineens. Het kan beetje bij beetje. Steeds een stukje voelen. En als je weer opnieuw met je emoties leert omgaan, ga je merken dat je hier meer controle over hebt dan je denkt. Dat je zelf je momenten kunt nemen om te voelen. Door bijvoorbeeld meditatie of yoga. Weer opnieuw leren communiceren met je systeem en ervaren hoe ze werkt. Na honderden jaren van emotie-loosheid is het een voorrecht om in onze generatie deze van creatie doordrenkte levensader weer aan te slingeren.
Combining ZEN Resorts and Sustainocracy
The Indian owner and global societal entrepreneur Dr. Mahendra Shah openly commits to work together with us by combining the best practice of his ZEN Resorts (healing and herb centers) in Bali with our Sustainocracy (core values driven democracy) in Brabant (the Netherlands) or our Global Health Deal of innovative awareness and health driven cocreation. This is what Dr. Shah writes:
I completely agree with the notion sustainocracy as it integrates sustainability of human beings with Democracy (Participatory positive (sustainable) interactions and actions amongst all members of the community-society as well as living in harmony and sustainably with nature.
Today the greatest local, national, regional and global 21st century challenge comprises human health and the pollution-degradation-destruction of nature. Both these aspects are critical consequences due the escalating adoption of modern lifestyles around the world. Modern lifestyles are often characterized by (1) deficient food consumption – nutritionally inadequate, food contamination and eating “on the go”; (2) little time for exercise i.e. balanced physical, psychological and spiritual exercises; (3) Stress at work often in a highly competitive, and uncaring environment focussed on meeting deadline after deadline (4) Stress at home and the family; (5) living in ever more polluted environment. These five factor cocktail is resulting in the increasing burden of ailments and diseases of modern lifestyles such as headaches, backache, blood pressure, mental stress, diabetes etc, for all of which modern medicine prescribes drugs including pills, insulin etc just to maintain health with little hope of curing.
The fundamental challenge is how to make a human being sustainable such that he or she interacts with other human beings enhancing their sustainability and also lives in nature responsibly, ensuring a sustainable environment. Democracy is at the core of sustainable relationships between all members of the community and society
For over four decades the world community has met at countless conferences and summits just formulating and endorsing agenda after agenda for sustainable development (recall 1972 Stockholm, 1992 Rio, 2002 Johannesburg etc) and so often without commitment of actions and resources for implementation. We should learn from the mushrooming technology driven silicon valleys, now in almost every urban center around the world. Let us create sustainability valleys bringing together the doers and practitioners of sustainable development and sustainable healthy human beings.
We need to establish sustainocracy centers in every viable urban and regional setting around the world to enhance sustainable development, sustainable human health and real participatory democracies. We have had a decade of experience at Zen resort Bali helping guests from around the world to experience sustainable lifestyles and adopt health eating, exercise, thinking and living in harmony with each other and with nature.
Thus I am ready and committed to partner and work with you with you towards a “combination of Zen resorts and Sustainocratic regional resilience processes could well be the highly desired evolutionary process for all cities to follow”, including three well documented operational examples, one in Bali, one in India and one in the Netherlands
Whilst it may appear difficult to convince the congregation of the Gemert castle, and also in the case of many such properties of the Vatican, that such entities, initially created for the spiritual, moral and ethical religious welfare of the community, need to be utilized and transformed in the 21st century to meet the emerging challenges of human and natures health and sustainability. There can be no better legacy for the congregation and the Vatican then seeing their historical properties utilized to enhance human health and education towards sustainable living. Governments also have a role to support such initiatives with policy and resources as in the long run a healthy society reduces the burdens of healthcare, which are escalating in this era of modern lifestyles. Such properties were created for genuine societal wellbeing and they should not become only an instrument of economic gain.
Yes let us partner up as consortium that has its own ideology (Wellness Continuum, https://marktleiderschap.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/whitepaper-wellness-continuum/), methods (Zen resorts and Sustainocratic healing of regional communities) and mobilize funding and implement.
Who is Dr. Mahendra Shah? You can read an interview with him here in the Unsubscribe Magazine ZenResort&DrShah UNSUBSCRIBEMAGAZINE.COM BERLIN Dec2016
Social inclusion
When our AiREAS POP research revealed that our exposure to air pollution was related for 50% to our selves, lifestyle became important also for us citizens. The other 50% was due to the political economic structures that feed our lifestyle. So when we address our lifestyle we address pollution, undesired illnesses, expansion of health care costs, wellness in general and even politics. This is a mayor revelation. We used to pinpoint to governance, now we can pinpoint to ourselves. In fact, our reality is what we percieve and make of it. Perception and make ability of change is an interesting concept worth exploring. Making visible the invisible is an aspect of AiREAS that goes beyond simple measurement of air pollution. We try to visualize the effects of behavioral change on our health and quality of life.
That’s how we arrived at creating COS3I. The S and 3 make a heart shape which refers to the passion of wellness driven cocreation. The COS3I word stands for Cooperative in Social Inclusion, Integration and Innovation, hence the 3i.
But social inclusion in what? In our STIR case we decided to invite people into our core human values as defined in Sustainocracy. Rather than moralizing about air pollution and our own responsibility we wanted to get social inclusion into care for health and our opportunities. This represents a total turn around for people’s thinking, transforming from structural dependence to self leadership, through awareness and engagement.
But people do not relate to stuff they do not see. A new dimension is therefor added to our human interaction. It is one of the positive enquiry, the positive invitation. the engagement to genuin values. When we started doing this all kinds of circles of common interests started to appear. Each could be related itself to social inclusion but also used to engage other citizens.
Each of these circles has very passionate people that wish to share their passion with others. We create neighborhood festivals in which we announce workshops and let people experience the circle’s energy with the invitation to engage. Despite the difference in focus the final effect of all circles together is a vibrant neighborhood and powerful wellness driven awareness and mentality. In the end the air quality improves through the social interaction, purpose driven social innovation and positive inclusion.
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 