Tag Archives: reflection

Balancing life

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Man, will I ever learn to balance my life a little further away from my mental en physical limits? It seems life and everything in it :) is out to test me. There is so much to do, so much to learn, so much to see, I don’t have enough time.
I’ve recently read that mankind, when reaching the age of 50, sort of settles down. They have accepted their shortcoming and don’t take life so serious. I’m already longing to be 50.

But I’m definitely looking forward to visit my little sister in NZ. A month of doing only what I want. Heleen and I are already planning where we want to go. We have booked a camper van, bought a tent, I have bought hiking boots, and we already decided on some points of interest on the southern island.
I just hope I’m able to leave afterwards.

For now; Dennis has cooked a wonderful meal. Hungry!

 

The mystery of the brain stem

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I’ve been going to school now for quite some time now. It’s been almost a school year. Study take time. But I’m enjoying it a lot. Being in a continuous intensive cycle of learning is a nice state to be in. It took some time for me to get used to it, but I’m improving my skills in so many ways.

And sometimes there’s a teacher who really says something you can relate to. Tjeu van den Berk talked to us about the mystery of the brain stem.

I think it’s remarkable that a theologian gets invited by psychosomatic physical therapists to teach them. It’s not so weird if you look at the three considerations he wrote.

  1. We human beings have some basic functions (sleep, eat, sex, breath, drink) that do not occur on a conscience level and function on an autonomous manner
  2. How is it that when a human being is experiencing stress, the basic functions get disrupted? (breath is erratic, you build up muscle tension, your libido goes down) Wouldn’t it be logical to make sure the body would be able to survive a difficult period instead of making it more difficult?
  3. How is it that a lot of major philosophies/world views set these basic functions as essential, whereas western Christianity seems to be a notorious exemption?

I read the book, listened to the man and became richer for it.

Dealing with a theme

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The last few months have been quite busy. Not in a sense of doing things; activities performed. But more the mental processes; the thinking stuff.

Reflections have become a part of my life ever since I started studying physiotherapy. Apparently this study, like so many, make sure students start reflecting upon their skills and attitudes. Never was I told that once the mechanism of self-reflection starts, you’re unable to stop it. Self-reflection has a bad habit of also budding into other things in your life. Even if you explicitly tell it to get lost and stop interfering, because you maybe have other pressing matters on your mind that take priority.

This time around self-reflection made me feel inadequate. An intense fear of being not good enough made me make a mess of my work, restless during studies and resist love. Luckily my friends, colleagues (study and work), family and girlfriend gave me what was needed to come to terms with this fear. Acceptance of being less than perfect.

Only now do I find out that the cruel part about fear of being inadequate is that it makes you unable to change inadequacies. Self reflection is a good thing if it allows you to change, whatever it is you want to change, before demanding another change. So now I have my work cut out for me. Clean up my work, being relaxed during studies and enjoy my relationship. There is one important lesson I seem to be forgetting all the time. Everything I do is perfect for now. When knowledge improves, I will trust myself to change for the better.

Things happening

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Man, my head is about to explode. Too much happening around me. My work has changed for the better, but involves more work, study is a humongous energy eater and a new relationship make for a lot of changes.
Each of these three would make me self reflect. Now I’ve got them all at the same time. The last few weeks I noticed a nettled reaction on my side to things I wouldn’t have bothered about before.

I use visualisations to clarify my thoughts. So I’m seeing a pond with water in it. Now work throws in a stone. The stone causes ripples on the surface of the water. Now study adds a stone and relationship does the same. Soon the ripples become waves and the water slushes over the side. The things I’ve done so far to prevent the water from overflowing are lowering the water (social withdrawal; I’m seeing less friends and less acrobatics) and raising the side of the pond (creating a study plan and structuring my work in a better way).
That did not prevent my beloved threesome from throwing rocks into my pond. I reckon time will make the waves become ripples again and a colleague suggested walking. Through walking the though process goes into an automatic, older part of the brain. This part is more adapt in soothing the waves of my hyper reflectiveness into becoming ripples.
Today I walked in “park Brakkenstein” and it’s botanical garden.

Changing my ways

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Sometimes when you think you’ve resolved an issue, life makes it so that you find out you didn’t. Before PNG I had trouble. Trouble accepting myself and the way I do things. True on many a occasion people tell me I’m not conventional and I like it. But sometimes I don’t. Especially in a working situation when you have a coordinating function.
So what happened before PNG? I found out I do a lot of things on gut feeling and intuition. I can’t remember why or when, but at some point I could not accept me continually doing stuff on the fly. I wanted to be able to self-reflect without other people clarifying my emotions and thoughts, be more structured and plan. This was hard since it did not come naturally and I noticed a resistance within myself. In PNG it didn’t matter that much, because nothing was planned and everything I did was good. Back in the Netherlands I go and find me a nice job and what do you know, I pick something that needs me to be structured, to plan and to be methodical. It did not take long for one of them to give me feedback on my way of working. So this leaves me with a  feeling of incapability. Back in 2004 I’d be standing still and generally feel depressed. Now though I feel strong enough to either make the decision to accept my capabilities and limitations or try to find an acceptable way to improve my strategies. To be continued…

Refugee

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If you ran away from your country for political reasons and try to find refuge in the Netherlands you are not in a happy place. When you get picked up by the police and put in a holding cell for two weeks and you face expulsion you don’t feel well. And that’s provided you have no health issues.
I now have a client who seems to have a physical problem, but it is due to a huge amount of good old fashioned stress. Refugees have basic health care rights in the Netherlands, but no where near enough to actually help them. I find this rather frustrating.

Content

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It would seem like I’m settling in.

I’m enjoying my apartment. A lot of work has been done over the last two months. People have been coming and going to get me new windows. The advantages of double glazing are impressive. Painting has been done. I still find it hard to ask people over thinking it too far away or expecting to be bored when being here. I have to get over that though.
Buying a house in future, if I can get a decent mortgage, is still something I’m considering. With this view though I’m happy.

view

Work seems to be going well. After I found out why I’m always so jittery in the Netherlands. I finishing a coordinator course that will give me an opportunity to, well coordinate care. I’m already doing some tasks so I can get the hang of it. Very satisfying I have to say. It might be another year, before I become the director of OCA though.

Sport kicks ass. Can’t stop talking about acrobatics. But I will.

LIFE IS GREAT!

Hard times

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It’s over. Eva and I dearly like each other, but we don’t have enough of a click to have a relationship. It’s hard on the both of us for different reasons. I’ll explain in more detail if I see you face to face or call you.

I’ll have enough diversion seeing as my new job takes up a lot of my time and a lot of my energy. My work as a physiotherapist is exactly the way I want to do it; work with people in an active setting and use my social skills to give them a push in the right direction. I’ll be doing a practical placement in another center to see how they work and I’ll be starting a two-year course at the end of September. The bachelor course is in Almere, which is far away from where I’m hopefully going to live; Nijmegen. The course is going to be provided by OCA academy, which is our own education institution. Luckily these courses are also recognised by the national Dutch physiotherapy counsel.

Getting a house doesn’t seem to be working out as well. The apartment I looked at today seemed little bigger than my former college dorm. At another apartment I became number 6, so I can only hope that the first 5 won’t take it.

Certainly the samba festival is going to take my mind of things.

Winds of change

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These winds have been blowing for some time now. Ever since I came back from PNG I haven’t had a moment’s rest. Living with mum and dad might look like a lazy time (and it was), but the fact is that I do not have a place to call my own. It makes me restless. It’s time for a place to sit down.

Today I’ll pack up all my clothes and leave my parents house. It has been a great 8 months (jeez, time flies) and stay in Eva’s house for the coming three weeks. Coming Thursday I’ll be checking out a condo in Arnhem. I hope it works out, because I’ll be able to move in at the beginning of September.

And so a busy month will start…