Guard your Life Force

 

Guard your Life Force

A few years ago I was struck for six by a combination of socio-economic pressures that are familiar to most men and lay on my back for a while with an opportunity to consider how all of this came to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out, quite by accident, that I could do something about it! The first of great import, was to withdraw from unhealthy company. Although it had nothing to do with me, I noticed that the company of a good book, meditation, peace and quiet does more miracles to the restless soul than much of the unending humoring’s of men and women. While western medication concentrates on managing heart conditions, African medicine is focused on the stomach. These two theories are not unrelated. Indeed, there is a connection between the vagnus nerve and whatever emotional im/balance the body is going through. You may be familiar the term, “gut feeling”. It is something like that. Like your body tells you what is and is not working for you. Well without going into high science let me tell you what else I found out.

Second, lying down to rest is a good thing, but getting up to walk is a healing. Developing the discipline of exercise is a very powerful body relief – after the exercise that is. Before the exercise routine the thought of it is a mountain of unbelief.  If you stay down, you are out for the count. When you get up you can go another round – seriously. It sort of does not make sense, but it is profound. The third is really ridiculously basic; You are what you eat. Believe me, there is food the puts you down and food that picks you up. There is food you should and should not eat. The first thing healers put you on is a food diet. Actually, they first check what you have been eating. I discovered that meat and eggs keep my stomach grounded for hours while vegetables tend to clean things up that are stuck in the gut. You may want to listen to your body and find out what dulls your system and what peps it up. Fourth, impressively, is a good night’s sleep. Some people try to squeeze in a few hours in the day to compensate for the night. But I think there a logic to the assigned continuous nocturnal session. It used to be said that, “early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealth and wise”. The most important word that wistful wisdom left out was SLEEP as a necessity, program and dedicated initiative. Sleep is about reflective calibration, regeneration, regulation and holistic rejuvenation of the whole body life force. Some people like to fight over hours. The truth is, do it enough for you. If you don’t, I guarantee, you will get out of bed with and carry a headache through the day. That will make you more tired and less inspired for the next day. Not because you did not sleep, but because you did not sleep enough. There are many reasons why people don’t sleep. Sort them out. It is too precious an energy source to lose.  

The fifth is how heavy you are. When I say heavy; I mean you could be 70Kg and too heavy and 70Kgs and overweight. There is a measureable relationship between your height and your weigh, though your gym instructor may have different ideas. But keeping an eye on your weight can do you wonders. The trick is to find out what works for you. For example, if you are having trouble carrying your body for a kilometer (this actually happened to me) or walking up a flight of stairs, that may suggest a poor correlation between your bone structure, body fat and muscle content. Amazingly, when I am lighter in weight I feel alert and more energetic than when my weight inches up by one too many kilos. Checking my weight weekly I found out that 71-73kgs works for me. Below that my trousers fall down and my shirts begin to hang, but when my weight gets to 75Kgs, I am wheezing about everything and totally out of sync. While there are weight critics who rant about getting rid of overextended body parts, I think it would be better to sell the benefits of carrying your own weight- then, at least, we all don’t have to look like superman. Sixth, is water. I don’t have much to say about this one, but your body is made up of about a 70-80% water balance. When you mess with that balance you are very likely to have toilet problems. Discipline around water consumption is a great debate. As to whether 6-8 liters, cups or glasses (where people have glasses) per day will give you the benefit of a smooth skin I do not know. But like I said, I personally, do not have anything to say here. I cannot keep a water routine. It is flat, tasteless and boring, unless I am sweating after a workout. So I drink a modest amount of non-poisonous fluid as I can during the day and use the toilet experience as a regulator for control of more or less and timings of my water intake.

Finally, seventh, because it runs through everything said before is; the work, will, purpose and spirituality in its broadest sense – based on the understanding that life is a privilege and not a past time. You notice, I started this essay with the words “combination of socio-economic pressures”. That means resolution of the complexity of addressing these pressures is far from simplistic. In the same vein that the weight you may be carrying is a combination of issues, it is important to go through the process of reflection, identification, isolation and action to address, overcome and eliminate the combinational impact of these pressures takes both time and effort. Rebalancing a life after enduring a career or lengthy season of a unique combination of socio-economic pressures is easier said than done. Not to mention the murkiness of disentangling your life from today’s sexy, manic, rapid results, artificial intelligence solution frames and belief systems like “losing weight in week”, “how to fall sleep enough in seconds”, “how to earn, without working”, “how to get your friends to like you”, “fake it until you make it” – world, is a major confusion in itself! But the real challenge here is regaining control of your life force, self-healing, restoration or body balancing, yin and yang, yoga – or whatever you want to call it. The real lasting change is in consciously managing your lifestyle. That takes personal study, application and consistency over time. A few weeks, months and years of sober application.

Allan Bukusi

Note: the author is not a medical expert and offers an opinion from experiential and social observation only.

Work through the problem

 

Sometimes you have to work through the problem and not try to solve it.

Look down from the Balcony

 

The Balcony

Most people who go to a party enter the hall through the front door and are usher themselves onto the dance floor of chitchat. They hurriedly say hello to old friends, graciously introduce themselves to new and sidestep boring associates with corner of the eye precision as they strategically work their way around the room to the real person they came to see. After that contact has been made, the party either begins or they are free to leave. Very few people take interest or make an effort to go to the balcony. After all there are energy-sapping stairs to negotiate which take energy and time to escalate - not exactly the life of the party! While this happens at parties It is much the same in the office, at workplace and even family where you go to make your connections for the day and then leave. But what really happens in the balcony or gallery? and who goes there?  

Many Leadership consultants, they also call them gurus - a more religious term, have written about the strategic vantage point the balcony provides for business organization and management. From the balcony you can see who comes in and goes out -without them seeing you. From the balcony you can observe the various cliques in the room. You can observe the systematic routine of waiters, cleaners and security personnel engaging their craft with professionalism and poise. From the balcony you can observe the lovers and those who have been forced to come. If you take your time you can tell which stories are being told in the various groups and predict with mint accuracy the collisions, collusions and consequences are going to happen next in various corners of the room within a few minutes. By sending a note to the cooks, the musicians and lighting affects you can actually dictate the mood of all the guests in the room. If you are keen enough you can influence the evening like the conductor or an orchestra or execute the vantage of a military general. For those who have watched spy movies like double Agent 007, Nikita, Luke Skywalker or Black Panther, you will notice that the best place to enter a party is not the front door, but the balcony. The balcony holds the power of intervention, intention and strategic innovation. The most influential negotiations take place there - everyone else is on the menu!

In case you think that the balcony is only for some people and not for others, you are mostly mistaken. With time we all get moved to the balcony at some stage of life and grudgingly or diplomatically take up our place in the house of lords and watch parliamentarians make laws with predictable outcomes with no power to change what may take place. In the balcony we gasp in both awe and horror with a great deal of soothsaying wisdom - some of which we could have used when we were on the dancefloor. But now as a supervisor, manager, father, mother, friend, enemy, relative or retired CEO we must watch the party from the balcony. The power to change things is gone. It is a sort of numbing experience to know that you can do nothing about your own past, wayward offspring, global warming, the atomic bomb, genetic engineering, systematic evil or world war 4, 5 and 6! It is out of your hands. But it certainly need not be a place of dead pan sorrow - DESIDERATA is quite helpful here. The party will go on until you take your place in the sand.

Here are somethings you can do though; when you are at the party, take some time to go check out the balcony. It might make you a better dancer. If you are in the balcony, periodically come down and enjoy the show. Not everyone needs to know what you know. So next time you enter a room scan the balcony. Know that there have been people there before you. You might see their pictures on the wall, but remember too that there are many more who will come after you. Take the words of a wise teacher; enjoy the moment and don’t worry overmuch about tomorrow. I heard the Chinese say, the past is gone, the future is unknown, but the present is a gift! Treasure every moment you get in the hall.

Allan Bukusi

 

Complete the MIssion !!!

 

Complete the Mission !!!

I never got to be a soldier. But maybe that was because I never got a chance to join the army when I had the right age, height and body weight. However, not being a soldier has never deterred me from embarking on missions and setting goals and playing roles as best as I could. In fact, most of my school, personal life and working career has been a series of missions. A mission is about embarking on a quest to accomplish something or achieve some simple result or difficult objective – like mission impossible! A mission is primarily a personal undertaking, but may involve others to a tertiary degree. In other words, "the buck stops with me" as the Americans would say. There are times when I have had to give up a mission, but it never felt good. The only consolation was that I gave my best and therefore I was able to walk away from the field with my head held high and head into the next battle. Life is a mission. Some people say it is a “calling”. Some people give it a funny name like “bucket list”. Guys who want to sound knowledgable talk about "purpose". It is a very fulfilling pursuit, but not everyone is easily drawn to this taxing war. Some people just never set sail – never journey beyond the comfort of the door -  never join the army.

However, as life would have it, there are enough distractors and detractors that are commissioned to ensure you do not pursue your mission; the neighbor next door plays loud music, you would rather relax than study for your exams, and then there is the interesting time consuming new… (fill in the blank) that takes you wandering away from your mission. In the army it is called ‘a walk of love” or AWOL or something like that. In such an event information somehow gets to central command that there is nothing happening on a particular battle front because a solder has gone AWOL. This is when MISSION CONTROL takes over and calls the soldier to order. Hopefully the wayward man, woman, mind, body, soul or spirit is restored with a modest admonition. Sometimes it takes more than that – a court martial. Managers are good at enforcing that, mission control, that is.

Like I said, life is a mission and at times you find yourself wandering around in circles and promising yourself that you will get back in line as soon as you have finished doing “this and that” or when you have completed “one or two things” as they say in some parts of Africa. Unfortunately, all these excuses end up using stray bullets or more accurately wasting bullets and precious other resources. And you don’t want to not complete the mission. So if you are still with me, here are the BIG FOUR; don’t lose focus! say NO a little more often! do the work- stay with the discipline, keep the faith! and ultimately, you must separate yourself to complete the mission!

 Allan Bukusi