Andreas Gruber - The Power of Being

Pain can take us to places willpower has only heard of.

Pain

Life is a great teacher, and personally, I regard pain as my foremost teacher. I did not always consider pain to have such a noble role in my life. It came to me mainly in the form of injuries, heart rhythm problems, burn-out-syndromes, and last but not least my upbringing. The cocktail was perfect, containing physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain. A mix that has the power to move us in any direction. Looking back on my life and my choices, it sometimes seemed as if I regarded my pains as wild horses that needed taming. And I just needed to jump up on the back of that wild horse, vaguely knowing that others before me had succeeded with this kind of venture.

Since I don't have enough willpower to achieve what needs to be done, I'd better use other recourses I have. My mind wanted to go in a certain direction, but my pain taught me to understand the language of my soul and took me in the other direction. All this gave me the power to stand up for what I would not have had the courage to do otherwise.

We leave conventional thinking when we are faced with severe hardship, pain, and death.And that may not be bad at all.

Reading this book, it may dawn on you that you need to have a proper look for yourself. To look at the games, we are playing collectively, and where we are fooling ourselves individually. My intention is to inspire you to reflect, to perceive, to feel, to have a clear mind and last but not least to take the steps that are right for you. The very steps only YOU can take, after having reflected on your life. It's a matter of commitment, courage, and awareness. And that awareness is more than having a look on the outside.

You already have many obligations and I don't want to add any to that pile. Nevertheless, this journey may take you to places you wanted to go, with an energy you didn't realize you had.

When the oil billionaire John D. Rockefellerturned 60, he made up his mind that he wanted to live until 100. He decided to live according to the following principles, from then onwards:

1 Never lose interest in life or the world.

2 Eat sparingly and at regular hours.

3 Get plenty of sleep.

4 Take plenty of exercise, but not too much.

5 Never allow yourself to become annoyed.

6 Set a daily schedule and stick to it.

7 Get a lot of sunlight.

8 Drink as much milk as will agree with you.

9 Obey your doctor and consult him often.

10 Don't overdo things.

(Source: http://www.bizmag.co.za/)

Rockefeller made it to his 97th year. However, his list may not be the right one for you. Making your very own may be better for you. It doesn't matter if you just want to live your life fully now, without physical impediments and pain, or if you strive for a certain age. Rockefeller took this decision when he turned sixty. However, I'd say that most of us realize much earlier, that the body we live in, will not stay fit automatically. Especially if we live the hectic lifestyle that is so common these days. Let's face it; your ideals will go down the drain rather quickly if you don't feel well in your body.

“ Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body.”

Juvenal

This would be my personal list for reaching a high age and living effortlessly in my body right now:

1 Eat sparingly and preferably less processed.

2 Get regular sleep.

3 Take moderate exercise, like yoga or walking.

4 Be curious about life.

5 Get some fresh air and sunlight every day.

6 Drink half a liter of lukewarm water first thing in the morning.

7 Listen to what your body wants to tell you if you experience pain.

8 Enjoy the company of inspired people as often as possible.

What does your list look like? Don't do this as an exercise. Do it for yourself! Be clear, reflect on what it is you strive for.

Since our mind is so connected to the body, our mood is bound to follow. If our body feels great, our attitude tends to be fine, but if our body aches, we can’t easily separate that pain from our mind, because we are habituated like that. But it doesn't have to be that way. Not only does physical pain hurt, but the emotional pain does too. The emotional pain tends to get stored in different places throughout our body. Pain is pain, and yet the source can be very different.

How pain became my teacher

I had severe accidents as a child; but one, in particular, would change my life dramatically. My father and grandmother went up to the attic to search for some stuff. My two sisters and I came along, I was five at the time. While my dad and grandmother were busy, we chased around among the boxes. I overlooked the hole in the floor where the ladder was attached. So I went flying. When my father looked down at my lifeless body lying one floor down, he thought I was dead. They carried me to a bed and waited until I woke up. And that was it. I was never taken to hospital, although I clearly had pain. Surprisingly, nobody ever asked me about it. I learned to endure pain and never to complain. Due to that pain, I developed a rather tense way of walking and moving. From that day onward I could hardly stretch to reach my feet. And later I barely made it to tie my shoelaces. I was always in pain. Ten years later the situation got so bad that I was not able to get out of my bed for three days. My legs wouldn't move. When I came back to school, I went to see the school nurse. She sent me to a specialist at the university clinic, and they claimed that they had never seen anything like that, in a teenager of this age. When the report arrived at our school, the nurse informed me that I need to get in touch with a career consultant because I'd better prepare for life in a wheelchair. They recommended me to choose a suitable career path. I had experienced a multiple spinal injury, and I realized that Damocles´ sword was hanging over my head. I got so used to the pain level that I would only mention my pain when it reached excruciating levels. Other than changing career path and pain killers that I never took, I cannot recall any advice or remedy from doctors or the school nurse.

My personal view and learnings on pain

The first thing I would always recommend is to go and see a doctor and a specialist. The doctor gives you an examination, and the specialist will hopefully be able to give you a good picture of the specific situation. With the equipment available today, there are good chances that you'll get a proper diagnosis.

The problem with diagnosing is that we tend to identify with that condition or disease while we need to let it go in the long run. If our mind gets stuck on the idea of having this or that, we will have a hard time to overcoming that state. Therefore we need to diagnose while paying attention to that particular tendency of our mind.

My spinal injury needed time to heal of course, but since I was not aware of any danger other than constant pain, I did not take any precautions for the first ten years. Later on, the prediction of spending my life in a wheelchair urged me, to start exercising my body intensely but intuitively. I learned to listen to the signals from within. I managed to stay out of that wheelchair by working out like an athlete. The muscles kept my body in shape like a corset. I finished college, got a job, got married, raised three kids and got divorced. By the time, I was forty I thought I was finally approaching the wheelchair after all. My second wife did yoga, and I figured this might help, so I gave it a try. Again I did it intuitively and worked with my pain. However with yoga, I was confronted with my pain more directly than ever before. I did two hours per day at first, gently and slowly. At the end of the session, it took me more than ten minutes to stand up straight again, due to the pain. I combined stretching, breathing, and holding. When I came to the painful spots, I would intuitively breathe into that space, as if I wanted to conquer it back for myself. After less than a month, my pain had almost disappeared completely. Only on occasions would I experience moderate pain. I went on practicing yoga intensely for four years. At the time, I was working more than 60 hours per week, but I felt this needed to be done. I managed to combine it with my job, often doing my practice in hotel rooms while on business trips. These days, I only do yoga occasionally but found another way to stay in perfect shape with only 15 minutes of exercise per day, (see Chapter 37). I kept in touch with different specialists, had further X-rays and scans over the years, but the problem was too complex for them to be able to help. Surgery would only have made sense if my condition would have gotten much worse, that means after becoming paralyzed.