Raw food vegan provided me a life changing experience!
Quite often I receive the question, what changed, explain?
Well, everything changed!
I’ll try to evaporate them all on this blog, now if you wonder how it influence some subjects that you might wonder and that I didn’t cover yet, please ask and reach out, more than welcome!
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On my wedding day I received a wonderful book of the kamasutra. I read it very attentive and it would be the reference for me related to Eastern relationships and intimacy. It had from one side a feeling of unachievable and nevertheless extremely attractive. When I would at some point hear about tantra, I would unconsciously link it to that eastern way of living and assuming it to be something similar.
When I changed my food habits, my relationship with intimacy changed completely and my way of experiencing general improvements of 4 senses; feel, see, hear and smell made me review my way of looking to this Eastern tradition. When searching more information about it, I found everything and nothing.
Since my food changing experience made me very open to new experiences, at some point, out of the information I found, Inge and Erik from Rising Heart looked like attracting me in order to further explore this. They propose regularly like exploration evenings, which I thought would be a good way to give it a try and which it definitely was!
It really made me connect with myself in a way, I never experienced before. I discovered simple things, that had such a big impact, that I could not imagine that possible for me. Things that I ignored so hard in my regular life.
One of the very strong experiences, is the staring each other in the eyes for a certain given time.
It provided me such a profound and open connection, something I had rarely experienced before.
Also blindfolded walking around in a room and getting in contact with other humans was an amazing experience. It sets me in front of all my prejudgments and clearly required a let go attitude in order to fully experience and enjoy.
I fell in love with it after that evening and wanted to further experience this. The next formulas proposed by Rising Heart, didn’t really fit in (or I was not willing to make them fit in) my schedule. Basically, because I’m the only one interested in it, my soul mate is not and so, I let tantra a bit on the sideline. It continued to get my attention, now I trusted in it, that I would see more of it, when I would have to see more of it.
Then one day, via Aaah of Julie Du Chemin, I saw a reference to tantra via Didier de Buisseret. When looking for more information around that, I also found AÏON Bruxelles, which turned out to be not so far away for me and really provide me a feeling of loveliness, openness, kindness, playfulness… it looked like everything felt right.
I saw they had a Modulo 1 in order to learn about tantra massage spread over a weekend. It felt like the perfect fit, which it definitely was. During this module 1, I went in such a deep, profound connection with myself, that is so beautiful and that I unfortunately ignored till than in my life. I discovered on these 2 days, so much about myself, met so many lovely people, that if I would have to describe my paradise, that would be it, if not very close!
When they then would propose a modulo 2, I would do everything I could to assist, which I did. I would again learn so much more and had everything I needed to be able to explore with tantra massage myself after these 2 modules. I loved it!
At the end of our journey, some students suggested to stay in contact in order to further progress, practice and exchange. I was still overwhelmed by everything that happened that weekend, that I ignored that signal. I have to say that after a few weeks when all sink in, had to try things a little out, I completely understand why that suggestion was made and felt a bit disappointed about not having reacted to it. Although I managed to apply a lot of things to my personal evolution and in my daily life, everything I learned in terms of tantra massage, would come to a dead end unfortunately for now.
Now, after this experience so far, my view of myself, the world, love, meditation, compassion, unconditional love… changed completely in a very positive way and I’m very grateful for that.
I found that during this contact with tantra so far, a lot of gifts are provided, with a lot of love to each person on their own journey at their own pace. Gifts to open when it's the right time, and let's say they'll open to you, when they have to open up for you.
'Everything you need will come at the perfect time'.
Thank you so much Inge, Erik, Mariane and Michael to do what you do and I look forward to next meetups filled with discoveries!
With spectator, I don't want to say that I just passively observe life, I'm more very mindful living my life and take the spectator position quite often as a very meaningful direction. A direction that I didn't know the existence of before my changing food habits. Maybe something we realize also when we get older?
When a certain annoying thing happened in my life, I did quite often get into resistance to it and trying everything I could to remove it.
Some examples;
when the baby would cry, provide a pacifier fopspeen as soon as possible.
when the dog would bark, get to him and say to keep quiet as soon as possible.
when a bee would come close to me, try to eliminate it so it can certainly not hurt me.
when I would need to park the car and it would surprisingly be a paid parking, I would try everything I could to not have to pay.
when I would see a loved one in pain, not knowing how to re-act, do everything I could to hide myself and make that uncomfortable situation pass by as soon as possible.
...
All kinds of examples that would make life unpleasant and to which I had to re-act immediately to get it back on track like I liked it. That kind of reaction looked like a strong one before, today after my food changing habits I have a different point of view on that.
All those things look today to me like resistance and lack of confidence, which I gained a lot after the food change. By learning to feel, smell, see, observe... much better in connection with nature, some things look today, so obvious, now I didn't see them for the first 35 years of my life.
Today it is very clear to me how much I learn by quietness and observation.
Let's review the previous situations;
when the baby would cry, there is a reason for it, communicate, feel, connect and the answer will be very fast in front of me.
when the dog would bark, there is also a reason for it, communicate, feel, connect also with the dog. In a worst case it just wanted some of your precious time.
when a bee would come close to me, try to observe in how many of the cases the bee actually wants to hurt? Quite often it's just discovering life like I do.
when I would need to park the car and it would surprisingly be a paid parking, accept, move on with life and see what it does to me.
when I would see a loved one in pain, not knowing how to react, tell them how you feel and don’t know how to re-act. And stay just there, present.
In all these above examples I've been very pleased with the result out of quietness and observation.
I could never before imagine that life is so beautiful!
Give it a try, observe and let go, rather than resists and get nervous.
"I am a human being, not a human doing. Don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. If you are what you do, then when you don't...you aren't." - Dr. Wayne Dyer.
I've always been very passionate by the yin and yang sign. I remember as a kid during my skateboard period, we used to draw that sign on pretty much everything. Back then, mainly because it was cool, I had no understanding at all on what it might probably mean.
The basics of men/women, day/night, sun/moon, black/white, dark/light, summer/winter, warm/cold, north/south, left/right, earth/sky... I understood the link, now not much further than that. It is only later on, when I changed my food habits that I realised all that at a deeper level and see that such a duality is in everything in life.
Duality of love/hate, happy/sad, pain/pleasure, rich/poor… were quite obvious when thinking about it. Today, I have more and more the feeling that I need to experience both to really understand one. If I only see one, as a human I don't realise the other.
With that, I mean, that if there would be love everywhere, we would not realise that it is love. It is because that hate exists, that we know what love really is.
Does this mean that there has to be evil in order for angels to exist? A rather scary thought for me. What I realised is that it is not necessary for the duality to be extremely separated from each other.
In these modern days, we are used to sometimes take artificial, unreal and unnatural sensations that are so strong, that it triggers so hard our nerve system, that we tend to get bored by all the rest.
Some extreme examples of this are, a parachute jump, driving 300km/h with a car or a motorbike, a dead experience in a video game... they all trigger us and make us less sensitive for the reality. If we would do some extreme meditation afterwards, the duality would probably be respected. Like there is an old Zen quotation; 'everybody should at least meditate 20 minutes a day, unless you are extremely busy, then you should make it 1 hour.'.
Of course in my day to day life I have no time to take care of that duality and I live only what pleases me. Well then somewhere down the road I have to accept that nature tries to rectify that whether I like it or not.
In my discovery, I realised that there is a lot of natural pleasure that I ignored their existence. I had heard about them, now never experienced something getting close to it.
If I cannot feel the natural ones, I of course go and search for other ones more accessible. Because it is unfortunate, now in the modern life all these artificial, unreal and unnatural sensations are more accessible than the natural ones. The only thing you need to get them, is money. And so my life turns around making money, otherwise I will not be able to have these experiences anymore and I will not be able to live anymore.
I used to live like that, it didn't feel natural, now I had no clue what was wrong.
It is when I started to look after my nutrition, making it as much as possible whole food plant based, that I discovered a world I only imagined in dreams.
I feel, I taste, I love, I experience... all things in a natural duality and there is no need for money in that world, nature provides them for free.
When I discovered this, all the artificial, unreal and unnatural sensations I used to love and crave before, completely went out of disinterest for me and I got fascinated by the natural ones.
I live today very aware of the yin and yang and find easier a balance in my life.
I’m very grateful for that discovery and wish everyone can experience it!
When I was in my early twenties, my sister and brother showed me both their newly set tattoo. I loved it, I have always loved certain tattoos and the idea of getting a tattoo myself, started to grow inside my thoughts as well.
My ego loved the fact of getting a tattoo, since my sister and brother had a good tattoo male artist already, I could go to the same with low risk and I would just need to know what I wanted the artist to tattoo on my body. It should be something serious, with no regret afterwards, since removing afterwards was not an option, that was quite clear.
When I then got a serious motorbike accident, my protection leathers were completely destroyed on my left shoulder and surprisingly my left shoulder had nothing. It was for me a good reason to tattoo a part of my leathers on my left shoulder as a kind of a protection angel.
The first tattoo was a fact. The Dainese logo identical like on my protection leathers with a tribal sun around. The artist refused to colour the logo completely unicolor, so I had to find something for inside. My first thought was the 46 logo of my personal hero of that time, after my Michael Jordan period, Valentino Rossi. I was advised to not take something that was related to a person, since my point of view overtime might change (it didn't, now that I didn't know about almost 20 years ago). Instead, I went for my animation picture hero 'Wile E Coyote' who I found so fascinating, by being the loser and nevertheless the character that makes the series so fun. When I saw Valentino Rossi with a t-shirt from 'Wile E Coyote' my choice was made, that head would come inside the logo.
After that first tattoo, I would find it over time a little small. Tribal tattoos were very popular at that moment, so I asked to extend it with a tribal under the 1st one, so the second tattoo was a fact.
For a long time, for me, that would be the only tattoos I would have for the rest of my life. There was just the 'Wile E Coyote' with which I didn't feel in sync anymore. I would not have minded to have the 23 of Michael Jordan or the 46 of Valentino Rossi on my body today, now what I currently had was not in-line with that. My first idea was unicolor again, now the artist still refused to color the logo completely unicolor.
Yellow 46 overlay would not work and so I came up with a design with the first letter of each of my kids (2) which was feasible. So after what could be seen as my 3rd tattoo, I looked like set for life and no other tattoos would be set on my body.
That was without taking my food changing habits into account. I discovered so many great things that I wanted some of them to give a space on my body and a next evolution of tattoos would be a fact almost 15 years later.
The 4th one was my discovery that my life is mine and that it is my choice to be happy. So I drew myself a 'Happy' in tribal style, to be slightly compatible with the tattoos from my previous life.
For the 5th one, I found the open distance on my arm between the tattoos not acceptable and made a design to fill it up. A link to my soulmate on top, my lucky number 6 which I used to have at school where I quite often was #6 and which would be the number of letters in my name, the one of my soulmate and the one of my 2 children. It's something I only discovered afterwards and made it quite sure there is something special with it. On the bottom I again made a design with the first letter of each of my kids.
When that tattoo was on, it felt like complete, now on the back, I had the same space that annoyed me, so a 6th tattoo was a fact. I would go besides the tribal sun I already had, for the duality of live, the moon of Valentino Rossi, finally. Under that I would set all kinds of words in a font I like that are all resonating with me and a good overview of what I had discovered so far.
I would start writing this blog and discover even more than I would have ever imagined. I made a new drawing reflecting strong further influences on my life and the 6th tattoo was a fact. The duality of life, visualised by the yin yang sign. The beauty of the earth, integrated in the black of the yin yang sign. The tree of life. An Ohm discovered via Yoga and incorporated into the tree of life. Love for the animals and all life on earth, symbolised by a rabbit, a donkey and a duck.
Afterwards, when looking to that last tattoo, I would find it to male dominated. It misses, the female though I have in me as well, which I never really managed to draw myself on all my drawings so far.
So it was time to change the male tattoo artist, which has been the same since my sister and brother's tattoo and opt for female one in order to reflect me completely. A female mandala design would do it, the 7th tattoo was a fact.
I learned about 'Ahimsa' via the book of Mahatma Gandhi, it is something that I want to show to the world in a fine female design, people need to know about this and so the 8th tattoo is a fact.
Is this it? For now everything is on, so yes, this is it. Now I know that I will continue to learn here on earth until my last breath and I'm very open to new experiences that cross my path. So let's say that time will tell if this was the last one.
A few weeks ago, on the vegan summer fest in Gent, I met a guy that was very colorful and stylish dressed. I liked it very much and said that to him. He smiled, and said ‘You have to do it, like you feel it’ you know, don’t be occupied with what others might think'.
I liked it and it summarizes greatly my motto for the tattoos after my food changing habits.
I'm probably part of one of the last generations that grew up without too many screens. Besides TV, movie theater and some little game consoles, there wasn't much around. In terms of activity, these screens were nice, now I still preferred playing outside football, skateboard, bmx, basketball... with friends way more than being behind these screens.
Of course, being with friends together in front of these screens were nice shared moments as well. Then at some point, when I started working, I received my first mobile phone. It sounded like wonderful, I would be reachable all the time.
With that start, these screens have evolved to become very heavily brain stimulators, addictive toys and especially to fill up the empty moments that used to be the moments great ideas would come up. When I see these screens today, it looks like they are so much part of life, that people might panic without them. I’m even very scared for my kids and their possible heavy dependence on screens in the future. It freaks me out when I see people taking a walk with the pram or with the dog, and being on the phone at the same time. Really not a second without it?
I've always been sceptical with technology, I found it great inventions, now if they did not serve me, they would in my eyes not be useful. What is serving, can of course be interpreted in different ways...
Being able to call anywhere, didn't look like very useful for me, the email and sms, so the ability to contact someone to meet up, without time constraints, looked like way more of use for me.
Since we've a phone, we've to be always connected. How does that always connected serves me? It doesn't, so that is where it stops for me. I will get connected when it serves me.
When I'm waiting for the bus, not talking to people around me, not taking that moment of quietness and silence, not seeing what is happening around and just being attached to my screen, does that serve me?
When I would be addicted to my screen I would say, of course it helps me, it fills up the empty moments, I would not be able to do without... Is that not a sign of a dangerous addiction? For me it is. My changing food habits made me realise all this and I definitely moved away from it.
My phone is good for;
calling or contacting someone in order to ideally meet up.
a calendar to liberate my mind of things I might have to do in order to be able to live in this multitasking world.
taking some interesting notes instead of doing this on the little paper notebook.
camera in order to capture wonderful moments at a time that feels right for it.
an recently also a location search, although I've to say that I still prefer to ask directions to people around.
This useful technology for the tasks mentioned here above (and probably others I forgot), looks to me like taking a dangerous direction against my normal behaviour.
It serves for when I'm bored, when I'm lonely, when I'm shy, when I'm annoyed... I just dive my head in the screen, look for funny things, smile and everything is solved. I remember people used to use cigarettes for this as well. Is this better? For physical health probably, for mental health, not so sure.
If I now look into what it serves;
the moment my creativity would work the best, is when I'm bored.
I would and look for friends or community when I'm lonely.
I would test things out in order to get more confidence, learn about myself and be less shy.
I would get confronted with a situation and try to handle it the best I can when I'm annoyed.
...
It's great that the phone is the solution for all this, isn't it? Now is it really the solution? And if it is, it means no life without it anymore. I know some brands that love that idea and encourage it heavily. Even spend billions to make these toys that way.
I don't like that idea, for me, life is meant to be without technology. If it can make my life truly easier, then use it, if not move away from it.
This is of interest and don't know how to start?
Some concrete steps to detox from the phone from easy to maybe more challenging. If they are all easy, there is probably no addiction which is great!
Only have applications on my phone that really make my life easier and better less than too much applications.
Set all notifications of besides call and sms.
Make dedicated time in my day (2 times, for example), week... to check for notification in the application. I decide when to check, not the phone pushing notifications.
Only connect to Wifi or mobile data when I decide so, for the rest I leave it off. My battery loves me, my mobile network provider will be obliged to invoice me a little less.
Switch the phone completely off for some time, at least 2 hours before sleep and more if I can. I trust that real news that will have to come to me, will find his way to come to me.
Now these screens are designed to fill up life so heavily, that life passing by without being realized. It’s a choice, looking for a screen or living?
Live free, enjoy life, let technology serve you and if it doesn't, move away from it, it’s most of the time in for nothing.
