PRELUDE - It’s all about being a lucky holder.
Lucky holder? Sounds contradictory, right?
Unlike western medicine tend to define autoimmune disease as a dead end, we truly believe the autoimmune disease isn’t.
The autoimmune disease is a message from the Speaking body to the entire self. The kind of message you’d better listen to before it’s too late. This message, our Speaking body started to send it seven years ago for one of us and for the other one it was four years ago. We didn’t realize directly what the Speaking body was trying to show us through our symptoms.
But last year, we started to understand the famous quote of Socrates (or Plato depending on who tells History...):
«The only thing we know is that we know nothing» - Socrates
Indeed, we weren’t unable to know what was going on, the only thing we felt, was, that something was going wrong. Since then, we started to take this autoimmune condition as an opportunity to start listening again to our Speaking body - which was more shouting at us since the last years - and what we discovered is that we totally lost the connection with the inner Self and with this, started considering the Mind and the Body as two separated entities.
It’s all about discoveries.
You could think it seems a bit easy, but the impact of this discovery led us to a whole other perspective of what was happening in our life. In the meantime, because both of us are inquisitive people, we started exploring ourselves but not only. We went through a lot of documentation - going in all direction from ancestral practices such as Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, meditation, energy healing methods to western medicine were we also did some exciting discoveries - and we started to witness different point of views on this “sudden” change which appears in the immune system. We came more and more to the realization that there is an active link between the Mind and the Body.
It’s all about realizations.
One significant realization we did about ourselves was, that we had a firm belief. We had the firm belief that we could control all the events happening in our lives (the Mind). With this strong belief, little by little, we started developing the idea that the Speaking body (the Body) could be controlled as well. This was one of the biggest lies ever, we could have taught ourselves. This was the beginning of a fight between our Mind and our Body. In this battle, we can easily understand that there will be no winner. Instead, we started to sink more and more in misery and suffering.
Another realization was about the events happening in our lives. They were nothing more than opportunities that life put on our path. We understood later on that everything happens for a reason. We were just on a part of a “not-known-yet” process. We had to be patient. Life would show us quickly enough what’s the purpose. Having no control over the things which are happening is actually the best gift life is offering to all of us each second of each day. Life is a path of surprises and is taking care to keep away guilt from us.
Today, we keep reminding it to ourselves, and as soon as we start predicting and controlling too much, we now know that we’re actually using the track leading to dissatisfaction. One day, an adorable teacher, told us an inspiring quote:
«Until you haven’t learned the lesson, life isn’t stopping giving you exercises.» - Claudine Rubiella
What we learned, by observing the events which are occurring in our lives, is, that those exercises that life puts in our way every single day are real opportunities, no matter their nature. They can be positive or negative. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is what you have experienced and what you are going to learn from it.
Finally, it’s all about personal experiences.
To make the long story short, we experienced the medical corpus in a really different way when we got to know about our first diagnose. But still, the thing we experienced in common was a lack of listening. Listening to our real being and to the story which was related to it. Today we are thanking our Speaking bodies.
Because of them, we started to shut more and more our controlling Minds and become more Wide Awake to the world we are living in, to our health and to what our Bodies need the most.
Since we started to go to school, we’ve been taught, be septic, don’t believe everything that is told to you.
Thanks to our Speaking bodies, we started to be Wide Awake to the fact that we were more listening outside of ourselves than inside. With this understanding, we began to question again everything that has been taught to us. Indeed, why should it be only the things out of the box that has to be challenged and not also the “truths” inside of the box? By questioning, our life and all the agreements we did with ourselves, we opened our eyes to other perspectives, other teachings, and other medicines. All this led us to a better understanding of what is happening inside of ourselves.
FIRST CHAPTER: A U S T R A L I A - It’s all about the journey.
We decided to fly thousands of kilometers away from our country of origin to reconnect to our inner Self, to learn about ourselves and understand why life choose us to be part of the 5 to 8 percent worldwide lucky holders of autoimmune diseases.
We choose Australia it could have been everywhere. The journey is not only about discovering a country with endless nature and stunning hidden secret places, a continent with magnificent fauna and flora, a country with a particular history. It is most of all about rediscovering our Selves in an environment who enable us to be completely ourselves, taking us out of our comfort zone and triggering us at the deepest level of our beliefs.
HOW EVERYTHING STARTED
For my part, I started to learn about the power of my Mind when I discovered micro-physiotherapy as I explained it in the story of the blog «Reconnection with the Self»[1]. The micro-physiotherapist I was seeing, also introduced me to a mind-blowing book: «The Four Agreements of Toltec» from Don Miguel Ruiz. It took me a while to start reading it, but it was definitely the book which opened my eyes to all the beliefs which were deeply engraved in my unconscious and were putting a lot of weight on my shoulders.
[1] In “Reconnection with the Self” but also in “Go with the flow”, you can read in details how we started to walk this path of reconnection and what it brought us as benefits directly.
I started to understand that the unexplained dizziness, tiredness and pain, I was suffering from for years already could be related to my mental state more than a certain condition. As soon as I started to realize that I was able to shape my reality, I started to experience so many changes in my life. From the encounters, I did to opportunities that came to me, to my health condition. So many things started to slowly but steadily take another turn.
This book surprisingly started to be my guide better than any other psychotherapist or doctor, I could have visited during my hard times. It became a precious tool for all the situations of life.
Only four simple rules:
impeccability of the speech;
don’t take things personally;
don’t make any suppositions;
do your best in every situation.
No one said they were easy to follow but as soon as I started applying them, I realized that I’m the master on board. From one moment to another, I became able to switch my vision on things.
A situation which looks really bad can be experienced in a different way when you realize the power that your Mind has to change your perception of a situation. And this is certainly one of the most incredible things one can experience. Unexpectedly, the years of intense pain which had ended up with a wrong diagnosis and couldn’t be relieved by any medication, completely disappeared when I started realizing the power of my Mind to shape my reality.
YOU DON’T “HAVE TO”
The first things who changed were those « I have to ». Even though I had a dream, I was so obsessed by those « I have to » that I wasn’t doing what I was dreaming about at all. Those awakenings from my body were there to tell me I wasn’t going that way. I wasn’t at all working on building my dream but instead, I was just going more and more in the opposite direction. At that time, when I was in my suffering, going with the flow of life without asking me any questions was the most difficult thing I could imagine. Being in the moment (connection with the Body), 100%, without being in my thoughts (the Mind) was something almost impossible. The alarm call from my body, the discovery of a treatment such as micro-physiotherapy [2], that book were the things which helped me to realize but still, I wasn’t daring to follow my dream.
One day going to my first exam of January’s session of 2017, I felt from something like 10 steps directly on my head. The ambulance send me straight to the hospital, I had a heavy concussion and a whiplash. Result: I was not able anymore to study for my following exams. This was my last call. Again, it could have been terrible, I could have died. After the accident, I was horrified when I realized I just felt on my head and have a blood circulation disease. While I was waiting for the ambulance, I was deeply feeling what it meant to carry such a disease. That fall and the emotions I went through while waiting, were like a hammer in my face. Like, I suddenly really realized what life was worth and that there was no reason to drown myself in those « I have to ». Basically, I had to do anything but being 100% happy.
It has become such an important topic nowadays: “YOLO, You Only Live Once” is the new trendy warning we give to the people trapped in the rat race. But still, not everyone realizes that it’s today that we have to be happy. Not tomorrow. Falling directly on my head, realizing that stupid fall could have been my last experience on earth, had probably shaken my Mind a bit harder and certainly made me realize how much that dream was really important to me, how much it was my « mission » on this planet. We are all, at different times in our lives, trying to understand what is this all about. What’s our mission? What are we doing here? Why the hell, are we trapped in a rat race?
This accident was the ultimate lowest point I could have reached in that moment. At that exact same period, Ben just had his burnout. As you can figure out, the situation was really at the lowest but at the same time, while looking at it from another perspective, it sounded like everything was meant to be. Both of us, with this autoimmune condition showing up while we were building a reality which wasn’t ours.
We believe now, that it was the perfect example that the unconscious body is so much more powerful than we are taught. We understood later on, that our Bodies, were so desperate to see us not listening to the signals, that they founded the extreme way to make our Minds settle down in the battle.
LIFE AS BEST TRAINER
That’s why we ended up 10 months later, cruising in Coolangatta, living the so-called van life and experiencing the magnificent surfer lifestyle of South Queensland. As Ben explained it in the story of the blog «Go with the flow», it wasn’t the perfect van life directly but having learned about the power of our Mind and our ability to change our perception of reality, Australia had become our new playground. It was, the perfect opportunity to start applying all those principles in real life, every single day: start to believe in the power of our Mind to shape our reality, have faith in what life provides. After all, what was the risk?
No one at all. The only thing you decide to do is changing your perspective and by changing your perspective, you start realizing that a certain situation can be understood in many ways.
But as everyone is different and walk a different path, I’m not here to tell you your way. I’m only there to show you the different options we used to awaken our Minds and our Bodies. The path of Ben was different from mine. He started to learn about the power of the mind through a show of a famous hypnotist called Anthony Jacquin. This guy was making disappear people from other people’s mind. This trick fascinated him so much that he wanted to learn more about the abilities of the Mind. There born his passion for hypnosis and several months later he started to study it. He also learned self-hypnosis and started to work on his belief system, his perception of reality and thanks to this relieved himself from old emotional blockages.
Of course, changing your beliefs and your perception of the reality is work. It’s been a little while that you’re working on building these but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible and painful. It requires consistency and will, but if you’re keen to make the change happen, you shouldn’t be scared. There’s only a happier and lighter life waiting for you.
I will not conclude saying that it was only hypnosis and that book which brought us to this understanding of the reality. Also, there is a big difference between understanding and experiencing. Hypnosis and “The four agreements of Toltec” opened us the door to the understanding of our Mind and our ability to shape our reality, the next incredibly life-changing practice we’ve encountered is the Vipassana meditation which opened us the doorway to the awakening of our Mind and our Body, by experiencing the change. To read more about the Vipassana meditation, check out the LEARN section of the blog, where we will be soon posting an article about mediation.
CHAPTER TWO: B R U S S E L S - Change the perspective to shape your reality
The project Wide Awake BE with this mixed exhibition of drone photography and Mind-Body Health wants to bring the focus on the simple idea that you are the creator of your reality. As you might change the angle of perspective with a drone compared to a standard camera, you perceive the reality in such a different way. The details of nature, the structures, the textures; everything is telling another story from that new point of view. There’s no more clear perception of what you see and what you know. Everyone is experiencing the reality through his own filter.
In the same way, when you change the angle and look inside of yourself, you can see your own reality in another way. You can see what makes up your reality.
Since we received this diagnosis of autoimmune disease, we decided to take the signs from our Speaking Body as a reason to start looking at things from another perspective. Through the project Wide Awake BE, we would like to make you experience the change of perspective through different components of your being: your Mind, your Body and the world you live in.
WIDEAWAKEBECOM
The aim of Wide Awake is to offer a place to people where they can find everything they need to awaken themselves to the self-healing abilities of their Body and their Mind. We would love to give completely free access to all the information we would have gathered, and we also would love to give a personal support to the people which are feeling hopeless in front of a Body with whom they lost the connection or for the people who are discovering a completely new universe.
Wideawakebe.com is called that way for a reason: our aim is to help you to become Wide Awake to your Mind, your body and the world you live in.
With the change of perspective from stopping looking only to the outside and also starting looking to the inside, we actually understood that our Speaking body and his expression as an autoimmune disease is not actually a threat but an opportunity to not only heal ourselves but also the world we live in. The word dis-ease is self explainable to the fact that our Mind and Body are not in ease. By changing the perspective, one can understand that we actually don’t need to fight against our Body and the people around us but that we need to change the angle to actually dance with the elements which are parts of our life.
There is no classical recovery from this sickness as you would imagine. And in the beginning, when we received the diagnosis it seemed more like finding ourselves in front of the Himalaya being forced to climb it without having any equipment and trekking skills. Going through the jungle of wise people telling you to go here and there, take that pill or follow that diet, we’ve learned that the first most important thing to understand was that we were the only ones who can actually dehypnotize ourselves from our belief system (the Mind) and align ourselves with our inner purpose (the Body).
CHAPTER THREE: A S I A - Learn to fly
Not only a better drone to make more amazing pictures of stunning landscapes to show the beauty and also the ugly parts. But also learn the others how to fly, be the light tower for the people, be an example of change of perspective and reconnection with the Mind and the Body.
Therefore, for the next years, we are planning to continue the pursuit of holistic approaches healing the Mind and the Body. Both of us, are sharing this interest of a more global approach of health combining old and modern knowledge. Both of us, have just started the process to recover our health and are willing to experiment and share as much as possible what we have and are going to encounter on our way.
Wide Awake BE is not only about health like we mentioned it already; it is about changing your perspective to shape your reality.
That’s why the next stops of our travels are going to be, health orientated but also environmentally and socially orientated. The goal is to gather other perspectives on the reality we are living in, other views, other solutions and most of all another understanding.
To make it all possible, we are going to use our skills as photographer, designer, project engineer and life-long educator in order to document the journey. You’ll be able to follow the evolution of the project through the blog, the social medias and also through an annual exhibition in Belgium. We want you to be able to take part in the project by buying the photographs we are shooting on our travels. Next chapter will be Asia, so as much as we are sharing here the magnificent and almost untouched landscapes of Australia, we plan to bring back the other perspectives we would have witnessed on our search for a global approach of health.
Find us on wideawakebe.com to follow the rest of the journey...
This text was the presentation text accompanying the drone photography exhibition we realized in November 2018 in collaboration with #CreativeDistrict at #GalerieRavenstein in Brussels.