A NEW VIEW – old & new become ONE, the creation of Kite2Connect
The day your past becomes your life – personality & courage take their time to develop …
Since my return from the Middle East in 2011 I have been constantly growing my lifestyle regarding my body and mind.
In my previous blog entry I mentioned being a Revenue Manager at Austrian Airlines for the Middle East in Vienna. This position was perfect for me as I was back in touch with my childhood memories, I was travelling to the countries that were similar to where I had grown up. This job also gave me the
- feeling of freedom and being alive
- despite having an office job.
In 2007 I decided to leave Austrian Airlines after being there for two years and to explore the world on my own. I was so excited! I went to the Middle East, to be precise, to the Kingdom of Bahrain.
In Bahrain I was dedicating my time
- building up a private jet brokerage company.
A very interesting field to be active in and a great professional opportunity to learn how to face and deal with challenges and in the end to grow as a person.
Being in this position made me be available for my clients, for the company on a 24/7 basis.
At first this did not bother me, it was fun, it was a new world to explore – it was intoxicating in the sense that I was
meeting so many people, from all different walks of life and professions.
I did not realise back then which effects being available on this scale would be having on me at a later stage – I did not know that I was pulling at my resources despite being only in my late twenties. At this age, after working hard at university, the aim is to work even harder and build up a successful career, right?
What does a successful career actually mean though?
A question I was going to have to ask myself later …
In 2010 I left Bahrain to go to Doha in Qatar. Here I was taking the place of managing the Marketing Office of the Austrian Foreign Trade Office “Advantage Austria”. A quite radical experience I must say, both on the professional as well as the personal level. I was about to get to know a very frightening feeling which forced me to pause and take the time to think what was happening with me, around me.
After only being in this new position for three months my body and mind gave in when I was about to get up to meet with my boss. I could not though. I could not move,
my body was simulating me being paralysed,
not allowing me to move out of my bed. It took me like two hrs to finally make it and this was
the turning point in my way of thinking – this message was so loud, I could not ignore it, it was time to change something – not later, not maybe but NOW.
What had happened to me?
After being on the road, alone, for almost four years, carrying any professional as well as personal challenge by myself, my body and my mind sent me a sign that this is
not what we humans are made for. There is a limit
and especially a time to stop moving – we NEED time to relax allowing us to recharge our batteries, to classify our thoughts and to learn to know what we need in order to stay balanced on a
- physical,
- mental and
- social
level.
This experience was rather scary but I am very thankful for it as this was the only way I would stop, breathe in and actually realise what I was doing to myself. The flu or a cold would not have made me wake up,
my pain tolerance is quite high, which is why I needed exactly this “special treatment”.
Shortly after I left Doha and returned back to Austria.
Now I was back home, with my family, I was in a safe and emotional stable environment. I really needed this and I had the right place to hang out and explore the happenings of the past four years and for a change, cherish and appreciate myself, instead of me cherishing and appreciating other people.
Healing, recovering does take its time and cannot be done within a few days or weeks.
This is a process as there are so many things to learn how to know how to handle oneself – it is about getting to know one’s own operational manual.
Knowing this is vital to be able to walk through challenges in life without damaging one’s life energy.
For this to happen though, we need to allocate time to ourselves which I am sure many of you reading this have quite some room for improvement.
Now was my time, so I decided to finally go back to school and do some learning. I was missing that, to learn, to explore, and especially to learn more about how our mind and brain work. This led me to start
training to become a certified burn-out prevention trainer,
as Psychology had always been something that I was totally interested in. Now was the time, I started in November 2011. I wanted to know what had happened to me on a professional level and to learn how to avoid something similar happening to me in future.
Taking this decision was the best decision I had taken in years.
It felt right, it felt good and finally I could explore all those crazy, emotional and uncategorized feelings of mine – it was a fun ride and great people with me on this road in my class! I have so many memories of this time, so many simple things we did in class that had a massive impact on the way we were thinking. This change, this cognitive reframing that took place not only let me grow mentally, no, it also led me to take even more care of my body, to nurture it with food it really needed.
I started to relate to myself again, I actually found myself again after a long time being lost, without knowing this, I started to feel on a different level. It made me start my new journey, my journey to Kite2Connect. Back then of course I did not know that – it was the beginning though of my physical, mental and social FREEDOM & POWER.
Yes, I admit it, I had lost myself being out there in the Middle East, too many impressions that I did not know how to handle to keep my mind and soul, my body safe and healthy. And then again, how should or could I have known how to do it? As far as I am concerned this is something we do not, or let’s say I did not learn at school, how to do it.
„Personality development – discover your own operation manual for your daily routine as well as for emergencies.“
We also do not learn how to do this at university, not back in my times anyway. And at work, well, mostly it is about knowing (it all) and performing, that’s why one is paid – this is the mostly spread unconscious thought by companies and ourselves.
To learn how to balance the personal emotions, the personal world, the personal challenges, the personal needs, this requires an appropriate mentor.
*** To have an appropriate mentor in one’s life is vital to achieve happiness, wellbeing and success. ***
All the exciting, new and growing thoughts my mind was having now that I was back home, exploring the field of psychology, were in addition sparked off and nurtured by me learning the awesome sport of kitesurfing.
The combination of psychology and kitesurfing was taking me to new heights in my personality development process.
This process has not stopped and until today I incorporate what I have learned through psychology into my daily routine, the sport of kitesurfing supporting this process in a unique way.
The combination of my past, my educations in the field of psychology, health and fitness, together with kitesurfing
*** today guide my feelings, emotions and challenges in the most beneficial way for myself. I have learned to see, understand life happenings in a different way, to keep a positive mind going, and most importantly to know how to convert apparent failure into growing success. ***
I started kitesurfing on the 07.06.2012 at 10:00 – da date, a memory I shall always cherish in my heart, as
this was my day, my way back to feel and understand what happiness is about.
I started to learn what lies behind happiness and how I can achieve and maintain my personal happy place. I was able to do so as this sport taught me to have faith in myself, in my capabilities, that the faith is there and that some of us just lost it –
we need to get it back and kitesurfing can do that within a very cool and short time frame.
No need to wait for years feeling miserable – kitesurfing will lift you up in no time with the appropriate guidance, your mentor.
Kitesurfing is about recognising your own strength and power and to make you see and feel that everything that happens around you and with you lies within your own hands – you have all it takes to make things happen for yourself, once you have felt the trust and faith in your own capabilities again, you will stop thinking about what could go wrong because now you will just be thinking
*** I can make it right for myself. ***
The only thing keeping us from reaching our happy place are our fears. Kitesurfing changed exactly this for me. I never knew what power fears had on me and that I actually had fears deep down.
*** I learnt to feel that my fears were only the ghost of my own thoughts, they were only in my mind, and that I had the power over my thoughts. It was up to me alone to change this – and it was possible to do so, allowing myself to now achieve all the awesome things that were slumbering inside of myself for all this time. The only thing one needs to do is to get rid of this paralysing feeling of fears, that guide your life unconsciously on a daily basis. ***
Every one of us has fears, but where do these fears come from? And what does fear actually mean?
According to Alex Loyd and many other authors in his field, fear is the result of wrongly stored belief patterns, which then produce stress mechanism in daily life and lead to physical, mental and social suffering. Stress in the long-run will lead from balance to imbalance and in the end, to illness.
Kitesurfing supported me during my time of
- feeling lost,
- feeling weak,
- feeling deprived of energy,
- not feeling motivated at all,
- not really knowing where to go and
- not feeling fit on a physical, mental and social level.
These facts made me compose the thesis
*** Kitesurfing as a mental resource into happiness – an opportunity to wellbeing and therefore health. ***
in order to obtain my certificates as a health & fitness coach as well as a personal fitness & mental coach.
Being away in the Middle East had put its toll on me and directed myself onto the road to burn-out. Luckily I am a tough cookie. I enjoy fighting and surviving (read my previous article to know what I mean by this), so my personal stamina combined with all the certificates I was taking and practising kitesurfing
allowed me to take a turn and continue on another road, on my road to Kite2Connect.
My mentioned-above thesis combines my personal experience with scientific findings and shows how sport impacts our physical and mental health, which in turn influences the personal perceived state of health. Health alone is not the key to a happy life, to perceive one’s life as a happy one.
In order to find one’s personal life a happy life, it is necessary to know how to be in the flow and to know how to feel it. This will provide all the energy needed to stay in balance making life a happy one.
We all hear that happiness lies within ourselves, and yes, I believe this is true, as our own thoughts decide about that. And where do our thoughts come from? They are initiated by our environment, by people. This makes it obvious, and also according to the science of happiness, that for happiness to happen, we need people, we need social engagements. What we need to watch out for here is, to know how to work with the energy coming from the people around us. Without them though, we would deprive ourselves from getting a response to our behaviour, to our inside world – we could not develop, we could not grow. So the people around us are our mirrors that guide us.
*** I have a new mirror for you, your training mirror, it is the KITE, that is right! ***
Many impressions, situations, life experience, professional experience, athletic experience, many books that I have read, all this I have combined here at Kite2Connect with the aim to
*** support your happiness, your wellbeing, your health. It is about being there for you to get the BEST out in yourself, to live your dreams, to make your dreams come true. It is possible once you learn patience and how to walk the road to your success. Life is full of moments instead of just one moment. ***
I am here for you to experience your FLOW, to feel what your heart wants you to feel.
ENJOY your ride! Let me know how I can support you J!
*** Your emotions are your strength – learn how to use them! ***
