Eulogy for Pumpkins

Posted on November 19, 2017November 19, 2017 by Leontien Reedijk

(This blog-post is not part of the series on Pumpkins’ life. That series will be continued soon!)

Pumpkins has disappeared.

He’s gone. Disappeared. Just like that. We went to bed like normal one night, and the next morning he wasn’t there when I woke up. Normally when I get out of bed, he will be sitting on my deck or pop up from underneath, but this time he didn’t.

I went about my morning as normal, thinking he would walk in a little later, that he had just fallen asleep in a cozy spot and hadn’t realised it was morning. After a night of prowling, he usually sleeps his deepest sleep in the mornings, on the doormat or on my lap. So maybe he was just zonked out somewhere else.

But he never walked in that day, heading for his food bowl, as he normally would.

I spent the day hoping that he would pop up in the evening, that maybe he had been wandering off too far in the night and decided to hide out somewhere safe during the day before he would walk back under the protection of the darkness at night.

I hadn’t woken up during the night from screeching cat fights or barking dogs in combination with cat screams, which could indicate that he got in trouble. None of my neighbours had heard anything alarming either. So I didn’t think he was lying somewhere half-crippled and bleeding from a dog-attack, the way we first found him, several years ago. Or maybe I was just hoping he wasn’t.

Continue reading “Eulogy for Pumpkins” →

Are you super-sensitive? Here’s how to make good use of it!

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Leontien Reedijk

Are you extremely sensitive? Are you one of those people that burst into tears easily, over all sorts of seemingly little things, while people stare at you, telling you that it isn’t that bad or just calling you a crybaby? Do you feel ashamed about being so emotional, and wish you wouldn’t be like that? Well, here you might find some reasons to change your mind about that!

This post is inspired by one of my clients, a young woman who came for a massage in the Karma Shack. I will not divulge her real name, but when she reads this she will immediately recognise her story, without a doubt. Here I’ll call her Kitty, just because she loved Pumpkins, and he loved her, at first sight.

If you ever read the FAQ section on this website, or the blogpost I wrote on the topic of FAQ on Little Corn Island, you know that I try to be silent during massages. But it doesn’t always happen. With some clients there just has to be a conversation, for a variety of reasons that I won’t discuss here because they are not relevant to the story. super-sensitive people cry often

Kitty was such a client. The conversation just had to be. We spoke about many things, mostly just light topics. Asked about her job or field of work, she told me she was between jobs, figuring out what she really wanted to do most. At that point we moved on to another topic and didn’t go into the options that she was considering.

Much later during the massage, she burst into tears when she was talking about a few animals she had seen here on the island: a skinny horse, a dying puppy, maybe a cat…. She apologised for her tears and beat herself up for being oversensitive. She said that she could even become upset and cry over the fact that she can cry about anything. Well, once you go down that lane, you’d never stop crying, right?

I stopped her in the middle of her apology and told her that there was nothing wrong with showing emotions and being sensitive. It is a human trait (and right!). Some people are very sensitive, others are unable to show any emotion at all ever, and then there are hundreds of shades from teariness to stoicism in between those two extremes. Then I asked her: who has ever decided that crying over little things is bad? I never had a vote in that, did she? She laughed through her tears.

Actually, in these times of being numbed out by all the violence and negative news of the media, being sensitive is in my opinion a very positive trait. More people should try and tap into their sensitive side, because it could spark their passion about something. It may make them ask themselves or others some serious questions about the way they live their lives and the way things are going in this world. Maybe they would even stand up for a cause of some sort and make a difference in this world, instead of just passively consuming whatever gets put in front of them on social media and TV. They could start with a sensitivity-rights movement to get things moving a little bit, just like there are a gay-rights movement, and an animal rights movement.

Kitty agreed with me that sensitivity is a positive trait in these mind-numbing times. Then she said that she could probably win a contest with her crying.

The next thing that happened was the funniest thing ever.

My mind fired into a major bout of creative imagining, and this is what came out: the marketability of sensitivity. It could be Kitty’s new career.

First of all she could offer trainings in sensitivity management. Knowing when to tap into it, when to put a lid on it, when to let it show and when to hide behind your hair. This would be for overly sensitive people.

The other end of the spectrum would be trainings to develop sensitivity. How to stimulate it, how to show it, how to use it in the right moment as an emotional outlet. How to let your sensitivity inspire you into action. Teaching the cold people to be more sensitive.

Both trainings could be made into special retreats, preferably on a small tropical island, like for example Little Corn Island, and should include a couple of sessions in the Karma Shack, always good to get a bit closer to your true self.

Then of course there could be books, a website, a blog, audio-recordings, online-trainings and individual online coaching sessions. I could swear Hay House would love it all! Oh, and of course there would be sensitivity yoga and sensitivity meditation, the latest of the latest.

Sensitivity is the new black.

The other end of this new sensitivity hype would be a TV-show: The Sensitivity Contest. Contestants would be exposed to certain cues in different settings, each with a judge on their side, timing the start and finish of the tears running. Cues could be pictures of skinny puppies, a father holding his newborn child, an older couple embracing, or a young woman sitting on her own in a bar. Then the contestant would be told some really good news, or maybe some slightly less happy news, or random world news of all sorts. Also some compliments, a few mild criticisms and different types of music, smells and touch. A small gift or two, a favour done to them…..so many ways to set them off, if I may believe Kitty. The contestants would be exposed to some of these cues in public, for example in the studio in front of an audience, at home in the company of friends and family or at work amidst co-workers. Other cues would be given in an isolated situation, where nobody could see them cry (apart form the camera). There might even be a hidden camera part to this show, to make it reality TV too. The person that cries quickest, longest and most often under all circumstances wins the contest. Of course there can be prizes in subcategories, so that there will be more tears of joy and less of disappointment when it comes to the finals.

I can see some of the major TV-stations wanting to buy this concept to make millions!

Kitty can stop looking for a new job, we just invented her new career. She would be working with what she is really good at, that is being sensitive. She is passionate about it (it makes her cry), so she will be very successful with it! Go for it, Kitty!

I told her that she could take all the credit for this amazingly original idea, I will not ask any royalties or sue her for stealing my idea when she is making the billions. I hereby hand it over to her, to use it to her best ability. I mean, she is the sensitive one, so she has earned this. If it weren’t for her tears during the massage, I would not have come up with this idea.

I did ask her to invite me to all the opening nights of her trainings and retreats and to the presentations of her books and of the prizes she will win with both her books and her TV-show. I will stand in the corner and smile, and I may even have a little tear in the corner of my eye. I hope she will not forget that afternoon massage in the Karma Shack, when she gets all famous.

I wrote this post to make sure that the idea will not be claimed by anyone else. Whoever reads this and thinks they can get ahead of Kitty in making this idea reality will have to deal with me. Only I know the real identity of Kitty, and any publisher or TV-station that wants to buy this concept will have to check with me if they are dealing with the real Kitty, because otherwise there will be a huge lawsuit. It’s all about Karma, isn’t it?

(this post is published with the consent of Kitty).

The 1 thing you need to say to yourself to keep your New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2017January 2, 2017 by Leontien Reedijk

palm tree fireworks Who didn’t ever make a New Years’ resolution to start running, eat healthier, stop smoking or drinking, cut back on sugar and wheat, meditate, or even just regularly floss your teeth? Right? And how many of us actually kept that resolution and made it into a proper habit for a lifetime? Right, count me in on that failure, more than once!

Healthy habits….you hear these words so often, and usually they produce a little pang of guilt in us……We know we should create a few more of them, or we have tried them on and then dropped out of the habit before it stuck.

I will talk about how to start new habits in another post. Here we are just going to look into how we can motivate ourselves to even start and then keep that motivation. The very first steps……

First of all ask yourself how motivated you are to take on this challenge of creating a new habit (yes we are making a big deal of it, because it often seems to be so difficult for people to just do it, so let’s get to the bottom of all its aspects). Your motivation is what it all starts with.

You do not want to try and create a healthy habit just because everybody else is raving about it (fads blow over, people drop out, and then who is going to motivate you?), because your mom has always said that you should eat your vegetables (your mom probably doesn’t live with you anymore to kick your butt every day) or because Oprah talked about it. These are some of the worst motivators you can come up with, because they are factors outside of yourself.

You can only create a new habit when you and only you are completely convinced that it is going to make you feel better, physically and mentally.

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Without that motivation, it is going to be very hard to create a new habit. So make sure that you know everything about it that there is to know: what exactly will it do to and for your body? Is that what your body really needs? How often do you have to do it for the optimal results? Do you have that much time? How soon will you notice a difference? What possible side-effects or difficulties might you encounter? Are there any contra-indications? How much money will it cost you? Do you need special equipment? Are there certain brands that are better than others? And once you have all these facts clear, there is a couple more questions that you have to ask yourself:

How difficult will I find it to start this and do this every day/every week?

And why?

First and for all you have to win the argument with your lazy ego, that rather stays at home watching tv. Ego doesn’t want to give up its spot in the centre of your comfort zone. Lend your resisting ego a willing ear for a moment, and notice all the arguments against your plan that it comes up with (there will be many!). Maybe you can write the long list on a piece of paper, stare them down for a while in silent battle and then just burn the paper. Or take some time to think about all these arguments, and then give reason a chance to come up not only with a whole bunch of strong counter-arguments in favour of your new habit but also a bunch of simple solutions for all of ego’s major problems with it. Ego’s resistance is just based on a fear of change. And wasn’t it change that you were looking for in the first place? If you still have the feeling that you will fail at starting and keeping up your new habit, you will. The power of thought is so strong, that whatever you think will become a belief that will grow an attitude that produces a behaviour which will be the not-doing of your new habit. So make sure that you change your ego’s mind, convincing it that you will be successful. Then you will.

watch-your-thoughts-lao-tzu-quotes

Now you finally have your motivation in place: you know exactly why you want to create this healthy habit, what you need to implement it, and are convinced that you want to do it and will do it for the rest of your life. It is meant to improve your physical and/or mental well-being. Let us look at that mental and emotional aspect a little closer. What does actually happen to you, when you start to make one small healthy change in your life?

First of all, there is a boost of confidence and feeling achieved, because hey, you’re keeping a promise to yourself, and you’re keeping up this healthy habit!

A for effort!

You may not really notice any physical changes yet, but pat yourself on the shoulder anyway for showing up every day! You worked through the phase of fear and resistance and are doing it! Again: the power of thought!

If you happen to be stuck in a rut in your life, in whichever way, taking this first little step of creating a new habit that is good for you and keeping it up could well become the seed of change for some of the bigger stuff like changing jobs or ending a suffocating relationship.

Apart from this confidence boost that can get you kickstarted into creating more change, there is a much more subtle, but sometimes even more important emotional effect to keeping up a healthy habit: the message that you are sending to your body, and to your self: ‘I am making time for you and taking care of you, I love you enough to do something that will make you feel better, and I will do this for you every day’.

Basically you are saying to yourself: ‘I am worthy of love. I LOVE MYSELF’.

Wow. That is quite the powerful message. I bet there are plenty of you out there that do not really say that to themselves very often. And by becoming aware of this gesture of self-love that you are making every day, your practice gets exponentially more powerful! Loving yourself is where happiness begins.

Once you get into the swing of a healthy habit, the mental impact is just as powerful for your general well-being as the actual lowered blood pressure or the better digestion. That’s what I would call a great motivator! Put that one at the top of your list: “I want to create this healthy habit because I love myself”. Now go make your New Year’s resolution(s), and make them happen. Happy New Year!

PS: if you write your New year’s resolutions in the comments below, it will give you some extra accountability-support! (I promised on Facebook that I was going to make this website and start a blog, and I definitely felt more motivated to keep my promise once I had made it public!)