The origin and background – from motivation and creation to realisation and action!
Architects like to express themselves with art and creativity; visionary engineers build construction to visualise the impossible; writers want to express themselves creatively and successfully. Growing up in a family of five where three people went the path of being engineers, I decided to use my skills and passion to develop a concept of well-being. Similar to my father, my passion always has been giving things some structure and one of them will be presented in my first book.
There are some parallels. The first one is when engineers construct a building, they make sure to set up a good foundation – the same should be with our well-being. There are important elements to consider when building like material selection, construction type, building physics as well finding the important themes which are essentials to well-being, which I will talk about later. In construction we need to think about how to solve many issues in terms of the static, physics and insulate against tough weather condition while keeping the building solid.
In well-being, we are dealing with a biological being where nature has created the design and we need to look into this and understand it better. There is another parallel of a visionary engineer. To achieve sustainability in living while using natural resources to provide a comfortable and healthy climate, which also should be an integral part in today’s well-being. In German, it is called ‘nachhaltiges Leben’ and in Norwegian it is ‘bærekraftig liv.’
It looks like that there are five major, impactful events, triggers or circumstances that have contributed to my book writing journey that has motivated and encouraged me to write this book. This has evolved over time and with trigger points or events happening in my life journey. Building, first a fundamental of a conceptional and structured framework, leading to a practical easy-to-use approach. So, it is like a bit like an engineer who starts with the fundament with has grown into something and hopefully can be built on in the future. This how the book Break Through With Well-Being: a practical five-finger approach came alive. I will go into more details in these fives key events. Each of these might be a book on its own.
1. Motivation and creation: In 1995 the first trigger was when I suddenly felt that changes were happening while I was growing into a young adult. It was the time I was experiencing many things and that was the time I had a bit of a philosophical insight and also the time when I wrote my first poem (added to the front in the book). The poem is about the connection of the internal and external world and highlighting the challenges between materialistic and the non-materialistic aspects of life.
2. Inspiration: In 2013 I got inspired by a story about a woman and her child diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability and about how people can adapt to difficult challenges. She was determined to do all to help her child learn to read and write, which were gains that specialists had thought unlikely and built up resilience through daily challenges. This was a very moving event not only for me but also for my Mum. Where just dumbfounded at what is possible in the face of the impossible.
3. Reflection: Soon after in 2014 I decided that I would like to challenge myself and see if it is possible to use natural resources only to complete the 1001km track starting from Perth to Albany called the Bibbulmun track. This project raised founds for a rescue boat available for sailability, a children charity organisation. With excellent preparation and fantastic team support, I was able to complete it in 19 days. My strategy was simple; using the natural environment with very limited support based on natural food sources combined with an exceptional team. What an achievement! This journey gave me the time to contemplate about the essentials of being human and learning more about its connection, its cravings and its needs.
4. Application: Toward the end of 2016 an unexpected situation lead to unexpected need of applying such an approach to deal with this unexpected situation. It was about helping someone through recovering from as operation of a second brain tumor removal. Focusing on well-being was key. Being in a situation, acting as the role as partner and carer at the same time was very challenging. Not only for the person recovering but also the person who was caring and others around. Accepting the circumstances and focusing key themes of this approach helped to lead to positive recovery and outcome for the person throughout recovery as well as the carer and turned into a substantial growth experience for both. Today both are on fresh path, content and healthy with the outcome.
5. Realisation and action: In 2017going through a major organisational restructure, witnessing how people were dealing with stress and uncertainty on a daily basis. How we were able to find a way to be strong and how well-being assisted us for a better daily outcome. This lead to an opportunity and charged me to take action and find a new way, a new life. Realisation is an opportunity to take on board and go with it. This is what it took and I packed my bag and got closer to home. Take it in our hands get out of our comfort zone and go with the flow and see what happens that is the quintessential.
All these events have contributed in one way or the other to the creation of this book. It was like linking the dots to a path to a bigger picture. The five themes described in the book where in any of these situations were very helpful to find something you can take out and use at any time, at any place, and at any levels. This book has five essential themes; back to attention, what nature is craving for, building a structured framework, method, and a useful guide to help to set your priorities. It is a holistic, easy-to-follow practical approach to well-being.