Everything happens for a reason

It has been a wet and rainy day here in Barcelona, which is stark contrast to yesterday which was gloriously hot and sunny. How things change, and what a difference a day makes!

When I started this blog, I had an air of enthusiastic nievevity. This was my chance to vent my spleen, to tell whoever wanted to listen exactly what I was thinking and feeling.

All the articles that claim to have the secrets to a successful blog say make it personal, connect with your readers and they will keep coming back. But I also wanted my blog to be a source of information and a place to debate issues that I think need to be debated. So, in keeping with many things in my life, it was getting complicated by the number of things I was trying to achieve at the same time. Andy, a good friend of mine once bought me a book called ” Simplify your Life”. I wish I had read it.

I want to get back to my original intentions and write not only about health and fitness, but also once a week to get off my chest my thoughts and emotions. I have lots of those. Sometimes I put them into the songs I write, sometimes I tell anyone and everyone who will listen, and other times I keep them inside (that is the most dangerous scenario). I once wrote a song I called “I think I thought too much”. Maybe the next song I write should be “I think I talk too much”.

Please remember that what I write here cannot be wrong as much as it cannot be right, because ultimately it’s my opinion, an opinion that may or my not mean anything to you, but to me it means everything.

We live in a world of celebrity, where substance seems to be less important than superficial. That applies to all areas of life I see (including the world of fitness) where appearance and commerciality seem more important to many people than honesty, integrity and character. In Pilates we talk about deep lying muscles and superficial muscles. The superficial is all too easy to see, whereas anything deeper is often hidden or very under developed. There is a tendency to glorify the superficial when we should we looking inside.

If you ask someone about a particular movie, you might get from them their opinion if they have seen it, or a sample of reviews they have read, but usually and ultimately you are getting their opinion. That is all they can give. So many times we will take that opinion and make decisions based upon it. The more people we ask the more opinions we will have to draw on, but still we are gathering subjective information based upon other people’s complex decision making processes which can go back to childhood experiences and include everything else that has happened to them since then. Whether we like it or not, throughout out life, especially when we are children, we are being programmed by our parents, teachers, and the society we live in. Of course the vast majority of that programming is done with the best of intentions. But it is still programming. Some is necessary and very helpful. But some leaves us with the residue of other people’s programmed fears and negative experiences and it can take a lifetime to shake the disease off.

In my life I lived to a program for many years, always knowing deep down that it was not the program for me. But programming can be very strong. Mostly with intention, during the last 10 years of my life I have given up most of the things that were important to me (or at least I thought they were). Some people call it a mid-life crisis. I prefer mid-life enlightenment. It’s an incredibly liberating experience, but also scary, thought provoking and at time panic inducing. But I’m still standing. Repeat after me, “we grow the most when we are outside our comfort zone”. I can confirm this to be true. In fact never has a truer word been spoken. Apart from “don’t pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side”.

I’ve learnt not to get attached. Silly example, last week my Dr Dre Mixr Beats snapped in half. In the balance of life a very trivial thing, but as anyone who knows me (check out my pictures as well) will know that music is an integral and vital part of my life, and my Beats are the instrument that delivers this life-enhancing nectar to my ears, thus we are inseparable. So whilst I was a little inconvenienced, it was not so much a material heartache, more a musical heartache (Bonnie Tyler or Pepsi and Shirley. I’ll give you that one just incase you hadn’t noticed all the song titles in my words so far. Pay attention now… This shit’s about to get heavy.)

To be “happy” or “enlightened” (as I am buddhist) does not mean you have to throw away all material possessions. It’s perfectly ok to have nice things, expensive things, designer things. The key point here is that you must not become attached to those objects. They must not be the meaning of your life. The same logic can be applied to relationships. Enjoy the things you have in your life, be grateful, but always remember, there’s never a forever thing.

The most important lesson I have learnt through out my life experiences and studying Buddhism and psychology is the old truism that everything happens for a reason. Cliched it might be, but it’s incredibly powerful if you embrace it and really believe it. It gives you the power to take set-backs and even body blows but get up again, trusting that the Universe (or God if you prefer) has a master-plan. Of course even if you don’t believe in a divine roadmap, the truth is there is usually nothing you can do after a setback other than learn the lessons you need to learn, and move forwards and upwards. But if you believe that everything happens for a reason, it opens your heart and mind to new possibilities that in other circumstances you might have missed. Everything that happens to us in life can be seen as a lesson. And if you keep getting the same lessons (“why do I always end up with a bad partner”, “why do my bosses always take advantage of me”, “why does my weight fluctuate so much”, “why is it I never have any money/time/friends”) it’s probably because you aren’t learning your lesson and you are repeating patterns of behaviour that are not getting you what you want. So guess what? You will keep getting the same results until you change your behaviour. That’s not rocket science, so you do not have to be a scientist to understand it.

So why did my Dr Dre’s break? A faulty headband? Me being too heavy handed? A message from the Divine? Maybe. But what it did do was stop me being in a cocoon of music and open my ears on that flight to Barcelona and no surprises, I met a very intesting person to whom I talked.

My last thought for today’s blog. When things go wrong, it is very easy to wallow in self-pity and memories of what we remember as “better times”. Usually we only look back at our past because we do have a clear future. But we can have a clear future if that is what we choose to have.

Chris is an international Pilates presenter and educator based in Barcelona, Spain. He is the creator of Pilates EVO©, bodyFUNC©, and CEO of Pilates Rehab Limited and Sport Core Strength.  He also organises Pilates Carnival and Fitness Carnival, conventions where all profits go to local children’s charities. He organises fitness holidays and sports holidays in Barcelona, as well as retreats. For more information about training with Chris in Barcelona, please click on Barcelona Bienestar. To learn more about Chris, please read Just who is Chris Hunt anyway? You can also subscribe by completing the form on the this BLOG to receive articles and special offers straight to your inbox.

Chris pays all profits made from this BLOG to his charity partners. More details can be found by clicking on www.chrishuntwellness.com and selecting the “charity partners” tab.