love of coffee

Become the watcher

Gerard S. Hoff1 Comment

 

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Your mind is in a constant mode of doing marathons. Most of the time you’re not knowing what you’re thinking, that you’re thinking, how you’re thinking, who is thinking and why ‘it’ is thinking. So many unfinished thoughts, just lingering in your mind.
It’s a busy place up there.

Now imagine driving a mountainbike (it could be a car, but then it is difficult to end the story…). Fortunately, our brain has a sub-routine that is able to manage the constant stream of thoughts while doing a complex thing like biking.

But sometimes you’re too pre-occupied with thoughts and not paying enough attention to biking, the road and the obstacles, Suddenly there’s an abyss.

In a reflex you turn your wheel, your whole life passes in an instant before your eyes, you fall on to the ground, your bike keeps sliding, but you somehow you’re able to grab a branch of some kind and manage to hold.

Then there’s this silence.
A few seconds later you hear your bike crash.

In the reflex, your mind stopped thinking instantly. It is exactly then when your consciousness takes over. This reflex is the deepest part of your being that reacts. The thinking of the mind becomes obsolete. It is this sensation I believe we should embrace more often.

It is the angel in you. And you can use the angel, because she’s is in anyone of us, spread your wings, fly up and look from a distance at yourself. Become aware, as a watcher, of your own thoughts. You’ll probably have a lot of laughs! It doesn’t have to be on a constant basis (that is impossible), but be aware.

Just now and then, during the day, become the watcher, release the angel.

 

 

Espresso

Gerard S. HoffLeave a comment

REF21 Truce 150x150cmI love to run.

It is relaxing, it clears my mind, great ideas pop to live and problems are solved. All during a 40 minute run. I’ve done this for years and years and it is part of me.

But suddenly I got a pain in my calf and sometime my achilles tendon. It started little, but it grows into a serious pain and finally became a cramp. Really painful, serious enough to stop running and walk home carefully.

It recovers in a day or two, but every time when I run it happens again. I even got cramps at night!

I tried all kinds of things to get rid of it, but none of it worked. My shoes were good, good cushioning good support, so it had to be something else.

Then, believe it or not, during running I realized that because I got a new job, spending more time in an office, with a coffee machine, I drank much more coffee then before. By much more, I mean 10 cups a day, easy.

I love to drink coffee, it is one of my favorite drinks, but I realize that, to convert caffeine into something more „neutral”, it uses water…. A lack of water in your body can cause cramp.

I had to quit drinking too much coffee. I had to change but changing a habit is changing routines and that is hard. Especially for someone like me, I love the taste of coffee, the darker roasted the better, the intensity, it’s my fuel for work and creativity!

But I did quit.

I changed to 4 to 6 cups espresso instead of drinking ordinary coffee. The real thing of freshly ground, high quality coffee beans, made by a noisy espresso machine, making great tasting espressos. I enjoy every one of them and drink a lot of herbal tea and water.

And guess what?
The cramps stopped.
It took a few days and a few careful runs, but slowly the cramp dissolved and now I can run without pain, feeling great every time I do!

But there’s more.
Instead of missing my ‘a-lot-of-coffee-drinking-routine’, I gained something additional. I more consciously enjoy the 4-6 cups of great tasting espresso then un-consciously drinking 12 big cups of ordinary coffee.

The morale?

Sometimes it is necessary to give up things,
but realize,
by doing it consciously,
before, during and after,
with a clear objective,
you get a lot more good things in return.

And remember: The best tasting coffee is in the bean.

.
Espresso is part of the “Little Voices” series. Little voices are like the angels on the shoulders you see in cartoons, but not just good or bad. There are much more Little Voices, like the fearful one, the daring one, the sensitive one, the one who doesn’t like change and so on, but all of them influence behavior in one way or the other.