New Zealand Weekly Update #64

08th of January until 14th of January 2024

Approximate reading time: 7 minutes

Lets get it started

Good morning fellas and greetings from windy and hot Wanaka. The last few days have been crazy as. The wind was going crazy in town and it was no fun at all cycling with the wind facing you. Even downhill was challenging as the wind would stop me if I would not push to keep going. But anyway, I am still not getting tired of being surrounded by this nature. Every morning walking or driving to work is still magical. The sun shining on those mountains, light and shade would give it a magical view, like out of another world. As if it would be not real at all. SOme music on top – just amazing. And coming home Thursday evening was even better. SInce there was a parcel for me back from Germany! From my very good friend Lisa. She might be little (honestly, she is really a small person 🙂 ) but she is always full of joy, crazy ideas, mostly on the hunt for new adventures and she would send me a parcel full of christmas stuff. A little late now, but it was so wonderful and I am so happy about this small package! Sometimes being so far away from home, from family and friends, from people who got to know you for years and years, who have seen you going through a lot of stuff, ups and downs, challenges and struggles, can be really challenging. Since having those connections with people is quite hard to build up again in just a couple of months. It is just a different kind of connection. A different kind of relationship with people here. It needs a lot of time, time together, ups and downs to really get to know each other. To know what a person might think, feel and do.

And this small package made me feel connected to my friends and family again. It made me feel that I am still part of their lives, even though I am far, far away in a physical way. But being connected with each other does not mean being physically close to each other. Of course this would make things way easier (especially giving hugs, hugs are just nuts and in my opinion the most valuable currency). And it is also the way arround. I think quite often about a lot of people, about our adventures, our memories, about how we have met, they just show up randomly from time to time and make me smile. Out of the sudden. And I think this is something quite wonderful. People do not have to be standing next to you to make you feel better. To make you smile. To make your day. If there is a certain connection between you and another person, you can support each other without even knowing that you would support each other. You might be in peoples mind and heart way more often than you think 🙂

Random thoughts

Before I went tot therapy back in 2022, my mind was nonstop talking to me. Giving me random things out of the sudden, random memories, random questions. I would describe it as an internet browser. 20 tabs open. And as soon as I would close one of those tabs, two more tabs would open up. But with more content. More doubt. More questions. More and more and more. And in the meanwhile, there would be some monkeys dancing on the desktop and there would be some random music. You can imagine, after a certain amount of time and tabs, the main memory is overloaded and needs a shut down. And there are certain ways of dealing with that way of memory overload. For me, it was a mixture of therapy, coaching and of course sports. It was about trying to either think about one of those random facts in detail, thinking it through, from the beginning to the end. Or it was the way around. Just let this thought be. Let it come and let it go. Without even trying to give it too much attention. As it would be a random cloud in the sky. You look at it. You reckognize it. And then you change your focus to something else again and you would not even think about this cloud again. It will disappear sooner or later. Of course this kind of mindset will not appear out of the sudden. It is a lot of work, „training“ and comes with ups and downs.
And still now and then, there are moments when my mind is on fire. Depending on the situation and the mood I am in. But something has changed regarding the quality of the tabs that would open up. Most of the times it is more about serious questions, about what I can learn about a certain situation, how things could be connected to each other, what would I do differently the next time, how would a person feel? The quality has changed and the questions are more related to learning and growing rather than doubt. The tabs are more focused on now and later rather than back then. And sometimes those thoughts show up so quickly and intense, it is impossible to focus on them or to write them down. They would come and go faster than Usain Bolt. But I am quite sure, that those thoughts stay with us. Subconsciously. And that they work within us. And that even though we might not fully understand or get them at the very beginning, they might show up later again. And they might change our point of view, our focus and hence, our behaviour and interaction with ourselves and others. Because we might not be able to change or control every single situation in our lives. It is just impossible. We are not in control of everything. To believe that would be very arrogant. But we can indeed adjust our way of thinking. Our way of looking at those situations and of changing our point of view. Our way of what we wanna do with a certain experience or situation. If we want to suffer from it and if we want to embrace the pain, the doubt and the negative. Or if we want to try to see the positive out of it. The chances. The changes. And the option of learning something out of it. And of changing our mindset step by step to something better, to something more positive. Quite a deep talk this time right?

What else to say?

A couple of months ago, I would have never been able to understand why cycling would be fun at all. Why would it be fun to ride a bike for miles and miles along a long road. Up and down. Pushing. With facing wind. Cars passing by not keeping enough distance between you and themselves. Sweating. Having a small amount of supplies with you to get you covered. And your feet attached to the pedals with this interesting click system. Back in the days, my brother was cycling a lot and I would always call him crazy going up and down those steep sections. But what to say. Fellas. It is fucking fun! It is joy! It is freedom. It is wind in your face while you pacing downhill speeding up to 70kms per hour and faster. Your hands holding the bike as tight as possible to keep it going straight. The wind is just getting louder and louder and you are praying that you make it all the way down safe and healthy. You bend down all the way and just your head is moving up a little bit to focus on the street.
And you are thinking that it might be possible to just cycle a couple of kilometers more. 100? 150? Maybe 200? Whats the limit? How far can you go?

Well, and sometimes, it is also a complete energy breakdown since you did not bring enough supplies and you have to stop a couple of times because you are about to pass out (this happend to me ages ago while running back in Germany). And sometimes it is just about being with yourself, surrounded by stunning nature and being full of joy and in the mood and moment.
Cheers guys, talk to you next week again – have a good one!

Your DingyInternational
Felix