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Great experience report on mindfulness by Hannes Hochuli
Mindfulness: more peace and strength for everyday life?
Are we on the brink of collapse? Everywhere you look, people are running on fumes. Company bosses often have no choice but to squeeze their employees like lemons. Stress, burnout, bad decisions, divorces, addictions and illnesses are the result. During a sabbatical, former hotel manager Hannes Hochuli travelled the world and came across the topic of ‘mindfulness’. And is amazed that well-known companies have recently started investing in a lifestyle that at first glance has little to do with business. However, the topic offers potential solutions for change. At least that is Hochuli's experience.
‘After 20 years in the hotel business, it became increasingly clear to me that a new era was coming. I decided to take a longer break,’ says the 51-year-old father of two grown-up children. His journey began in Malta, with a tent and rucksack: ‘I travelled around the island on foot. After two days, I realised that I had to take care of my feet so that the trip didn't end sooner than I would have liked due to blisters.’ After four days, he remembered for the first time that there was just one hotel that had so far completely filled his life and challenged him. He bought some ointment and in the evening gratefully massaged the two feet that had reliably carried him through life for years. This unusually conscious attention to touch and massage, the close observation of small skin changes to prevent blistering and the tangible awareness of how important his body is for the rest of the journey opened up a new perspective for him. ‘Although I had other plans, I also asked myself whether I could return to the hotel industry. Yes and no - only if there were ways to make everyday business and private life more liveable’. However, this would require a change in the laws of business. Realist Hochuli knows that this is impossible. But: ‘I can start with change where I have access - with myself. And with me, my environment begins to change slowly and quietly’.
He ordered an e-book on the topic of ‘mindfulness’. ‘What I read awakened a longing to reform the world of work,’ muses Hochuli. He started trying out simple exercises and was surprised at the impact they had on him and his journey.
Solutions to break out of the hamster wheel
The seed was sown. On his onward journey through nine different countries and in conversation with residents and travellers from all over the world, Hochuli learned that people around the globe were running at their limits in terms of power. ‘In many places, people's capacities are completely exhausted, the lemon has long since run out of juice. And yet employers keep on squeezing because the pressure from donors, competition, the market, customers or even sheer survival is so immense that there is no other way. I kept feeling the powerlessness, how I
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