Mindfulness – A New Era Of Wellbeing Travel
© Ananda In The Himalayas, India
What is it that sets so many of us on the path to a healthy life? We are flocking to yoga studios, buying organic food, meet in health food restaurants for lunch and drink green smoothies for breakfast. What is happening?
Is it that we follow the usual role models, such as the super stars in Hollywood or the good looking person next door? Or are we impressed by people such as the former US president Bill Clinton, who not only follows a vegan food regime and exercises daily, but also puts his power behind his Global Clinton Foundation and the “Health Matters Initiative” that promotes health education in the USA and globally.
We have experienced material satisfaction… be it the mobile phone, Internet, luxury goods or comfort food. Although these things tend to create a certain kind of happiness in us, it is not a fulfilling one. Something is still missing and after some time we realize that just consuming more doesn’t do the trick. We begin to understand that we can loose ourselves in these fast paced lives.
In today’s saturated material world, health is one of the most precious assets we have. Most people face a lot of stress in their everyday life and want to compensate for this by pursuing health and wellbeing in their free time.
We may already do that to a certain extend and we also have understood, that being strong and healthy in our daily life gives us security in our jobs and our relationships. But there must be more – maybe an inner calling, as some people put it. We may be looking for health, but behind it is a deeper longing for more happiness, for a deeper meaning in life.
The search for happiness, contentment, and wellbeing is as old as humanity itself. It is a search that is not easily defined. What is happiness? What do we need to be happy? In order to find an answer to this question, one needs to look at the obstacles that obstruct the immediate find.
How mindfulness frees our lives
A key element in living a stress-free, happy life is mindfulness. Being mindful, and thus being free of distractions inside and outside, can have an enormous impact on how we treat ourselves as well as people around us in our daily lives. Mindfulness is a lifelong practice that helps us to be fully aware in every moment. When we are mindful, we are no longer dependent on what others think of us. We start to act from freedom instead of clinging to people, things and ideas.
According to Master Han Shan, a spiritual teacher, author and tutor,
“the key to happiness is not found in suppression. Nor is it found in the realization of what our minds produce in terms of ideas and desires. It is the spark of mindfulness that can ignite the light of understanding in us.”
Wellness and holistic health recognizes the interdependence of body, mind and soul. We learn to live a healthier, happier life at all levels of our being. Living a healthy and fulfilled life means understanding that we are complex beings in whom mind and body are interconnected.
Wellbeing travel is a huge trend and not a niche market. The number of seekers of holistic health and wellness is large and growing. There are about 289 million wellness consumers in the world’s 30 most industrialized and wealthiest countries.
Putting thoughts into action
The demand for holistic health and my own past experiences, led me to the idea of creating the brand Healing Hotels of the World that puts a strong focus on modern lifestyle issues.
Healing Hotels offer comprehensive holistic health programs around the globe. These, often personalized, programs of wellbeing travel bring body and mind back on track and stimulate the power of self-healing. Of course this needs time. Wellbeing cannot be a quick fix. Long-term thinking is always at the heart of a program. We need to get to the root of the issue to achieve results. Focusing on treating merely the symptoms will not achieve the desired results.
Appreciating our own body, mind and soul helps us to create a deeper understanding about our lives, needs and true desires. The further our development progresses, the less we are entangled in things that do not concern us.
