SHAPE-SHIFTING

A year ago, I could feel the need for radical change, but had little idea as to how considerable it would actually be. Most of the change began in July 2010 when I was invited to Durban in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa for a HIVEX treatment.

I have just re-read what I wrote straight after that life changing experience and recommend that you do the same, to make sense of what follows:

http://indigo-mansblog.blogspot.com/when-healing-comes.html

The enormity of what had transpired during that treatment, made me step beyond what had quietly become an uncomfortable comfort zone. I decided to move to Durban from Cape Town to start a HIVEX treatment facility in the very centre of Durban. Having started my own business many years before, I soon realised that my pioneering spirit had led me to begin another commercial venture, but something radically different from anything before. This was more about pioneering a much needed humanitarian cause than being a conventional entrepreneur.

We are often afraid of the unfamiliar and this unspoken fear frequently keeps us stuck in miserable lives. For whatever reason, most people would rather perpetuate their seeming pain, than engage positive change to create a more meaningful life. My comfort zone had become an obvious "dead-end" that needed radical action. Despite initially working very long hours with little social life, this new life in Durban heralded the onset of important personal shifts.

I was raised as a white man in apartheid South Africa. I grew up in relative comfort in a middle class home where we had the privilege of black servants. My conditioning lead me to believe that black people were fundamentally different, although I would not have called myself a racist. As a young man I was drafted into the army which was undoubtedly one of the instruments of maintaining the apartheid status quo. As I have now expanded my understanding, I feel ashamed to have been part of a system which wrought such extreme suffering on our black people. I had unwittingly become part of the problem, rather than choosing to make a stand.

My life in Durban has been surrounded by black people. For the first time ever, I have been immersed in their world, both in the city, in the townships and rurally. At first, I felt awkward being the only white person in a sea of black faces. But that initial response has transformed into realising that we are essentially all the same. I have been subject to their friendship and love and it has been a joy to reciprocate that warmth.

Part of this meaningful growth experience has been to discover that black people have dreams, fears and aspirations just like me, despite decades of suppression. Some of those I have met are significantly more evolved than many of the people who have moved through the earlier chapters of my life. This journey of personal discovery has made me deliberately search for the soul of another, rather than glibly seeing people at face value without exploring their real worth.

I have often commented on the lack of servant leadership in the modern world. Most current leaders seem hell-bent on what they can get, rather than being focused on the gift that they might bring to others. The examples of Jesus and Gandhi have made me understand the considerable power of the servant leader. These two men changed history considerably. Too frequently, we fail to comprehend what real power is. We expect power to be clothed in arrogance, wealth or brute force. But as I grow older, I learn that shedding the veil of ego to reveal the authentic self is the most profound way to unlock personal power.

Working in the HIVEX treatment centre has again opened me to my primary role as a servant. It is in this extraordinary space that I have witnessed how serving others brings absolute meaning to one's existence. Whilst my earlier life was largely focused on the accumulation of the material, I now see the transitory nature of acquisition. Happiness, I have discovered, can never vest in something or somebody. My happiness is within me and I need to release it by living meaningfully. Watching people heal every day makes me inordinately happy.

Coming to Durban took me right into the vortex of my life's real purpose. I thought I knew it before, but it is only when I got into the work of really serving people and witnessing their restored health that I understood the importance of this time in my life.

I choose to focus the balance of my life in fighting the new "struggle". With apartheid gone, activism needs to move to the arena of HIV/Aids where millions of people are suffering the horror of this hideous disease. In trying to understand many of the frustrations I have encountered trying to move this important project forward, it becomes apparent that HIV/Aids has become a huge industry that is now fiercely guarded by those who choose to make considerable money out of others' misery. The new struggle is not only to end this health scourge, but to waken people to the corruption that distorts life so horrifically.

By constantly blessing our journey even when it becomes uncomfortable, Life's response will overwhelm you. It will shift you beyond your wildest dreams and reveal aspects of self never previously known. Life may not be easy, but it can become a passage of joy if we just open ourselves to serving others whilst we invite the adventure.