Discussion: Let’s not wait for life to knock us down

Discussion: Let’s not wait for life to knock us down

How many of us live as though life were something to be mastered, endured and played out correctly? How many of us go about our days, day after day, at odds with ourselves — at odds with our bodies, with our truth, with what we have long known deep down? And then we are taken by surprise when, one day, a blow comes and everything comes to a halt.

The experience of thousands of conversations with people facing cancer, loss and difficult life situations reveals something simple yet powerful: such a blow from life does not come out of the blue. Often, we have been paving the way for it for a long time. By not truly being present in our own lives. By fighting against ourselves. By failing to listen to our bodies or our souls, and living according to the expectations of others, according to rules, maxims and ideas about how we ought to be.

But it doesn’t end there. We often struggle with life itself, too. We resist what is coming. We battle against events, circumstances and our own ideas about how everything should be different so that we can finally be at peace. And this inner struggle gradually wears us down. Then we wonder where the downfall came from.

In 2020, Tibor and Marie Abel were dealt a heavy blow. Following the death of their son Kryštof, they found themselves at the end of their tether. It could have broken them. But they didn’t stay down. Gradually, they got back on their feet and began to live a completely different life. Today, they are behind the ‘Smile Not Just for Kryštof’ Charitable Trust, through which they support people during the most difficult moments of their lives — in illness, loss and dying. They say themselves that they have never worked harder than they do today, often for less money than before, and yet they have never felt more alive, happy and fulfilled.

This interactive workshop is not about theory or lectures. It is about encountering what we may have long overlooked, ignored or put off in life. It’s about the question of whether we really have to wait until life knocks us down to realise that we’re not truly living our lives. And it’s about the possibility of starting to live more authentically, more fully and more on our own terms — before the next blow comes.

The workshop will be led by Marie and Tibor Abel, founders of the ‘Úsměv nejen pro Kryštofa’ charitable trust, and Martin Jotov, co-founder of ‘Porozumění mysli’, who was there at the foundation’s inception and helps people in various areas of life to live more on their own terms.