Jules Rampal – Osteopath in Saigon, Vietnam

Trying to be successful

Everybody’s trying to be successful. Think about how people around you are trying to control life. Everybody’s trying to control their mind and their body. But is that success?

The way you think will shape the way you feel and experience the world. That simple sentence is something I came to realise out of experience. But bear with me here, I am not talking about law of attraction or about thinking positively so you become somehow superficially happy and acquire some material goods. Even my meditations are not like that.

I am talking about questioning the way you experience the world and what you have been told about it. That questioning will lead you to experience the world in a different way. And by experiencing the world in a different way you will start to deepen your understanding. Your thought process becomes a dynamic process, just like the way you experience your world. It becomes alive, able to adapt: just as a vertebra properly treated by an osteopath.

You will soon start to realise that some teachers told you what to feel instead of telling you how to feel. But more importantly, you will soon start to feel more.

That is one of the effects of the treatment I received a few years ago. Indeed, something that changed deeply following that session is the way I experience the world. Words often fall short when it comes to describing how one experiences his environment, but I would say that instead of looking for the world outside of me, I started to experience the world from a  very peaceful “place”. I could even say that I started to experience me experiencing the world, or me in/with the world instead of feeling that there is a part called “me” and a part called “the outside world”.

An idea of success

Trying to be succesfull ralph waldo emerson osteopathy meditation

You see, I write this blog as I want to share my journey as an osteopath and as a meditation teacher. I have this stupid idea that maybe my story could help some osteopaths/people to trust themselves a bit more, and to feel more. I also believe that this would be a key for them to become better osteopaths/therapists/human beings and help people even further. So somehow, I still believe I can help people through writing a few thoughts on that blog. Based on Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s idea, I am still trying to be successful here:

“What is success?
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!”
Ralph Waldo emerson
Being successful Meditation Ralph waldo emerson

What about osteopathy?

So let me explain how I believe this could be helpful to an osteopath, a massage therapist, a chiro or a physio. Any manual therapist, really.

When one palpates a body, he feels bones, muscles (and the skin, do not forget the skin!)…The practice of manual therapy relates on the ability to palpate anatomical landmarks. Also, we are taught to palpate someone’s body and to try to feel.

Osteopaths often emphasize on their hands saying that they can feel through their hands. When you believe that the world lies outside of your body, you need to look outside to feel more. You try to scan the patient, or to apply different pressures in order to feel more. I actually spent five years (in France) trying to improve that sense of the external world.

Now let say that one day, you start to use philosophy and wonder about how you actually feel. Or let say that within all the techniques that a teacher teaches you, he is able to ask you a few questions that force you to wonder about your universe.

Let say that you come to the realisation that you do not actually feel the outside world, but only the world as it is created by your brain based on the information it gets. After all that seems quite true, and that is the reason why you can never know if someone else’s blue is the same as your blue.

Let say that because your mind is able to question everything, you start to realise that you never feel the wind on your skin. The only thing you can ever feel is the reaction of your skin to the wind.

And let say that this idea starts to make sense for you and you start to wonder if another way to feel is possible based on that, then I have a simple question for you:

So in order to feel more, would you rather try to feel the wind outside of your body, or try to feel the reaction of your body to the wind?

If you never feel a vertebra but only the reaction of your nervous system to a vertebra, should you try to go further outside, or should you try to deepen the experience and feel the reaction of your body to the vertebra?

Should you get what I am talking about, then maybe it will change just a bit the way you think. And if it does, then you are at the beginning of a new adventure. And I am a bit more successful.

Trying to be successful: meditation is the key

Now, what would be the best way for you to put that in practice? Meditation. And by meditation I do not mean trying to attract a material success into your life. I do not talk about working on your past lives. Nor do I talk about a way to control your brain or your life or your body. I talk about listening, and deepening the experience of life. Realising how intense life is.

That is what allowed me to realise that I already feel so much more than I thought, if only I can learn how to sit in silence. And that silence can be felt in our bodies. If you feel like taking that path, you can learn with me.

jules rampal meditation

About Jules Rampal

Meditation teacher and osteopath

I am an online meditation teacher and an osteopath currently working in Gordes, France. My courses are for people who want to learn meditation with guided sessions, and for therapists who want to delve into the way they feel and the knowledge they can gather for their clients.
Book an osteopathic session here
Learn more about me here


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6 responses to “Trying to be successful”

  1. […] do not practice meditation as a means to reach a goal. I do not practice meditation in order to be more succesful or in order to feel more. According to my definition of meditation, I believe that this could be […]

  2. […] matches our era where most people believe that achieving more and feeling more are ways to measure somebody’s success in life. Even most osteopaths treat their patients like muppets. If you pay attention to the words used, […]

  3. […] whole family. And I hope that this article will help both manual therapists and parents. I am still trying to become more successful […]

  4. […] you stonger. But if you have realised that the Stillness is your natural state and not something to achieve, then it might be the only yoga you feel like practicing. I apply the same principle to my […]

  5. […] money teaching you how to do that or how to use the so called « law of attraction » for you to become successful. Do yoga to be healthy, practice meditation to achieve enlightment, buy this object to look […]

  6. […] I know this article will not necessarily be very popular, but I am not here to be popular, I am here to be successful.« You will understand in 10 years », « you are not centered enough » « Being more […]

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