Author: Uli

by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Radical Self Love

By loving ourselves we unlock our potential.

By understanding our own gift and having the courage to put it out there we are truly making a difference.

It is not the time for false modesty now. It is the time to stand tall with everything we are.

It is the time to love ourselves more than we ever did.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Radical Awareness

Recently I found out HOW FAR I had crossed my boundaries in the past years – basically since my adolescence.

I don’t remember the day when I forgot where I start and where I end.

“Who did traumatize you?,” some ex-colleague asked me a couple of years ago.

I didn’t know how to reply.
I didn’t remember consciously.

Now I can see it more and more clearly.

There is trauma stored inside of my body and my genes – conditioned through former generations and lifetimes.

The trauma manifests in my belief patterns and my tendency to end up in unhealthy (I don’t like the term toxic anymore – even though it is an accurate description) relationships.

I re-traumatized myself by not knowing my boundaries….

I knew that there is such thing as ‘boundaries’. What I didn’t understand ultimately was that I’m the one who has to set them.

What feels good for me? Do I feel esteemed by my partner or my friends? Do I enjoy doing what I’m doing? Do I enjoy where I am? These were questions that never occurred to me….

Either I was busy meeting my own demands or fulfilling the needs of others. But I never asked myself if I feel good? If the relationship or the friendship gives me what I need? I never allowed myself to have any demands.

Now I know that this is called codependency and now I know that there is a cure for this and the cure is called ‘radical healing’.

Finally I understood that not every human wants my very best.

How could I be so naive?

Well, luckily I learnt to laugh about myself. A good portion of humor helps me to accept my former blindness and keeps me from becoming bitter.

Luckily the universe presented me with the necessary lessons – as usual.

Finally the pain forced me into self-love.

I reached a point where I HAVE to set boundaries – if I want to survive.

A crisis is the most radical learning experience you can ever have.

For a long time I was talking about pain and fear on this blog, but I have to admit that I never fully allowed my pain.

There was always this last resistance.

There was always this fear of the fear. The fear of feeling the pain completely. I thought I must be strong. I am not allowed to remain in pain…. But some pain is persistent… It might takes months. Or even years?

What did I think?

Probably I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I thought I would break.

What I learnt now through emotional pain that manifested physically in my body is that the toxic thing is not the pain itself but the resistance…

The more I’m holding on to my feelings, the more I’m resisting to feel anger, grief or sadness fully the more painful it gets…

This is how anxiety attacks are able to drain my energy system.

This is how I become ‘unaware’.

This is how I get lost in ‘shortcuts’ (addictions).

What’s the cure?

The cure is radical honesty. It is that simple. Being able to be honest about my real feelings. I wish I would have known this when I was 16 years old.

The feelings won’t harm me. They will pass – no matter how long it takes. I have to allow them. What will harm me in the end is the disconnection from myself that is created by resisting negative feelings…

The good news is that there is a way back.

And the way back exists right in this moment.

To be more precise – the present moment IS the way back.

By allowing what is in this moment I reconnect with myself.

Ram Dass says: “Don’t be afraid of appearances”

Finally I get what he is talking about.

This is what I call ‘radical awareness’.

Radical awareness is the ability to be aware of what is going on internally and externally – without judging it, or counteracting.

Only now I understand HOW important the practice of awareness truly is for personal development – the personal path.

Awareness is the path to the path.

The more I become aware the more clearly I can see. The clearer I can see everything the more clears my path.

All of a sudden I can see the signs again.
All of a sudden my whole body relaxes into place.
Only by becoming aware of what is.

This is the way towards radical healing.

‘Investigate!’

This is something I blared into my notebook many times recently…

I didn’t understand how ‘intuition’ and ‘investigation’ are interlinked.

intuitio – ‘the immediate insight’

How do you act intuitively?

By being aware and by looking – constantly!

I have the impression we are mistaken intuition for a spontaneous reaction or something like that.

But in reality it can be covered up and what we think is our intuition is just an emotional reaction to an external trigger…

Intuition is a response in alignment with our needs.

Nowadays these needs are most likely covered up with… with what?

I’d say expectations, pressure, distractions, addictions,…..

So, sometimes we have to investigate in order to find what our intuition is trying to say to us again.

I got caught up in concepts.
I got caught up in my own expectations.
I got caught up in ‘adding up’ instead of ‘letting go’.

Until?

Until I nearly exploded (or imploded). This is pretty much the only way I can put it.

I got so tense.

I had to open my heart and my heart moved me towards forgiveness.

Radical Forgiveness

I forgive myself for my mistakes.
I forgive my parents.
I forgive the system.
I forgive my abusers.
I forgive men.
I forgive me.

My heart bursts open and all of a sudden there is space…
It was always there, but I always locked the doors. Ooohh, I barricaded them! And I didn’t even realize it. I asked myself why does nobody want to enter my heart?

I locked my heart so tightly and I threw away the key.
Until my heart got so big that it exploded the chains.

Yayyy.

My heart itself ruptured my resistance.

And what there is is love, more compassion than ever before, more beauty, more light….

This is healing. This is becoming whole. I can feel myself again, because I felt myself fully in my deepest pain.

I was left alone and what I found was that I am my best company, my best friend. I am my everything, so why would I need to be the everything of somebody else?

Radical Healing

Radical forgiveness is possible through radical awareness.

If I wouldn’t look at everything I wouldn’t see cleary.

How can I heal if I don’t look at my wounds? How can I heal if I abstract? If I get lost in the process… I had lost myself in strategies. These were coping mechanisms to prevent me from seeing the truth.

I’m not sure yet if I need to know the origin of all these wounds.

I feel like I’ve overcomplicated this path tremendously with my intellectual understanding.

All I had to do was to become aware of my wounds. Fully aware.

The more clear I can see the more clear become the milestones of the path….

Don’t challenge reality.
Look at what you see.
Don’t be scared of your wounds.
Look right into it.
See things clear.

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Rough Diamonds

Trust in Your Creation

Devote yourself to your creation. Lean into it. It is your home. By creating you establish a relationship with yourself. By writing it all out you learn to distinguish the voices and eventually you will discover your own. On paper you are able to speak up for yourself. The blank page is the sacred ground of your recovery. Dive into your creation. You can’t drown. You will anchor yourself. This is how you connect with the core of your being.

 
by Uli on Rough Diamonds

Gaslit

If you lose focus, what do you think?
If your eyes are shut, what do you see?
If your senses are numbed, what do you feel?
If you keep on running, how do you ever reach home?
If you can’t feed yourself, how do you want to nourish others?
If you are walking on eggshells, how do you root yourself?
If you are crawling in darkness, how are you going to reach the light?

The illusion can’t sustain itself forever. These are the rules.
When you finally hit rock bottom, you get the chance to stand up for yourself.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Play It Lightly

You are the one who judges yourself. You are the one who overcomplicates your life. You are the one who is projecting. You are the one who pulls the trigger. You are the one who is using other people as an excuse. You are the one who is using force. You are the one who is building up the walls. You are the one who has expectations. You are the one who ducks down.

Do you remember?

“Get the fuck out of your head,” this has been my message from the universe – not only on this mornings’ walk, but all the past two months…

The ‘lockdown’ forced me into my head. My body forced me to get out of my head.

To be fair – for me it was not really a big difference as I chose to retreat or ‘cocoon’ for the past five months. (I have learnt this term recently from my beloved youtube mentor “The Heart Alchemist” Christina Lopes.) Finally I had an excuse to stay at home.

It’s been rough. My thoughts became so heavy that I literally had to start running. I was in ‘fight and flight’ mode nearly every single day of the past two months.

Panic attacks and emotional flashbacks – from more than one lifetime – shook my bones. I ran and I cried. There were days when my tank of tears was empty. There was nothing to cry anymore.

So, I started walking and drumming and singing instead….

After travelling India for two months I had spent two months at my parents house. My nomad life forced me ‘home’ – how ironic, isn’t it?! And this was probably the hardest journey of my life. I had to look at my old wounds. I had to look at it all. The wounds of my whole family…

Healing became essential. I was forced to train my thinking. I was forced to transform grief into gratitude, frustration into positivity, anger into love…

Now I know: I have to do it! I have to turn everything that doesn’t feel good into love.

I always thought this is a hard thing to do, but in reality I was only looking for excuses and for shortcuts. I didn’t understand that this is a skill that I already inherit.

My addictions had taught me a lot about ‘excuses’. It is the time now to become addicted to love.

Go and play your roles lightly again.
Go and be happy.
Move on.
This is just an illusion.
Don’t ask for permission to love.
Don’t be somehow, but be who you are.
Understand that you are a physical body that consists of biochemical processes. Take care of this body. The vessel of your soul.
As simple as that.

“This is not about the destination. If it was, what would you do when you get there?,” thank you Sarah Beth Yoga for making this morning an even more remarkable one…

This morning rattled me. Yesterday I was in a state of paralysis. I thought now it must be the time to go to the psychiatric clinic. My past two months were that way, but now the momentum is coming back.

The shift becomes so obvious, I can’t be scared anymore.

The astonishing fact: I asked for it.

I asked for every single lesson. There is always something to learn. Always. I don’t know what my life would be without these lessons? What would my life be without change? Would it be a life?

I’m not talking about physical change here… I’m talking about the change of perspective, the change of habits, the change of thinking. Because this happens when you learn. You rewire your entire brain… This is why I always travelled. It was never about seeing places. It was about learning.

Why not go for a walk in the middle of the night instead of lying in bed sleepless? Why not using my energy appropriately? Why not singing it out instead of being angry? Why not running it off?

This world is a playground and I am here to play. Of course we have to work fucking hard. Me too. Everybody does. But that’s what it is all about.

This is an incredible opportunity to learn. This is seriously the only thing that keeps me going. The moment when I understood this changed my life forever: The moment when I understood how much I love learning, how it is my driving force.

I don’t remember if there was a moment, but I know that there was always this force in my life. This force that told me that there is ‘something else’ to life. Something ‘more’.

Up to now I didn’t even know what I was talking about.

Now I know that this is all about awareness. This is all about being able to sense, to appreciate what is happening around you. This is the oldest practice of all times. The practice of being present.

It’s All About Awareness

When I went for a walk this morning I asked for guidance. Where should I go?

I passed a field of barley and I saw a spider hanging in the grains, hidden in a tiny cobweb. The spider was holding on to the grains with her acrobatic legs.

“So, this is your home?,” I smiled at her.

All of sudden I realized that I am already there. I am able to see the small things. I feel a rush of love when I see the sun rising above the fields – with the fresh morning breeze in my ear… Even writing it down here brings tears into my eyes. This is how moved I am by the beauty of nature – time and time again.

But there are the times when I forget. There are the times when I’m eaten alive by my fears and my self-doubt. Indecision paralyzes me in these moments – desperately waiting for a sign that never comes when I expect it…

On these days I get so anxious that I don’t want to see people at all if I don’t have to. On these days I forget that I am in control of my life. I am in control of my happiness. Nobody will make me happy. Nobody will make a decision for me. Nobody will be happy for me…..

But some people are a little bit more happy, when I am happy. So, why not just walk around and be happy??!

How To Play A Role Lightly?

So, what does this have to do with playing roles? Everything! Because the roles are the masks that keep us trapped…

“How to play a role lightly?”

Ram Dass printed this question into my notes and into my head. I’ve been collecting notes on this question for quite a while now.

Only today when I watched this spider it came crashing down on me how everything is related so smoothly: My negative thinking patterns are my roles.

Or actually it felt like the opposite: It felt like all the roles were taken from me….

I had this sensation quite a lot in the past two years, but more and more I can weave it into words.

More and more I can look out for ‘patterns’ to drop. And this is a longterm process. It’s truly like peeling an onion.

I was blaming myself for my massive ups and downs, for my heavy emotional flashbacks. Slowly it dawns me that every breakdown is another layer… I’ve been peeling another layer – a very stolid layer.

I’m learning my tools and they are so simple.

This is what fills my heart with gratitude these days and it manifests my desire to get this knowledge out there to everybody who needs it. I want to make the knowledge accessible. (“Hm, maybe sharing more on social media would be a step, right?”:)

So, what is a role? A role is not only the role you play in society (mother, employee,..) or a role you play in your head (author, artist,…:), it can also be a trait or a feeling. What do I mean by that? For a long time I didn’t realize how much pressure I put on myself by assuming that I am ‘depressed’ or I am not normal or ‘I am an over-improver’. These anti-mantras became my personality traits.

“You become your thoughts. You become what you think about.”

It is worth it to consider this and rephrase this and let this knowledge settle in.

What do you identify yourself with? What is the first thing you are telling yourself in the morning? What definitions and standards are you holding on to? Are they yours? Are they helpful or not? Do you need them?

All of this defines me.

Now that I took the time to spend so so much time in my head the voices become clearer and clearer…

The judge became louder and louder – until I’ve started to scream back.

More than that: I’m laughing at her. I’m laughing out loud when the huge, dark, negative voices come and cloud my view.

Of course I’m not ‘fully there’. I guess I will never be fully there – and this is the beauty of it. It’s a never-ending process.

Because if I was ‘there’, what would I do, right?

What happens when we reach the destination? It is better to enjoy the journey – and travel lightly. That means playing everything lightly.

…and because a list might comes handy, I have worked up my notes about “How To Play A Role Lightly” a little for you as take-away:

  1. Do not consider your job as your passion. Just do it. Do it with pleasure if you will. Do everything with pleasure.
  2. Do what needs to be done. Do the best job you can, but don’t get lost in perfectionism. “Doing” is an outside experience, while being is an inside experience. What does that mean? You do things in the outside world, but inside you remain quiet. This is a crucial lesson yet to be learnt.
  3. Stop being driven by deadlines and results. Just ‘do’ and detach from the outcome. It takes the stress away. Otherwise you will get lost.
  4. Have rules, have boundaries, but don’t freak out when they are being crossed. It means nothing.
  5. You have nothing to prove and nothing to lose. Take it easy.
    Know that you are capable of transforming every negative event into a positive one. Rewrite your story easily.

When you realize that what you do doesn’t define you and what you say is without meaning, then you are truly free.

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Rough Diamonds

Enjoy Your Crisis

Enjoy your crisis.

Be proud of it.

This is what your soul called upon.

This is not the time to give up. It is the time to build up your strength.

The crisis is not the challenge – it is the preparation.

Now, drop your convictions.

Drop the story that you had been telling yourself.

Keep up the work. In hard times it is even more crucial.

Transform your despair into love. It is possible. This is what you are here for.

You won’t die.
Your soul won’t die.

Chaos is expansion. Devote to it.

You can save your physical body only by surrendering.

Give in.

Feel it all. Yes. ALL. Don’t stop.

Appreciate it all.

Let go of it all.

Let go of the blame, the anger and the guilt.

Hold on to nothing.

Celebrate the unanswered questions.

Be shattered.

In between the pieces there is a little gem called silence.

Allow silence and peace will overtake your stirred-up mind.

If you wait long enough bliss will come and invigorate you.

I promise you.

Be patient.
Take a break.
And another one.
And another one – if you need it.

Let everything die that wants to die.

As long as it takes…

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Thoughts on Compromise

I used to be allergic to compromise until I understood that it is essential for our survival…

‘To compromise’ originates from the latin word compromittere – ‘to make a mutual promise’. The prefix ‘com’ means ‘with’ or ‘together’. Precisely the word ‘promittere’ signifies ‘to let go’, ‘to send forth’, ‘to assure beforehand’.

‘Let go – together’ – I like that one.

Okay, what is compromise really?

To compromise means to consider everybody’s needs.

As human beings we all have the same needs.

Unfortunately we live in a society with strong narcissistic traits. We deny our needs with powerful defense-mechanisms. These mechanisms became so strong that we lost the ability to feel what we need – as humanity and more and more as an individual.

As a collective we are taking on masks that cover up our trauma – the trauma that needs to be solved in order to proceed to higher levels of consciousness. And this is where we want to go if we want to align with nature.

With other words – we live in a society that denies life.

Overcoming this conditioning became the challenge of my life. I was raised to function – nothing more. How can I be okay with that?

“You are seeing this a bit too pessimistic,” a friend recently called upon ‘my lack of optimism’.

Don’t get me wrong. I love life and I highly believe in life. That’s the reason why I am so passionate about transformation – because I believe in change for the better.

So, what does this all have to do with compromise?

The possibility of growth derives from exchange. This is a fact I become more and more certain about under current circumstances.

By not-compromising we are getting stuck in our own perspective of reality.

This is dangerous. Why?

What we call ‘our perspective’ are just thoughts.

No matter how certain we are about our own point of view – it is just our thoughts.

They are nothing – if you look at it sober-minded.

By clinging to our perspective, by always bringing up the ‘but’ (But this is me. But this is what I think. But you are not right.) we obstruct the pathway towards harmonious coexistence with righteousness.

And righteousness definitely belongs to a spectrum of lower frequencies which causes all the suffering in the world.

We are not allowing flow – the flow of life. If we are holding on to our arguments we are closing ourselves up to possibility.

We don’t ‘solve’ our collective misery by arguing.

We solve it only by establishing human values – mutual values around the whole globe.

We are ‘out of alignment’. Compromise is our means of transport to go back to human nature.

And how do we do it?

Lao Tzu says: “Knowing the other is intelligence, knowing yourself is wisdom.”

It starts with ourselves.

Crisis is a great opportunity to get to know ourselves better.

A real crisis is a turning point. It is about life or death. Am I willing to change for the better or do I prefer to stick to outworn habits?

Our relationships are an invitation to learn more about ourselves. And how do we relate to fellow human beings?

By being open about our needs.

If we are aware of it or not – our needs are the only certainty in our lives. Our basic needs are the same, so why not talk about it openly and find solutions that serve us all?

This crisis is our chance to find a mutual promise again.