Do you live your life? Or do you focus on the outcome?
The story of your life is not achievement. It is not only adventure. Your story is failure. It is pain. It is taking the wrong path. It is detours. It is twists and turns. Companionship in one chapter. Loneliness in the other. Your story is bravery. It is torture. It is joy.
It is every choice you make.
Your story is unfolding every step of the way.
Only in the aftermath you do understand a part of its meaning.
If you focus on the goal. If you are only attached to the outcome, you will miss the whole point.
Life is in the moments….. The heavy and the light.
Life’s unfolding in ALL moments; in the dark AND in the bright….
All of it makes your story.
And this story is of significance.
You are not here to tell or to judge.
Your story is life itself. It’s us.
Do you take pride in your unworthiness? What would happen if you’d give it up? What would happen to your life if you’d take pride in your story?
It’s the evening haze of a regular weekday in Munich and it dawns on me that I am EXACTLY where I am supposed to be.
I am not rushing to catch the bus I’m supposed to take.
The sun is painting its last colors on the sky.
I don’t remember the last time I was standing on this bridge.
But what I know is: It is not the same person standing here.
I have changed. Something inside of me has changed fundamentally.
I felt strangely at home.
At this moment I realize that my shadow is comforting me.
It is my home.
“Just come as you are,” they say.
Okay, here I am.
All of a sudden it is there. I under-stand. I take pride in my path. I own my story.
A rush of gratitude fills my eyes….
I grew from the inside and for the first time I really feel that.
I evolved – FROM the inside.
I have done the work. And now I am standing here.
“What’s next?,” my busy mind wants to ask.
Again, I gaze towards the setting sun….
“What if instead of moving forward, i’d move backwards?,” my busy mind itself countered with an open question.
I can’t sow endless seeds.
Now is the moment that I finally understand that rest is AS important as progress.
Digesting what is instead of preparing a new meal. Clearing the debris instead of building anew. Integrating what happened instead of initiating something else.
I can’t sow endless seeds, no, but I can praise the garden that is growing inside of me, in front of me, around me…
I don’t know how I could not get it earlier, but it does not matter.
On a random day, in stillness, I recovered the beauty of my life.
…
For too long I witnessed it within myself and in others…
We are pushing so hard to move forward. We are aiming for one dimensional progress. The thing is that progress is not one dimensional.
It’s expansive. It’s round and whole. It’s the yin and the yang. The animation and the integration are both equally important.
Growth is the integration of what is. Growth is not only about harvesting the fruits, it’s about ploughing the land, fertilizing the dirt, and preparing for the upcoming season…
Personal growth is the care-taking of our internal motherland….
In some years maybe the harvest is not what we expected it to be. It is not as lush, as fruitful, or as delicious.
Some years we can only use it for compost. To fertilize the new ground in front of us.
And sometimes life goes on in a way that we could not possibly foresee. The work pays off when we least expect it. Miracles happen that we could not imagine in our wildest dreams. The puzzle is completing itself. We move on. The darkest moments turn into our pivotal turning points of growth.
We know it deep down inside. We have done the work in a myriad of ways. And there she is: Life force. She was there all the way, but we could not receive her.
Alignment cracks us open. It happens. If we are ready or not. Things fall into place drastically.
We had no idea that it could be true.
What would your life look like if you’d remove the roadblocks NOW? Are you scared of the unknown? Scared of the light that is awaiting you on the other side of your fear?
Don’t be scared. Hit the road. It’s leading you home…
There is a subtle realization triggering my mind. It is around accepting mistakes.
What happens if you catch yourself making or having made a mistake? Are you committed to camouflage it? Do you stick to an old story of ‘being a failure’? Or are you willing to learn? Are you open to receive the lesson that is being placed in your way?
This is so sensitive, so subtle.
There is a thing about admitting mistakes… They can drag you down. Or they can lift you up.
The thing about that, and that is a hypothesis, is: Our reactions to perceived failure are conditioned.
What’s the cure for that? It just dawns on me now. It is my own recipe for (self-)reinvention that I discovered during a deep personal crisis: Do it differently! Go the other way – wherever that is…
Well, to be accurate here: The first step is to become aware of the automatic pattern. To shine the light on the reaction to ‘mistaking’.
What’s the first thought when you understand that you made a mistake? Do you feel ashamed? Do you blame yourself? Is there even shock? Paralysis? There might be a trauma present.
Or are you owning it? Are you ready to move on and learn from it? If so, great, go on.
If you are struck by self-doubt and resentment. I got you covered:
In this case a question to ask could be: “When in my life did I first feel that ashamed/afraid/worried?” “What made me feel that way and is that thing present in my life right now?”
Another question could be: ”In which way does it serve me to feel or think that way? Does it serve me at all to feel or think that way?”
If you reach a point where you are able to ask these or similar questions: Congratulations! In my experience awareness is the first step to change. It is already “the change”. Actions will follow.
A full-on awareness of a “self-alienating” pattern will leave traces in your way of thinking. It will leave a strange taste. The knowing that “there must be a better way” – a way that is more aligned with who you are – sneaks into consciousness.
And this is the starting point of a new you (and me).
It is uncomfortable.
Resentment comes up. Sadness about the harshness of your inner judge. Grief about the energy that you have wasted. And that is totally fine. More than that: It is part of the process of befriending your mistakes and transforming your life.
The yin is the full acceptance of the parts that still want to be transformed. The yin is the knowing that there will always be parts that want to be transformed.
The yin comforts our discomfort.
She dresses the wounds.
She flares us open and yet she heals us.
The yin tells the long-forgotten stories. The stories that are still being lived through us.
The yin helps us to remember.
She nourishes the ground for us to stand on – and to eventually move on.
Oftentimes we are so absorbed in our own story. We claim our suffering to be so unique to us.
It’s not.
It’s historical suffering.
“First you have to understand that your are dreaming all the time,” I don’t remember the full quote of Don Miguel Ruiz, author of “The Four Agreements”.
But this snippet of wisdom captures it so well.
What we think is reality, is a creation of our thougths. Fully.
When you think about your past and your future? What are you thinking about?
You are thinking thoughts that are conditioned by your upbringing, by the media, by the story you have been told about what is possible and what is not possible…
You are retelling yourself the same story over and over again until you belief that this is reality.
If you’d drop these thougths, what would be possible?
Oh my god, there is soooooo much revelation taking place right now.
I know that you are experiencing the similar.
It is the removal of the roadblocks.
For some of us it is a painful removal. Like a surgical intervention.
For some it is smooth – the most natural process. Like the opening of a flower.
One has to deal with freedom. It can be painful to let go of the patterns.
Painful to understand that all the turmoil was created in your head in the fist place.
The anger and frustration is what comes up. But then there is the relief. Laughter. The dance of joy!
You freakin’ did it!!!
And yes, it was that simple.
Nevertheless there is no reason to shame yourself.
You had to live through it all in order to become aware of the lessons.
What is happeing to me?
I’m becoming aware of the lightness I am built of. All density is created. All trauma is imposed – partly self-imposed.
I am able to forgive myself and everyone around me. Because we are all the result of our circumstances. And we are all lovable with everything we are.
There is no one to blame. So I take action whole-heartedly.
I stand up. I stand in my power for once and for all. With you.
In the introduction round I was all fired-up. For the first time in a while I felt super excited about writing my heart out: “I will finally give it ago and do some stream of consciousness today.” I announced with a solar smile. I felt the urge to just hit the keyboard and go for it…
When the timer started, I was not able to finish even one sentence.
From one moment to the other I tensed up and could barely type a thing.
I started to reorganize some past writing – and I tensed up even more.
“What’s the point of all of that?”
The casual question for purpose made me close my laptop.
The next morning I had a conversation with my boyfriend. I was ruminating about career decisions and life in general.
He said: “While you think all these thoughts, watch your breath.”
“I am not breathing at all,” I countered with a trace of outrage.
“Right, if you look that closely at every moment you don’t have time to breathe – and you don’t experience the moment either. Just let it flow.”
He left me in awe.
Open-mouthedly I starred at the wall.
All of a sudden I understood what was missing the day before – at the writing meet-up… And all these previous days when I felt trapped in my own head – waiting for release that never comes.
FLOW.
The flow of breathe – not despite but united with my thoughts.
I took a breath and finally surrendered to the moment….
“What’s harder? Accepting that you are happy and blessed or resonating with your trauma?”
This is a question that found its way into my notes at some point in 2021.
All of a sudden there was light at the end of the tunnel – after a dark period of loss and despair (Let’s call it “the year 2020”). I had a new job in sight and a relationship I was in (and still am) turned out to be a safe haven for…my chaos, my love and my growth….
Unwittingly I had arrived in a place where I am ‘allowed’ to flourish – in all shapes and colors.
“Yesterday it rained and today the sun is shining. One has to deal with that.”
The quote describes accurately the situation that I had found myself in last year. Even though things got significantly better, the self-doubt was lurking and fight-flight-freeze often the only response to stressful experiences.
“Yesterday it rained and today the sun is shining. One has to deal with that.”
The thing is: We humans tend to resonate with trauma and with worry more than we resonate with happiness.
It is incredibly hard to resonate with happiness if we have re-created and cultivated trauma-responses in our lives early on.
For example: If we are programmed to disregard our own needs or goals in order to protect or impress a parent and/or to harmonize the relationship dynamics within our family, most likely we will carry out self-destructive behaviours in our adult life. We might neglect our personal goals or our health.
Until we learn to prioritize ourselves…
How Far Did I Get With Displaying The Same Behaviours?
We all have developed mechanisms that help us to be accepted within our tribe, but there is a possibility that we have buried parts of ourselves and a whole lot of potential beyond these survival tactics.
There are Psychologists like Gabor Maté or Neuroscientist Bessel van der Kolk who devoted their work to understanding the dynamics of trauma. And how we can train our brains to move “through” the trauma.
I’m taking a short-cut here: What trauma research has shown is that trauma affects our brain physically and as a result it changes our behaviour.
The great thing about that: We are able to transform our coping-mechanisms to some degree – thanks to neuroplasticity.
And I experienced it first hand – basically by starting this blog (which still astonishes me!!!).
At some point I asked myself:
How far did I get with displaying the same behaviours over and over again?
Not that far – so why not try something else? The opposite, for example!
And this brings me to the first insight that helped me to change my relationship with self-sabotage:
1. Belief What Other People Are Telling You About Yourself
About two years ago I was in a state where I had no choice anymore. I had to ask for help.
The global crisis was incredibly aligned with my personal crisis: I reached rock bottom when the pandemic forced me to “go home”. Apart from travel life my whole idea about romantic love got smashed and my mom got cancer. I had no idea what to do next.
I knew one thing: I couldn’t trust myself, because I had been misleading myself very far off from my core… I did not know where I begin and where I end – boundaries still appeared to be a foreign concept to me.
How did this happen? Apparently I was constantly re-traumatizing myself! The more I learnt about trauma-responses, the subconscious and the biochemical processes in my body, the more I understood in which way I had created my own reality:
How do we create reality? We filter, segment and value the information that we receive – partly subconsciously.
I thought negatively about myself, because I never really learnt to prioritize my own needs. I always functioned as some sort of “emotional buffer”. Within my family and in friendships often times I found myself in the role of a rescuer – or mediator (best case scenario).
So, what did this do to my thinking? I filtered mainly the negative information out of every situation and every conversation that proved my self-image to be right. Subconsciously I programmed myself into thinking: “I am not worthy.”
This way my lack of self-confidence became a self-fulfilling prophecy… UNTIL: I had to ask for help, because I felt mentally and physically unprepared to deal with the changes that presented themselves in my life.
Slowly I opened up to coaches and therapists. I talked to my friends and other people who helped me to recover my own resources:
my determination towards growth
my willingnesss to learn
my resilience
my “spiritual tools” like yoga and meditation
my love for nature
and last but not least: My ability to relate to others and my compassion for all beings (connection to the planet).
Finally I experienced a sense of self-worth.
It dawned on me: What if I trusted? What if I’d believe in the positive things people are seeing in me or telling me about myself? (Much, much earlier in my journey I had started to cultivate a diary of compliments, which helped me to collect positive things about myself. Maybe I should start this again.)
2. Make a Different Choice – NOW
I had nothing to lose.
Looking back this sensation gave me a never felt freedom amidst a personal crisis. A freedom that gave me an opportunity to choose a different direction and at the end a whole other way of being!
Today, I made the choice:
“I’m going to press the publishing button – no matter what.”
This is what I owe myself – a commitment to my own writing journey, my own growth (even if it hurts).
And this is also what I did in the darkest moments of my life: I made the choice to think positive. To trust into the universe.
Sometimes we need to make a different choice – just for the sake of it!
Just for the sake of “trying something new”. As simple as that.
In my experience this is the way to go in order to live a different life.
Sometimes any action is better than no action – in order to get out of deep discomfort, the writer’s-block or in order to change anything in life…
It can be the tiniest step, but it will be a step in a new direction – towards a new life!
3. Appreciate Your Gifts
Retrospectively my willingness to open up to possibility led me onto the path of becoming a professional coach! (I will share more about that “right on time”.;) How? I had asked for feedback. I received feedback that helped me to start valueing my abilities. And now I am starting to implement the changes into my life.
All of a sudden my brain created the following questions: What if I had something to share? What if other people could benefit from my life experience? What if I’d drop the self-sabotage-agenda?