Healing

by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Receive Resilience

I recently came across the term ‘collective resourcing’ in regards to collective ancestral trauma healing and this gave me a great feeling of relief.

I am sensing that I am not ‘doing the work’ for me . I’ve mentioned this repetitively.

What I find within is not ‘my answer’ it is ‘the response to life’ itself.

Every journey of self-discovery I indulge in internally reveals a great deal of resources that could be crucial for survival in ‘the external’…

“The veil is thin these days,” they say.

That’s the reason why I’ve decided to give this piece a go….

There might be something behind the veil that wants to be revealed (and that lays beyond my intellectual abilities).

What I understood during an online event with Thomas Hübl on collective trauma recovery is that my healing IS my union with my ancestors.

I do not only inherit the pain but also the resilience of my forefathers and mothers. And this resilience is what I recover.

I am ‘life incarnated’. I am resilience. The willingness to push through. Life wanted to live through me.

It is something I felt all the way. Every purge, every cry feels like a dissolution of barricades, a removal of debris that blocks my connection to source.

As I mentioned many times before – this can look different to every single one of us who consider themselves on a healing journey – the path. My tool is crying, yours could be something completely different.

Nevertheless, the more I see and the more I converse with the souls I am meeting on the way, the more I sympathize with one common idea:

Healing is the freeing of hidden resources – resources that have been a part of us since generations.

Healing is something that can only occur ‘from the inside out’.

What does that mean?

We have to have a conversation with ourselves in order to be able to respond to life. If we learn to communicate with ourselves, we eventually find out about our needs. By responding to our needs, we regain our response-ability to life.

And responding to life is in one way or another re-connecting with our ancestors. <3

What we discover within ourselves is not a concept of life. It is not a world-view. It is life itself if we let it. It is not the answer to a question. It is not our purpose. It is trust itself. Again – it is resilience, our innate power to move on.

And when I say power I don’t mean force. I’m talking about the subtle energy flow that keeps us alive…

Healing is the freeing of long-forgotten resources. It is receiving what is here for us anyways. Resources that are brought to us by our ancestors.

Healing is also the rediscovery of joy. The joy of being alive – our greatest resource.

 
by Uli on Threesome, Transformation Inventory

3 Ways to Drop The Self-Sabotage-Agenda

“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.”

This quote is written on the website of a coaching “agency” I had the chance to work with last year. I had the chance to get support by an art therapist within the framework of a ‘coaching & consultation for creatives and people who work in the media industry’.

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?

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

“The Why” is Not The Holy Grail

“You got to become your own person before you can do your job on this earth.“

I don’t remember the exact words of Maor, someone I met briefly at a goodbye party of a friend of mine in Hamburg in 2018.

“Hm.”

Or something like that could have been my response. To be honest, I don’t remember if I countered anything. But I do remember that I was desperate. I was desperately searching and looking. I was desperate for adventure, for feeling feelings, for feeling something.

I was craving life. I was terrified of never finding what I was looking for – without knowing what I was looking for.

I was collecting memories and acquaintances – but did I know myself?

In the meantime I numbed myself. I filled the void inside of myself with all sorts of things. (substances, pleasure, party,….), but I had no clue what was really going on within myself…

This ‘unclarity’ crumbled away over time – like a crust of mud.

What I have learnt is that the mud has to dry first. The dust has to settle. And then the path clears eventually. The seeds can spring and the blossoms bloom…

I have been stirring up mud for quite a while. And I am pretty sure that I will keep stirring up mud. It is part of the journey (my journey) – to experience it all.

There is this big Why roaming around in the spheres around “personal development” – and yes knowing the why can be quite helpful.

Especially the “Why do I feel like shit most of the time?” over the “Why am I getting up in the morning?”

I did not want to question my feelings. Why? (Haha) Firstly: Because I didn’t even know this could be a good question to ask?! Secondly: I didn’t want to admit to myself in which areas of my life I had “lost it” or I supposedly “failed”.

“Find your why” – this has become an ever-lasting quest for a lot of people.

The realizations that I am sharing here with you stem solely from my personal experience. There is a huge probability that this self-development thing works different for you. Nevertheless I feel the urge to share this:

What I found out is that “the WHY” is not the holy grail… healing is!

What do I mean by that?

In 2015, when I was made redundant from my first work-contract, I was feeling the call too – the call that I translated into: “Find your why!”.

Over the years I have met a lot of people who put a mirror right in front of my face:

“You are lost.”
“You are the universe.”
“You have to prioritize yourself.”
“You need to find yourself first before you can make a difference in this world”

(Wo),man, I had no clue what this was all about.

Well, not no clue, but I was not able to deduce any action from all the mirroring I had (involuntarily) received from the outside-world.

Now I still don’t have a full picture, but I came to the understanding that I don’t need to have a full picture. I will never comprehend it all. This life is freakin’ unpredictable and I better embrace the unknown!

What is predictable is one universal truth: “Things WILL change” (I wrote about change many times in this blog. Actually every post is about change.)

And they did…. in my life over and over and over again. And I am more and more able to EMBRACE the unknown.

I was – and I still am lost – to some extent. But more and more this feeling of being lost transmutes into a state of floating (for some reason this is the word that emerged).

And I tell you: My mind is intervening – all the fucking time. Letting go is a permanent practice.

Thoughts, thinking patterns, limiting beliefs – they come back in circles, in arrays, in fractals, in seasons… (You choose which image works for you).

So. I faced a lot of (uncomfortable) truths about:

  • My conditionings and where they are coming from
  • To what extent I am influenced by toxic energies in my life.
  • Where I am not taking responsibility for my own life.
  • Codependency.
  • Addiction.
  • Rage.
  • Fear.
  • Grief.

The list is long….

What I have learnt over the years is that “the WHY” is slowly sneaking in.

I am growing into my why….

Our Wounds Are Our Gifts

First things ARE first: If I close my eyes from the areas where my body and my being demands healing, I will not find any useful “why”. The “why” will be a sugarcoated lie that I keep telling myself until I collapse.

Well, I do want to be radical here. First of all I have to define what I mean by healing.

Healing is the process of becoming whole again.

This is not really correct. We are already whole to be accurate. Healing is more a “fixing of the holes”, removing the dirt, dropping the unnecessary baggage, standing up on our own feet…

The healing process is sometimes a refurbishing, sometimes it is a surgery, sometimes it’s a sudden removal or a complete turn-over.

We are thrown into situations that tear us apart.

This is part of the human experience. These situations are here to teach us….

If we are torn apart the first step we need to take is to find the pieces that belong to us. The next step is to put them back together.

As long as I am putting myself together – this is my “why”. My healing is my “why”.

I don’t say you have to wait until you are fully healed until you are finally able to share your work.

The opposite is the case.
There is beauty in all of our messy healing procedures.

And there are people who benefit.
There are people who will embrace your experience.
There are people who will love to hear your story. This is what humanity always did – listening to stories and learning from them.

I am not cheesy here, this is what it is – and always used to be.

There are people out there whose healing depends on your healing.

The work that you put in matters.

Nothing you do is self-sufficient.

You will show-up in a way that is beneficial for others. Sometimes it’s only one person in the room. Sometimes it’s an audience of a million…..

So, you don’t know your why?

Don’t worry about it. Rest. Heal. Your time will come.

Healing is expansion.
Healing is the arrival in the present moment.
Healing is union with yourself.
Healing is completion.
Healing is meeting yourself where you are at.

Healing is doing one step at a time. Patiently.

“The why” can become a trap if you don’t take the time to really acknowledge where you are at right now.

And I tell you, I have been there. I am still rushing. I am still wondering very frequently: How do I set boundaries? How do I know what I want? How do I know that I am still on the path?

Then I remember to walk hand in hand with my heart.
This is what the hard times do to me.

There is this potential or let’s say a potential for potential stored within ourselves. This little seed that is resting there somewhere in our subconscious or in our brain.

When you heal you are able to reveal what wants to be revealed. And this is how you follow your purpose.

The hard times force us to walk hand in hand with our heart.

Let’s shed our old skin. Let’s forgive and heal.

 
by Uli on Transformation Inventory

Meeting Patience Halfway

“How to develop self-compassion?”

This question in itself imposes pressure on my already beat-up brain. I carried it along for quite some time. This morning the answer revealed itself to me. 

Today at 7:06 am I woke up slightly tense. 

When I opened my eyes my first thought led me to my to-do-list: I have a video edit to finish, some udemy course about content marketing to work through and of course a huge pile of unfinished articles that demand my attention.

“It is Sunday… Relax!,” one (not me) could say.

I can see the azure blue sky outside of my window. I was planning on going hiking today, but I dropped this plan, because of my to-do-list mentioned above.

Eventually I get out of bed. Mechanically I’m rolling out my yoga-mat, but I realize how much I am craving fresh air. I have to say luckily going for walks and runs in the morning became my non-negotiable habit during the pandemic. Otherwise I would have gone insane. And certainly I still find pleasure in it…

It is 8 am when I step outside the door. The sun is beaming so bright that I can barely see. I sigh with awe when I pass the huge chestnut tree in front of the house. Its white blossoms glow in front of a light green background. The first shiver of gratitude unleashes my chest…

It is more silent than usual. I don’t see a single car until I reach the entrance to a little natural reserve next to the railways of the suburban train close-by.

What used to be a freight yard is now protected territory in the middle of the city, reserved for the rare “blauflügelige Ödlandschrecke”. It still amazes me (and gives me hope) that a huge building project for a residential area was discarded to preserve the habitat of a cricket.

As I walk along the path I find myself completely alone, which is very unusual at this time of the day. Usually I meet at least one dog and its owner.

For a couple of minutes there is no sound but the wind in the aspen and the beech trees that frame the concrete path. (Sidenote: They erected a bridge-like path across the whole protected area in order to preserve the natural floor which is inhabited by all sorts of animals,  for example lizards and insects.)

I pause and for a moment I enjoy the silence. When I gaze towards the bushland around me I notice a small snail.

“What does her world look like?,” I think to myself and I feel my stress-levels dropping. I realize how blessed I am to be able to take in this beautiful morning – a golden hour.

…A few days back I thought to myself “What if I was there?”… “What if I was where I always wanted to be?”

“Your bar will always rise,” my boyfriend, who is a trained musician and definitely an artistic soul, reminds me on a regular basis witnessing my constant striving to be better.

I agree. I’m always waiting for the perfect thought. The final phrase that says it all. The sentence that makes every future word obsolete. 

Hahaha, writing this down here makes me laugh. Just hypothetically: What if I found it? What would I do afterwards? Would I stop writing and finally go sailing around the world? Would I start building a house and start a proper garden? I don’t know. Maybe.

I remember the day when I decided to start writing in English. My whole ‘writing endeavour’ began at the common area of Tasman Bay Backpackers, a wonderful hostel on the South Island of New Zealand. 

“You should write in English, so everybody you will meet along the way can read it.” – “Me? Writing in English?,” I countered with a sense of being ‘caught in the act’. It seemed impossible to me.

“Do you think you will learn it, if you don’t start?,” Vincenzo, the ‘Italian grumpy guy’, who generously shared his morning coffee with me, replied in his straight-forward manner…

Looking back at this moment in time in November 2015 gives me goosebumps. If somebody would have told me that I will have started another blog about personal development and have posted close to 200 articles by May 2021, I wouldn’t have believed it! 

And what got me here? The first step. And a lot of patience…

Back to the walk: When I saw this tiny snail amidst these bushes crawling towards her next destination (a dandelion:), I realized that I am exactly where I need to be at this very moment…

The other day I got triggered because a friend said to me: “If I were you, I would go to Italy.” She referred to my previous travels.  

I felt some resistance rising. Something inside of me always wants to travel, yes. But not right now. Right now I want to integrate everything that the past six years of nomad life had taught me. Only now, I understand how much my life had shifted and how the limitations of the past year had helped me to explore my needs…

I can’t deny it anymore. I grew. I learnt a ton. I planted seeds that keep growing – in my notebook and in my soul. They need time and compassion….

This morning the snail taught me that it is fine to have modest plans for the day. It is okay to not ‘make the most of it’. It is okay to do some work and chill in the park for the rest of the afternoon – or for the rest of my life, if this is what fills my cup.

I named the snail Patience.

Happy Sunday! 😉

 
by Uli on Affirmations, Rough Diamonds

Reversing The What if’s

What if you had the time?
What if you had the answer?
What if you had what it takes?
What if you would allow flow?
What if you’d qualify yourself anew each day?

The universe works in mysterious ways.
Question your thoughts, but never lose trust.

Everything is possible. Everything is possible.

 
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, Transformation Inventory

Recreate Yourself

Drink lots of water. Cry out all the tears that need to be cried. Go into nature. Breathe in some fresh air. Get out the old one. Enjoy the green and the blue. Ground yourself. Meditate. Let gravity take hold of you. Hug a tree. Search for unity. Eat vegetables. Nourish yourself. Sleep whenever you can. And don’t sleep when you can’t. Stretch. Move slow. Have patience. Plant positive thoughts and let them grow. Trust in the laws of nature. Let the elements heal you.