Eine Oase ist ein guter Ort, um innezuhalten, sich zu sammeln, zu reflektieren und die Batterien aufzuladen. Jede Woche gibt mir reichlich Inspiration in Bezug auf Themen; mögliche Quellen sind Coaching-Sitzungen, Gespräche mit Familienmitgliedern und Freunden, meine eigene Lektüre oder einer der vielen Beiträge und Podcasts, die ich unterwegs genieße. Ein Thema wird mich Anfang der Woche ansprechen und ich habe dann große Freude an dem iterativen Prozess des Entwerfens, Überarbeitens, Polierens und Fertigstellens jedes Aufsatzes. Dann folgt die Auswahl eines passenden, meist aktuellen Fotos aus meiner Sammlung, um das aktuelle Thema visuell zu akzentuieren. Wenn Sie die Artikel in Deutsch lesen möchten, klicken Sie bitte auf den entsprechenden orangenen Button „Translate >>“.
Ich lade Sie ein, sich eine kleine Auszeit zu nehmen, Ihre eigene sechsminütige Oase zu schaffen, einen bequemen Stuhl zu finden, sich niederzulassen und zu lesen. Mögen Sie ein Gefühl der Identifikation erleben und hoffentlich etwas Inspiration in diesen wöchentlichen Reflexionen finden. Wenn so, fühlen Sie sich frei, die `Weekly Reflections´ zu abonnieren:
Sie erhalten dann jede Woche zukünftige Ausgaben direkt per E-Mail. Bitte teilen Sie den Link auch in Ihrem eigenen Freundes- und Mitarbeiterkreis.
Schließlich sind Feedback und Kommentare immer sehr willkommen. Ich wünsche viel Genuß bei der Lektüre!
Thankfully, life generally provides the impetus to catch up on missed maturation at some later point, in the form of some crisis or other, which can be interpreted as an invitation to change. Should we decline the invitation, it will often pop up again at a later juncture, or even repeatedly, until we do respond and work through the issues which demand our attention…
My severe lack of trust and incapacity for honesty rank among the gravest inevitable consequence of active addiction, especially when sustained over long periods of time. On waking up out of a blackout, for example, I often promised myself that I would `never do this again´, knowing full well, deep down inside, that it was only going to be a matter of time until the next one…
My mind went back to the final months of my Dad’s life in the summer and autumn of 1977. At sixteen, I was the oldest child at home and spent much of my time at his bedside, in conversation, reading to him, and attending to his needs. Over those months, though I did not realise it at the time, he was sharing a very precious gift with me in showing how we can embrace the end of our incarnation in gratitude and with both dignity and humility…
We humans are, at birth, the most vulnerable of mammals. Whereas the foal will spring up and walk around directly after birth, we humans need almost a full year to even begin to learn how to walk upright. This is just one example. Our initial helplessness and absolute need of protection and nurturing is one of the things that differentiates us from our mammal cousins. It requires of us, as parents and carers, to expend great time, energy, and loving-care, to meet the needs and ensure the survival of our offspring in the early phases of childhood…
While my bravado helped me do many things and achieve ambitious goals in life, my fears drove me further and further away from knowing, and therefore, loving myself. Substance addiction to alcohol and marijuana, which started in my mid teens, seems to have maintained this strange equilibrium, and enabled me, for many years, to remain functional. Seen from afar, my life was a model of success when I finally crashed and burned in the year 2003, at the age of 42…
Where to begin? All this commotion about a Happy New Year seems oddly out of place for a person like me who believes that every day is New Year’s Day. On waking in the morning, I generally feel a surge of gratitude for having been granted one more day on this amazing planet. When I succeed in remaining open-hearted and in that grateful frame of mind, the day seems to work out well. Real accomplishments, mostly minor, sometimes major, present themselves for review before my eyes close, as yet another day comes to a conclusion.
In another example of loyalty to location, Ken Robinson explained in one of his wonderful public talks that seven of his eight great-grandparents were born within one square mile of Liverpool. That´s a case of solid roots for you! Over the past five generations, my family, on the other hand, has lived on every continent on the planet…
Before I begin, it is important to note that I love science. Many years of my working life were spent helping break new ground in using light to transport data, namely in the Research and Development of optical transmission systems. Working with some of the best brains in Bell Labs, we delivered the world’s first 2.5Gbit/s optical fibre transmission systems for the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. This required a laser that could switch on and off 2,500 times per second, among other audacious capabilities…
One memory from this period is seeing a ghost at the door of my bedroom and feeling the despair of powerlessness in the face of such a terrible threat. When, on occasion, an older sibling or adult came into the dark bedroom and turned on a light, it became evident that the object of my fearful fantasies was a dressing gown hung on the door…
The second encounter was with a person who insists on seeing the glass half empty rather than half full. This lady is constantly battling a sense of doom and depression, talks incessantly about having to do this and having to do that, while passive-aggressively lamenting her lack of freedom. The hilltop at play here is that of the victim in a world apparently characterised by scarcity. This has been going on for years, with no visible improvement in the quality of her life…
In his recently-published work, “The Wisdom of the Odyssey”, one of our leading cotemporary Homeric academics, Phil Cousineau, highlights the contrast between the outward journey towards war and victory at Troy, and the onerous disoriented, decade-long, return journey undertaken by Odysseus, to his wife, son and subjects, stating that: While the Iliad asks: “How should one face death and earn honour?”, the Odyssey asks: “How should one live after war and find one’s way home?”…
This effortless effort is by no means a permission slip for inertia, a laissez-faire attitude or, indeed, indifference, but rather a manner of living life to the full, trusting in the guidance of the Universe, unattached to specific outcomes, and confident that every situation, without exception, contains gifts and opportunities for the benefit of self and Creation as a whole. By relinquishing our attempts to control outcomes and by trusting that we will be given whatever we need to handle what life throws our way, we seldom revert to the formerly ingrained fear-based patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving…
My translation of the statement; to supply me with prestige, security, and the like… into the trauma-informed language of the 21st century would draw attention to every child’s needs for ample acknowledgement, attention, affection, and an ongoing felt sense of safety. For those of us who came up short in any of these areas, our Inner Child may, even decades later, continue to attempt to draw our attention to the necessity of healing the woundedness, the childhood trauma. Until these cries for help are heeded and acted upon, we will remain in bondage to impulsive, somatically driven reactions, the coping patterns of the helpless child. This is a form of mental gridlock.
© 2022 SoberOasis | Patrick Little
