Weekly Reflections

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!

Health

Depression

These Saboteurs, located in the left-brain hemisphere, generate all fear-driven variations of the 4F reactivity (fight, flight, freeze, and fawn).
In addition to the fear-driven Saboteurs, we have recourse to another set of resources which are situated in the right-hand side of the brain. These are the life-affirming, love-fueled Sage Powers of Empathize, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate.
As Mohandas Gandhi said: Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment…

Mental Fitness

Comfort

When, during morning meditation, childhood feelings percolate, my adult self and Inner Child aspect confer. Together, we look at and feel the emotional states that bubble up from memory. The adult me simply remains present, extending the embrace of kinship to the child experiencing fear, pain, grief, or joy, — whatever transpires. This process, — referred to as `re-parenting´, — allows the lifetime reservoir of pent-up, unattended feelings to drain at its own pace, a pace which allows their attendance in a healthy, healing manner…

Community

Alexithymia

An aside worthy of mention here was his intervention to help delineate between feelings and beliefs. When at one point I said `I feel neglected´, he feigned astonishment and asked me to show him where I felt this in my body. I couldn’t, of course, because `neglect´ is not a feeling. The term alexithymia (from the Greek a = lack, lexis = word, thymos = emotion) was first coined by the Greek/US psychiatrist Peter E. Sifneos in 1972 after noticing that some patients showed extreme difficulties in talking about their emotions…

Community

Non-Resistance

Some of us try to hold on to a certain static state, presumably out of fear of the unknown. This is akin to going down to the Rhein and ordering her to stop flowing. Imagine the amount of effort that would require!
Well, this is how many of us live our lives at certain times, quietly attempting to dictate the terms of the unfolding of the universe. I lived like this for many years and changed my stance only when I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, at which point I had become burned out…

Community

Fruits of Devastation

We shame ourselves when we deny any aspect of our essence. In this dynamic, I had simply emulated those caregivers who, for reasons probably only they could describe (if they were still alive), could not endure aspects of my essential nature, and in order to be rid of their discomfort, thereupon shamed me. Left with the choice of believing that these caregivers, on whom I was totally dependent, were mistaken, or the possibility that I was somehow at fault, I chose the latter. This is where the process of shaming of self begins. The Judge is born…

Community

Healing Community

Abandoning out true selves is akin to building our house in our neighbour’s garden. We build those homes, and we decorate them with the love, care, and respect that make us feel safe at the end of the day. We invest in other people, places, and things, evaluating our self-worth based on how much those homes welcome us. But what many don’t realize is that when we build our homes on a foundation comprising other people, places, and things, we give them the power to make us homeless…

Mental Fitness

Disorganized Attachment

When we had finally eaten in the breakfast room, with Daddy presiding, it was off to school with a high probability of arriving late, for which, of course, I was regularly scolded, and sometimes punished. It was only after this milestone that I could begin to relax into the new day. It is difficult to convey the quality of domestic chaos which kept me in a constant state of tension, anxiety, and hyper vigilance…

Peace of MInd

Fawning

Fawning is an unconscious attempt to manipulate the reaction of others to ward off danger and maintain connection in an unsafe environment or relationship. This behavioural pattern can become habituated, appearing like personality, without us ever being aware of its traumatic origins. The term fawning was coined by Pete Walker, a psychotherapist who specializes in complex trauma (synonymous with developmental, relational or childhood trauma). Walker saw fawning as the “Fourth F” of trauma reflexes: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. It is particularly common among people who have had, or are experiencing, long-term, developmental trauma…

Community

Healing Wounds

On holidays with the extended family at his beautiful holiday home in the west of Ireland, I was tagging along behind Grandpop, effervescent, eager for connection, wanting to learn from and share some emotional intimacy with this great man.
Unluckily for me, the great man must have been somewhat agitated on this sunny summer’s morning. At some point, as we were walking along the riverbank in the bright sunshine, he turned on me suddenly and, looking down from the heights of a six-foot man, told me that I was a case of verbal diarrhoea, instructing me to put a plug in it. Perhaps 6 or 7 years old at the time, I was devastated…

Community

Solitude, Community, Service

Community is, in essence, solitude greeting solitude. The Great Spirit in me speaking to the Great Spirit in you. To be in community means to build a home around the essence that rests at the core of each of us. This beautiful translation of the Sanskrit term „Namaste“ expresses it best: „I honour the place within you where the entire Universe resides; I honour the place within you of love, of light, of truth, and of peace; I honour the place within you, where, when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us“…

Community

Generational Grief

My new friends in AA suggested placing my focus on what was needed in terms of new behaviours in the light of this discovery. The first, of course, was not to take the first drink. Much more was to come later, in the form of a new design for living as described in the Big Book of AA and summarised in the Twelve Steps. That work is still ongoing today, one day at a time. I also had a bizarre hunch in those first months, one that has been recently confirmed in my heart and soul, without solid external evidence: That I am the grandchild of one or more alcoholics.

Community

Family Matters

From the child’s perspective we could apply the Zen proverb: `We never step into the same river twice.´ It is not the parent, per say, that determines the experience, but the relationship between the child, at any given moment, and the parenting at that same moment. Each interaction between a parent and any one child is a reprise of stepping into new waters, and for each parent-sibling combination there is a different river. In the overall picture, my impression is that our parents always acted with the best of intentions. Like all human beings they had their good days and bad, and sometimes their actions were determined by inner Saboteurs of which they had little awareness…

Community

Splendid Torch

In a recent conversation, a newly made acquaintance asked what I did for a living. The answer was Transformation Coaching, for people who have lost their way in life.
“In what way?”
“It is different in each individual case.”
“What brought you to this field of work?”
“I lost my way.”
“What did that look like?”
“The immediate manifestation was substance addiction.”
“So, you’re an alcoholic?”
“Yes, thankfully now in recovery….”

It was a refreshing conversation, especially considering it took place in the frenzied energy field of one of Cologne’s best known rave clubs at three o clock in the morning…

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