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!

Community

Self-compassion

In a process akin to peeling an onion, we work our way to the realisation that, while others may be the ones to activate feelings that challenge us as we make our way through the day, the source of our suffering is to be found not `out there´ but within us, namely in our emotional dependencies on people, places, and things to help us feel worthy and lovable. Suffering occurs when I take up a stance of resistance to the pain. Pain is inevitable, suffering is voluntary. If only this, or if only that, then I would feel OK. In Dr Berger’s words, Emotional Sobriety is a shift from `I’m OK if´, to `I’m OK even if…..´.

Community

Reconnecting

Neglect occurs when the fundamental needs are not sufficiently met for longer periods of time or our cries for help go unheard or, indeed, are met with an angry or punitive reaction. Stress activation and the resulting dysregulation become the central dynamic for daily survival. Stress becomes the dominant pattern in both our waking and our sleeping hours. In situations where the parenting is consistent, predictable, and nurturing, the stress response systems become resilient. They grow in proportion to our overall development and needs. A healthy sense of self emerges…

Mental Fitness

Ritual

My daily walk along the Rhine is a blessing. On reaching the water, I pause to reset my compass for the day. Inspired by the wealth of ritual which has evolved over millennia among indigenous cultures in North America, known as the Medicine Wheel, it comprises greeting five elements: the Four Directions of the compass and the Vertical Axis. First, taking a few deep breaths and feeling into the soles of my feet, it involves facing east, bowing while silently reciting; `East – Air; every breath a new beginning…

Community

Supersedure

The fact that our species has reached such heights in the creation of beauty, — the music of Mozart, the paintings of Monet, the poetry of Rumi, etc — has produced great scientific innovations, and is filled with stories of loving-kindness to each other in the most challenging of circumstances, reminds us that the human potential for love is boundless. Why do so many of us operate below our full potential and what can be done to rectify this? How can we restore the abundance of self worth to ourselves and others once it has been impaired?

Community

Selfless Service

In the stillness of my own heart, the feast of Easter has taken on a special meaning over the years. This feast is always a welcome reminder to reflect upon and develop this meaning even further. When exploring the contents of the great spiritual teachings, I am always keen to discover the metaphorical meaning of the events described therein. Did a great 33-year-old prophet really die brutally on a cross and rise from the physical death three days later? Perhaps. In my view, the meaning and spirit of the story have more power than the, often disputed, facts…

Self-care

Intention

When I am out of sorts, – restless, irritable, and discontented – it invariably turns out that, for reasons often beyond my grasp, I have fallen off the beam of conscious awareness and end up suffering from the illusion of disconnection from Source. The result is a combination of feelings: anxiety, overwhelmed, disconsolate, and forlorn…

Mental Fitness

Guilty!

He has stopped running now, got exhausted, ran out of steam, and arrived at a turning point where a decision had to be made. Was it going to be a continuation of the No to life, or an embracing of the Yes. He chose the latter. Turning around to face what he had been avoiding all along, he recognised the wound, the original sin inculcated in his childhood self and later self-perpetuated when he became his own prison guard on death row. The accusation of having been guilty of causing another’s unhappy demise…

Community

Safe At Last

In what could be described as the echo chamber phenomenon, this fear of apparent danger is activated when no such fears are pertinent to the current situation. Today’s situation provides the activation for fears which no longer apply. They have their origin in days long past. These phantoms, these fears from the past will have a hold over us until we address and resolve them. Until that happens we suffer from neurosis. `Neurotic means repetition of archaic ways of protecting ourselves from what no longer truly threatens us´, writes David Richo in his masterful `When Love Meets Fear´.

Mental Fitness

Astronomical

Finding a free bench in the park outside the village, I settled in for a longer period just before the eclipse reached its climax at ten minutes past noon. Now, totally relaxed and in awe of what was happening, my heart began to fill with gratitude. What a privilege to be able to experience something so superb! As I watched in awe, two contrasting ideas came to mind. The first concerned vastness and infinity. What an amazing notion, to consider that our solar system is at the edge of a galaxy which is only one of between 100 billion and 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe…

Mental Fitness

Religious Abuse

Over time, as we heal, we will grow in compassion. This is extended to our biological parents and other caregivers who may have also experienced religious abuse, been hampered in their own experience (or lack thereof) of spirituality, and did not have access to the wide array of recovery resources available to us today. Some of these are innovations, such as trauma therapy, which have been developed in our lifetime. Finding a Power of our understanding, a `Power greater than ourselves´, is essential for long term recovery and real inner transformation….

Community

Trapped

As long as we are constantly hijacked by our Saboteurs, fear rules our lives and the lives of those around us. This takes place sometimes very obviously, sometimes more subtly. Fear’s toolbox contains a very powerful device that, if not addressed and relinquished, will ensure that the old order will forever rule the day. This device is denial. For many years I stewed in the juice of denial. Sara Bareilles describes the dynamic eloquently in her sublime song “Orpheus“:
Missing the world
The one you knew
The one where everything made sense because you
didn’t know the truth…..

Indeed, many of us didn’t know the truth for long stretches of our lives. Denial has an important role to play in our survival…

Leadership

Mind The Gap!

My general observations lead me to conclude that we are either in autopilot and react in line with the coping mechanisms and survival strategies we developed before our fourth birthday (approximately) or, having developed sufficient awareness, mindfulness, and mental fitness, we learn to pause before responding to whatever stimuli cross our paths in a conscious, loving manner – beneficial to the healing, growth, and joy of all concerned. The term “autopilot” may be considered charitable. Some would call it “sleepwalking through life” (Dr Allen Berger) or even refer to a “Zombie” existence. And of course, this is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon…

PQ Mental Fitness

Balance

So, it was really telling when, in a recent yoga lesson, we went though balance exercises which included the Vrikshasana (The Tree Pose, where standing on one foot we bring the other to the inside of our upper thigh), that the terror of childhood – as a felt state – returned. My heart began to race; I began to sweat and couldn’t maintain my balance for longer that twenty seconds. Of even more interest was the fact that my breathing froze. Despite all the insights and, indeed, practice in so many other modalities and situations, here we had the default patterns re-asserting themselves immediately, and with a vengeance…

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