Self-Honourship 2023

Recently I understood how “optimizing” my life had become an obsession.

“I have to work through this.” “I got to master that.” “I got to become stronger, more confident, a better communicator and so on…”

I did become more confident. I did grow. For sure I made progress.

But at what cost?

I just came back from a short but intense retreat with my community of Becoach Academy.

“This time we want to invite you to a more holistic approach,” Isil, one of our coaching trainers, welcomed us.

What that meant was that we collectively worked through our topics of 2022. We contemplated what came to fruition and what we let go of.

We visualized what we want to take with us into 2023.

We let intuition and body intelligence guide us through dance and the elements…

The result was a very emotional, honest – I want to say “raw” – exchange. It was heart-opening for all of us.

It was beautiful. During the whole process I understood that I don’t have to have New Year’s Resolutions in order to have an “intentional” 2023.

Layer after layer I could feel pressure dropping off my shoulders.

“You are an inspiration,” some of my fellow retreaters proclaimed.

I did not feel like it. I felt raw and vulnerable.

Yes, I was authentic.

More than ever before I came to the realization that I don’t have to become someone. All I need is to be MYSELF in order to inspire others.

All of the years I tried to prove myself. Mostly, myself was my harshest critic: “You got to be more professional.” “You are too emotional.” “You should be somewhere else in your life.”

During my coach training the feedback was relentless.

Relentless in the sense of facing myself in a SAVE environment over and over and over again.

And what I received was not harsh feedback, it was confirmation. The confirmation that I am OKAY. The confirmation that it is all a process. The confirmation that it is totally fine to NOT be okay.

In our society (or let’s narrow it down to the “self-optimization”- bubble) we are obsessed with improvement….

This brought me literally to my knees.

How? I forgot to walk. I was projecting a version of myself to the future that I could not possibly meet in a lifetime. Why? Because I AM HERE.

My path is right in front of me….. I just have to make one step after another. And I have absolutely NO CLUE where it is going to lead me.

And that’s the beauty of it. That’s the uniqueness. This is how I bring novelty to this world. By being me – walking on my own path.

This morning I did not follow a routine. I did some stretching. Made a cup of tea. Watched the squirrels playing around the oak tree in front of the kitchen window.

I am not where I thought I would be at the beginning of 2023.

I told my boyfriend: “You know, I had so many resolutions about my morning routine”.

With a warm smile he responded: “What about listening to what you need this morning?”

I went for a 45 minute walk in the morning sun.

Since years I have been trying to develop a morning routine. It never really crossed my mind that it is supposed to serve ME and not the image that I have of me.

I believe the “best” routine in the world can be detrimental if it undermines our needs in this very moment.

Here we go 2023 – more flexible than ever with a warm smile of compassion towards myself AND my inner critic.

Everything is okay.

 

The Subtle Surrender

The power of deconditioning lies in my physical body.
My fabric releases the blockages that are separating my being from aliveness.

All of sudden it is there – without me doing anything about it.

My body is the vehicle for my self-actualization.
It inherits all the knowledge and all the power to transform.
I am able to transform physical matter and this way I am also transforming my mind.

There is the subtle surrender.
The magic’s unfolding.
The clarification takes place.

It all is the divine – the light and the dark.
Everything else is separation.
There is no good and no bad.
All is love.

There is liberation to be found in the tiniest moments as soon as we accept what there is.
If we receive with no expectation, then is the moment we expand our consciousness and we heal the whole earth.

This is an appeal: Can we love and unite without prejudice?

Can we replace judgment with love?

When will we understand that love is not a feeling?
It is an eternal force that is part of our DNA.
It is a prerequisite for evolution.
The opening of our hearts is our chance for union. If we drop our armour, peace takes place.

What’s necessary?
It will be necessary to grief – in communion.
It will be necessary to feel it all to the end.

We can’t deny what belongs to us anyways!
We can’t deny what we have done to ourselves and to our earth and that’s okay.
That’s the plan – our destiny.

Ease into your pain.
Hold yourself tightly.
Be okay with not being okay.
This too shall pass.
You are the divine incarnated with all there is.

I love you.

Random human being

 

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.

 

Befriend Your Mistakes Reloaded

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.

 

Approaching Life From a Yin Perspective

The yin gives up searching.

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.

Text inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

 

Living Your Values is Not Equal to Living Authentically

Omg, this is a topic that triggers me a lot. Probably because I am not “there”:

Living your values is not synonymous to living authentically.

The values that you define are not necessarily equal to what is important to you “from the authentic core of your being”.

What does that mean?

You can live your values and still be fucking miserable if you are disregarding your needs. I’ve been there. I was living my values – seeking adventure and freedom.

I did not realize that there was something else. There was a part of myself I did completely disregard – a part of me that was looking for something completely else.

In the first place this part of myself was looking to be recognized and by recognized I mean “being felt”.

Living authentically means feeling your feelings. Feeling yourself where you are at in this very moment. And this is way more complex than it sounds. When I first found out that I have no idea what I am feeling, I was shocked.

Living authentically means going to bed, when you are tired. Rest, when you are exhausted (and not go out and live your values!). Quit, when you have enough of whatever you are doing. Your body is here to let you know.

Of course, this is simplified.

Living authentically means FACING the challenges that are right in front of you right now.

Yes, getting to know your values can be groundbreaking, mind-shattering, soul-shaking. Gosh, it can raise your awareness, higher your vibration to a new level.

It does – and then the work starts.

The moment when you become aware of the things that truly matter to you deep down within is the moment when the work starts.

The elicitation of values is not cherry picking, it is an HONEST investigation – a lengthy, ever-evolving process of self-discovery.

 

Productive Gratitude

There is SO MUCH moving right now. This “stream of consciousness” moved through me just now. So I decided to let it out:

There is a fundamental truth I understood on a different level: We are all the same. We all have the same life force. We are all walking through this life with the same intention: To move energy – no matter if we are aware of it or not.

At the end of the day everyone of us is crucial.

Everyone of us has a purpose – the purpose to just be.

Omg, this purpose is so simple that it literally blows my mind when I try to put it into words, because as soon as I am trying to phrase it, it sounds so pathetic – too simple to be true.

Bizarre and surreal to most human beings who ‘distant’ themselves from aliveness so far off.

Still there is truth no one can deny: We are transforming matter from one state to another. Our emotions are our fuel to transform that matter, because they dictate what we do – short term and in the long run…

There is no human better or worse. There is no one on a higher level. The guru is us – you, me.

There is STILL such a huuuge misconception around the word ‘guru’. There is soooo much resistance created by splitting ourselves apart. We split us apart until nothing is left.

As soon as we’d understand that we are all one, that absolutely no being, no plant, not a single atom on this planet is separate, we’d find peace….

How could we do that? By FEELING OUR FEELINGS fully. And by assisting each other to do the same – safely. Without being judged and without judgment of ourselves.

I know that this is a long way to go. So let’s better start NOW.

If we take the time to just be there for a moment, be present with what and who is.

If we take the time to hold a hand, to look another person in the eyes, to not look through them, THIS is when we are creating change…

“Productive Gratitude” – this is a phrase my mind came up with the other day when I expressed my gratitude towards my fellow “yoga-retreaters” I journeyed with at “The Journey Through The Chakras” by Refeel Yoga.

All of a sudden I felt this huuuuuge connection – to myself, to this group, to the ALL.

And as sudden as this sensation arrived I felt it FOR MY WORK, for any work that I am doing – even the work I don’t love. The daily work. The 9-5. The 24/7. Whatever it is. I felt grateful for it and I DID IT with thankfulness for being able to do it.

If I am expressing my gratitude with EVERY SINGLE ACTION I will inevitably change the world.

How is this possible?

Because I am BECOMING gratitude. And by becoming it I am acting from a place that is not defined by trans-action.

I am doing and I am moving on at the same time (this is a small reference to Tao Te Ching;)

It is NOT easy. Definitely not. It is hard. In order to become gratitude I have to become myself first.

A quest of a life-time – a quest I am forever grateful for.

Namaste 🙏

 

Your Desire is Your Destiny or “Doing is The New Thinking”

Follow your desire. Follow your destiny. These thoughts entered my mind a couple of days ago…

Your Desire is Your Destiny.

There is a thing about “knowing what I want” that I always underestimated.

Recently I had been studying the hermetic teachings deeply – if there is such thing as studying hermetic teachings.

I did not grasp the power of “mentalism” through the lecture itself, but by connecting the dots of my own life experience.

We can read as much as we want and still be reluctant to the fundamental truths that direct our life.

So: There is a thing about “knowing what I want” – a thing I would call magic:

The secret is not knowing what I want. The secret is acting upon it. Step by step by step….

What is action? In a few words: It is guided energy.

I can know everything, still my life won’t change.

I can understand all the rules of the universe and not change a thing in my life… if I don’t make a move.

Learning more about energy, I am understanding more and more that I am the one directing my life by directing the energy that I use with every single step that I take.

I can always ask myself: What makes me take that action? Do I really want this?!

It is shocking, but I ALWAYS have a choice.

This is nothing really new…

”Your thoughts create your reality”

I’ve been working with this universal truth for quite some time. Nevertheless only now I grasp the full scope of it.

I’ve experienced it first hand by manifesting things I wanted and things I clearly did not want in my life. In any case my actions directed the energy in a certain way that manifested this reality.

“The part of you that loves you the most creates the roadblocks that you are facing to make you build something out of it,” Gabor Maté placed this beautiful reminder on my path.

This quote helped me to forgive myself for all the supposedly detours that I took. Everything we do in our lives serves us in one way or another to fulfill a certain need. When we are traumatized we might hold on to any straw, but hell yeah, we survived!

The task is to figure out what these needs truely are and respond to them in a healthy or constructive way.

I am always directing my life. I am making decisions.

Healing is one decision away and so is success.

To quote Bob Proctor freely here: “…success is not about reaching a goal. It is continuous movement in the direction of a specific goal by making one decision after another…”

It is not about the milestones reached.

It is not about the number of fallbacks counted.

It is about the continuous flow of energy moved in a certain direction.

I am the one who chooses to accept, to learn, to surrender to what is….

I am the one who is transforming this life…. energy from one aggregate state to another.

I am transmuting emotional conditionings.
I am releasing trauma from my system.
I am transforming energy.

What I witness is that things manifest in no time. We are enabled to take action now.

This is the new new age stuff…

The days of thinking are over.

Doing is the new thinking.

 

Inspiration Daily

I just had a moment that invigorated my spirit. It is tiny, still I feel the urge to express it.

I just came back from the farmers market with a bag full of vegetables.
When I entered the house I became aware of my warm feet. I noticed a subtle excitement in my chest. My heart emanated love: I was happy!

All of a sudden I felt a sense of connection – a warmth expanded across my whole abdominal area, around my hips and my lower back, up my spine to my throat…

The joy of being alive lifted my whole being.

Over the past couple of days I wanted to write….

I wanted to put in words what I had experienced during the yoga retreat I attended last week.

I can not find the words yet. Maybe it is not important to find them, because there is nothing to say.

There is a lot of resistance present within myself. The pressure of becoming the perfect human…

The tenacious desire to clear myself, to find relief from all the humanness….

This morning reminded me of “the divine”.

The ever present appreciation in everything.

Every moment is here to remind us of our connection to source.

Every moment is perfect – and so am I.

And this is “the way”: finding awareness in the tiniest daily action, recognizing the divine in everything – even in the beetroot and in the soles of my feet…

 

Understanding The Patterns

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.