My Life Changed…

My life changed…

when I allowed lightness.

when I let myself harvest the fruits.

when I acknowledged my work.

when I appreciated my own journey. Every step of it.

For a long time something was missing in my life and I could not grasp what it was.

Until I found it within myself. This female role model that puts me at ease.

 

Let it be Hard

“I want it to be easy!” – I’m punching my pillow.

“Let it be hard!” – An internal voice releases my vigor.

Recently I’ve made some tough decisions. And for a moment I fell for the panic, the doubt and the despair…

Until I remembered:

In order to live an exceptional life we get to make exceptional decisions. Decisions no one has ever made before, because no one has ever walked in our shoes…

Decisions that move our life path away from the “crowd”.

It is tough. It brings up fears of rejection, of loss or of poverty.

But you know what?

It’s part of the game!

This is what unleashes the wild self within!

This is what strengthens our resolve!

I want to encourage you:

DO the step you are so scared of but you kept pondering for years.

MOVE where destiny is calling you.

YOU know it. No one else.

No fortune teller can tell you what to do.

Only you are in charge.

And this is not a top-to-bottom advice of some sort.

I encourage myself too with a livin’ prayer. 😉

It’s easy to talk about it.

It is freakin’ hard to WALK it!!

The path no one has walked before.

Your path.

It’s easy to learn a lot of things but actually putting them into action: this is the hard part! Yes. It is hard and it is beautiful.

It’s, without a doubt, the most satisfying thing in the world.

 

Respond to Life

I just had an interesting revelation about now.

To respond to life means to respond to now. 

This is what it means to take responsibility for my own life. 

For some reason I always projected responsibility outwards to some point in the future.

This caused distress in my life, because it enforces constant worry about the future. 

How will I take responsibility for my life?

What does this question actually mean?!

There is no right answer.


The moment to respond to life is now.

What can I do now? 

Everything else is projection. 

And by projecting some potential outcome into the future I’m giving away control.

And this is what I suffer from every so often….

For the past couple of days I’ve been pondering the question: “How am I in control of my life?”
The answer is: By being present! That’s it.

It is so simple. And it is such a relief….

I realized it on my walk this morning. I have neglected these walks, but this morning I understood how much it helps me to arrive. 

If I don’t arrive I will never be able to take responsibility. The phrase “taking responsibility” is actually misleading, because I can’t take responsibility. 

I can only respond to life. Now.

 

Embodied Darkness

The winds of change are blowing strong these days…

It’s a good time to, finally, share another moment with you.

Slowly I’m swallowing my own medicine. I find wisdom in pain.

“Nobody’s wise who doesn’t know darkness.”

This quote by Hermann Hesse has been hanging on my wall for a couple of years now.

Only now, I understood its fundamental meaning:

I don’t overcome darkness.
I embody it.

This is basically what I have been practicing with this blog. And what I have been recovering over and over again:
Pain wants to tell me something. It is here for me and not against me.

I’m doing integration work.

I find wisdom in pain – and not despite the pain.

I integrate what is – and not what’s supposed to be.

This is called tantra in the widest sense.

I expand by integrating what is there.

What I integrate has been a part of me ever since – a part that I neglected for the longest time. A dark part.

A dark part of my psyche, of my physical body or of my emotional body that I would prefer to hide.

Instead of facing it I tend to set goals, aim higher, dig for more…

“The dark days will be over, if….,” for a very long time I fell for this hedonistic idea.

They are not. They never will be. Because there is always the next step, the next goal, the next thread that fills my heart and head with worry if I let it.

The dark days will never be over, because “the suffering is endless” to say it with the words of Viktor Frankl, author of the fundamental work “Man’s search for meaning”.

Frankl himself a Auschwitz-survivor describes the psychological states of KZ-inmates, which build the fundation for his psychological discipline called logotherapy.

This book translates the wisdom of suffering in a way that is so touching, so precise and so vital – I think every person in the world should read it.

What’s so special about it?

Psychologist and KZ-survivor Frankl transcends misery into hope and retrieves life energy, the life force – ‘the mystical’ that is all around and within us….

‘From mysery to mystery’ – Frankl uncovers the truth of life hidden in a disastrous part of history that we prefer not to think of.

The example of Frankl might be extreme, but the wisdom to be found in this book is applicable to all of our lives:

The earlier we accept that suffering is a part of our lives the more lightness we will find.

What most of us close our eyes from: Our pain is here to teach us something. (I wrote about pain so many times on this blog.)

There is an energy stored in suffering. And that energy wants to be transformed into acts of courage, hope and strong belief in life.

And that is roughly what Frankl describes as the motors of survival, even under devastating circumstances like enduring a concentration camp.

Nothing will ever be solved completely.
There is always some hidden grief. Some deep sadness or collective trauma that is stored in our cells, tissue or memory.

What we can do is: Meet ourselves and the ones around us with compassion.

This is how we befriend darkness and find purpose.

 

The Headless Buddha or “Meeting Myself With Compassion”

For about two weeks I’ve been trying to make sense of it: The Headless Buddha.

…It was one of those moments when I was caught up in a spiral of self-doubt and self-flaggelation, when I re-discovered my heart. 

In despair I was challenging the youtube-oracle. 

I discovered a talk on “The trance of unworthiness” by Tara Brach, a teacher I really value for her compassionate pursuit:

“We can only meet ourselves with compassion,” she concludes the human striving for liberation. 

Finally, I’m swallowing the medicine.

Suddenly I’m placing one hand on my heart and one on my belly.

I’m holding myself. 

This is when I understand: 

My mind deteriorates my self-esteem.

My mind strangles myself with reproaches.

Meeting myself with compassion – that’s the least I can do!

It is that simple.

And so I am lying there on the couch. One hand on my heart and one on my belly. My eyes filled with tears of relief.

I breathe and I cry.

That’s all it takes.

I remember the teachings of yoga I had received.

I let my body do the work. 

A couple of moments later: All anxiety vanished.

I find myself going for a short walk.

What happened next still blows my mind:

I’m walking slowly towards the nearby park, contemplating the Buddhist teachings of impermanence –  “anicca, anicca, anicca…,” echoing in my head…

When I gaze towards the bushes, suddenly, I see a headless Buddha standing there right at the framing of the sidewalk!

It is one of those decorative candle bearers a lot of people have standing in their bathroom or on the wardrobe.

Its head is accurately positioned where the candle is supposed to shine. 

Immediately the omnipresent quote: “If you meet the Buddha, kill him!,” comes to my mind.

What does this quote, apparently firstly stated by Linji Yixuan, signifies?

Back home I immediately start researching:

“Killing the buddha” asserts ‘to quiet all concepts’ – about Buddhism, spirituality and ‘the path’ in general.

It’s about finding the teacher within.

It implies the actualization of emptiness by self-observation and unbiased contemplation. 

The next thing I read is the word Kenshō, which is widely translated as “seeing one’s true nature”. Accordingly to Wikipedia it is often used interchangeably with the word satori, which signifies ‘comprehension’ or ‘understanding’.

It is often being mistaken for ‘enlightenment’, but this is not what it is. It is one step on the path, one realization of the non-personal nature of our lives….

I remember the moment on the couch earlier. The moment of surrender that lifted a weight off my shoulder and my chest. 

It was the moment when I finally understood that this body is solely a vessel. It’s a precious vessel, because it maneuvers me through my physical experience here on earth.

My mind keeps me in chains, while my body sets me free.

There is so much more to say about that! There are so many terminologies and symbolism to study, but for now that’s all I’m able to share here – my personal encounter with the headless Buddha.

 

The Flame

I can see it now clearly unfolding.

My life’s story.
My trajectory.

The old voices have faded.

This morning I rediscovered the flame that is burning inside of me.

Calm and beautifully, undisturbed.

It burnt all the way through.

The soft power of the flame is relentless.

I knew it deep down inside.

There is something “more”…

There is a force beyond my perception.

As the conditions get worse, severe weather is impeding the sight, evil forces are dragging my will….

A fundamental strength establishes and executes.

Sudden revelations are the result.

A physical destruction of patterns and control.

This morning it was there: The flame.

Burning and nurturing my wild self.

 

Seek And Find

To appreciate silence one has to know noise.
To find order one has to accept the chaos.
To enter the light one has to befriend darkness.
To know freedom one has to acknowledge restriction.

The one who knows the dark will embody the light.
The one who fathoms confusion will encounter clarity.
The one who lives up to their limitations will grow beyond them.

 

Reversed Resolutions

I’m standing on Donnersbergerbrücke.

It’s the evening haze of a regular weekday in Munich and it dawns on me that I am EXACTLY where I am supposed to be.

I am not rushing to catch the bus I’m supposed to take.

The sun is painting its last colors on the sky.

I don’t remember the last time I was standing on this bridge.

But what I know is: It is not the same person standing here.

I have changed.
Something inside of me has changed fundamentally.

I felt strangely at home.

At this moment I realize that my shadow is comforting me.

It is my home.

“Just come as you are,” they say.

Okay, here I am.

All of a sudden it is there.
I under-stand.
I take pride in my path.
I own my story.

A rush of gratitude fills my eyes….

I grew from the inside and for the first time I really feel that.

I evolved – FROM the inside.

I have done the work. And now I am standing here.

“What’s next?,” my busy mind wants to ask.

Again, I gaze towards the setting sun….

“What if instead of moving forward, i’d move backwards?,” my busy mind itself countered with an open question.

I can’t sow endless seeds.

Now is the moment that I finally understand that rest is AS important as progress.

Digesting what is instead of preparing a new meal.
Clearing the debris instead of building anew.
Integrating what happened instead of initiating something else.

I can’t sow endless seeds, no, but I can praise the garden that is growing inside of me, in front of me, around me…

I don’t know how I could not get it earlier, but it does not matter.

On a random day, in stillness, I recovered the beauty of my life.

For too long I witnessed it within myself and in others…

We are pushing so hard to move forward. We are aiming for one dimensional progress. The thing is that progress is not one dimensional.

It’s expansive.
It’s round and whole.
It’s the yin and the yang. The animation and the integration are both equally important.

Growth is the integration of what is.
Growth is not only about harvesting the fruits, it’s about ploughing the land, fertilizing the dirt, and preparing for the upcoming season…

Personal growth is the care-taking of our internal motherland….

In some years maybe the harvest is not what we expected it to be. It is not as lush, as fruitful, or as delicious.

Some years we can only use it for compost. To fertilize the new ground in front of us.

Here we go 2023.

It’s the reversed resolutions…

 

Sometimes

Sometimes what we thought would be the salvation is our defeat.
Sometimes our highest highs lead down to our lowest lows.
Sometimes a downward spiral turns out to be our way home.
Sometimes when we are close to death we feel the most alive.
Sometimes by losing everything we ever had we gain everything we need.
Sometimes life teaches us devotion when we least expect it.

 

How to Humble Yourself

Life is full of paradox. In order to “master” our experience here on earth we get to embrace the paradox. We get to understand that we are a part of the whole – THE ALL – nothing more and nothing less.

I wrote about it many times: The role of appreciation and gratitude. The ACCEPTANCE of the “3D”.

Nevertheless there is some universal truth being revealed to me every single day I walk on this earth. I’m doing my best to let it run free…

By now I finally understand why I did not “get” it earlier?! Because I CAN’T GET it. I am not the all. I am a part of it and every single day I experience its manifestations. I am a witness, to (modestly) say the least.

And more and more I can see the beauty in this experience….

Every single day there is some new aspect unfolding in front of my eyes like a delicate leaflet of an unseen flower I have known for an eternity.

And more than ever I am understanding how I have created this experience with intention – intention that I have set in the darkest moments of my life.

How? Yeah, tell me how?

I TRANSMUTED energies…. Nothing more and nothing less. To say it with the hermetic teachings:

“Mastery consists not in abnormal dreams, visions and fantastic imaginings or living, but in using the higher forces against the lower – escaping the lower planes by vibrating on the higher. Transmutation, not presumptuous denial, is the weapon of the Master.”

The Kybalion

What does that mean? We don’t create a new reality by mere imagination.

I can literally feel the resistance towards this truth in my every day encounters and even in the “spiritual community” (If there is such thing. I honestly don’t know…).

I can feel it within myself too! My body forcefully separates me from my imaginations… The further I proceed the more I am forced to let go of the idea that I had about enlightenment or the state of being awake….

So. I decided to give this little piece of advice a go in order to conserve my insights. This is what I recently understood about “the way back” to union.

Don’t take things personal.

This morning on the train I had the urge to start writing this down. “This is not about you. You are a vessel of energy. Nothing more and nothing less. Nothing that ever happens to you has anything to do with you. ”

Our train was delayed and it was unclear if I was able to catch my connecting train – and so did the other passengers. I had a choice: Do I get angry or do I use my time to nap or write or read? The delay of the train was a gift for me. It was definitely not the “evil Deutsche Bahn” or stuff like that. The thing that happened to you or to me. The whaterverness – it is nothing personal. It blows my mind how simple this is….

Give what you have.

So, when nothing ever is something personal why would we obsess about belongings, thoughts or ideas? Let go of greed. Greed only cultivates dark matter. It literally rivets us to the lower planes of reality! I don’t say that you have to give everything away. I don’t. I don’t say to give up all your belongings. But don’t cling to it. Don’t consider it as your security.

Give up the control. You can’t hold on to anything anyways, so why not give what you are capable of giving? I will never forget the moment when I decided to GIVE. Looking back, I think it was the moment when my life started to shift. It was when I was living in a WG and I stopped counting who bought the last toilet paper or filled the salt shaker. It was when I was asked for clothing by a homeless on the street and when I handed a warm puffy jacket to him. It was when I decided to “pay my dues”. What do I mean by that? I received this life. Now, I understood, it was time to give.

Practice GRATITUDE.

This leads me to the next point: It sounds platitudious, I know. However it is crucial. I only understand the meaning of Gratitude NOW. When I learnt to GIVE I simultaneously learnt to receive…

The more I value my experience here on earth the more I value myself – and I mean “the good and the ugly”.

The more I accept that everything is a part of me, the more I am learning to accept myself with all my gifts and my shortcomings (also materialistic ones).

This is something I had to understand – tediously. The word gratitude sounds exploited by our cultural narration. I saw people getting very aggressive when they where invited to be grateful. I want to invite those even more to appreciate what is. Appreciate even your resistance and you will witness how (and what) transforms in front of your eyes!

Take yourself seriously.

This might sound a bit contradictory to the first point I mentioned. What I mean by that is: Take your ABILITIES serious, because they are your GIFTS. This is very connected to the practice of gratitude.

Do what needs to be done. Learn what needs to be learnt. NURTURE your challenges instead of condemning them.

You ARE here for a reason! And you have homework to do. You know exactly what to do. So, go ahead and do it. Appreciate it – seriously!

Follow the signs….

You are always guided. You are never alone. Never. There are the subtleties that show you the way. Sometimes your authentic YES is a hell NO in your mind. So, how do you differentiate? That’s a tricky one. And it is very individual. I think this is about patience. Practice to sit with yourself. Practice to live through your emotions in order to understand their language. Life is constantly talking to you. It is up to you to listen….

That’s it for now.

Enjoy the ride and speak soon <3