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Peace Perspective

On racism

I grew up in a rural part of Germany, which was basically a small racist microcosm within a larger racist society. Racism was an intrinsic part of my upbringing, even though it wasn’t addressed, as such. In school, there was a lot of time dedicated to teaching us that racism was a bad thing, but at the same time, and quite paradoxically, micro aggressions and stereotypes that were used to establish a racist hierarchy were still a common phenomenon we, as children, experienced everywhere: In political discussions, as well as in private conversations.

Not much has changed, since. 

As a teenager and later as an adult, I tried my best to become a “decent” human being, nonetheless, and to treat everyone how I would want to be treated: Fairly, respectfully, as equals.

However, it wasn’t until 2016, when I became aware of some of my Black colleagues rightfully protesting against the spiritual bypassing strategies us “woke white women” in my industry often applied when it came to addressing our racist biases and our unearned white privilege, that I properly began doing my inner work of un-learning the racist conditioning within me.

Undoing our early childhood conditioning is hard work, and it is crucial work.

Even after four years, I don’t think I’m fully there yet. That is how deep this stuff goes. And I’ll keep going. 

Quote:
From Peggy McIntosh’s academic paper, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, 1989 – watch her TEDx talk on “How to recognize your white privilege, and use it to fight inequality”, here.

How to be angry

Every once in a while, some of my clients will come into my Sessions angry. And I mean fuming. So angry they can hardly speak, because whatever they might want to say would come out wrong.

They are angry because of the political situation they are in.

Angry because their mother said… or because their father didn’t…

Angry because they only just remembered the depth of their relationship trauma.

Or just plain angry because the world is seemingly going to pieces.

Here is what to do when you feel that kind of anger and it’s overwhelming for you: You go deeper.

Try this:

    1. Open up your inner senses. Where in your body do you feel that anger? Is it in your solar plexus, in your heart, in your throat, behind you eyes, your ears, your forehead? Try to locate where it sits in your body.
    2. Then see if you can feel how big your anger is: Grape-sized? Like an orange? A melon? As big as your body?
    3. And now, do the counter-intuitive thing: Make it grow bigger. Breathe into your anger and expand its outer shell by a centimeter. Breathe again. Expand it by another centimeter. Breathe. Expand. Breathe. Expand. Until your anger is as big as it gets while you can still hold it, and not lose its energy. Feel the relief that comes with acknowledging your anger and allow it to just be there.
    4. Now scan your body and see if there’s another emotion in there somewhere. Is there any disappointment? Resignation? Shame? Loneliness? See if you can locate it: Where do you feel that second emotion? How big is it?
    5. While still holding your anger, repeat step 3 with that second emotion: Breathe. Expand. Breathe. Expand. Etc.
    6. At some point, your anger will burst. And your second emotion will burst, too. And the third one, etc.
    7. At the end of this exercise, you should be able to feel yourself in all your complexity. You will notice that you can give room to your emotions without losing yourself. On the contrary: You will feel how your personal sense of self expands. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. Your anger has messages for you, and until you address those messages, it will probably feel messy and annoying. But allowing your anger to just be, for a moment, is a good start.

Truth feels like Relief

One of the biggest AHA moments many of my clients get when they start working with me is that truth feels like relief – even if it seems painful, at first.

There’s a complex mental avoidance mechanism going on when we do not want to see the full truth of a situation, which can create chronic stress symptoms – for example when we want to avoid addressing trauma or adverse childhood experiences. This avoidance mechanism is a protection process that tries to keep our assumptions about life as unchanging as possible, because this part of us is trying to keep us “safe”.

However, addressing the truth about what really happened, or the truth about how life really is, instead of sugarcoating it, actually feels like a relief.

And yet, because we are trained to avoid certain truths, we are afraid of what might happen if these sugarcoated truths were revealed.

For example, in relationships, we often have a “gut feeling” about someone when we don’t fully trust them. And yet, since most of us were raised to be polite, we often choose not to go with that gut feeling, and to stay polite, instead.

So, we are trying to make things work with that person – to literally STAY, politely, instead of leaving – even though our body mirrors back to us that we do not trust them.

Allowing yourself to examine that intuitive body mirror will always reveal very valid reasons for why your body does not trust that person.

And revealing that truth is the relief your body aches for. It is the clarity of being able to let go of someone, even if, on paper, that someone might have been perfect.

Your body knows if they aren’t.

Trust that knowing.

If you need any help with deciphering the messages your body mirrors back at you, contact me for a free Intro Conversation. This is the work that I do.

Relationships are like ecosystems

The best relationships are a bit like symbiotic ecosystems: When you are embedded in a cooperative ecosystem of souls that are compatible and familiar with your own soul, you thrive like an orchid living on a big beautiful tree in the middle of an ancient intact rain forest.

In other words: Your soul has soul-siblings and soul-partners (romantic, and otherwise) that you intimately know how to work with, live with, love with, before you are formally introduced here on this planet.

And when the two of you meet, as humans, it’s like a spiritual element of your life clicks into place that was missing before.

However, Earth is big. And unfortunately, we rarely grow up right around the corner from our soul siblings and soul partners.

Which means that finding those people we naturally click with can be quite a bit of a challenge. Spiritually, energetically, and time-wise.

Also, as a western society, we are very much used to the drama of dysfunctional relationship patterns. So when we do meet those soul mates, the peace that is at the core of that new-familiar relationship can almost seem dull in comparison, at first.

We are so used to drama, in fact, that some of us are addicted to it.

If we haven’t encountered anyone from our own familiar ecosystem yet, we tend to think that drama is a natural part of all love relationships, all friendships, all business partnerships, all cooperations.

And yet. As soon as you do meet someone your soul knows and likes, you will notice that the peace at the core of that relationship actually feels like freedom, freshness, and curiosity.

Because getting to know your soul mate on a human level is seriously interesting stuff.

You don’t know what their current body feels like. You don’t know what their current heart wants. You don’t know how their mind works, in this lifetime, and you don’t know their preferences and perspectives, at all. There’s a whole lifetime of interests you can discover together.

So, if you are unsure whether that one particular relationship in your life is based on a soul connection, feel free to contact me. Helping you understand your personal relationship systems is part of the work that I do.

A personal note

Life gets easier when you can see yourself.

This turned out to be my theme for 2017, and it will be my one of my guiding principles for 2018.

And it’s also the tag line for my brand new website.

Over the past few months, I went after an old dream and worked with some seriously talented creatives – Evan Leah Quinn and Ines Njers – who helped me refine my online aesthetic into something that truly feels like me. And I am absolutely stunned by the results.

Hire Evan if you are looking for someone with intuitive branding skills who will create a website design for you that feels right. Evan is talented, intuitive, whip smart, and her work is always thoroughly mapped out, ahead of time – which made my German structured mind feel right at home.

And let Ines take your pictures if you want to feel like a model. Her talent for catching someone’s personality with her camera is absolutely priceless.

Thank you, Evan and Ines! It’s been a dream!

Branding & Website: Evan Leah Quinn of SixteenJuly

Portraits: Ines Njers 

Crises are a natural part of life

Do you cut your own hair? I’m guessing you let a professional stylist do that job.

Do you manage your finances all by yourself? I’m assuming you have at least one person who helps you make sense of your numbers.

Do you provide your own entertainment? Presumably, you’re enjoying the work of professional artists when you netflix at night.

So why would you not also hire a professional to help you dissolve all those big and small relationship crises that are a natural part of life?

You don’t have to go through this alone.

Contact me if you’d like some help.

Self-help not required

I think the term “self-help” is misleading.

I didn’t heal from any of my heartbreaks, crises, or chronic pain issues all by myself. And I don’t think anyone should have to.

We are doing ourselves a huge disservice if we try to make it on our own. Yes, reaching out to a professional coach for help – or to any professional, for that matter – is always a bit awkward, because the experience of connecting with someone who knows how to help you always creates a mirror image, almost tangibly, of who you are within your current crisis, big or small, and of who you might be when it’s all over.

And that dissonance between who you are now, in crisis, and who you would like to become once you’ve resolved your crisis often comes with a heaping dose of hopelessness. As in “Trying to get from here to there is just too damn hard…”

But that mirror image that any professional coach can give you also instantly reflects your beauty, your gifts, and your desires. Which means that you instantly gain more clarity and peace by identifying that truth within yourself.

Which then makes it so much easier to take the first step out of your crisis.

You don’t have to go through this alone.

Reach out.

Difficult conversations

The difficult conversations are the ones I remember.

It is never easy to start these conversations. But there is beauty in “difficult”.

Because these conversations take me to places I have never been. Places where I have to navigate from my heart, work with the bold kind of tenderness that lives there, and fully be myself with someone who might not see the world like I do.

Where I have to trust that my courage is strong enough to get me through this. Even when I feel like a blubbery mess, in that moment.

I have a feeling that we will all need to start lots of difficult, messy, human conversations in the years to come.

Not just to share who we are with each other.

But to create the conditions for a different, peaceful reality.

If you’re ready for a difficult conversation (and some truth-seeking within yourself), feel free to contact me. I promise that the inner truth of what you are currently dealing with is way more beautiful than you might suspect.

Work with nature

Polarity is natural in the world we live in. Ebb and flow, creation and destruction are two sides of the same life, and change and chaos are normal. How do you deal with this reality?

Option one

is to problem solve, micro manage, and to try to force unwanted chaos to realign with the order your rational mind wants to see.

Which usually means that the forces of nature will burst your bubble, at some point. For example, building an artificial river bed and expecting the waters to behave the way you want them to is absurd. There will be floods.

The same is true for any kind of interference with the natural forces that make up your life. Trying to force yourself to act against your own true nature does not work, in the long run. Your body will be the first to resist.

Option two

is to take a step back, face the facts, sink into intuitive creativity mode, let a vision arise out of your interconnectedness with life, and co-create with the nature of this planet.

Which means that your relationship with life changes, completely.

The two of you are working together now.

And life starts to tell you its secrets.

Feel free to reach out to me if you’re having difficulties understanding what life is trying to tell you. This is what my work is for.

Choose relaxed tenacity

There’s a beautiful balance that I learned from Yoga which is instantly applicable to life: tenacity and relaxation.

In essence, Yoga works like this: You start to consciously control your breathing, you move into your pose and gently hold it, and you repeat a mantra in your mind to stay focused.

This creates a very relaxed way of being, and at the same time, you learn how to use your stamina, tenacity, and grit.

You might have noticed in your own Yoga practice that a conscious breath and a mantra can help you hold a pose much longer than if you do your “normal” breathing or let your mind slowly slip into negativity when things get a bit more difficult.

You develop a knowing that your body is always giving you feedback, and how to adjust your stance, if needed.

And you learn that your conscious focus and your willingness to keep up will help you to relax even when there’s tension or pain. You take a stance, you breathe, you stay focused, and you choose a conscious, relaxed tenacity.

Life imitating Yoga.

Yoga imitating life.

Let me know if you need any help with translating your Yogic tenacity to life. As a Kundalini Yoga teacher, it is part of my job to provide those kinds of translation services. Contact me for a non-binding Intro Conversation if you’d like to learn more.

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