"Real love means the death of the ego, the false self." (Kenneth S. Leong)
Do you know that? You would like to live genuine authentic contact in your relationships with other people, but you often don't feel yourself well? Is that why you do things like I have done them over and over again in my life in order to establish contact with yourself, at least temporarily? But you notice that this never lasts for long and that you always fall back into old behavior patterns. You tell yourself stories about why all this is necessary and right, but the truth is: you are in your head and not connected with your feelings. You are not connected with yourself, so you cannot be connected with others either.
I know this because I haven't felt myself well for a long time and it still challenges me to be constantly in good contact with myself. Sometimes it works better, sometimes worse. That's why I allow myself over and over to connect with myself, ground myself and visit places of power like the one in the photo, where I feel myself particularly well. This is Ribeira da Janela on Madeira, where I feel myself and my deeply buried sadness and anger particularly well. This is where I like to withdraw when I want to get in touch with myself again, for example when old feelings of rejection or not being good enough are coming up.
When I was still fully involved in my IT career, I distracted myself with external successes from feeling inside myself and being in good contact with what was reflected to me on the outside. I drove fast sports cars, was on race tracks, loved roller coasters, played drums in a rock band, and tried to fix things in my exes that I didn't want to feel in myself. Because I saw it crystal clear on the outside, but I couldn't bring it into healthy contact with myself. It was only when I learned to access my deep needs and old injuries without acting them out with my relationship partners in ever new projections and devaluation spirals that something changed in my life in a lasting way.
This also includes dealing with unwanted emotions like guilt and shame, which nobody likes to feel - including me. But they also want to deliver a message and are always good for something if you find the gift in them. In good contact with these emotions, I was able to free myself from the perpetrator identification with my mother and acknowledge my own perpetrator role - towards myself and my daughter. Because emotional violence is never a solution, but unhealed, it continues to run through the entire family system and is passed on from generation to generation. So it is always your own responsibility to deal with and resolve your own unintegrated parts. Because unless you do this, you are projecting all of your own blocked emotions onto loved ones around you, usually your own family.
Stuck emotions can be resolved in a variety of ways, through body work, special methods such as the Emotions Code, trauma healing or in direct, appreciative communication with the people who trigger these unwanted emotions within you. Various techniques have been developed for this purpose, which largely come from Gestalt therapy and have the task of bringing repressed parts back into contact.
"Attachment trauma only heals in healthy attached contact."
There is Radical Honesty, Authentic Relating or Circling. The method of Honest Sharing according to Gopal is also highly effective for self-awareness that everyone can use in practice without any prior knowledge. Local groups have organized themselves on his website.
It is always about the present contact in the here and now. Because most of the time we tell stories from the past or project our experiences and expectations into the future - the one is already over and can no longer be changed, the other is not there yet and can only be influenced by our actions in the present moment. These methods put this focus by bringing into contact what is there at the moment and what is showing on the physical and emotional level. The level of our mind is consciously separated and named according to the method ("I imagine" or "my head thinks") in order to experience a real deep connection in authentic (eye) contact with a fellow human being.
The ego is allowed to "die" because its function of self-protection becomes needless in this moment of honest communication. It no longer has a task, because you can show yourself as you are right now - with everything that may be showing at the moment. You don't have to hide or pretend anything anymore. A story is no longer necessary to portray something you are not or to cover up an insecurity, fear or shame. You may name it directly and bring it into contact. Emotions such as sadness or anger no longer have to be acted out when they are communicated in direct contact. You get the space you need to establish true contact and thus an authentic connection with your conversation partner. You create deep connections without talking about content and concepts at the factual level, which always come from the interpretive mind and are shaped by your emotional experiences.
The result are better and deeper relationships on all levels, as you show yourself as you really are, feeling deeply seen and giving the other the same space for him/her. This is contact at eye level, without ego concepts or victim dramas. But it doesn't help to write, think or talk about it, you need to apply it directly and immediately. With me, with your partner, with familiar people who are important to you and close to your heart. It is important to have a secure contact framework in order to gain new positive bonding experiences. I create and maintain such spaces with people regularly myself in my formats and personal contacts in order to create genuine contact there.
Here on Madeira, some friends offer similar rooms, so I regularly visit Christian's Circling or Andrea's Authentic Relating there. In addition to non-violent communication of needs, I now successfully use Honest Sharing in my own relationships. The contact with my daughter, which was preloaded by the family trauma, has turned 180 degrees in such a way that we are now in trusting healthy contact on a deeper level of bonding and design the space in the here and now for authentic exchange at eye level - without projection or drama, like it was often the case in the past.
Today I work with people like you and me on exactly these issues to heal them on a deep connection level. I design different formats such as the men's adventures on Madeira or work with you 1:1 individually to feel yourself better again and to get in genuine contact. Currently my only English speaking channel is this blog but the more interest it raises the more likely it is I will also start English speaking Telegram and YouTube channels or a transformation mailing sooner or later as well.
What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment or get in touch with me.