Just another Christmas tale about love?
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful without limits.
It is our light, not our darkness, that we fear most. We ask ourselves: Who am I to shine, to be gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? But the question should be: Who am I that I am NOT allowed to be all of that?"
In his inaugural speech as president of South Africa, which had been liberated from apartheid, Nelson Mandela made this quote by the American author Marianne Williamson world famous.
Marianne Williamson, a Jewish woman, finds her way out of a life crisis to a spiritual redefinition of her meaning in life. Nelson Mandela, a black African who had to spend many years in prison for his political convictions for a free, equal society without racism.
People who have the courage to stand up for their convictions, "raise their voices" and work for a better world. If they are successful, it is not because they hate and demonize their opponents, but because they live by a principle that makes them strong from within: self-love.
Contrary to what religions often want us to believe, self-love is not a gift from the gods. It is a fundamentally positive attitude towards oneself that changes everything in life if adopted mindfully.
As an entrepreneur coach, I have accompanied many fascinating, successful personalities. But only a few have really understood the true meaning of self-love. For me, the entrepreneur Holly Branson is a shining example of how self-love works when it grows out of a family context that is characterized by love and generosity. Above all, her grandmother Eve inspired Holly with her kindness and encouraged her to live her true greatness and fundamentally change the family business Virgin and the British corporate world. Her motto: "Purpose, People and Planet first and not just profit."
But for most of us, self-love is not a family gift. The majority of families on earth in the early 21st century are fighting for survival. Loving attention is an exceptional phenomenon in a society where the struggle for survival dominates. It is therefore no wonder that depression, anxiety and family violence are increasing.
After graduating from high school, a deep depression led me to psychology. One of the fundamental works that has shaped my psychological worldview to this day is "The Art of Loving" by Erich Fromm. I was 18 and tried in vain to help my depressed girl-friend. She had been traumatized by caring for her father as he died from a brain tumor. I was incredibly in love with her and at first couldn't understand what it was like to be deprived of all your feelings. From Erich Fromm's perspective, "mature love" is an act of emancipated care. I am aware of myself as an individual capable of love able to empathically transfer this "self-love" to another person. The opposite pole of this love based on mindfulness is the impulse to want to control, hurt or even destroy the other person. According to Fromm, the inability to empathize arises from self-hatred, which is usually the result of a childhood without love.
The Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller set another milestone in my psychological development with her work: "The Drama of the Gifted Child and the Search for the True Self". Miller describes the social code that prevents us from searching for ourselves.
After three decades of psychological consulting as a business coach, I have to admit: Psychology is a very simple science of people and their feelings. Despite all the complexity, there are two basic rules in the human psyche that, as development paths, usually produce very clear personality profiles:
The unloved person is the standard version in our current social reality. Unloved means, in my view, that I have not learned to think well of myself and to perceive and communicate myself as a unique and valuable individual.
Conversely, loved means: I can perceive myself as a unique individual and accept myself as I am and experience myself as a very special contribution to the whole.
Erich Fromm unmasks the industrial era in a unique way as a melting pot of adaptation and leveling. The individual is lost in the mass. In my view, the AI-supported algorithmization of people is the end point of this industrial standardization.
But back to you and me:
Familial love can be a breeding ground for self-love, but it doesn't have to be. Conversely, a person who grew up in emotional deprivation with neglect or violence does not necessarily have to develop a pathological personality.
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Personality development is a highly complex and lengthy process with an infinite number of variables.
What prompted me at 18, 19, 20 to look deeper and look for answers behind the family scenes inside my inner self?
I have to admit that I was born with a charismatic gift that protected me from the adult pathology around me. For as long as I can remember, people have been impressed by my positive charisma. Even as a three-year-old, I had a meditative disposition and was able to radiate my positive feelings to those around me.
When I was struck by depression at 20, I was completely cut off from my emotional world for the first time in my life.
I broke up with my depressed girlfriend, started studying positive psychology and coaching at a private college and within a few years adapted most of the psycho-techniques that shaped the New Age movement in California in the 1980s.
Bioenergetics according to Alexander Lowen, A Course in Miracles according to Helen Schucman and the Dynamic Laws of Wealth according to Kathrin Ponder were my companions from then on. But central and essential were the affirmations of Louise Hay, which can be summed up very easily: "I approve of myself and love and accept myself just as I am."
During my almost ten years of study and almost three decades of practice and research, I dealt with all the major world religions, neuroscience and all the psycho-techniques available. But the more complex the topics became, the simpler the answers were. Albert Schweizer describes the act of self-empowerment through conscious self-love as follows:
"Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live."
In other words, the act of self-love is an act of catharsis, of inner, spiritual cleansing and liberation. And it doesn't matter how this initial moment of your life comes to you, whether through a crisis, a deep self-knowledge or a religious awakening. The result will always be the same: you are "born again" from the certainty and emotional realization that you are loved, unique and wonderful.
Without this fundamental act of self-discovery, there is no real personal development, no reconciliation with the soul pain, the suffering that has happened to us in life.
In almost three decades of creative work, I have had the privilege of accompanying more than a thousand brilliant personalities on their path through life as a coach and mentor. With some of them, a deep, intimate friendship has developed, some of which still lasts today.
But no matter how different each individual may be, the moment when you meet yourself in the light of your true self is and remains unique and transforms your whole life.
I wish you and especially if we haven't yet met in person to experience this very unique moment in your life . My tip: Never settle for less than this moment when you search inside yourself and unexpectedly find yourself.
I wish you a peaceful Christmas and a mindful, loving new year.
Hidden advertising: We have expanded our app in recent months to include the topics of self-care and life balance. At the turn of the year, I will add a separate chapter to the video course on self-love! Take a glimpse and be surprised!