Category Archives: Psychology and Spirituality

Why being in opposition to others is not only useless but…

March 9, 2017 Heidi Hornlein Leave a comment

Opposition and fight is useless when we want to bring forth positive development.

Understand me right: I don’t mean that we need to agree with everything which comes our way. Not at all, to the contrary, I would say. Getting in touch with other people’s behaviors and ideas is a perfect occasion for self reflection and for refining our own takes on the matter. And there are probably more things in the world towards which we are skeptical or we totally disagree than those which we happily embrace right away and feel connected to whoever brought them forth.

I am talking here of a completely different case: people who for any reason whatsoever take pride in opposing somebody else’s work. The criticize all or parts of it, the axioms, the ways of reasoning, the worldview or whatever they happen to consider wrong… or they dismiss the whole work of the other person because they believe to have discovered some flaws in it or because of certain assumed or real traits of the originator.

When opposition and critique becomes a personal identity

fingerprint — Identity as Know-it-better and warrior for it?

Today such a case came – again – into my awareness: A person whose name I don’t want to mention here has the habit of criticizing the American philosopher Ken Wilber for more than 15 years. He has created an identity around his opposition to the man and his large body of work. It has become his only viewpoint: something is wrong and I have to point it out. This would not be a problem if the critique was well founded, constructive and benevolent. Instead it turns out as a one sided fight for being heard and for being right – by making the other wrong.

The power of rationalization and projection for avoiding to see our own flaws.

It is a human trait to diminish others in the attempt to raise oneself, not a very healthy one, as we know from psychology, and it sheds light on the personality structure of a person engaged in the fight against his or her windmills. Attack and war to dominate others is as ancient as the need for being right. In integral theory we probably would attribute these attitudes to lower levels of development as we would assume that after integrating rationality into our evolved being we would be able to see also ourselves from a rational perspective. Well, maybe. We certainly see others from our rational perspective, we are able to detect flaws and merits and we are able to develop our own theories as well as we can. But our ability to reflect on others and the outside world is far better developed than our ability of self reflection and self knowledge.

Psychology is a relatively young discipline and the insights we can gain about human conditioning and our own behavioral patterns – which express our thoughts and our emotions – are not easy to perceive and acknowledge, let alone integrate into our lives. To avoid the confrontation with our own reality we prefer to flee into our rationalizing heads or into the more or less “fake” bliss of spiritual experiences.

Projection on hand with points to other people — Projection on others what you don’t want to acknowledge in yourself

The “natural” consequence of the former is to find fault in others (projection of what we don’t want to see in ourselves onto others) or withdrawing from the outside world in the latter. The former leads to separation and war – as if we hadn’t enough of that already. The latter leads to the negation of the responsibility which everyone of us has towards ourselves, humanity and the world.

How being stuck in opposition betrays one’s good intentions.

woman in anger — Angry fighters more likely destroy than repair

The paradox, in my eyes, is the fact that many people who “fight” for a better world, for all the good things to happen instead of eternal conflict and war, they themselves are heavily contributing to maintaining animosity and destruction – against their conscious intent. And they don’t even notice it! They don’t realize what they are doing under the headlines of their positive intentions. How can this happen?

Well, first of all, emotional competency and freedom of unconscious patterns has not necessarily to do with levels of development when we consider the cognitive line as main indicator of our level. There are very smart people around with a complex understanding of theories of all kinds – and they might at the same time have not the slightest idea of their collective and personal patterns through which their actions in the world are colored. It is the question of the fish who cannot tell you what water is. It is too near to be in the fish’s awareness!

Making others wrong makes collaboration impossible.

Coming back to the person who triggered this article. Only he himself can figure out why he is behaving this way, why he spends his life energy in maintaining his opposition and fight to make the other wrong and himself right. I only know that this is not a worthwhile occupation in times when all forces are needed to collaborate for the survival of our species and our planet. It is like wanting to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin while everything around is falling into ashes. In other words: it is not helpful neither for the world nor for the person himself.

Prolonged emotional responses to events in our lives are self consuming and certainly not ultimately rewarding. They are considered disorders, from the psychological point of view. Attachment to victimism might be another term here and blind willingness to seed destruction instead of peace.

The way out

wooden-track in nature — The way out – not a shortcut for sure

Be willing to look inside deeply
Observe and recognize your own patterns
Forgive yourself for not having noticed your deep conditioning as a human and as a person
Discover the experiences and triggers which led you into the pattern and work with them
Release the counterproductive patterns consciously and create new habits of perceiving, evaluating, thinking and behaving – as well as you can
Be willing to see and acknowledge the good in yourself and in others, in your work and in that of others
Let go of your need to dominate and know-it-better
Be willing to contribute your part of the truth to the bigger picture
Stop searching for the (negative) needle in the haystack and trust that it will be found and treated appropriately in time
Become friendly and cooperative – and happy

It might sound as if I knew it all, as if I had figured that all out for myself and that I take pride in advising others. I am definitely not at that level, but I have come to understand what the missing part is in us humans which, for yet another time, is driving us towards separation, discrimination and hate – and ultimately to war. The threat of total nuclear destruction or by an environmental catastrophe could be right around the corner – and we are contributing to it without being aware of it.

Intergral theory is giving us a good understanding of many aspects of reality. If you want to go deeper listen to the lectures of Dr.Jordan Peterson. He has a very engaging way of leading you into the human predicament – and what you can do to become a better and more helpful person in this world. Check out his channel and especially his message to millenials: How to Change the World — Properly.

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Information overload – the new disease

March 7, 2017 Heidi Leave a comment

Is this YOU?

A calendar with the word NEWS and several globes — Too much info every day

You are a person full of energy and curiosity and you are delighted with learning new things, right? For years and years, you got an extra kick when you discovered something new – and lately, you feel often a little tired and some tension in your forehead, right? You get up in the morning, the emails, the news channels you usually visit, some extra info from Facebook or G+, all seems to be so interesting and you click and click, you read as much as you can – and probably you forget to plus/like the articles, to write a comment or to share it in your feed. Just too much, you think.

We need to enter into a conversation!

And you are right, just too much! And still, just reading something without expressing our gratitude for the author’s work, or without telling them your own opinion on it is like lurking behind the curtains. Without intending, we co-create the consumerism and onesidedness of the internet. A net is intended to flow in all directions, not just from source to consumer. Just reading and not engaging deprives us of entering into a conversation – and it deprives the author of a genuine feedback which would be very precious for developing their ideas and insights.

Information overload

There is a new illness – or maybe it is an addiction, at least in the beginning before serious physical symptoms arise. We want to “dance at every wedding”, as we use to say in Germany. We don’t want to miss something which could be important. You never know, do you? And then you – and me – continue to check out this, read that, install this, go to that platform, begin a new project, engage (shortly) in a new group etc.

Overloaded camel — Falling down or axle break?

Well, if you have read this far, I am sure you know all that. Now the question arises: what to do about it? Shall we wait until the improperly stacked load falls and shatters everything? Well, we are not WAITING, we convince ourselves that, after all, it is not too bad and we can go on as we had, our body and mind will stay with us as our faithful servant as long as we want. Really?

Burnout even without a day job

When you live in the countryside and you have no 9-5 job, how can you think of burn out? Work on the land makes you tired, yes, but your head remains clear and your mind calm – unless you have major emotional problems, but this is not our topic today. Sitting in front of the screen and reading other people’s most interesting stuff doesn’t feel like work. It satisfies our curiosity. Contrary to working outdoors, we confine our energy on our eyes and on our intellectual mind. The body begins to ache – we don’t care. Movement in front of the keyboard. Fingers yes, the rest remains still or in awkward constricted positions. Shoulders ache, eyes ache. The body protests and gives us all sorts of signs – which we normally misread as a request for coffee, cigarettes or food. Where will this end? In eye problems, obesity, lung cancer, and overall burnout – right where other people travel to for relaxation!

The predicament of change

Most of us are very invested in change. We fear that Nature collapses if we don’t work against the fatal tendencies. We fear that our nations may fall back into separation and confrontation – and we feel like needing to become activists for connection and peace. We are deeply touched by injustice against humans and/or animals and we feel called to do something there, too. We want to help, help, help to create a better future – and we see how things are getting worse and worse, at least from our present perspective. We become ever more worried about all sorts of things, our emotions get triggered more and more, we feel we definitely have to step up and do something useful. But WHAT?

Navigating the crisis – a personal challenge for everybody

Humans have different styles of responding to crises and uncertainty. Some people enter into panic, they become resentful and even violent towards whatever they see as an enemy. Others try to be resilient and keep their emotions under control. Hopefully, they succeed, it certainly depends on the amount of challenge they are facing. At a certain point comes the burnout, an illness, a detrimental quarrel with the spouse, a serious depression etc. The energy which we are accumulating, willingly or not, doesn’t just disappear.

So why don’t we stop in time? Why can’t we follow our own advice, our better knowing, our rational insights about what is going on with us? I believe that we are still in the modern mindset which elevates the mind over body and psyche. I have learned as a child to control myself with will power, and the western world is grounded on the “free will” of humans. So it’s no wonder that we underestimate the power of our psyche and the intelligence of our bodies. We have continuously practiced ignoring both when they speak to us and we agree with our thoughts and follow their biased advice. We have lost the connection to ourselves and to get it back we have to make a deliberate effort to BEGIN to take ourselves seriously and to abandon our fears about missing out on something important. We certainly will – we already do, all the time – but we need to come to terms with our limited being . We are not omnipotent even if we have the tendency to believe it.

The way out

As always it boils down to us humans and how we see and treat ourselves. We need to sort ourselves out. Even if we have done a lot of psychological and spiritual work on ourselves, we need to continue, to go deeper. We have learned previously – at least we hope so – how to conduct ourselves in the life we used to live. Things have changed rapidly in the outside world. We haven’t been able to change with the same speed. We have fallen into the traps of speed, success and wanting to be in control. We have pretended to be able to create change in the world. Well, yes, we have created change – but as it seems now it was not the change we had envisioned.

So what to do?

flooded landscape — Submerging in the flood?

We can give up, float with the stream until we crash against a dike or drown in the deeper waters. We can ignore the dangers, we can become resentful, we can blow up everything in which we believed and pull everyone and everything with us down into psychological or physical annihilation – very common for humans to do! (Think about HIV positive people in the 80ies who deliberately infected others to express their existential rage against God or destiny).

Or we can become humble and begin from scratch with our work to transform ourselves. We imagined that, finally, we had reached a good level of development and were proud of it. We need to understand that we have just a short rest before we are sent out into the storm again, the hurricane of inner turbulences, contradictions, desires, needs, fears and visions. We need to hold our own hands and go ahead, step by step, and give ourselves the necessary understanding and compassion. And along with it we need to refresh the encouragement and push to clean up what is still lurking in the corner, which is hindering us from doing what we are meant to do. We need to overcome the obstacles inside ourselves and become fuller human beings. We need to understand that the change in the outside world depends on us – literally

Butterfly — We need to transform from the caterpillar to the butterfly, from following the food to be able to see from above.

We can no longer pretend that the others need to change, politicians, economy etc. to change the current downward spiral of our planet earth. Well, they do need to change, too. But first of all, WE NEED TO CHANGE OURSELVES and then go out and be a role model for the others who find themselves unable to change without a plan and without guidance.

My advice to you and to myself:

STOP COMPLAINING – FIND THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM IN YOURSELF AND CHANGE IT ACCORDING TO YOUR VISION OF A BETTER WORLD.

Stop with the overload, take only what you really need! Become the better world inside you and the outer world will follow! (And not the other way round!)

Culture, development, Photos and videos, Psychology and Spirituality

Human development and the fascinating power of music

February 22, 2017 Heidi Hornlein Leave a comment

The World is Sound – Nada Brahma

Music is a innate capacity of humans. It is the most fundamental means for our expression, especially when we use our voice, and it has the power to influence our whole being.

Music develops alongside humans

Along with our social-psychological development, music too has developed over the centuries. It is a real pleasure to meet the young composer Samuel Andreyev in this interview with Jordan Peterson where they explore together the power of music and the development it has taken up to the present. Even for non-musicians this conversation is quite understandable – and a musician also gains a expanded perspective.

This happened certainly with me. I was very delighted with the analysis and could confirm from my own experience what these two intelligent and open minds were talking about.

Jordan Peterson in conversation with the composer Samuel Andreyev

My experience as a musician

I am a classically trained singer and my main interest has always been classical music. I always enjoyed the music, from the middle ages to the early 20th century – but there it stopped for me. My experience of singing in a professional choir taught me how difficult it is to study pieces by 12-tone composers like Webern, Schönberg or those of the sixties like Penderecki and others. Those concerts had a certain fascination as sound experiences – but is it really worth all this huge amount of preparation? I always decided NO for myself – maybe only because of my lack of an absolute ear (perfect pitch) – which would have made singing these pieces so much easier?

How we learn to hear and expand our perception

One thing I noticed though – and it was addressed also by Samuel Andreyev in the interview above: The more you study a piece, whatever music it is, the more you get familiar with it and it becomes “your” music. This is the point where your interpretation of the piece will come from inside you rather than just a repetition of the ideas of someone else. When we really understand the music and own it by continuous practice, it becomes familiar and we begin to really enjoy it – which often was not the case when we encountered it the first time.

What sounds GOOD to our ears?

This is the reason for a continuous expansion of our ability to hear and accept newness in music. The acceptance of what sounds “good” has developed from total harmony (octaves), to fifths and up to all the harmonic intervals. Today it is almost unimaginable that once a third had been considered a dissonance! Our perception of what we hear as consonance or dissonance has developed until today when we can enjoy whole clusters of adjacent sounds. This is just a harmony of a higher level – as all these notes appear, sooner or later, on the scale of the harmonics of the basic note.

Personal development and enjoyment of music

In short: I realized that, today, my ear has developed so far as to accept music which I had dismissed totally 30 years ago. That doesn’t mean that all music is “good” which is offered today. Good music has a certain felt attraction. Maybe not at first hearing. “Hear it 10 times and then find out what you feel about it!” This is also the recommendation by the composer Samuel Andreyev.

When you listen to his music – especially after having watched his conversation with Jordan Peterson – you probably will find it very attractive, or at least interesting and well worth listening to!

Enjoy

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Is Western Society Heading Back to The Middle Ages?

February 16, 2017 Heidi Hornlein Leave a comment

We made it about 400 years ago: the separation of church and state. It took many centuries of fight and suffering, thousands of “heretics” burnt at the stake, loosing their lives for our benefit: For us to be able to say whatever we want without ending up imprisoned, tortured, stoned or burnt. Are we now heading back to the Middle Ages?

Funny enough – or better: tragic enough, it is the leading edge of modern societies who is pushing us back into that state where we lose our freedom of speech, where we have to bite our tongue if we don’t want to be denounced and tried for what we say: If not as in the Middle Ages, but certainly as in the “east-block” countries. I grew up in Germany, fortunately in the West, but I had relatives in the East and I know how they were continuously threatened and had to be very careful or pay dearly if they said something about a certain group or the practices of the state.

The Levels of Development – evolution in healthy and unhealthy forms

The unhealthy form of the”green” level is expressed in an aggressive fundamentalism (see the levels of development in “Spiral Dynamics” or as outlaid by Ken Wilber). It is nothing better than any other fundamentalism, only the target changes. Western Societies have recently been governed mostly by people with a “green”- postmodern – mindset. In their attempt to protect minorities and to see everybody as (literally) equal, they see the necessity to create laws to protect THE FEELINGS of certain members of certain minorities.

Who is Responsible for Your Feelings?

Face in hands - expressing sadness or any negative feeling — Negative Feelings

Modern psychology has clearly stated that we are responsible for our own feelings, we alone, nobody else. Yes, we can be triggered by what other people do or say, but how we react to the trigger, that is exclusively our own choice. With the new laws in Canada this gets completely turned around. People’s feelings are considered subject to criminal deeds done by others. This is the perfect form of victimism which is appropriate for little children, but not for adult citizens in the world. It reminds me of my mother’s saying with which she tried to teach me responsibility for my actions: “It’s too bad for my mother that I froze my fingers; why didn’t she give me gloves?”

So, whose feelings would be eligible to be protected by law?- and whose not? Apart from the fact that it is absolutely beside the point for the above reasons, it is a bottomless barrel. We will end up staying silent, all the time, for fear of being accused and “burnt at the stake”. Hello Middle Ages!

White ghostly figures walking over meadow — Do we want such an atmosphere?

We will end up in a totalitarian state – from which most of the present refugees are trying to escape by flooding into the Western world. Will we give up our achievements in our societies and allow practices of previous levels to govern us again? Do you want to live in constant fear and repression because someone believes that you have violated THEIR rules?

Do you want THEIR rules to take over our countries? Think about it and get clear about the consequences for yourself, your family, your country and the world. And if you decide that your freedom of speech is more important and also the freedom in your personal life altogether, then stand up and fight for the principles of our constitutions and watch out for all the hidden or open attempts to re-establish values which we had overcome with so much sacrifice during the past centuries.

Is This a Picture of Mohamed? – what can you say and what not?

Here you can experience what we are heading toward – if we don’t pay attention: Jordan Peterson brings it to the point in this short video. Feel into it and observe yourself: would you like to live with the fear of saying the “wrong” words?

Let me know what you think about it . now, after you have watched the video!

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

These are the people we need for a better world

February 5, 2017 Heidi 2 Comments

I have a few question for you:

Who do you think you need to be and to act to help create a better world?

What would you do if you were a president of any state and if you had an enormous amount of power. Would you keep integrity? Or would you begin to play with the power at your pleasure? Who knows?

What would you do if you discovered that something goes massively wrong? That an institution or government is playing with the people who they should serve and care for?

Do you know yourself? Are you ready to stand up for your values?

These are the questions we all should ask ourselves in the present situation where everything seems to slip into chaos, the world alliances, the single nations, the relationships in groups and in families, the climate, the earth itself: Which are the people we need to create a better world? And are you ready to be one of them?

I know, it is a tough question because it asks you to take responsibility for your own actions, for your emotions and how you are showing up in the world. And it also asks you to take the risks to step up and put your finger into things which you notice that they are going badly wrong. You have the choice to “put your head into the sand” like an ostrich and pretend to not notice where things are going – and many Germans did exactly that about 80 years ago, hoping that everything would turn out well – until it was too late. And speaking up might cost you the job or chases you into exile.

These are the people we need for a better world

Some people are courageous enough and do it for all of us – and they need our respect and support. In a previous post, I spoke about Jordan Peterson who is doing his bets to open the eyes of the public and make them see the signs of rising totalitarianism in Canada. He is a brilliant man and he is able to show up with admirable resilience and emotional – and certainly cognitive – intelligence. He doesn’t dwell in accusations and humiliations – as most of the “fighters” do, but he is showing the facts, the background, and the consequences very clearly.

And there is another hero who pays – happily – with his personal life for having revealed the hidden manipulations of his governmental institutions which are totally against the foundations of that society. He showed us that we cannot trust in our institutions and that we have to ask transparency and ethical behavior. Our lives – and our mother earth – is at stake, immediately and on the long run. The worldwide internet connection helps that these fighters for the truth are heard – instead of silenced, as it was a common habit before. There is hope that the internet will help to uncover all the conspiracies and manipulations: One SMS is enough to leak secrets – until people everywhere understand that secrets are destructive to relationships and only the truth will bring us together in a thriving world.

Truth is the only means to create a better world

The truth is often uncomfortable and humans try to avoid everything which asks them to step out of their comfort zone. But they – we – pay a huge bill for cowardliness in our personal and in our public life. Listen to Jordan Petersons lectures and you will understand why. (visit his Youtube Channel here)

Today I listened to the Interview with Edward Snowden and I was blown away by the wisdom of this young man, by his courage, and by his balanced way of speaking without falling into adversary emotions while being present as a full human being. I am in awe of the level of development which this person has reached. He is a role model for all of us. Jordan Peterson and Edward Snowden and man others: these are the people we need for a better world!

Hate and separation, walls and discrimination create enemies and hell on earth. We are called to fight those ways of acting – by becoming wise, truly adult and courageous ourselves. Not an easy task, but a mandatory call to create a future for our kids which is worth living.

Culture, development, Psychology and Spirituality

When the week begins like that – when 2017 begins as it did.

February 3, 2017 Heidi Leave a comment

One Monday in August

It is Monday afternoon. If I was an employee I could go home in an hour or so. But I AM at home, the whole day.

Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? To be able to stay at home! I have never known before how frustrating it can be! Not the fact to BE at home, but to try to WORK from home.

Cat helds arm working on computer — Video editing with the help of Sunny

I am taking seriously – finally – to create a business online. So far I thought I was, and hoped that other people did the work for me, websites etc. Yes, I would create the content, but I really feared the tech side like the devil fears the cross.

The Need to have a website – the necessity to learn

So my websites napped away, very few visitors, even less subscribers. But why? Don’t they see what I can offer? – Well: how could they? Nobody finds the sites, so how can anyone want to contact me in order to work with me?

So, for some time it dawned on me that I have to learn all this tech stuff, too, after having learned Google and Hangouts and Youtube and, and, and. NOW WEBSITES and how to manage them, how to write content in the right way and how to rank them on Google.

But I get stuck with many preliminary things. Today I spent hours – again – to chat with the support of one service provider and write emails to the other one which doesn’t even notice that I have already done what they suggest – and it didn’t work: two of my main websites are down for a week. HAPPY MONDAY!

Struggling to learn the Know How

screenshot my-cat.org website — The website: My-cat.org where I tell stories about my cats and host other people’s stories about theirs

Then, naturally, I want people to share my content on my fun website about cats. I use it to practice all that, what I am taught in the amazing community (where I finally learn how to create websites). And I end up struggling with the plugins. It is easy to upload and activate them, but why don’t they do what I expect them to do? Means in this specific case: share the posts with the pictures instead with a huge gray head (not really attractive!).

hand out of the water with the word "help" — That’s how it feels like, sometimes

So the rest of the day passed by with chatting with very helpful people of the community who do their best to resolve all the weird things which show up in every single day in my new tech-friendly (?) life.

So, Monday is almost gone and no tangible results. Is this a good or bad sign? Does it mean I will get it straight tomorrow? Or better give up, because “it will never get better” (and many people say it won’t)

So it is a matter of CHOICE. What do you choose? Well, I will sit on my computer, but at home, sweet home, for other 3 hours or so until I will be so fed up – or have a success moment. Whatever, tomorrow is another day. Tuesday, I guess. Sometimes I forget which day it is, they seem all quite alike…..

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This post was first published on branded.me on August 8th 2016

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February 2017

Half a year has passed since I wrote the above text. And a lot has happened since then. Learning to do my own websites was one achievement I gained. I am able now to project and do everything needed for our broadcast series at The Wisdom Factory, on the Integral Ageing website and, of course, my favorite and heartwarming project, the website about cats. All are using different themes and I have learned a great deal how to use them properly.

Now it is time to address the last two projects before thinking to seriously go for business: the website for the NonProfit “Paradiso Integrale” and the membership site for the relationship course work. Some more time to spend learning while sitting on the computer….

How do humans work? How does learning happen?

two faces, colored background, black tree — The mystery of Human Life: How can we create understanding?

Talking about learning: what is really interesting to me is not so much the content of what I learn – although it is quite useful, – but more the meta level: How does learning happen? What strategies do I use to learn? Which ones are better and better for what? Where do they work and where not? And why not?

Life as Meditation

With these questions in the back of my head, the work I am doing becomes almost a meditation. There is an observer who continuously monitors not only the content of what I am doing but also

the single steps,
the ever changing colors of mood (success joy versus failure disappointment in many degrees),
the procrastination moments,
the ignition by some input by others (humorous posts, insightful talks and conversations etc.)
the influence of positive (but more significantly negative) news about the world situation
the coping mechanisms and strategies to “survive”
the changing states of the body, the subtle feelings and sensations
the emotions

How to deal with big emotions?

Emotions are a big one, not only for myself, I guess. In this period of time the emotions overboard all over the world. People try to make sense of the chaos which we are slippering in, the sudden awareness of not having noticed the signs in time, and the fear of the unknown and the possible disaster.

Many people begin to contribute trying to figure out what is going on and what can be done to get on in a reasonable way. For instance this article of a friend, Anouk Brack . And this is the good thing which the present situation can evoke and create: People stepping up and coming together to co-create their visions and oppose the forces which want to bring our culture back into times of civil war and even medieval practices of torture to assert the power of a few over everybody else.

The Metaphor of Monday

The Phoenix arising from the burning chaos

To close the circle: Monday, the beginning of the week, can bring a lot of difficulties and slow down the fresh energy with which it began. But we can find a way to work through the difficulties. We can reach out to others and make the things work again – and even find new and unexpected ways in which our world can unfold. 2017 has begun with a huge drum beat, an earthquake which made many of us tremble. We need to work through it, day by day, and find a way to allow the phoenix to arise out of the ashes.

PS: See also my previous post about the necessity that we WOMEN step up and let our voices be heard in the world

Culture, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Women Share Your Wisdom

February 1, 2017 Heidi Leave a comment

The Dalai Lama said some years ago that the future of this planet depends on the women, especially the women of the western world. Why?

Well, after thousands of years of patriarchy women in the western world have come out of their dependency on men and begin to “do their own thing”

While at the beginning women tried to catch up by imitating men – in the lack of female role models – they/ we finally come to understand that we have to share our gifts in our deeply feminine way.

old manuscript, clock and telescope — Science as a masculine drive

The masculine versus the feminine way

While the masculine way is going forward and follow the previously established plans – and often not noticing that they have become obsolete and even harmful, the feminine way is observing, beginning to go towards an envisioned goal which is not terribly concrete, but more felt as a quality. And on the way, there is always the possibility to course correct when we come to the understanding that this leads into the wrong direction.

woman finding roots on the way — A woman finds new ways or roots on her way

The feminine way is based on receptivity and finding out what is right. The masculine way is, believing to know what is right and then go for it at all costs.

We have seen where the masculine way brought us: huge technological success and scientific understanding – but a complete unawareness and neglect of the costs, the dangers of the inventions are never taken seriously, care for life is not a topic when everything is oriented to success.We need the feminine way as the main force in our societies when we want to not only survive on this planet (by reducing hostility and collateral danger of innovations), but to really THRIVE by connecting all aspects of human beings, the body, the mind, the heart, the spirit, the soul – and the practical abilities and the rational ways of calculation and scientific findings.

So, women SHARE YOUR WISDOM. Do that for instance by joining “WOMEN MATTERS” live conversations of THE WISDOM FACTORY.

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This article was first published on August 17th 2016 on branded.me

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My addition on January 31st 2017

We missed the chance – maybe this will create the chance?

We missed the chance to have a woman as the president of the United States. Instead culture seems to have fallen back into naty ways of patriarchical power demonstrations: women as objects in the hand of men as demonstrated by the new president. And again women are considered inferior and a minority to ignore and oppress – like all the other minorities or “troublesome people” in the world. The super Macho has regained the power over everything – like many thousands of years ago…..

female puppet sueezed — Why don’t we stand up instead?

Yes. I know, we are at a different point today, after that all these levels of development which have emerged, since those times where macho-red power was the most normal thing in everybody’s life. I agree with that, but I am really astonished about the women in this world. When will they develop? When will they stop to collaborate with their perpetrators? when will they step up against power abuse against women? When will they stop to be pleased to be treated badly? When will they stop to find pleasure in being the victim and therefore throw themselves into this situation which creates inequality and suffering?

Maybe we need a push of a certain degree?

When you know a little about psychology you easily find an answer to these questions, at least some partial answers, probably not the full picture.

woman meditating — The flair of self-development and spirituality

Let’s begin with the facts: there are many women engaged in self-development and spirituality. Many more women than men in workshops which go into the depth of being. Women want to find out things, as well as men do, but we are interested in different things most of the time. In things which could change the world – as the Dalai Lama said.

But where are these women?

Normally in the audience and not on the stage. Why not? What is still holding us back to go out and take over a huge chunk of responsibility and guidance in the world? Why do you find a huge number of brilliant male speakers everywhere and only a handful of equally brilliant female speakers. I don’t assume that we women have less potential to be brilliant! We just don’t dare to go out and be seen – and that has very good reasons when you look back into the past and also observing the present.

The city of Rome has the first female mayor for about 6 months now. What do newspapers bring out in x-fold repetitions? When the mayor breaks out in tears in public. What does it mean, openly or suggested? Women are not able to face reality, they are too emotional, you cannot rule with emotions, so “Women, go home”.

We are called upon to stop waiting and to show up

There is no public lobby to speak for us, to recognize that women are different and that they process things in a different way than men. There is nobody to normalize the feminine way of being. There is still the expectation that women are somehow deficient men.

The weird thing in all that is the fact that women themselves are co-creating their situation. We women, openly or covertly, are still asking the men for permission, we wait for them to invite us, to give us the right way of seeing the world and ourselves, despite our declarations of the opposite. And no wonder: how could we change the old and often archetypical way of being in less than a century, especially when we are not full heartedly engaged in that change?

My conclusion:

We women are in a paradoxical situation today – at least those of us who don’t see their life’s purpose in high heels and lipsticks for attracting the alpha male. We have the vision of a better world which needs our energy on the one hand – and we don’t have the courage to follow up on that vision. There is a double impediment which we face:

1. we don’t have a precise idea how we could realize the vision, how our own feminine way looks like

2. Even if we knew what exactly we need to do, how to be and where to go – we need to go against the stream with what we are birthing. We need an extra load of energy and decisiveness (and other masculine qualities) to bring our feminine way into the world against the established male society around us.

3. Even those men who support our striving to find new shores, those men who have worked on discovering their feminine qualities and resonate with the idea of women in leadership, even those men are MEN and intrinsically different from women – despite the ridiculous green fundamentalist idea that men and women are literally equal. They are not. They can be very sweet and supportive, but their fundamental drives are incredibly different.

Was the push strong enough? What’s up for us women now?

WE WOMEN HAVE TO FIND OUR WAY OURSELVES thanking those men for their support who are willing to give it to us.

WE NEED TO STOP WAITING for anybody to allow us to step up and do what is needed and what is waiting for us in the world

WE NEED TO CLEAR OUR OPPRESSING INNER VOICES and we need to empower each other in the research for our own feminine ways.

Women in a circle holding hands — The Women’s Circle
(by Anna Hauser)

WE NEED TO COME TOGETHER TO EXPLORE AND CO-CREATE. That’s exactly what we attempt to do with our public WOMEN MATTERS conversations at The Wisdom Factory

Sensing and Silence – Introducing Feminine Qualities in our Public Discussions on Tuesday, February 7th here

So far we have engaged in 11 public conversations in English and we are beginning to gather in conversations in German, too. Contact me if you are interested in participating.

Culture, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Shadow and Success – Shadow and Change

January 25, 2017 Heidi Leave a comment

Shadow and success

Shadow is a big issue in human life. Not only fear, but fear is one of the most fundamental. Another shadow theme can be thoughts like “I am not good enough”, “I don’t deserve it” etc, which often are deeply ingrained in people’s psyche and which are boycotting success and financial flourishing.

Chess figure - big shadow — The Shadow is bigger than we think

So, do we become wealthy by doing the work we think we need to do? Does it work always that way?

I don’t think so, even if you put all your good will and effort in it. Why? If the word “wealthy” has been connected with people you didn’t like, or you were envious of them, or you felt dependent or victimized by them in your childhood (or even later), it can be extremely, difficult to accept the idea and inner attitude of becoming wealthy,

skyscraper — Economic success – empty forms, cold an inhuman

On the other hand, as we talk about shadow, the drivenness to create success, no matter what the “cost” of wealth is, that can be a shadow topic, too.

How can you overcome that hidden inner attitude – of which you probably are not aware at all (and you might tell you constantly the opposite, positive affirmations – which haven’t worked for you.) If you are interested to find a way out for yourself (especially if you are a woman), you can contact me for a chat.

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This short article was first published on August 16th 2016 on branded.me

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As I am re-organizing my entries in branded.me to post them here in my “opinion” website, every time I copy and paste what I wrote before evokes new thoughts in me, from the perspective of NOW. (in this case end of January 2017, 5 months later than the original entry).

The Elephant in the Room

face, one side light the other dark — Half of our being lies in the shadow

Shadow is definitely the elephant in the room. Personal shadow of each one of us, and collective shadow of communities and nations. It needs a lot of courage to dare to see what is in the dark, to dig it out and to transform it into light.

Every person has an invisible light hidden behind layers of cultural habits and norms. We internalize what we experience as right and wrong in very early age. This is inevitable for becoming a functional member of the group. Unfortunately, sometimes the particular gifts and capacities of people are pushed into the shadow realm and so these people have a difficult time to understand their life’s purpose – if they ever arrive to search for it. The “golden shadow”, once appeared on the surface, is tremendously empowering.

SHADOW WORK – the only way towards health

shooting soldiers and a crying child — The future is at stake – destruction is possible if we don’t recognize it in ourselves

Most important for the health of the individual and for the bigger group is the work on the dark shadow. We need to dig it out, too, and own it as part of our humanness. All humans have the capability to do nasty things, to harm others and even to kill and destroy. If we don’t recognize this part in ourselves then the risk is very high that, one day when the right circumstances arrive, we will act in ways which before we would never have thought to be possible. Don’t say you would never kill anybody, if you have never contacted the killer in yourself. Don’t say you would never torture others – if you have never contacted the Hitler in yourself. Only if you know yourself from ALL perspectives, then you will be able to avoid the worst, but not by believing “you never would”. This is an ancient experience, and modern psychology (and history) have studied this phenomenon of human existence extensively.

The same falls back on societies. Germany has done a lot of shadow work to integrate the era of extreme inhumanity and cruelty during the last century. America seems not to have done any similar work. So why are you wondering that a man was elected President of the United States, who has the same personality characteristic as Hitler? And who, potentially, can lead the nation into complete disaster – and the whole world in the aftermath! (read this article for some clarification!)

Every nation is built by individuals. When the individuals change, the nation will change. This is the good news:

If you want to change the world – change yourself first and be a role model for others in their process of growing up!

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Growing up – Personal Evolution is Slow and not to be taken for granted

January 21, 2017 Heidi Leave a comment

Growing up

We grow up in an environment which teaches us what is real and who we are. In adult life, we often realize that there is something wrong with us and we don’t necessarily understand, that it is not US who is wrong, but the old conditionings which might have served us back in childhood, but have become a hindrance today. So the question is: how can we influence our lives and overcome the conditionings?

So many approaches came out since the 70ies who promise to resolve the issue. Well, they do – and they don’t. Everyone does a bit, a momentary relief, insight, jump ahead. We experience new states of being. But do they become permanent stages, a new self? more often than not they don’t. People slip back into old behaviors. It is completely normal, although tragic

girl meditating — Growing up – meditation can help

Evolution is very slow. Also our personal evolution. We can do a lot for it, to make it happen, but we cannot guarantee that it WILL happen – at least not the outcome we had in mind. Evolution goes its own ways and we can only prepare ourselves to go with it, when the time comes and the setting is right.

These lines were first published on branded.me which I began to use as a public journal. Now I decided to use this website to collect my thoughts.

The photo is taken in an exhibition in the castle of Agripoli, Italy in October 2016

Culture, development, Life on earth, Photos and videos, Psychology and Spirituality, Uncategorized

THE WISDOM FACTORY – as seen by Heidi and Mark

September 4, 2016 Heidi Leave a comment

Find our Live Broadcasts on the website of THE WISDOM FACTORY here

On this website here you find content related to our personal interests and discussions – always informed by our integral worldview, but often not directly related to integral theory.

We will publish here our blogposts and articles which we collected in the past – or we will create in the future.

Some of which might be published in other places, like Youtube (Heidi), Wisdom Factory Channel, Paradiso Integrale Channel

Branded,me, Linkedin, Google Plus, Facebook or other websites like

The Integral European Conference the Integral Leadership Review and more

The Wisdom Factory – Blog

Category Archives: Psychology and Spirituality

Why being in opposition to others is not only useless but…

Information overload – the new disease

Human development and the fascinating power of music

Is Western Society Heading Back to The Middle Ages?

These are the people we need for a better world

When the week begins like that – when 2017 begins as it did.

Women Share Your Wisdom

Shadow and Success – Shadow and Change

Shadow and success

Growing up – Personal Evolution is Slow and not to be taken for granted

Growing up

THE WISDOM FACTORY – as seen by Heidi and Mark

Journaling interests and everyday life