When Hawks Hate Doves
Nothing of the title fits. Yet it says it all, with some symbolic translation: Big egos sometimes cannot stand more depth-oriented people very well. This blog is a deeper look into ego, depth, and growth. In the journey of personal growth, one quickly realizes that not everyone shares the same depth-oriented approach. As a symptom Read the full article…
Psychedelics and Religion
The connection between psychedelic and religious experiences is grounded in the concept of subconceptual processing. Thus, we can focus on the transformative potential of both when approached with respect. The profoundness of genuine religious experiences should never be diminished. These encounters offer transformative insights, shaping individuals’ lives in deeply meaningful ways. Interestingly, psychedelic experiences can Read the full article…
Mental Growth Beyond A.I.: Our Human Edge
This may become increasingly important in the future when super-A.I. can, in principle, do almost anything humans do nowadays. Of course, the issue is already crucial and has always been. Mental growth is intimately connected to meaningfulness and Compassion. This highlights the AURELIS commitment to growth, not as an optional luxury but as a fundamental Read the full article…
The 999 + 1 Doors Principle
If all doors are closed to a beautiful space behind the wall, yours is most important. You should not look at the others to keep yours closed ― easier said than done. It’s innate to the human being to be one of the 1000. Historical herd mentality It’s probably a survival reflex ― therefore, Darwinian. Read the full article…
Nature Wants Growth, Especially Mental
No growth – no health. This is most obvious in anything mind-related. For this reason, AURELIS is a growth philosophy. Mental disorder as obstruction of growth Nature wants growth, no matter what. There is no life without growth. If no growth is possible in one direction, there will be in another, even if this eventually Read the full article…
Psychotherapy or Mental Growth?
This is: curing a mental illness or fostering Inner Strength? What should a person with a mentally related issue strive for? Concerning mental and psycho-somatic issues Psychotherapy carries the connotation of being pointed toward strictly mental problems. Contrary to this, although seemingly hazier, mental growth has broader applicability. Many practitioners of somatic medicine wouldn’t like Read the full article…
Why Only Growth is Durable
Mental growth ‘as a total person’ leads to a continual and lifelong change. Any other attempt toward change is mostly but a temporary glitch in the natural evolution. The reason is, simply put, complexity. The complexity of the human mind is usually highly underestimated. Looking at the brain increasingly shows – and also proves materially Read the full article…
No Compassion without Growth
Striving towards Compassion puts you in the balance. Are you willing to take the risk? Are you willing to fundamentally ‘grow’? This is about big-c-Compassion ― not something pity-like. [see: “Essence of Compassion”] Please also read [see: “Growth, Compassion, Love”] Compassion will not happen without effort. A Compassionate person doesn’t mind the effort. Like Grace Read the full article…
Fire and Stones
The way of the heart and the way of the mind. Compassion and Wisdom. [see: “Essence of Compassion“] A Buddhist image Of course, applicable everywhere. Imagine a campfire somewhere in a forest. Wood is available plenty so that one can build a decent fire. In a circle around the fire, stones are laid down nicely, Read the full article…
There is Soul in Suffering
With due respect, one should not try to eliminate all suffering most quickly and easily. Unfortunately, this indiscriminate stance seems to be precisely the promise of many products and services for sale. Please be careful with this. It can be easily misunderstood. This is not a glorification of pain. One should not seek it out Read the full article…
Altruism – Compassion
Taking into account the depth of nonconscious, subconceptual processing. Empathy is considered elsewhere. [see: “Landscape of Empathy“] For this text, ’empathy’ may be considered as a part of altruism and Compassion. Terms and concepts in an image The relative sizes of the arrows are arbitrary. The circle stands for the mental life of a person. Read the full article…
Growth
One can build. Growing is different. It is the essence of the essence of the essence of meditation whether or not on a cushion. It may seem like something at the outskirts. It is the pearl at the center. It may seem like a path upon which you travel. It is the path that is Read the full article…
Strength as a Virtue
“Show your weakness.” OK? Virtue is not always related to plain strength. More than ‘showing weakness,’ isn’t ‘avoiding weakness’ not more virtuous? The etymology of virtue or virtuous: ‘characterized by moral excellence, valor, strength’ and also: ‘manliness, courage, bravery.’ In ancient Rome, virtus was mainly important as a male adornment. Vir is Latin for ‘man,’ Read the full article…
The Beauty of You
The beauty of you is the direct consequence of Beauty that you let shine through you, personally. There are two sides to this subtitle’s statement: the letting (which is in a deep sense Beauty itself) and the personal. I can say one thing. It’s not easy. And then again, it’s easy in the way of Read the full article…
AURELIS = Responsibility
Every aspect of AURELIS intends to make you freer, therefore more responsible. Not guilty Please read this other blog first. It’s important: [see: “Always Responsible, Never Guilty”] Many times already, I pointed towards aspects of responsibility that come together with AURELIS. Indeed, gaining insight into the human ‘total being’ also brings more opportunities to influence Read the full article…
Be(com)ing Positive
It happens: people who see themselves as ‘positive’ but who are such only in a superficial layer, like thin ice over a pool. Being positive is not saying ‘yes’ to anything and then again, it is. But not thoughtless, not feeling-less. One can say ‘yes’ in many ways. It can mean “I see you”, “I Read the full article…
(Do Not) Change
There is nothing against change unless there is nothing for change. Change as a purpose by itself may lead to negating the nonconscious (even more). A superficial change without going in-depth, just for the sake of change is no change at all. At least, not the change that I’m talking about in this text. The Read the full article…
What is ‘Parallel’?
Psychologically. We are parallel and with good reason. Sure I mean in a deeply psychological sense. In-depth, humans are parallel thinkers. Superficially, we look more like serial thinkers. We talk serially, for instance. That may be because we cannot say two words at the same time. We cannot write two words at the same time, Read the full article…
Feeling without Feelings
I am feeling. I am ‘without feelings.’ The science It may not seem so but this is actually the most scientifically sound way to look at feelings/emotions, backed by many studies, contradicted by none. One good book about this is “How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain” by Lisa Feldman Barrett (2017). Read the full article…
Listening to Silence
Silence: absence of clutter in the mind. Listening to Silence within you OK. This is meditation, whether on a cushion or in the midst of a busy street… or while coaching someone or while just having an everyday conversation or while enjoying art Listening to Silence doesn’t mean that you don’t hear anything else. It’s Read the full article…
Why Bother about Symbols?
Symbols bring another dimension to life. I would even say: they bring life to life. Without symbols, one way or another, we do not live a full life. [see also: “A Symbol Is Always YOU”] ‘Not fully living’: as if that would be possible. Of course, truth is: we need symbols. Without them, we are Read the full article…
Growth, Compassion, Love
With capitals, for it is about the total person, including a vast universe of unconscious processing. It’s altogether a familiar, yet tremendous domain. [see first: ‘Landscape of Empathy’]. Please especially look at the image there before your read this present text. Dedicated lexicon: Growth: developing qualitative mental patterns at the subconceptual level, of which the Read the full article…
Brace Yourself, then Go for It
Dear reader, if you really believe in something, then I would so much like you to go for it. Of course this doesn’t mean that you would otherwise be worth less. Everybody may lead a life that is agreeable to live and doesn’t demand much more than, well, to live it. Nice! But IF there Read the full article…
Feeling Better or Being Better
Do you want to work on feeling better in this world, or rather feeling OK in a better world? This is a moral choice A better world is a world of better persons, including you. It’s not a world, of course, in which you necessarily feel worse. Still, you might even consciously choose for such. Read the full article…
Deep Listening
is probably the hardest thing to do. It’s also very important. People continuously use terms of which they think others surely know what is meant, as if these terms are exact pointers to abstract, ‘Platonian’ concepts. However: look at the brain and you notice that concepts-as-used-by-humans can never be ‘Platonian’ even if one can delineate Read the full article…
Enlightenment, Kant, AURELIS, Growth
It’s time to bring things together. This is according to me the only way forward. ‘Western Enlightenment’ points to a historical period from +/- 1650 onwards, till +/- first part of 19th century. It was multifaceted, to say the least, and came in several waves from ‘moderate’ to ‘radical’… to even ‘totalitarian’ (à la Robespierre). Read the full article…
Excellence
One should not be apprehensive to excel as long as this does not interfere with human value. There is a natural drive to excel and that’s perfectly OKAY. [see also: ‘Being of Value’] ἄριστος (aristos) = ancient Greek for ‘excellent’ or ‘outstanding’, being apart / above the rest. You recognize it in the term ‘aristocracy’. Read the full article…
Growth to Happiness
Happiness can hardly be found at the end of happiness-road. It can be found at growth-road. Actually, it is that road. People who search for happiness – just like that – frequently end up being less happy. It’s a kind of nature’s revenge, maybe, especially when one and the other end up in a vicious Read the full article…
AURELIS and Self-Development
“I don’t have any problem. Why should I use AURELIS?” AURELIS may seem problem-oriented but it’s not. It’s growth-oriented. In AURELIS-philosophy, a ‘problem’ (such as a psychosomatic symptom) is an entry, to be given attention to as a way of communication. The goal of AURELIS is self-development or ‘growth’. This may start from a problem. Read the full article…
What You Can ‘Learn’ from Your Symptom
People ask me this because it regularly appears in AURELIS. Actually, it’s already present within the last two letters, standing for Inner Strength. Symptom as communication ‘from deep inside’ To the degree that your symptom is psycho-somatic – as most chronic symptoms are – it’s present because deep inside yourself, something deserves attention. Something is Read the full article…
Being of Value
That’s what we all are: beings of value. Even of immense value. We should dare to acknowledge that and act accordingly. I know it’s not always easy to acknowledge one’s value. I’ve had my ups and downs in life myself. I’ve also seen people in diverse situations, including in most dire ones where even the Read the full article…
Towards Universal Empathy
Universal empathy is a moral stance that may solve the in-group >< out-group problem. [‘further on ‘In-Group Creates Out-Group?’] “How numerous the living beings may be, I pledge to liberate (from suffering) them all.” This is one of four Buddhist ‘vows of the Bodhisattva.’ Not being an adept of Buddhism, I find in it a Read the full article…
Expansion of Consciousness
Curious how so many different worlds can live in one word People talk often about expansion of consciousness as something that is quite the opposite from what is my understanding of it. At the very least, I think, it is interesting to clarify this distinction. Because AURELIS is about expansion of consciousness from a to Read the full article…
How to Open Someone to Change
Trying to ‘open’ someone to a change of view or behavior, is a common situation. It’s that of a coach with a coachee, or of you perhaps, wanting to ‘open’ someone to another view. People have a natural resistance to be changed. Quite rightly so. There is a natural tendency towards survival as an individual. Read the full article…
The Concept ‘Kindness For the Total Person’
Kindness… is probably the first word that comes to mind with reference to AURELIS. E.g. if you want to explain to anyone what AURELIS is about. It is also very important when you are doing an AURELIS session for example. The aim here is to allow you to be friendly to yourself. It’s not pushing Read the full article…
The Goal: Freedom
… of the total person. This may assume a serious commitment, a firm attitude, discipline. It judders and clashes with all sorts of … and yet. A good starting point may be: “nothing changes me.” So also: “nothing stops me,” because if one is changing from within, then that change itself is the situation and Read the full article…
From Grief to Growth
There can be positive elements in grief – if you open yourself. The death of a person – the death of an idea – the death of a relationship – even the death of a hoped-for electoral outcome… One should not get rid of grief or bypass it. Yet what regularly happens, is that a Read the full article…
True Meditation is Warm and Friendly
To-the-core friendliness is what meditation amounts to. It is the reason for and also the practice of meditation. It is a warm and friendly invitation towards slowing down your thinking. So your thoughts themselves can get more ‘space.’ They can follow their course without being disrupted by the ‘next thought.’ Meditation is about being friendly Read the full article…
Three Waves of Attention
Where there is life, there is attention. Where there is attention, there is life. AURELIS integrates rationality and poetry in a specific view of human being. It brings together body and mind, East and West, past, present and future. Most of all, it unifies conscious thinking and the subconscious mind as understood in modern cognitive Read the full article…
What Is Your True Self?
‘True self’ is the idea of an essence that resides in a person and that is ‘more true’ than other, more changeable parts. But is this truly real? People change with age, in body and mind. Especially at the surface, these changes can be quite visible. Then the question is logical: am I still the Read the full article…