Zen in Therapy
Meditation and conceptual psychotherapy are fundamentally different. Yet, in therapy, there should be a crucial place for meditation. In this text: – Therapy and coaching – therapist and coach – are the same. – Zen is – literally – meditation. Zen and pure meditation are the same. The meditative mindset of the therapist This is Read the full article…
The Freedom of Being You
People generally crave the feeling of freedom. Yet, a crucial misunderstanding may lead to a vicious circle careening into the reverse. You Being-you means being the one with your history, preferences, and other people’s influences upon you from childbirth on and even before. This is the you that can be free ― no other. This Read the full article…
Relax. Do Not Burn Out.
In burnout, one feels one’s energy being drained. A natural reflex is to rest, but there is more to it than meets the conscious relaxation. Please read first: Meaningful Relaxation Diminishing burnout through resting is not straightforward. Frequently, it doesn’t even seem to help. Someone feels tired before the resting and equally tired immediately or Read the full article…
Meaningful Relaxation
Deep relaxation can be meaningful by itself ― not only as a means to further action or a necessary slowing-down of the mind/brain machine. This is not about crisp-concept-based meaningfulness but pattern-based meaningfulness ― the meaningfulness of “This means a lot to me.” Not straightforward We are used to looking for meaningfulness in action. This Read the full article…
Your Clients are Your Teachers
As AURELIS-coach, having your best teachers right before you, you can unlock this vast potential by being open. This is also the best attitude for the coaching itself. As your teachers, they teach humility. They teach Compassion through their lives, their stories, and their relationships with you ― either by showing it or by the Read the full article…
The Inclined Plane
This is not a new insight if you know AURELIS. What it does show with a metaphor is the seriousness of the present-day Middle Ages on our way toward straightening the plane. Imagine a massive mental plane. People are living on that plane. Is it the medieval Earth before it became round? Anyway, this plane Read the full article…
The Trauma of Not Growing
Mental trauma, whether resulting from a single life event or a long-term traumatic condition, jeopardizes mental growth. Or is the lack of growth the trauma itself? Living nature is about growth. Plants grow in size; then, they grow seeds in order to grow more plants of the same species. All plants must die, but they Read the full article…
Changing Your Addicted Mind
Hard drugs are called ‘hard’ because they change the physical brain, not only the ephemeral mind. Then, how to durably change a mind addicted to hard drugs? In 2019, 70.000 people died from drug overdose in the US; 1.6 million had an opioid use disorder; 2 million used methamphetamine (crystal meth). Brain = mind More Read the full article…
The Challenge of Changing one Thought
The degree of challenge depends on the thought. Deeply embedded thoughts are more challenging to change. The difference between deep and superficial-level thoughts is crucial. Embeddedness Surface-level thoughts are more Lego-like. You can, so to speak, quickly take out one small block and put in another. Of course, there are no pure Lego-like mental blocks Read the full article…
This World is One
It just doesn’t make any logical sense that the peoples on it are divided. Yet here we are. Meanwhile, we may be living in a decade that, more than any other, is decisive in realizing oneness. “This world is one.” Of course, I mean this under the assumption that human beings would be fundamentally rational Read the full article…
Does Talking Help?
Talking as an indiscriminate empathy-vehicle in therapy/coaching may be more than nothing, but the aim should be higher. A good feeling is not enough to profoundly relieve pain and heighten Compassion. Conceptual methodologies for mental help Conceptual methodologies aim for more, but they generally don’t realize much in the direction people need for durable change Read the full article…
Deep Motivational Check-Up
This is – in the idea stage – a yearly check-up (small concrete trajectory of one by default or one + five coaching sessions) that can, in principle, be interesting for every employee. It is a win for everyone: employee, employer, and broad society. A Deep Motivational Check-Up (DMC) aims to let the coached person Read the full article…
Creating the Enemy
Is ‘the ubiquitous enemy’ simply a surface-level mental trap into which human beings get caught out of some vulnerability? Or is finding yet another enemy the result of our looking actively and profoundly for one and – if need be – creating one? This text was written on the 11th of November, armistice day. We Read the full article…
Where do You Go to, My Planet?
Nowhere yet for a while, but people worldwide are rapidly going somewhere. Global politics is on the move. Much depends on how we understand and manage ourselves in-depth and how we deal with a pending paradigm shift at the core of who we are. That sounds dramatic enough. Please, first read about the great mental Read the full article…
The Great Mental Paradigm Shift
One can see the related tension becoming more and more consequential in several fields (from healthcare to politics and more) over decades. This can continue getting worse, or we can take action to make the transition go smoothly. About? The great mental paradigm shift is about transitioning from a largely conceptual take on the human Read the full article…
Concept-Deconstruction as Therapeutic Mindset
Meant here is the deconstruction of concepts through being critical about the meaning of concept-denoting terms in a way that the subconceptual becomes more apparent. See: conceptual, subconceptual. Technique or mindset? As a technique, this constructive deconstruction might be one that transcends (deconstructs) techniques themselves. Even so, it’s better not to see it as a Read the full article…
Contemplation during Meditation
Meditation is an excellent mental environment in which contemplation can take place. In a good way, contemplation doesn’t diminish the meditation but rather strengthens it from the inside. Etymology From the Latin Contemplatio: an ‘act of looking at, considering, religious musing.’ Templum is, of course, a temple where religious musing takes place. Contemplation is not Read the full article…