The invisible barriers

Marjeta and I have no kids together, as I have described in my personal history; I have a daughter of 13 and son of almost 17 from my first marriage and Marjeta has a son of 15 from her previous relationship. Kids live most of the time with us and so we function as a combined family.

We have been living like that for about seven years and I just recently begun letting go of the romantic idea about how family-ties can be artificially created just by wilfully trying to do so. I have had the image that it was perfectly possible to perceive and love all the kids in an equal way, never mind the fact they that some were biologically and historically not as “mine” as the other.

But it proved to be difficult from the very beginning on: the feeling of touching, talking and in any way interacting with my kids was just so different than when interacting with her child. It was hard to describe the difference and nothing bad or wrong was really going on, yet there it was, a difference that everybody felt.

It is funny that the first crack in this romantic idea of mine actually happened on the Wagha border between India and Pakistan on our overland journey to India. A custom officer, after realizing kids had different surnames, asked me about the reason for that and upon my answer that one was not biologically mine but somehow adopted, looked me straight into my eyes and asked:

Do you love him in the same way as you love your own children?

I answered that I was trying to do so and he started to laugh:

Not possible in this world, my friend, not possible in this world.

And he laughed and laughed.

I have felt as if everybody but me knew this was impossible, everybody in every remote place on the planet. With me still trying to make my own fairy tale true.

We both are still trying really hard to keep opening up and accepting and treating all three kids alike, but some subtle differences are always there, just as firm as they were 8 years ago. I automatically tend to jump and protect my kids and Marjeta protects her son. I feel she is being unjust towards my kids and she feels I am being unjust to her son. I get more quickly irritated and have less understanding for her son and the same happens on Marjeta’s side. And we both are trying really hard.

I wouldn’t say kids suffer because of that; we keep talking things over on a regular basis and they get along with each other fine and have no real conflicts with us. And they are teenagers, walking slowly into their own individual lives, being less and less connected and dependent on us.

So life is easy in this regards, but I still feel rather frustrated with the failure I am facing. And I still wonder why on earth is it seemingly impossible to get over those invisible barriers: are they psychical, emotional, rational, cultural…?

Walk the talk or talk the walk?

Yesterday I came back from the Dialogue Process Training in the North Germany. Enriched by at least two important insights. The first is that presently the most important concepts in my life, namely NVC, Zen and Dialogue Process are not only coming beautifully together, but actually seem to be merely three different aspects of the very same direction or value of life, the one that I am passionate about. Being and coming together on the real and fundamental levels. So my life is gaining some focus again.

The second one happened after the topics of how to bring the Dialogue into the corporate environment surfaced in our conversations and I immediately felt, within me, a strong rejection to that notion. It was a similar inner response that I have felt when I was, last year, awarded as The business trainer of the year. Yes, of course I was happy to have received that award, but than after a couple of days it dawned on me that I have never really wanted to be a successful business trainer and that I was obviously on a wrong track.

I certainly do not want to die as a successful business trainer.

So what I have realized this time in Germany was that I do not want to be a great, best communication trainer, but I do want, eagerly, to communicate with people on the deepermost realms. I also do not want to create and “possess” the best method of personal growth and make the Dialogue very successful in the business world – yet I do want, passionately, to dialogue. I do not want to become a great NVC trainer, but I do want to communicate nonviolently with everybody and help other people in this regards. If my help is needed. I do not want to be a Zen meditation teacher. Yet I want to be fully present in my existence. So, I want to walk my talk and not talk my walk. I want to provide the space for the deep interactions to happen – this apparently is something that moves me whenever I encounter any variation or aspects of it.

And yes, this is what I have always wanted my life to be about and this is what I still want it to be about. Meaning, existential questions of life, true and total interactions, love and communion, being present and interact openly.

Yes, I want my life to be about giving, not about getting.

Neighbours from a different culture

I am surrounded by neighbours who seem rather similar to me, but they are not. There are immense cultural differences separating us. We do say a polite hello when we see each others across our little fences, yet I sense their hostility. And their irritation. And lack of respect for my culture.

I feel they want to change me. They feel my way of living is a disgrace to this country and they want me to adapt to their culture, to their values and their ways of living. And I feel like resisting until there’s still some blood in my body.

This is their culture, their values, their ways.

And this is my culture, my values, my ways.

Freedom to the plants! Freedom to the people who do not want to mow their own lawn. Freedom to the people who find it OK to be eaten up by the vegetation on their own gardens! May they live long and prosper!

   

A nice guy

Being 42 I am still struggling with climbing out of some deeply seeded roles I seem to be acting out in almost all my interactions and relationships – to a certain degree at least. One of the most stubborn ones is the role of being a nice guy.

I was, through my primary as well as my secondary socialization, literally trained into being a good boy and a nice guy, meaning having to bee obedient, good, respectful, never raise my voice, always be responsible, always meet expectations of other people… You know, making everybody happy. And while not being such a good student in schools I, much unfortunately, turned out to be an excellent one in this regards.

About twenty years or so ago I started to be aware of specific difficulties (like not being able to get angry with people, to confront others in conflicts, to express my needs and opinions when those were unpopular ones…) I had and begun to get the first idea about what was underneath. Yet several years needed to pass before I managed to realize the immense dimension and the depth of this sub-persona of mine. It was like a cage that has integrated into my own being completely and kept suppressing huge amounts of never felt, let alone expressed, emotions. Certainly felt like a mild version of the Incredible Hulk.

Nowadays I am still struggling with attempts to grow out of this cage. It is not nearly as present and strong as it used to be, however it still tries to impress others, control their interpretations of myself and gets rather irritated when other people, seemingly just out of the blue, choose to not like me. So I need to be pretty conscious and aware to succeed in allowing myself to NOT be nice all the time and, to manage to express not so nice things, to let others see me the way they want to and to let people not like me if this is how they want to proceed.

But there’s one part of this story that is particularly puzzling my mind. What would my life be like if I wasn’t that much burdened with the role of a nice guy in my past? Would I still choose to be a psychotherapist, trying to nicely help others and save everybody? Would I still turn out to be a coach, trainer, mediator, trying to make everyone happy and ease life of each person around me? Or would I just mind my own business and my own life and my own happiness? In other words; to what extend is my need to help other people coming from the true and genuine parts of my being and to what extend it is just a product and a strategy of the neurotic nice guy within me?

I guess I will never know. But it would be fun to be able to check out various possibilities and see what comes out, like in The Butterfly Effect movie.

Nothing special, but everything there is

It’s rather funny to come home from a three-days Soto Zen Sesshin and find out you have absolutely nothing to say to people who ask you about it.

What happened?

Nothing.

What were you doing?

Sitting for three days, in silence, just present in the moment.

And what have you experienced?

Well, just the presence in the moment.

But than what is the purpose of something like that?

Hm, it’s to be more present, more settled, more grounded in this life.

But, but, but, did you have any deep insights?

To tell you the truth, I do remember one insight, yes.

So what was it?

I realized that I only have one breath in my life. The one I am inhaling and exhaling right now. Other breaths do not exists.

At this point nobody listens any more and no questions are being asked any longer.

Our Western minds are really screwed up. We always need to chase some goals in front of us. We struggle in order reach someplace, become somebody, get something. Even when we meditate we want to get something out of that. Our ego wants his share too. To become very enlightened, wise, shiny, respected, recognized…

Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Peace is every step beautifully points out: “We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.”

I believe this is the case also in case of the personal growth process. I remember about twenty years ago when spending ages on the Enlightenment Intensives. For days after days we were endeavouring to reach deep, mystical and enlightening experiences. Then after finally reaching them we were spending another days and days talking about how great they were. All that time spend in chasing the future or remembering and evaluating the past. But only a fraction of a second spent in the now.

In Soto Zen tradition this sort of experiences are irrelevant. In fact anything that ego would love to feed upon is being completely ignored. All the flashy stuff. The only thing that counts is sheer presence here and now, pure beingness, pure aliveness.

Now what more can we ever reach?

a miracle

Do you know what I find a true miracle? The fact that the little dwarf, my son, over here:

in about 16 years turns into that:

This is the same being, the same body, the same entity. I mean, this is truly amazing, how these forces of nature work, all by themselves. Incredible. Growth and all of these processes just happen.

Also ageing. It just keeps happening. I do not see this part as a such a beautiful miracle.

Well, tomorrow I am of for a three-day Zen sesshin. Basically three days of sitting in silence, attempting to be present here and now. And nothing else. And I love that immensely.

Of course I could not resist and I invited my son to come with me and enjoy the inner silence. What do you think the answer was?

The one and the only and the best and the first

Why is it so important in this world to be the best, to be the first? OK, I do understand how this concept can have certain motivating attributes in sports, but apart from that, why are we so damn obsessed by comparing ourselves with others and competing with them? Trying to overtake them, in literally every aspect of our lives, on the small as well as on the big scale.

To me the weirdest application of this competitiveness is in realms of personal growth, psychology, psychotherapy, spirituality… Aren’t those the places where the main goal is actually to grow over such childish attachments? Yet wherever I look I see the psycho-spiritual-championships. The best yoga. The oldest meditation technique. The only correct interpretation of ancient scripts. The most enlightened gurus. Are you kidding me? What kind of rubbish is this?

A couple of years back I got, after about 20 years, in contact again with an old acquaintance, a spiritual leader of some kind. Upon my question about how he was he responded that he had just created the fastest technique to get enlightened (takes about 5 minutes or so) and that he was the first individual on the planet to use such powerful methods. Now, this person is over 60 and one would expect a slightly higher level of emotional maturity at this age. My motivation for communication died instantaneously.

A month or so ago another acquaintance dropped by – he just completed his training for a certain psychotherapy. Do I need to say that this was, of course, the best psychotherapeutic method in the world, the only effective? Now, just how much psychotherapy does a psychotherapist like this one need in order to grow out of such childish concepts? Probably approximately as much as any religious fanatic claiming – and even fighting, killing to prove it – that his or her God is the best and the only.

Well, at least I know I can add one more life learning to my list: never go to the one and the only and the best therapist, counsellor, adviser, trainer, teacher, guru… No, thank you. However, my trust will always tend to go to people who see themselves as merely possessing one narrow slice of the cake, a small piece of the big picture, modestly offering it to others to try it out and see if it works for them. Knowing that their little piece is no better than any other piece.

And the best ones; I believe they need a lot of help themselves. With one additional problem – they can never get help from the best one since they are already occupying this golden position.