How would you react if someone told you that you have the right to say what you think? Or to be treated with respect? Or that you have the right to be happy? When I first encountered the rights of the assertive person, I thought: “Well, of course we have these rights; there’s no need […]
All articles in the blog
- 29-Day Program
- Age of Aquarius
- Alchemy
- Analytical Psychology
- Anger
- Anima and Animus
- Astro-psychology
- Bert Hellinger
- Byron Katie
- Calcination
- Carl Gustav Jung
- Cognitive Psychotherapy
- Collective unconscious
- Creativity
- Cupid and Psyche
- David Gordon
- Death
- Depression
- Desire
- Differentiation
- Don Miguel Ruiz
- Duality
- Eckhart Tolle
- Ego and the Soul
- Enlightenment
- Family Constellations
- Fear
- Feelings
- Forgiveness
- Gerrit Guillen
- Good and evil
- Guilt
- Healing Stories
- Helping others
- How Change Happens
- Humanistic Psychology
- Improving Communication
- Individuation
- James Hillman
- Jealousy
- Khalil Joubran
- Krishnamurti
- Kundalini Awakening
- Lessons of Love
- Lightworkers
- Liz Greene
- Logoanalysis
- Loneliness
- Love triangles
- Marianne Williamson
- Marie-Louise von Franz
- Mental health
- Mental Health Continuum
- Michael Tamura
- Morgan Scott Peck
- Mother Complex
- Neale Donald Walsch
- Neptune
- Osho
- Pamela Kribbe
- Parents and Children
- Paths of Psychotherapy
- Paulo Coelho
- Personal development groups (archive)
- Projections
- Psychosynthesis
- Purpose of Life
- Recommended books
- Reflections
- Relationships
- Richard Rudd
- Sadness
- Sai Baba
- Selected Articles
- Self-Sacrifice
- Spiritual Teachers
- Spiritual Transformation
- Stephen Covey
- Success in Life
- Systemic Psychotherapy
- The Destroyer Archetype
- The Mind
- The Pain
- Thought of the Day
- Transpersonal Psychotherapy
- Venus
- Viktor Frankl
- Yehuda Berg
07.03.2013
Meta-Rules and Human Communication
I continue the theme of meta-communication as the only means of breaking out of the vicious circle of “games without end,” as systemic psychotherapy refers to the series of repetitive conflict interactions that never lead to resolution. One way to step out of this vicious circle and to look from a higher (meta-) level is […]
05.03.2013
Holding Both Halves
“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.” — Carl G. Jung, Aion: […]
28.02.2013
The Rattlesnake Farm
This is a story about a farmer from Florida who inherited a piece of land that was extremely infertile. I read it some time ago in a book by Dale Carnegie and remembered it because it touches on one of my favorite themes—the transformation of lead into gold, which he calls “how to turn lemons […]
18.02.2013
In Search of One’s True Calling
I know quite a few people who are not simply looking for a good job. I know people who are searching for their calling. These are people with a passion for life, capable of taking risks in order to follow their hearts. Carrying within themselves the flame of Promethean fire, these freedom-loving and deeply humane […]
11.02.2013
Eckhart Tolle on the purpose of life
“Many people long for the freedom and expansion that prosperity promises. Others already enjoy the relative freedom that comes with prosperity and discover that even that is not enough to endow their lives with meaning. There is no substitute for finding true purpose. The true or primary purpose of your life cannot be found on […]
09.02.2013
Communication and “Safety Zone”
The best way to understand how we shift from the “content aspect” to the “relationship aspect” in communication, when conversations become difficult, is through examples. The authors of “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High”, which I cannot recommend enough, have done an excellent job with this complex and nuanced task. Here I […]
According to systemic psychotherapy, very often a problem is nothing more than a repeating series of unsuccessful attempts to solve it. Most commonly, these are recurring relational patterns with other people that escalate into conflict each time and lead to a dead end. Systemic therapists call these patterns “endless games,” and they are among the […]
Which Comes First – the Chicken or the Egg? If you can answer this question, you will understand who is responsible for the way you feel and react when communication with another person becomes difficult. And if you do not know the correct answer, here is my proposal: you are responsible. If you understand this—not […]
28.01.2013
On the Two Levels of Communication
One of the most important things to understand about communication is that when we converse with another person, we are not only exchanging information – we are also exchanging emotional attitudes. In systemic psychotherapy, these two layers are called the “content aspect” and the “relationship aspect.” Of the two, what truly matters for successful communication […]
26.01.2013
Blurry Boundaries Lead to the Loss of Self
“Only when you have a clear sense of your own boundaries can you connect deeply with another. Unclear boundaries lead to the loss of self rather than to love. To experience true love, you must be able to use your masculine energy as effectively as your feminine.” — Pamela Kribbe, Heart-Centered Living, p. 201 Note: […]
24.01.2013
Start with Heart
The way to deal with our primal fight-or-flight reactions (which lead to the two killers of dialogue – silence or aggression) is by working on the mindset we bring into a conversation. These attitudes are present from the very moment we encounter the other person and continue throughout the entire interaction. Typically, we are not […]
