COPING with what is vs MANAGING to grow.

People come into therapy because they want to learn how to cope with their emotions. This is a very noble first step as they realize that their emotional world impacts not only on themselves but also on others. However, learning how to cope is a very limited goal as it has no vision attached to it beyond coping with what is. The potential to create gets lost in such an attitude. And it is in the creation that one grows into its full potential and enlarges his/her own world and the world of others, learning how to manage one’s emotions opens us up to our dreams, to our visions and to the full potential that lies buried within our psyche.

In order to manage one’s emotions we need to know what we are truly managing. We are managing a process to get us from A to B. Coping focuses on the A – getting rid of the A or changing it. Whereas managing focuses on the A, the B and the process to get there. In a quest like that we start creating our vision and not merely hoping that when A changes the world will be a better place, for what ever this might mean. When we understand the B we can start unfolding and identifying the most important factor that motivates us to get there, our purpose which is revealed to us by the question: WHY?

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From the moment we were born we were indoctrinated with ideas, rules and opinions not only about the world but, more unfortunately, about ourselves. Our environment has highly contributed to the person who we are today. We were basically told how the world works and how we fit into it. It is time to review this conditioning and finding out who we really are and start creating our own worldview that will empower and enrich our lives and the lives of people around us.

Who is the person I truly am? Do I want to get upset about the things that I do? How do I want to be in relationship with my loved ones and my fellow travelers? How intimately do I know the people that mean something to me? And how intimately do they know me? Questions that many of us do not even consider asking themselves. Yet, this is ultimately the most satisfying journey that we can embark upon.

Looking at someone and feeling the deep connection fills us with grace and utter gratitude for live itself. Yet, too often are we willing to walk through life without taking the time to stop and to meet in that space beyond our everyday lives and struggles.

Welcoming these struggles as an opportunity to learn is an old taught wisdom. It is the path to liberation, to ourselves and to others. Every struggle is an invitation to ourselves. An invitation for new discoveries, new direction and new experiences as we move from the known into the realms of the unknown, where magic happens.

I don’t know why I am saying these things, I don’t know why I react like I do, I don’t know why I can’t just hold you and truly listen to your dreams and feelings in a supportive and open way, I don’t know why I am the way I am but I know one thing: I would like to know because I don’t want to miss out on my children growing into adults without me knowing them and them not knowing me, because I would not like to lose you (even though it feels like I lost you a long time ago), I would not like to live through life without ever experiencing the multitude of emotions that are available to us as human beings. I would like to grow into the person I want to be.

To do just that, thought, requires that we stop. That we let go of our shame and guilt which has never been ours anyway, and that we open up to the vastness and depth that life has to offer. Truth resonates in every cell within us. If we can’t feel this vibration then we have truly never touched, never seen, never listened and never loved and the sad thing is: if we can’t feel this vibration then we have equally never been touched, never been seen, never been listened to and never been loved not because there is no one there that cared but because we have not allowed ourselves to receive. What are we punishing ourselves and others for? Life is too short.

There is an old Navajo saying “what ever happens here on Earth must first be dreamed”, and Vincent Van Gogh said “I dream my painting and then I paint the dream”, so let’s start dreaming from the very depths of our full human beingness and create that person that we truly want to be. There is nothing that holds us back, except for ourselves. This world is too sad for too many of us, so let’s start dreaming big and let’s begin now!

By Halka Beseda

And here is a wonderful piece of music by Marvin Gaye: Where are we going? Enjoy.

Everyone without exception enters the adult life in a pursuit of happiness.  Some believe to have found it only to have lost it again. Some might taste it in pleasures of a moment. For others, the pursuit of happiness remains a mystery, a faint memory of their youth, a vague dream yet to be fulfilled.

It has been estimated that only 5% of humanity is capable of living a truly happy and joyful life. What is the secret to happiness and where does humanity go wrong?

We might find those rare moments of great joy or an overwhelming sense of great beauty and those occasional outbursts of happiness that fill our whole being. But they somehow seem to linger only for a while. Why do we seem to lose them and get caught up in life again? Is it possible that our thoughts might hold the answer for us?

These moments of pleasure are experiences that have come into being out of a union between our senses and our thoughts. The more open our senses are, the more attention we pay to the them, breath them in one by one, the deeper the feeling can reach. But how much do we truly understand about this interplay of thoughts and senses?

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Treating depression with chemical drugs has become a widespread acceptable solution in today’s world. The new science reveals that the magic pill is nothing else but the magic doing of our mind as findings reveal that placebo sugar pills show just about the same results without the serious side effects of the chemical antidepressants. How can this be?

The featured article in the Newsweek magazine of February 8th “The Depressing news About Antidepressants” by Sharon Begley is a very informative read about the pharmaceutical solution as treatment for depression in the light of new scientific research that looked at placebo vs antidepressant pills.

In discussion with psychologist Prof. Irving Kirsch who has taken the very difficult role to bringing this data into the light, Sharon summarizes the findings and, thus, challenges the notion with her article that depression is simply a biochemical imbalance that is correctable with a antidepressant pill. Find Irving Kirsch talking about the Myth of Antidepressants below this article.

The question that needs to be addressed here is what comes actually first: are the feelings that lead to depression causing a chemical imbalance or does the chemical imbalance affect our feelings and cause depression?

There is certainly a vicious circle happening here as both of the above is certainly true once we are on our way to feeling depressed. Nutrition can affect our biochemical balance equally as our thoughts can. But can the magical pill really cut to the roots of the cause of everything? Or can it at least lift us out of the black hole so we can begin our journey to recovery?

The answer is not that easy especially in the light of the new findings in scientific research around antidepressants. How can it be that a sugar pill, a placebo, can work the same wonders like the real chemical pill? How can it be that pills are prescribed for depression that affect serotonin levels in exactly the opposite ways: one increasing serotonin and the other one decreasing serotonin. How can these two pills show the same effects on our biochemistry? Or do they at all? Is it really the pill or is it our belief that affects our sense of emotional balance?

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Our conscious thought distinguishes us from the animal and plant kingdom. Out of the depth of our thoughts arise the most passionate moments in our lives. The same depths have the capacity to take us to the darkest places within us. Just take a moment and identify your best and worst experience in life without thinking about it.

Without thought, what is left of those experiences? Without thought, how do you define your past or your future? Without thought, who are you?

This kind of thinking has created an increasingly popular saying “You are your thoughts” – but are you really?

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Embarking oneself on a personal growth journey is not about changing our life but our perception and understanding thereof. Emotional change is not something that we only pursue on our personal growth path. Emotional change is embedded into our very life itself – there would be no life without change. Life is change, or even more to the point:

WE are change.

Every second, trillions of reactions are taking place in each one of our cells. Change in itself is paradoxically the only certainty we have in life. Death is following birth, and in that cycle between birth and death we are creating and living our world each moment anew; and out of each moment arises the most precious gift that life is offering to us: our human experience.

Any given moment in our life we feel, we think, we engage with our mind, our body and our spirit. We engage with our world within and without, whether we know it or not. An experience is a felt sense of that energy in motion (emotion) of that intricate relationship of all that is .

In that sea of energy, each moment of ours creates itself anew – moment after moment. Change is the only thing we know – change is the very essence of our human existence.

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At the heart of true personal growth is self knowledge. Having insights into the complexities of our mind is the prerequisite of a fruitful examination into our being of this world with all its intricate relationships we manage, called life experiences. And it all is embedded in a so called map or filter within your mind.

Each day is unfolding based on thousands of little decisions we make and each decision we create in our mind continuously keeps shaping the world we live in and our experience thereof.

Yet our mind operates 99%  in realms that are not easily accessible  to our power of reasoning because that 99% of our decision making process,  that 99% of our mind map is filtered away from our conscious mind. That is why psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists become inreasingly more popular in our world. Yet, through insights into the mechanisms of how our thoughts are created in the first place, you can do a lot of that work by yourself.

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If you have any questions regarding the content in this website, or just any questions at all don’t hesitate to contact me at the following address. I’d also love to hear any feedback on the site if you’ve found it helpful or have some ideas about how I can improve the site in any way. 

Please note that this site is in the making and information shall be added continuously.

Please contact me at halka@personalgrowthonline.com

I will reply to all messages as soon as possible.
Halka Beseda

Personal Growth Online.com