I participated a seminar on personal
empowerment together with my partner and
I participated thinking I’m accompanying
my partner and only found out quite some
time later and how important the seminar
amongst other things we learned about
modernized techniques and methods of the
heart now when I talk about the heart I
don’t mean the physical heart I mean the
heart that we all know when we feel
compassion for ourselves or when we feel
compassion for others and there was one
specific technique that I very much
enjoyed and it was about the acceptance
of the heart and I’m glad I learned to
practice this technique at the end when
the seminar came to came to an end
I faced a very difficult and challenging
situation I saw my partner falling in
love with another woman in the workshop
in the same seminar so here I was
learning about acceptance of the heart
and at the same time I was facing a
felt my mind fell into a total gap I was
like paralyzed and all I wanted was to
go home
and type myself somewhere so I did go
home alone and feeling very desperate
feeling I had nothing really to lose it
came to me to say why don’t you try the
methods you just learned in your seminar
why don’t you put them to a test and see
if they can really help in a moment of
emotional despair in a moment of an
emotional crisis so I gave myself a few
rules like I didn’t leave the house I
switched off the phone I switched off
the TV or I didn’t switch it on and I
just decided to take every single way
that would distract me from exploring
what I felt I needed to explore now you
can imagine that this brings up a lot of
emotions when you suddenly don’t
distract yourself while you are sitting
on a volcano so I was crying I was
getting angry and was spitting a pillow
I was desperate and paralysed and I was
crying again until after a while I felt
calm enough to actually sit down close
my eyes and do my meditation and the
meditation is very simple they are
closing your eyes and bringing whatever
is happening whatever the feelings are
into the heart just bringing it close
now this sounds very simple but I can
tell you it wasn’t simple in the
situation I was in and there were
moments when my mind was freaking out
and just wanted
pick up the phone and call my boyfriend
and tell him what a miserable guy he was
doing this to me there were moments
where I thought I’m going to lose it
altogether and go crazy in a state also
with that I took that too into my heart
and of course it took a while to let
this practice work on me
but eventually I noticed that something
was starting to crystallize inside of me
and the first crystallization that came
was the word jealousy that we all know
but it came with such a force of pain
they are pain in the heart and have
suddenly asked myself what actually is
jealousy where does this pain actually
come from and as I went deeper in I
suddenly understood that I was comparing
myself to this other woman and not only
was I comparing myself I put myself down
next to her and I didn’t even know this
woman I don’t even know who she was I
had seen her for a few days so as it
suddenly dawned on me that putting
myself down is most of the pain I feel
I’d caused pain to myself by making
myself uglier than her less important
than her less interesting than her and
once I understood that it was like a
switch in my heart and I realized I
don’t need to do that I can actually
stop it here and now and that was like
harder to say a break breakthrough in my
heart it just allowed me to also see
which I hadn’t seen in all these hours
and days the beauty I have inside
outside
my intelligence all the positive
qualities that I had found up to this
moment in my life it was a very
beautiful experience to shift from such
a pain to actually a deep relaxation and
a joy in my heart today I would call
this a moment of transformation back
then I didn’t mind what it was it just
felt really good to be relieved of that
pain which of course came back and forth
but there was a change I started coming
back to life I wanted to see people I
didn’t need to hide anymore so what I’ve
could have been a crisis a long-term
crisis here was a beautiful moment of
transformation now why am I telling you
we all know these moments in our life
when our mind is simply important when
our mind cannot handle a situation and
no matter how much we have trained
ourselves and how sophisticated we can
be there are simply moments in life
where life doesn’t follow any logic like
my partner leaves me for another woman
there is no logic to it and then it
brings up feelings that are often very
overwhelming for us as adults and we
simply don’t understand where they come
from why they are so strong now this is
usually a moment when clients come to me
in my work they come because the mind
and it is very difficult for an adult to
face helplessness to face the feeling of
I’m not in control of a situation yeah
we all expect from ourselves that we can
handle things and suddenly we can’t now
there is very interesting research
why emotions and our rationality has
such a battle with each other why they
are so separate as a yawn of well-known
American psychologist and
psychotherapist he just recently died
who is the founder of primal therapy you
might have heard about that he has
written a book called the primal scream
and in this book he describes that in
our brain there is a division there is a
separation between the part in the brain
that holds our emotional memories and
the other part that is responsible for
our cognitive understanding in this
separation for us as adults is has a big
influence so when an adult for example
experiences an emotional trigger like a
separation from somebody we love then
not only do we feel the current pain but
it often triggers more memories in the
emotional memory and then it comes to a
point where an adult suddenly feels
helpless like a child and at the same
time our rational mind tells us this
cannot be that should not be like this
I’m an adult I should not feel like a
small child what needs to happen in this
situation is not to
and to complain and try to get rid of
these feelings that are difficult but
rather to bring them closer so we can
actually feel them and understand them
and eventually heal them and hear the
heart plays a key role it is not our
mind that allows us to feel or to
embrace and accept something and be
compassionate you know this is the
quality of the heart and when we bring
hard to these feelings we actually can
embrace them we can be and feel them and
be compassionate and empathetic towards
ourselves so when a client comes to me
with a lot of self blame and tensions
through all his thinking and analyzing
this is the first step I take him more
towards his heart which is a great
resource at any time but especially when
we are in an emotional crisis and when
our when the client then comes closer to
these feelings and allows himself to
feel them the perspective of the
rational mind also changes the mind
becomes starts to understand and see a
bigger picture and be less critical
about the situation that there are two
realities the feeling like a child and
an adult and they can be there at the
same time if we understand it correctly
so what we actually as adults often need
to learn is to feel again and feeling is
something we can learn it’s not
something very difficult actually there
are wonderful techniques to learn how to
now this is my message the heart and the
mind need to work together they are not
enemies they can be there together the
heart is so powerful and it’s already
there all we need to do is go inwards
and connect to it and learn a bit how to
do that and in my opinion the heart
should guide the mind not the other way
around we need to spend time with our
heart we need to balance this digital
lifestyle we are all in by connecting
with the heart and there are so many
ways of doing that no matter in what
profession we are if we are scientists
if we are architects if we are living in
a digital world and working in a digital
world our communication for example the
listening we can listen from the heart
we can go into nature and give our heart
space we can cook a delicious meal with
our heart so in a brave new world I feel
we need much more courage to live our
life with the heart from the heart and
then do all these exciting things that
we are already doing but doing them
differently and by the way the word
courage comes from the same roots as the
so mind the heart thank you [Applause]