Hello dear ones,
It's been a while since I've been really active here. Since then, extremely much has happened in my life. And I think it's time to become a bit more visible here again.
So I'll start with a few updates....
After working a lot for the Center for Integral Wisdom for many years (at least since 2013), including as Executive Director, with countless daily tasks and projects, constantly online and across different time zones, I fell into a real burnout at the end of 2020 (when the Covid situation removed the last opportunities to balance this constant online work).
I had reached the end of my rope. And so, the only thing left for me to do was to take some extended time off to not only look at, but work through, all the patterns that had led to this crisis.
I realized that it was the second major crisis of my life. I had the first one at age 27-28, in the midst of my dance fellowship at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City, and the second one at 56-57. And in a way, the second one was a new wave of the first one, sort of on a higher octave....
I realized that I had never allowed myself to set healthy boundaries. Yes, I was not even aware of my boundaries.
In my first crisis, I asked myself what I had done in my life just to meet my mother's expectations and what because I wanted to do it. I didn't have an answer. And I gave up almost everything that I wasn't sure was mine or not - dancing, for example. Over the years, I found out more and more what I really wanted and learned to stand by it.
But still I was highly sensitive to the implicit expectations of others - or what I thought they were. Still active within me was my false core belief - albeit in increasingly subtle ways: "I'm not enough." And still some parts of me hoped that I was finally enough if I just tried harder and fulfilled what particularly the people I love expected of me.
Sometimes I saw expectations where there were none at all, or where I had only awakened the expectations - so to speak through anticipatory obedience. This then mixed with my own internalized parental parts. And immediately I put the fulfillment of these expectations and the well-being of all others above my own well-being.
And while, during my first crisis, I was able to learn, in the first place, to feel my own energetic boundaries and not to let myself be constantly flooded by everyone else's feelings, this second crisis was about further strengthening these boundaries and also setting them clearly.
I realized that my personal well-being is necessary if I want to continue to give my gifts.
And so, over the past 1 ½ years, I have set out to learn new methods of self-care, including from trauma therapy (I took a 1-year advanced training in trauma therapy, specifically Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, and Polyvagal Theory) and Kundalini Yoga (I now do my own daily practice and am in the midst of training to become a Kundalini Yoga teacher).
I have started working for the Center again, but in new roles. I have been able to hand over all my previous responsibilities, firstly to my colleague Krista, and secondly to whole teams of volunteers. For this I am deeply grateful... Sometimes I am still available for questions... But even this gives me joy.
My main task for the Center is now project oriented and also time limited:
Editing book and essay manuscripts... which includes research on various topics....
Plus currently, restructuring and designing our website - in collaboration with our core team as well as a team of web developers and recently a virtual assistant...
This also creates space for my own projects - more about that soon...
I have also very recently started on a ketogenic diet which, although I am still in the transition phase, already seems to further stabilize my energy levels.
What I perceive right now is that I
Have more energy again....
That energy is much more stable than it used to be....
I don't get triggered so easily anymore and fall into my old patterns - or, if I do get triggered, that I can get out of it faster…
I am getting into a new flow where a lot of things I've always wanted, but somehow seemed hard to achieve, happen all by themselves....
More about this soon...
If you have been reading this far, I am wondering:
Do you recognize any of the above in yourself? If so, what does it look like for you?
What would be of most interest to you if I continued to write here?
What are the questions you might be dealing with, right now?
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) and slightly edited