The true spirit of Christmas.

Jingle bells, shining lights, presents and Santa Claus in his red suite (invented by Coca Cola).

The media give us an image of a neurotic ‘I love you all’ event, once a year. Many people stick to that but of course the true spirit of Christmas is something very different.

The true spirit has to do with reflecting, exploring the darkness and shadows of your soul and see how to bring light in there.
What happened during the last year that made you close your heart, what happened during your life that made you tough on yourself and others. Reflecting on these matter and next share them with the people you love. That is the true spirit of the sharing of presents with Christmas. Connecting on a deep level with yourself and from there with others, being vulnerable, open and receptive, willing to give yourself and receive the others just the way they are.

Find people that are willing to share this Christmas spirit with you. You may find them in unexpected places while you may find that the ones you really would like to share with are not available. Just focus on yourself, be like a Christmas tree, right up, with light and beauty for those who want to look at it.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Therapy & Coaching (part 2)

Therapy is integrating the past into the present.
It means giving a name to all the animals in your dark forest. Acknowledging everything that was always ignored, allowing the pain of the Past into the Now. No need to push it away.
Shedding all the tears that were never shed.

Coaching is using this experience to redefine your future relation with others but above all, with yourself.
Changing your goals in accordance with a new perspective of yourself.
Adopting more adequate values for those that we left in the therapeutic process.

Therapy is cleaning your garden, turning the soil around and taking the weeds out.
Coaching is deciding what flowers or vegetables you want, what is the right moment for planting and when it will be time to harvest.

Therapy & Coaching (part 1)

Biosynthesis is a somatic psychotherapy. It is a holistic approach of the human being that unites the cognitive, somatic and spiritual aspects in search for essential being.
It is developed by David Boadella based on the work of Freudian therapists, Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen. There is also a strong influence from several pre-natal psychologists and neurological scientists. Sylvia Specht brought in the energetic flow work based on the philosophy by Bob Moore.

Essential somatic coaching has the same basic influences.
Next to that, there are influences from postmodern philosophers and transpersonal psychologists like Ken Wilber, Thomas Moore, Stephen Levine and Zen teachers like Osho. Mindfulness, an important tool in ESC, derived from the ancient Za-Zen mediation technique.
ESC is open to enrichment from other techniques and philosophies as long as they are not redundant.

Why ESC when Biosynthesis already has such a complete vision of the human being?

For that, we have to look at global development. The main keyword for our time is probably, ‘Efficiency’. People ask for focused and short-term processes. Their agendas are full and everyday they try to get the most from life. With the industrial revolution that started in the 19^th century, everything changed in the world. Psychology and psychotherapy developed as a logical result because there was a need for them; nowadays they are fully integrated in our way of living.
In the end of 20^th century, computers changed our lifestyle dramatically. The modern human starts to think digitally in a partial virtual world. This has a huge effect on how we experience the world and what we want from it.

Here we have to look at the differences between therapy and coaching.
The main difference is that therapy pretends to help you integrate the Past into the Present. Understanding your past makes you realize why you live your life the way you do. You become aware of patrons and central motivations, and then you can change them where necessary.
In general, this is a long and profound process. It is intense and in the end gratifying and will change the foundations of your life.
No doubt, it takes a lot of time and is therefore costly.

Not everybody wants to spend so much money or commit to a process that often takes years. Today, people want solutions, focused and quick, they want to move on with their lives.
Here Essential Somatic Coaching has an important role because its core is preparing you or the near future. It is structured, focused and clear where therapy is often strolling through the darkness of your Soul without knowing what the next step will be.

Do not get me wrong because I do not intend to say that one is better than the other is.
They are just different approaches and it is very likely that who started with therapy at a certain moment wants to develop clear tools to handle the near future while those that achieved these tools through coaching may want to explore their deeper motivations and get a better understanding of their foundations in life.
It is a matter of priorities.

(to be continued)

The world is my oyster.

Today I am in a writing mood.
I share a little secret with you, it’s only to avoid other things that I should be doing but do not fancy at this moment.
The world is my oyster, I do whatever I like to.

Sometime ago I already talked about the fact that everything is or should be pulsating. From the smallest cell in your body to the whole of the immense cosmos, always expanding and shrinking.
This is not only true for living things that we can sort of touch or see but also for thoughts, cultural movements, religion, anything.
If the pulsation is limited or even frozen, there will be sickness soon.

I woke up thinking about the Islamic invasion of the western world, as some, every time more, people call it. I realized that the rise and downfall of religion is a clear example of the pulsation law.

For centuries the Catholic religion has dominated the world, the very essence of this religion (of any religion) contains truth. Instead of only valuing this truth, the people started to value power. They started to rape, murder and violate others just to expand the religion in the name of God and subsequently gain more power. Millions were killed in these processes of Christening.
Such a paradox, because God is supposed to be Love.

With all this misuse and abuse it is predictable that the interest in and influence of, this religion is going down. The law of pulsation says that if something shrinks, something else will start to expand. It is a natural life process.

Therefore the Islam is expanding, as well as, more alternative new age thinking on religion. People complaining about the expansion of the Islam should realize that this was made possible, only, because of the abuse in the Catholic religion. If they had valued the true essence, instead of allowing the corrupt to take the rudder, what would the world look like today?
If you want to talk of blame, what is there to learn?

Of course, we can see the same thing happing in the Islam.
It is growing, expanding but the preaching of hatred and violence, discrimination is already preparing its downfall that will come maybe in a few hundred years, who knows.
There is always room the make a constructive shift.

In the meantime, for everyone, it is important to protect your own essential identity, instead of turning to rejection and discrimination.

Include others without adapting to them, make your boundaries clear without violating the boundaries of others, let your voice be heard without shouting down the other. Look at others as if you were looking at yourself, what good do you see and is there to learn for each of us?

The world is your oyster, step inside with respect for the pearl that is growing.

Health Care Paranoid Cow Syndrome (HCPCS)

A few weeks ago I went to a private hospital because of a really painful kidney stone. In a symbolic meaning these stones are petrified tears which makes sense to me. Painful emotions that were not or not completely expressed in a pulsatile flow.
But that is not what I want to write about today.

After entering the hospital and showing my insurance card, I was treated like a King, a dying King. I was put on a bed and given painkillers, what a relief, but I could sit in a chair with no problem. Seeing the bill later; lying on the bed for 1 hour, price €130.
Than they started to make X-rays, abdomen and lungs ( for a kidney stone) followed by Cat-scans €135 each and finally a echogram which was the only sensible thing to do for only €35. The whole bill was over €920 just to confirm what I already knew.

I was getting very suspicious, I felt like a cow being milked. There were two urologists coming to my expensive bed telling me that the best options was to take the stone out directly or I could leave it to see what nature would do.
I chose the last.

After a few days I was getting fever and the petrified tears were still blocking the way out. Extreme pains, so I went back to the hospital and asked to schedule a surgery to take the stone out, I needed some help.
It was scheduled for two days later. The morning I went to the hospital I felt that there was a difference, therefore I wanted to talk to the specialist and said that I did not want the surgery, just another echogram to see what has changed.

He agreed and send me to make to make more ten Cat-scans with contrast fluid, €137 each and since they had me planned for a day in the hospital they gave me a roll with ham and cheese and a drink €2500. The specialist ensured me to come back in a month to make more Cat-scans, very important.

From that day, I suffer from Health Care Paranoid Cow Syndrome.
I do not know whether a doctor is really caring about my health and giving me the best options or he or she just sees a fast growing bank account.

This was an expensive lesson, do not trust the doctor if your intuition is telling you otherwise. For the record, I also went to see alternative medicine that normally helps me well but this time did not result.

I understood that the only one to cry my tears is me, no-one else can do that for me. They just take advantage, at least in my allopathic case.