Why it is important to find “yourself”? In the course of their lives, people are usually trained by other people through education to be a “desired image”. This often requires them to suppress or completely sacrifice true parts of themselves. It is often the painful missing of this part that leads to inner dissatisfaction at some point or even triggers crisis situations in life (…)
Self-optimization & adaptation in order to be accepted and loved
In the course of their lives, people are usually trained by other people through education to become a “desired image”. This “image” is also called the “false self” or “false ego”. Nowadays in modern societies, people almost inevitably have to develop this “false self”.
Humans are social beings by nature and are therefore evolutionarily shaped to want to “belong” to a group/family/society. In prehistoric times, this significantly increased the chances of survival and even today, many material comforts can only be obtained by “functioning as desired” in society.
In order to achieve this “image”, the “true self” (the way the soul actually is and wants to live) often has to be denied because it often prevents us from meeting the wishes and requirements of parents and school or later the world of work. Sometimes such an “image” also develops unconsciously as a direct result of resistance to what school or society wants to see. At some point during this development, which usually takes place quite early in life, many people actually believe that they are this “image” and completely forget their “true self”. However, this disrupted or even completely cut connection to the “true self” does not remain without consequences.
Animals are always authentic
Free animals always live in close connection with their “true self”. They are simply themselves and express themselves according to their soul and their individual character. Animals show anger and rage when they feel this way and they withdraw without shame when they feel it is necessary. It would never occur to an animal to play a “strong leader”, when they are actually not inside, only because someone expects them to. Such falseness could cost them their lives in nature. Playing false courage in a situation instead of simply fleeing, when necessary, could endanger their life. “Playing nice” instead of defending themself angrily, when necessary, could actually endanger their life. They can only know what the right course of action is at any given time, if they are constantly in close contact with their “true self”. Knowing who they really are, what powers they really have at their disposal and what weaknesses they have and acting accordingly, protects their lives. Conforming to a false, but externally desired “image” in order to be judged as “good” or “capable” in a job or a family, for example, is of no use whatsoever in their lives.
Stress management & stress prevention
Stress has been a normal part of life since prehistoric times. That is why humans can and should learn by nature to deal with certain stresses in a healthy way to a certain degree. However, if stress arises from the fact that we have to constantly force our “self”, and therefore often our body, into a life that does not suit us as a human, it becomes an unhealthy, chronic stress. This type of physical and mental stress will make us ill in the long term and, in the worst case, lead to unpleasant life situations.
In order to avoid this unhealthy stress, we need to be able to get in touch with our “true self” in order to be able to feel and thus find out which life and which goals in life really correspond to our “true self”, our nature as human.
Having lost ourselves
You may sometimes wonder why you feel so alien in your own skin. Or, over the years, you no longer manage to maintain your trained “false self” perfectly because you lack the strength to do so. Then you start to feel as a stranger in the world around you because you can no longer fit in with it. Even if “a functioning image” suddenly disappears (e.g. due to job loss or divorce), sometimes there is not much left and you have the feeling of being “nobody”. In relation to other beings and yourself, however, it is essential to be “someone”. But who is this someone and how can he/she/it be found? This is exactly where coaching can offer support.
Being authentic and present
This “someone” would like to be allowed to live and be noticed. Implementing this in your life is authenticity. Presence – i.e. a strong personal charisma – results from this lived authenticity. Anyone who has spent a lifetime training themselves to wear adapted masks (“false self”) will never be able to achieve a present charisma, because they are only playing their “self”. In order to develop presence, you have to overcome your own inner split between ‘true self’ and ‘false self’ and reconnect with your ‘true self’.
Dissolving the ego in order to be “nobody”?
There are also philosophy that make no distinction between “true self” and “false self” and see both as an “ego” and demonize it as the source of evil in human life and see the path to happiness solely in completely dissolving this “ego”.
“Natural coaching” is an approach that always looks at things from the perspective of nature. What makes sense is what has been lived and worked in nature for millions of years. And from nature’s point of view, a healthy ego (i.e. the “true self”) has a very important task. Every non-human animal also has it and could not survive in nature without it. Social animal species, such as humans, need emotional connections and this requires a “someone” – an ego. If you are “nobody”, nothing but energy that can take any form, then it doesn’t matter whether you die or live. But just like all other non-human animals and even plants, a healthy human instinct tries to preserve its own life, for example by avoiding danger and defending itself against attacks. The ego in its healthy form therefore protects the currently existing form of “energy” – the living body. And in the larger context of all life on earth, this makes perfect sense. It maintains a balance in all existence. And yes, of course this always inevitably entails situations in life that can be described as “suffering”. Also non-human, social animals will always be confronted with life situations in a free natural life in which they feel loss, missing, anger or helplessness. The “solution” to avoid all of this is by no longer being “anyone” who relates to “anyone”, so that one is not bound to anything that could trigger emotional suffering, therefore does not correspond to what has been lived and worked in nature for millions of years. Simply because a physically rather weak animal like the human being, could not survive alone in nature without someone who is emotionally so connected to “someone” that they want to help and support in danger. This is what creates friendships, herds, flocks and packs.
The theoretical approach of wanting to dissolve the “ego” also easily leads to a way of life that could be described as “spiritual bypassing” (“self-avoidance”) and at some point often leads to repetitive crises due to unresolved patterns (if avoided, they cannot be resolved) for the practitioners themselves and considerable emotional suffering for those around them.
Reconnecting with the “true self”
An alternative way is, to heal the “ego” from its split. Natural coaching is therefore not necessarily about completely eradicating the “false self-ego”, but mainly about consciously confronting it and no longer ignoring the needs of the “true self”. Strengthened and restored in this way, people can make decisions more intuitively in the spirit of their own soul and thus find suitable paths through life.
A path that suits one person may be completely unsuitable for another. No one but the “true self” can know what is right for one’s own soul. There is no “one-size-fits-all path to happiness” that fits all beings. A good connection to your “true self” makes it easier to react with more inner certainty in personal crisis situations or as a helper in the crises of others.
Finding and achieving goals
What is it worth being a goal in life? This question is very closely related to the question of meaning in life. Experience shows that the answers can be very different, especially in the case of a split-off and forgotten “true selves”, and they can also change over the years in the same person.
It can lead to inner frustration when you realize that a goal you may have worked towards for many years and at considerable personal sacrifice suddenly seems completely unimportant to you, because it did not bring the feeling of fulfilment you had hoped for. This experience can repeat itself and at some point, lead to a situation where nothing makes sense anymore and you can no longer motivate yourself to go any further in life.
Being clear about what is really behind the motivation to achieve a certain goal, can help to avoid such dead ends. If goals arise from the “false self”, it is very likely that achieving them will never make you happy, and that the path to them will not be good for your inner peace. Joy and motivation to keep moving forward on the path of life therefore also depend on good contact with your own “true self”.
Living from the heart
Healthy goals for body, mind and soul can only be felt, pursued and achieved in a constant flowing exchange with the ‘true self’. And the “goal” can then also simply be to be able to constantly develop and maintain a good inner balance and a positive attitude towards life. Only the “true self” is in a position to provide good advice on the decisions that constantly need to be made in life. Sometimes people who have this connection to their “true self” well developed and radiate it, are perceived as having a strong personality.
However, if the connection to one’s “true self” is missing, it is difficult to feel inner balance, contentment, happiness and mental peace and it is not possible to keep growing all the time from within. Above all, however, problems will arise in dealing confidently with so-called “negative” emotions or crisis situations in life.
