The person wants to be good. The compass sits in the heart.
The sensitive person especially. They do not want to hurt — and that is exactly what makes them small. They swallow, they adapt, they wait. And yet the opposite is true: whoever sets no boundaries is not authentic. They are merely polite.
Setting boundaries requires the shadow. Whoever knows only their light cannot say no — because the no comes from the dark part, the one that can also fight, that can also protect. Getting to know one’s own shadow and allowing it is not a defeat. It is the precondition for real boundaries. And for real authenticity.
Healed wounds allow deeper sight. Unhealed ones trigger. Whoever knows their wounds is no longer so easily startled.
Eminem takes his trousers down first. Whoever can openly say “here I am, with all my weaknesses” is harder to attack than anyone who hides. This is how we learn it — not through hardness, but through practice.
The next level is banter. It is not an insult — it is a gesture of trust. Whoever addresses someone with banter is saying: I see you, I mean well, and I dare to. Addressing someone in a wheelchair about turbo mode (giving them a push). This is received as humorous in almost 100% of cases. Because they feel: this person gets me. They are not just seeing the wheelchair. They see me.
This works with facial expression, gesture, words — always with the undertone: I am on your side.
Courage grows with every joke. Nothing dramatic — just a small, deliberate rule-break, with a smile. The body learns: I did it, nothing happened, I am still standing. The next time the threshold is lower.
Whoever shows what could be better out of love, teaches. Whoever shows what could be better out of superiority, wounds. The difference is felt — by both.
Every day a slightly stronger version of oneself than yesterday. Not perfect. Just stronger.
Beneath all this lies primal trust. The conviction that there is something that holds — God, the higher, the original source. Whoever feels this foundation no longer has to control so much. Fear loses its bite when you know you are held.
Whoever endures loneliness — truly endures it, without running away, without numbing — discovers at some point that it tips. The mountain of fear is walked through, not around. And on the other side waits not emptiness, but connection.
That is not a concept. That is an experience.
Thus every being finds its best self, through accumulated small moments in which it dared.
Love without banter and without boundaries is not love. Not toward oneself either.
By René Jochum and Claude (Anthropic). License: CC-BY-4.0.