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The Man Who Lost Everything and Received Twice as Much

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Once there was a man who was good. Blameless and upright, one who shunned evil. He was good the way a stone is still — from birth, without ever having chosen it.

Then the dark forces came. They took from him first what was outside: his possessions and the people he loved. Then they reached inward, toward his body and his sleep. They wanted to know whether goodness would hold when the ground was pulled from under it.

The Hands That Are Not His

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I think of a fictional person.

He is a pacifist — not because he read about it, but because he has experienced violence and rejects it. He comes from a country where men must be strong and are not permitted to show shame. He flees. He arrives here.

He carries something with him. The conviction that peace is possible if someone starts it. He wanted to contribute here. Not as a gesture — because he knows what happens when no one does. He has seen where hate leads. He wanted to live the opposite.

The Black Sheep with the Bucket

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Once upon a time there was a black sheep.

It lived in a village full of sheep and carried a bucket with it. A bucket of filth. Everything it had not allowed itself to be, everything the village had not wanted to see, lay in it. It could not put the bucket down.

For a time the sheep thought about tipping the bucket out. Over the others. They should turn black too, it thought, then it would no longer be alone. It imagined nights in which it moved through the village spraying colour. The thought warmed and poisoned at the same time.

The "Healthy Slap" — A Political Disgrace

Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Herbert Kickl is calling for a “healthy slap” for children.

The adjective is a rhetorical trick. It is meant to turn violence into medicine. As if there were a sick slap and a healthy one. As if the boundary between discipline and abuse were a matter of dosage.

It is not.

Children can never help it. They do what parents, surroundings, and culture have taught them. Every “difficult” behaviour in a child is a message about the system in which it lives.

The Centre Lies in Duality

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Mania and depression. Day and night. Light and shadow.

For a long time I fought against one of the poles. I believed one was my enemy. I believed I had to choose.

Today I know better.

Freedom comes first. It is the first thing we receive — from God, from life, from what carries us. With it I decide every day how I live with both poles.

One choice: to lose oneself in one pole. To identify with it. To take it for the whole truth. To fight against the other.

My Path to the Authentic Self

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

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.

A Warrior Knows Pain

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A sentence everyone knows. One we heard as children when we fell, when we cried, when we were afraid. Get up. Stop making a fuss. A warrior feels no pain.

I cross out the “NO.” Not because I want to destroy the sentence — but because it is the wrong way round.

A warrior knows pain. That is exactly what makes them strong.

The Wounds

Imagine you come back from the hunt. It did not go well. You carry wounds. Real ones, not just metaphorical — though the metaphorical ones hurt just as much. Childhood, loss, loneliness. People who left. People who should have stayed. Things that happened and things that should have happened but did not. Trust that was broken. Dignity that was denied. Grief that never had a place.

Naming the Kowtow

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Someone says yes and means no. This happens constantly — in meetings, in therapy groups, at the kitchen table. I call it kowtowing. And I am learning more and more to name it.

What Kowtowing Is

Kowtowing is not listening. Not thinking. Not holding back. Kowtowing is agreement without conviction — performative, automatic, conflict-averse. The mouth says yes, the body says something else.

In addiction therapy you encounter it constantly. I learned it as a client — in myself and in conversations with other clients. Someone sits in the group, nods, says: “Yes, that’s right.” Sounds like insight. Is adaptation. And from that moment on, everyone is working with false data.

I Need a Motivator

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have been addicted to a screen for over twenty years. To a pattern. Beneath it lies the hunger for attention — for being seen. When I pay attention, I can live with it. When I forget, I am immediately back in it.

The question — “What is the meaning of your life?” — has always done me harm. It was, and partly still is, too big.

What helped me was something else.