Healing

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. ...

There is a form of self-destruction that feels like protection. It is called: I am the victim, everyone else is to blame. I know this attitude from the inside. For years I was the poor one. When something did not work, it was down to the circumstances or the people around me. Above all to my parents. They were the address for my blame for years, for much that I should have stood up for myself. ...

The fool is one of the oldest figures in human history. He goes by many names — shaman, dervish, mystic, court jester. What connects them: an inner freedom that outlasts outer circumstances. He sees differently and speaks what others leave unsaid. He cannot be bought. The fool knows the word no — toward himself and toward others. His confusion is his raw material. His clarity, the result. They are called fools. ...

I write this not from theory. I was a victim long enough to know what that feels like from the inside. And I have myself oppressed — made people feel small, relieved myself at their expense, passed on the burden that lay on me. Both belong to me. Neither is to be glossed over. Today I am free. Or more precisely: I am on the way. I am trying to be a warrior of light, in Coelho’s sense — that is, someone who falls, rises again, doubts, keeps going. Not a hero. A practitioner. ...

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. ...

It was a hard day. Someone I love was transferred to a more intensive psychiatric ward. I was there. There was trust. That is enough to say. The Scene At a door. My hand. A sentence, quietly: “They will do you good.” Trust had found a way through the storm. What I felt in that moment: love. Simple. Complete. Fear too, yes — but the courage was greater. And the courage came from the fear that someone would experience what I had to experience. ...

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 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. ...