In my latest blog article I write about the rollercoaster ride that life always has in store for us. Not flying off the curve is sometimes quite a balancing act. That’s why I try to see challenges as a personal ‘exercise mat’. Due to my daily practice of reflection, I am stable enough to regulate my emotions triggered by my thoughts. Which is not to say that certain topics, especially the topic of ‘rejection’, are easy for me to deal with.
My experiences over the last few years have made me realise more and more how I am wired and where my conformism and fear of rejection come from: As a child, I develop a ‘superego’ that adopts externally determined rules, values and norms: from my parents, through school, society and my immediate environment.
According to Sigmund Freud, this ‘superego’ watches over us and generates feelings of shame and guilt if we break the rules. It is a strict inner dictator and has led to a strong conformity in me over decades. To avoid rejection on the one hand and to win the approval of others on the other hand. This served to stay in line with the expectations I had unconsciously imposed on myself. In the long run, however, this adaptation led to inner tensions and great anger, as I sacrificed my own needs and desires to the ‘superego’ in order to avoid rejection.
Each of us has his own personal ‘exercise mat’ in life. For me, the challenge is to explore and strengthen my self-worth independently of the expectations of my superego and the expectations of my environment. I therefore see every punch as an ‘exercise mat’ to gradually emancipate myself from old entanglements. And to live authentically and self-determined. Even if the price is sometimes high.
You don’t just wake up one day and become a butterfly.
Growth is a process.