Positive Psychologie – Food for thoughts

The Power of Stillness: Kierkegaard and the Journey of Self-Reflection

The quote for today comes from Søren Kierkegaard: „When everything is quiet, the most happens.“ Kierkegaard was a philosopher and a pioneer of existentialism, a philosophical movement rooted in humanism. This philosophy addresses questions of existence and meaning, emphasizing the dimension of time rather than seeking universally valid answers. It focuses on the individual, stripped of norms, values, roles, and other external characteristics.

Philosophers of this movement assert that individuals have a duty to question themselves and embark on a journey of self-discovery. A person can only be free and autonomous if they choose to be so, recognizing themselves as temporal and finite beings. The present moment, the „now,“ holds central significance. The actions that define who a person is at this moment determine their essence. Through personal will and the freedom to choose, one’s identity and autonomy emerge, making interpersonal connections more meaningful.

In this context, I find Kierkegaard’s quote particularly intriguing. Self-reflection, the development of the self, can only occur in stillness. In the chaos and turmoil of our VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, we often lack the opportunity to question ourselves and our actions, which is essential for learning and growth. It is in silence that the most profound developments can take place.

A valuable tool for such reflection is Miller, Sherod & Phyllis´s Wheel of Awareness. (https://primarygoals.com/teams/models/awareness-wheel/) This method encourages individuals to reflect quietly on the following levels:

Sensory Perceptions: What did I perceive solely through my senses, without judgment or interpretation?
Thoughts: How did I interpret and evaluate the situation? What thoughts came to me?
Feelings: How did I feel afterward?
Intentions/Wishes: What did I want to do next? What were my desires?
Behaviour: How did I react? What actions did I take based on my interpretations?

Once these questions are addressed, the reflection deepens by asking how the situation could have been interpreted differently. What evaluations might have varied? This process continues through each point, starting with feelings: If I had evaluated the situation— which is inherently neutral— differently, how might I have felt? Think then on the impact of the following questions regarding intentions and behaviour.

Embracing Hope: A Reflection on Renewal

Today’s quote is a wisdom from the Native Americans: “Never despair. Days pass like autumn leaves flying in the wind, and the days return with a clear sky and the splendor of the forests. Every seed is awakened anew, and so life unfolds.”

This is a beautiful and uplifting message. It’s easy to say “never despair,” but when fears and doubts rush in like a hungry wolf, it can feel overwhelming. Yet, this quote reminds us to stay grounded, to reflect on our strengths, and to trust in our resilience.

We can do this by recalling moments of success, joy, self-acceptance, and self-love. The moments of fear and doubt will pass, just like the autumn leaves swept away by the wind. There will come a time when those anxieties and uncertainties fade. Each day can unfold differently if we let go of the clouds from yesterday and consciously choose not to cling to them. By opening our eyes to the wonders around us, no matter how small—like a ladybug on the window or a vibrant red leaf—we invite positivity into our lives.

Every day presents us with a fresh opportunity to start anew, to make courageous choices, and to embrace new beginnings. Just as the quote suggests, each day holds the potential for something to end, like the falling leaves, but it also holds the promise for new growth and blossoming. Perhaps a seed that has long been dormant can finally break through to the surface.

Let’s focus on the positive. When has something wonderful happened to you out of nowhere? For me, it was the pregnancy with my first child. I had almost given up hope and was saving for a dog instead. Then, quite unexpectedly, I found out I was pregnant, as if from “nothing.” This marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one that arrived so suddenly. (And yes, I eventually got a dog too!)

Let us embrace the unexpected joys that life brings, knowing that each day is a chance for renewal and growth.

Embracing Success: The Power of Vision Boards

Ernst Bloch, the German philosopher and social theorist, is known for his philosophy of hope. He emphasized that dreams and desires—our utopias—are the driving force behind our actions and can lead to societal change. Bloch’s ideas have had a lasting impact on culture in the fields of art, literature, and political theory.

The Power of a Vision Board

A practical example of being in love with success is creating a vision board. On a vision board, we visualize our desired utopias—our wishes, dreams, life goals, and yearnings—by creating a collage of images and words. This creative activity helps clarify our goals and activates our subconscious to bring these visions to life.

How a Vision Board Works

A vision board encourages a more conscious and focused perception of our environment. By visualizing our desires, we are quicker to recognize opportunities and more motivated to seize them. This relates to the confirmation bias, which leads us to select information that supports our expectations. If we believe in our failure, we tend to notice only setbacks, negatively impacting our emotions and demeanor.

Conversely, a positive attitude leads to greater self-confidence—manifested in an upright posture, strong voice, and firm handshake. People with a positive outlook tend to attract like-minded individuals, which aligns with the so-called excellence phenomenon: top-notch leaders attract and retain top employees. Those who embody excellence seek inspiration at eye level to further develop themselves, while mediocre leaders often perceive high achievers as a threat.

Conclusion

When we are in love with success, we cultivate the intrinsic motivation to achieve excellence. We naturally attract exceptional people into our lives—a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Question for the Readers: How do you implement utopias in your professional life to achieve your goals? What steps can you take to visualize and realize your visions?

Today’s Reflection: Embracing Inner Stillness

Today’s quote comes from Swami Sivananda: “Just as the bottom of a lake becomes clearly visible when the surface waves settle, so too can the true self be perceived when the fluctuations of the mind calm.”

Only when we find stillness and become fully present with ourselves can we truly recognize who we are. In our fast-paced, technology-driven world, this has become increasingly challenging. We are bombarded with a constant stream of news, facts, and information. Even in everyday life, choices have multiplied; in supermarkets, for instance, we now face entire aisles filled with countless varieties of jam, rather than just four or five options.

Take a look at today’s youth: they often juggle multiple digital devices simultaneously. One screen might be playing music or a movie while another is used for homework or gaming. In restaurants, people no longer simply engage in conversation; they send messages, respond to notifications, and read texts—all while dining together. Even parents out for a stroll with their children often find themselves on the phone, chatting with friends. The focus on genuine human connection has sadly become an afterthought.

This is unfortunate because true connection with others can only be discovered when we tune out distractions and concentrate fully on the person in front of us. We now know that multitasking is not effective, yet we continue to act as if it is possible.

But the quote speaks to something deeper: in extreme situations, it can be nearly impossible to be ourselves. Just as turbulent waves hide the lake’s depths, intense emotions can obscure our true selves, making it hard to feel who we really are. This is why it is crucial to return to the present moment, consciously focusing on now and letting everything else fade away.

Breathing slowly and deeply can be a powerful way to calm those waves. In that moment of tranquility, our true selves re-emerge.

The same principle applies to our interactions with others: when we genuinely engage with someone, we can sense their true self—provided they are open to it. Let’s prioritize the moment and focus on what truly matters: ourselves and those around us. By doing so, we can cultivate deeper connections and rediscover the essence of who we are.

The Vital Role of Anger: Understanding and Harnessing Its Power

„Never act in haste out of anger – you have enough time.“ — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Anger is often viewed as a negative emotion. In professional settings, it is frowned upon, much like many other emotions. From my experience, joy is perhaps the only fundamental emotion that is somewhat acceptable in the workplace, although it is often expressed cautiously. According to Paul Ekman, the basic emotions include joy, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, anger, and contempt. https://www.neverest.at/blog/7-grundemotionen-paul-ekman/

However, anger is anything but unnecessary. It is a crucial emotion that support us in following:

Indication of Injustice: Anger reveals that the person feels wronged and highlights injustices that need to be addressed.
Motivation for Change: Anger encourages us to step out of our comfort zones, set new boundaries, and advocate for ourselves actively.
Self-Protection: Anger helps us recognize underlying feelings and protects us from falling into a cycle of sadness or self-pity.
Enhanced Self-Reflection: Anger highlights where we have been hurt and prompts us to reflect on past experiences.
Catalyst for Communication: Anger drives us to discuss issues that have caused us pain. It often serves as a prompt to resolve conflicts or uncover misunderstandings.
Source of Energy: Unlike sadness, anger provides us with energy and strength, enabling us to tackle and overcome new challenges.
Emotional Processing: Anger aids in processing emotions, including fear and sadness, contributing to healing our wounds. https://www.geo.de/magazine/geo-kompakt/15270-rtkl-psychologie-heilsamer-zorn-ueber-die-wut-und-ihre-positiven

Like all emotions, anger holds significant and positive meaning. The key is to recognize anger and use it constructively. This emotion can serve as a catalyst for personal growth and even bring about a positive change in society.

Suppressing or denying anger is detrimental, as the aggressive energy it generates must go somewhere. If it is not expressed outwardly, it turns inward, potentially leading to depression or other psychosomatic disorders, according to scientists.

On the other hand, blind anger can be destructive. Emerson is not against anger; rather, he views it as a driving force that must be released gradually. It’s akin to a pressure cooker: when the contents (anger) boil, the pressure must be released slowly. If I were to open the lid suddenly, the contents would splatter against the walls and ceiling.

Treat anger like the process of opening a pressure cooker.

The Importance of Spending Time with Yourself: A Journey to Self-Love

„Spend some time with yourself every day.“ — Dalai Lama

This quote resonates deeply with me. Someone once told me that you are the most important person in your own life, a sentiment attributed to Martin Luther. Back in high school, I thought it sounded quite self-absorbed and even egocentric. During my university years, I frequently discussed a similar phrase with my roommates: „Love your neighbor as yourself“ (Mark 12:31). Some focused on „love your neighbor,“ but I believe the emphasis lies on „as yourself.“

To me, the crucial point is in that second part. You can only love another person as much as you have learned to love yourself. After all, where can love come from if you aren’t treating yourself with kindness? Is it possible that we confuse love with simply wanting to please others or feeling we must earn our partner’s affection? Only when we appreciate and accept ourselves as we truly are can we allow others to value us without needing any justification—just by being ourselves.

Achieving this self-acceptance and appreciation requires time for self-discovery. We need to understand how and why we react the way we do. Engaging with ourselves means looking into the darker aspects of our self and daring to reflect, even through discomfort.

A helpful concept for learning self-love is the Appreciation Pyramid by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Haller, which consists of seven levels:

Awareness: Ask yourself, „How am I feeling right now? What’s happening within me?“
Mindfulness: Focus on your thoughts. „Where are my thoughts? How can I bring them to the present moment, since only the now can be changed?“
Respect: Consider how you treat your soul and body. „Do I respect my own boundaries?“
Recognition: Reflect on your achievements. „What did I accomplish today? What went well?“
Appreciation: Think about your positive interactions. „How did I behave positively today? Where did I make a difference?“
Trust: This level is a natural outcome of the previous steps—trusting your abilities and knowing how to respond in different situations.
Self-love: This is the culmination of all the previous levels.

How can you reach all this states? The answer is simple: spend time with yourself.

The Resilience of the Human Spirit: A Reflection on Identity and Freedom

Today’s quote comes from Wilhelmine von Hillern: “What we have, we can lose, but never what we are.”

Material possessions are fleeting, but our inner selves, our souls, and our character cannot be taken away. This reminds me of a folk song that my mother, who passed away on November 19, 2021 with 88 years, often quoted and taught us. The first stanza goes: “Thoughts are free! Who can guess them? They flee like shadows of the night. No one can know them, no hunter can shoot them; it remains true: Thoughts are free!” She was a child during World War II and learned how crucial it is to perceive one’s thoughts as free.

No one can truly know who we are, what we think, or how we feel. Communication experts may claim they can interpret body language, but just as often as they are right, they are also wrong. No matter how well one believes they know someone, they can never fully grasp their thoughts, feelings, or reactions, as we have a free will. We often compare others to ourselves, thinking we can empathize with their situations. However, this only works to a limited extent because our essence and our patterns of interpretation and attitude are shaped by our experiences. This means that our past has made us who we are today, making each of us special and unique.

The valleys we have traversed and the peaks we have reached in our lives shape us into the wonderful people we are. In my opinion, the art lies in preserving our curiosity, hope, and the core of our character, even through the trials we face—whether they be valleys or deserts that life may bring. These challenges, which we endure without losing our character or sense of self, ultimately strengthen us.

This reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed as a resistance fighter in a concentration camp in 1945 during World War II. In all of his writings, it is clear that he retained his inner self, his character, and his hope. They took everything from him, even his freedom and ultimately his life, but they could not take away what he was and what he thought. One of the most powerful lines for me is this: “In good powers wonderfully sheltered, we calmly await whatever may come. God is with us in the evening and in the morning, and certainly on each new day.” He wrote this in December 1944, just before his execution. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Bonhoeffer-Gedicht – Nationalsozialismus – Geschichte – Planet Wissen (planet-wissen.de)

It is irrelevant whether one is religious; what matters is that he remained true to himself and did not allow himself to be broken. Bonhoeffer would not permit anyone to take away his inner self, his thoughts, or his identity. Perhaps we should learn from him to overcome hurdles and obstacles in our lives.

Embracing the Spirit of Clare of Assisi: A Call to Courage and Commitment

Today’s quote comes from Clare of Assisi: “What you hold on to, hold on to. What you do, do, and do not grow weary.”

This quote should be considered in light of the century and the person of Clare of Assisi. Clare lived in the early 13th century. Against her noble family’s wishes, she renounced wealth to found her own women’s order of the Franciscans, introducing a new rule of life centered on perfect poverty.https://franziskaner.net/klara-biografie/

This is not about material matters but rather about ideas, personal beliefs, and visions that one develops and believes in. For me, this quote emphasizes the importance of persevering and holding on to one’s ideas and sense of purpose in life. In my view, the meaning of life is to make the world a better place and to see others as they are, in all their facets and greatness. Each of us is unique and can use our individual experiences, abilities, and personalities to improve the world.

Clare of Assisi shed everything that supported the ego—money, power, influence, and status—to live in poverty in accordance with her values. She provided faithful women in need with a home. Through her vision, she made the world a better place for many women of her time. Women who were impoverished in the early 13th century could have become serfs. While they lived in poverty, which they would have done anyway, they were at least not abused and exploited.

Certainly, it was not easy for Clare of Assisi to found this order against her family’s wishes and to give up all her previous luxuries. Yet she held on to her idea and did not grow weary in fighting for recognition and even support from the Pope.

We should take her as an example in courage and comittment and hold on to our ideas and visions, believe in ourselves, and continue steadfastly, no matter who throws stones in our path or how large they are. Don’t let yourself be intimidated, follow your own sense of life.

Stay true to yourself and believe in your purpose. Gather all your courage and commit to it, it’s worth it.

Fraternity more relevant than ever

Today’s quote comes from Martin Luther King: ‘We must either learn to live together as brothers or perish as fools.’

Martin Luther King is referring here to brotherhood / fraternity among humans, a term that comes from the French Revolution and was called together with liberty and equality (‘Liberté’ – ègalité – fraternité). It means that every individual is equal no matter who he / she is or what he / she is. Everyone has the same human dignity and should be treated equally. Fraternity is even mentioned in the EU’s human rights declarations. So it is still relevant.

In my experience, topics need to be held on to if they are not yet anchored in the subconscious, if they still need to be ‘learnt’. It’s like learning vocabulary. You write down the vocabulary that you haven’t yet mastered. We rarely include the ones we can already use in our learning schedule, because we can already use them.

Fraternity or brotherhood has not yet been fully realised. But that is exactly what we need, to be less selfish, more altruistic and to consider what consequences our behaviour has on others. To ask ourselves:

‘What is the real reason for my actions?’
‘Have I considered all aspects?’
‘What perspective am I still missing?’
‘How would the person/people in question act?’
‘Which of my statements or behaviour has contributed to my counterpart behaving this way?’
‘If I were in their situation, how would I behave?’

These and similar questions help us to change our own perspective and understand the situation from a different angle than our own. Such holistic approaches have several advantages. The ones that come to my mind immediately are

Your own empathy increases
Emotional intelligence is trained
Your own behaviour is balanced
Life is enriched through new aspects

These aspects lead to becoming a better self. It opens one’s own eyes and reduces the need to behave and react in a foolish and self-centred way.

What are your suggestions to live the fraternity mindset?

Let the problem go

Today’s quote comes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: ‘Solving a problem means detaching yourself from the problem.’

The word problem only became popular in the 16th century. It comes from the Latin word problēma. It is an undecided, doubtful task presented for solution, a question of dispute and is borrowed from the Greek πρόβλημα ‘task, question’. It also means the topic is ‘questionable, doubtful, uncertain, undecided’ and therefore leads to pondering.

According to Goethe, a problem can only be solved if you distance yourself from the problem and no longer consider it centrally, but detach yourself from it.

That makes sense to me, because if you remain stuck in the problem, you start to brood and possibly look for blame, usually on yourself. This leads to thoughts such as:

‘If I had behaved differently, would the problem not have occurred?’
‘Why did this have to happen?’

You start to find a cause in the past that, if found, you can’t fix anyway. The past has been. It has led me to the present. Seeking the cause or the culprit, provided it’s not a criminal matter, seems pointless as it does not alter the current situation. So the best thing to do is to detach yourself from the problem and survive:

‘What can I do now to build a sustainable and positive future from the present?’
‘How can I enjoy the present despite the problem that needs to be solved?’
‘How can I build oases in which the sun shines for me, despite the shadows or dark clouds of the problem?’

The beauty lies in the fact that shadows shift with the changing light, and clouds are dispersed by the wind. Rest assured, the world continues to transform, even as you only reflect.

On the other hand, it’s important to consider and reflect on the problem and its causes, without assigning blame. I can only change the problem in the long term if I am prepared to look clearly at my behaviour in the past, analyse it and consider what I would like to do differently in the future. In other words, ask the question

‘What have I learnt that I would like to do differently now (in the present)?’
‘How can I emerge stronger from the problem so that I can look back with pride?’
‘What does the new, more developed me look like?’

Problems can be resolved by analyzing them objectively and drawing necessary conclusions for one’s behavior and attitudes. However, it is essential to then release the problem and concentrate on the present.

These three steps

1. recognise the problem

2. self-reflection and sober analysis of your own behaviour with the resulting maxim for change

3. let go of the problem so that it can be solved.

What do you think?