Tankespjärn with Helena Roth

Inner work.

Do you do it?

If so, who, within you, is the one who does it?

Say whuuuut, you might ask, but bear with me a moment.

When I realized I had an Inner Dictator, or rather, that the internal voice most prevalent in my inner dialogue was this Dictator... I also learned that I didn’t have to take these words as truth. That was when I started on the journey of learning how to do gentle with myself.

Because of that, I stopped being afraid of myself, stopped shying away from looking too deep within, for fear of what I might find, and started to meet people, truly meet them, as I was more curious about what might happen within me as a result of the connection, rather than be fearful of it.

I’ve recently understood how fortunate I was that these two insights hooked up, when I saw what might have happened had I not stopped being so harsh with myself, if I’d stayed there, instead of gone down the path to doing gentle (with an edge).

I think this is why this made such an impact when I read it:

”The decisive heart-searching is the beginning of the way in man's life; it is, again & again, the beginning of a human way. But heart-searching is decisive only if it leads to the way. For there is a sterile kind of heart-searching, which leads to nothing but self-torture, despair & still deeper enmeshment.”

It’s a paragraph from The Way of Man by Martin Buber, a book I’d just read when me and Mayke had our fifth pod-conversation. It turned into the center point of our conversation, as I was reminded of this over and over again as we spoke, to the extent that in the end I ran to fetch it, to read this passage aloud.

Both me and Mayke are very fond of doing The Work, inspired by Byron Katie’s terminology, and in no way do I want to muddy the waters for anyone. Doing my inner work has gotten me to a place, a space, where I absolutely love living life as me. If I hadn’t done the work, I doubt I’d say that. But it’s equally true that if I’d kept at The Work without learning how to do gentle with myself, I can guarantee I’d not be here, loving living life as we, not even close.

So, when doing inner work, ask yourself who, within me, is doing the work? Through who's eye-balls am I seeing this?

It matters. A lot.

Asking yourself these questions provides an interesting starting point for continues inner work, because different aspects of me will see different things, some of which might serve me more than others.

Now, there’s some tankespjärn for you!

Links:

The Way of Man by Martin Buber

A day at the park

Caspian found Andy for me. I’d asked him to find some Instagram-accounts that might be of interest for me to follow and interact with, but he gave me a few bonuses. One of them was Andy, where he wrote ’Not an IG acc either, but a well worth read and possible friend’ adding a link to a piece entitled Gentleness is strength.

I read it, loved it, and proceeded to find Andy on Twitter (he does have an IG-account too). Really enjoying what I saw and heard from him, I sent him a DM, and two months later we recorded a conversation for his pod, and we both knew that wasn’t the last conversation we’d be having.

When season two rolled around, I asked, he said yes, and here’s our first in this series of five meandering conversations. And we dive straight into the creativity of everyday life. Andy is bubbling as thirteen songs had just come to him.

That’s never ever happened to me (I’ve had a heck of a lot of blog posts come that way though), so I just cannot help myself. Having a genuine songwriter and musician in front of me (on Zoom), I get to ask all the questions I’ve always wanted to ask, about what writing songs really means, how it’s done (or, at least, how Andy does it), and it’s fascinating.

Lo and behold, no one will be surprised to hear that songwriting was just the first of a number of meanders that we engaged in, including coaching, relationships (or relating, with a nod to Reddy), personal development or expansion, even though I don’t think we ever used those words.

But there’s more.

Books. Rereading books, and why that is such a fascinating concept. You know. You read a book and love it, and come across it years later, rereading it... and perhaps think What on earth was I thinking? This is utter rubbish! or you go even deeper in understanding, loving it even more. Both of these reactions (and any other reaction possible) is a testament to growth. Development. Expansion. Shifting, as a human being, with other perspectives, insights, experiences. All of it impacts and/or influences how I meet the world (and myself!) and rereading books is such a fun mirror of this process.

Coaching, marketing, desire and wants leading us to whole body yeses and no’s... Yeah, you’ll be able to find some tankespjärn in this one for sure!

Links:

Andy Mort

Andy Mort's community

Tankespjärn (with Helena Roth) on The Gentle Rebel podcast

Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals on Tiny Desk

Diana Chapman on the Tim Ferriss Show

Find me as @helenaroth on Goodpods and start to engage please!

Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets by Todd McGowan

Deeper Dating by Ken Page

Approaching the end of my 5 x 5 conversations for this season of ’Tankespjärn with Helena Roth’ I get the idea to do a joint conversation with everyone involved, as a way to share and reflect together on what this experience has been like. I invited Caspian Almerud to moderate, and for those who haven’t figured it out, without Caspian there would be no pod! I record conversations, check for snippets and write the episode descriptions, and he does everything else.

With seven people spread across the globe, finding one time that suited us all turned out to be impossible. So we divided it up, into a 3 + 2-set up, where this is the first, featuring me and Caspian in conversation with Mayke Vullings, Frank Ebbert and Beverly Delidow.

I'm so blessed to spend time with people who nourish me with the beauty of words, the beauty of phrases, the beauty of silence.

~Helena

I got teary-eyed more than once, or... who am I kidding?

Four, five times at least, having to snivel and dry my eyes, in awe of what I heard, felt, saw.

You have to trust the person you're interacting with. I do.

And then you have to trust yourself, which is sometimes the bigger question.

~Beverly

Creating space for the other to hear themselves.

~Mayke

Let the world be beautiful and me be within.

~Frank

During this conversation I receive an insight.

These conversations have played a bigger part of my life in the past six months, then I’ve previously been aware of. Sitting like this, reflecting and listening together, I realize I’ve been having five times the amount of conversations as the others. Five long meandering conversations with each of five most remarkable persons. That’s twenty-five conversations, none shorter than one hour twenty minutes, the longest two hours fifty, and then... going through each transcript, listening to the snippets from each, and writing an episode description. All adding to the time I’ve spent on this. I’ve immersed myself in this project for at least one hundred hours in the past six months. And that’s probably cutting it short. Say two hundred? Perhaps even more...

No wonder!

How could something so immersive not have an impact on me?

An impact that ripples out into all other areas of my life.

There has been magic in all of these conversations. That's sort of what ties them together.

~ Caspian

It sure is.

And what a lovely common thread, magic.

Now there’s some tankespjärn for you. Perhaps?

How can you invite more magic into your life?

In a (non-recorded) conversation with Alison, she mentioned how uncomfortable she was with being recorded, having our conversations ”put out there” in the world. At the time, I asked if we could have this discussion on the pod.
So. We did. That’s where we started off this time, and I have to say, I am honored to have a friend like Alison. Willing to dive deep, to open up, and me getting surprisingly emotional in tears now and again.
(My kids lovingly tease me about how easily moved to tears I am, all they have to do is put on a video or two from Britain’s Got Talent, and my tears are in free-fall! But not to worry about me, I see this as a very positive trait of mine.)
When I decided to start this pod-series, Alison was the first person I asked to join me. I was fairly certain she’d turn me down, and was very surprised at her immediate yes. Right off the bat.
If Alison had asked me to stop recording, or even take down the episodes out there, or not to keep on sharing the material I’ve got from the published episodes. I would have. Not happily. But I would have. My friendship with her is more important to me, even though, the value that I get from these conversations is undoubtedly also of value to others. But not to the extent that it surpasses the value I place on our friendship.
Being able to have a conversation like this, about being recorded and going public, while actually being recorded was special. Very special. A testament to the trust we have in each other. And to the level of trust we have in ourselves. Or don’t have? Is it this latter facet that is at the root of how comfortable, or uncomfortable, a person is with being visible?
If I’d asked you, to join me in a recorded meandering conversation like this one, what would your answer be? A yes? A Hell yes, even? Or a big fat No way?
I hope you are as curious as I am as to what your response would be!
Now. There’s some tankespjärn for you.
Links:
Episode 9 Questioning the shortage of housing with Alison Coates
Book tip: Arnold Mindell, The deep democracy of open forums
On Being-episode with Michelle Alexander: Who we want to become, beyond the new Jim Crow

First published on my blog on January 10, 2017. Read the post here →

The feeling that I’m not enough. That no matter how hard I try, how hard I work, I will never be able to do enough, never able to do all that which I feel I should be doing. The frustration of not being able to make a difference, the difference I should make.

It’s not a feeling that I experience often anymore.
I used to. A lot. I had so many thoughts about what I should be doing, how I should be doing it, how fast it should be done and so on, infinitely. Know that feeling? Are you there? Or have been there?

I think a lot of us know that feeling. That’s what I perceive at least, looking at the world around me. Listening to friends and family, seeing their struggles with not being enough, never being enough. And I have to say... it really makes me question the way we’ve shaped society. Because I have a hard time to see how this serves anyone, let alone all of us collectively. I mean, you can argue that it makes people put their best effort to whatever it is they are involved in. But I honestly think it costs more than we get. The energy drained is more than what’s generated from those efforts, performed under stress, duress, unhappiness.

I, for one, know that when I stopped engaging so much with that type of thought/feeling, all of a sudden, I had so much more energy! The energy I used in beating myself up for not being enough, all of a sudden could be utilized for much more contructive things. I had energy to spare, to engage myself, to activate myself, to take better care of myself, to interact with the world around me in the way I want to show up in the world.

I am not enough.
It’s a thought. And perhaps, at times, it’s fact. That’s true. But I do believe, more often it’s an opinion. And as such, it’s worthwhile asking yourself How does this serve me? Asking that question might help you see the opinion for what it is, and realize that you have a choice in whether or not to engage in it, or not. Where’s your energy best spent, I ask? Beating yourself up for not being enough, or for more constructive things?