letters to Barbara
   
   
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escape from the fog of admiration

 

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other responses to Alice Miller

   
  Dear Barbara Rogers,

while surfing the internet i found your site and i can really say YES by heart what you write in your article "spirituality" cements childhood blindness"

and also escape from the fog of admiration. These are one of the most healing articles i ever read.

Thank you for saying the truth.

Greetings from germany

Kathrin Krost

 
Dear Kathrin Krost,
thank you so much for your encouraging, supportive comment.
I am glad that my experiences and insights are of meaning to you and that you consider them healing.

Regrettably, I just have returned from Germany; I would have liked to talk to you by phone.

Warm regards and with my best wishes,
Barbara

P.S. Would you give me permission to put your letter and my response on my website? When I have time, I would like to add it to my "letters to Barbara."


Dear Barbara,

First of all, sorry, my English is sleeping since I´m out of school and I hope you understand what I want to tell you. sure, you have the permission to add my letter to your homepage. I also would like to ask you if I can put your web-link on my website: www.ilea-bodensee.de, I´m sorry at the moment its only in german, but I´m looking for an English translation. Please send me an e-mail when you come back to germany and maybe we can meet or phone, this would be a pleasure for me, because my experiences are similar to yours, especially in the spiritual scene. While practicing I met a lot of “Gurus” and “spiritual teachers” who are exactly doing what you wrote in your letter about “spirituality cements childhood blindness”. I wrote about my “lessons” in my “Vita”:

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And something very personal:

My continuous search was again and again motivated by the realization that "the golden egg" does not exist and that there are many forms of therapy and diagnostic, which though do not fit quasi everyone.

My knowledge does not only stem from literature or trainings, but especially from my own experience of crises and their overcoming by relying on my own strength.

During this very intensive time I could also experience a lot about the realm of manipulation, power structures and their mechanisms. I noticed also that I am more inclined to work with individual people or smaller groups because there the possibilities of negative manipulation are substantially less then in bigger groups.

Because of a distinct "manipulation- resistance" towards systems and instructions of self-proclaimed authorities and the ability to recognize at an early stage subtle manipulations, respectively closing myself, I was able to enter into different structures, systems and situations, without becoming dependent. However, I also had to say that it was not always a pleasure to have this cognitive ability, neither for myself no for my direct private environment. Although manipulations seem to be essential to our dealings with each other, and partly also for the upkeep of our social networks, they are very hard for me to put up with.

Today though it is possible for me, based on my experiences, to show other people these structures and, if desired, to find together appropriate approaches.

And from "Practice/Freedom"
still an important annotation especially for people who are spiritually active:

Especially in the spiritual realm it is my concern to provide enlightenment and to invite clients, who are ready to do so, to detach themselves from structures, which cause them more harm than that they serve them by pretending to have achieved internal liberation.

Also though only one structure is being exchanged for another, like when people attempt, for example, to release themselves from their parents, which in itself is to be acclaimed as desirable. But often, instead of a true debonding, a replacement comes into play in the form of outer teachers, "masters" or even gurus who henceforth are sitting in the "parental position" and tie their disciples to themselves. Then people believe that they have broken away from their parents or individual people, yet they have imperceptibly glided into a "new," allegedly "better" family, which operates with the same structures, but in much more subtle ways that are very difficult to unmask for the still-dependent disciple -- after all, his need for salvation is greater than his courage to want to realize the truth. The fear of expulsion or being abandoned by the "master" prevents the relaxation of the truth. Even the "master" finds itself in a role not recognizable for himself, which oftentimes keeps him from seeing clearly what he is doing. He is part of the system and thus not suitable to recognize his own entanglements with his disciples. Of course, they're also exceptions namely those "masters," that know exactly what they are doing. Here we enter a very critical area bordering on abuse, or rather representing it.

The human basic need for a "family" or however natured "community" that provides a footing and structure. Unfortunately, many people are extremely susceptible in this very sensitive realm and look for another support, which guides them into new dependencies but not into freedom -- because of their fear of being alone and the inescapability of their personal responsibility for their decisions for their lives.

For the most part it is required though -- before such a far-reaching and life-changing realization -- to make once again the experience of dependence in another "gown" in order to be able to detach oneself at some point independently and quite naturally from it. Every human being has the right to make his or her own experiences, no matter what it is all her environment says about it, and also I am wary of regarding a dependence as something bad. Sometimes, however, it would be beautiful if the truth were called by its name. In the end, man can only disconnect from something which he has previously integrated into the system. The experience and the life of one's very own freedom is thus rooted in the preceding life-experience of dependencies.

Should you find yourself in such a situation, or a similar one, without knowing how you can detach yourself from it, then please address this subject during the initial meeting, respectively during the scheduling of an appointment by phone directly.

(Text in German: http://www.ilea-bodensee.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=62)

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I hope you can translate it or you will find someone who can do it for you.

It´s a good feeling to see that I´m not “stupid” about what I feel and see in this world and that there are others who say the same in different words. I think this is something like freedom and truth and it´s not always without pain.

Also with best wishes and thank you

Kathrin Krost
http://www.ilea-bodensee.de

   
 
Dear Kathrin,

As I translated your inspiring and true personal texts, I understood an important part of my own life journey more clearly. For me the experience of being able to build a stronger sense of my Self through IFS therapy has given me the ability, courage and strength to detach myself from relationships which were not built on an equal footing but on dependency and which became hurtful and stifling when it became obvious that there was no room for free, honest, open and mutual communication.

Warm regards and thanks from
Barbara