Authenticity Rising

My life started with a birth trauma, followed by unhappy childhood, which made me a very insecure young adult. To gain some control of my life and feel loved and accepted, I became a good girl, with best notes at school. I was often a class and a school representative. I finished the most difficult gymnasium in my home town, specialized for mathematics and nature sience. I did not know why I was learning all this, as I was not really interested in any part of it. But I somehow thought I needed to do the hardest, the best. After gymnasium, I studied electrical engineering and after finishing it successfully, I got a good working place as a university lecturer, which was developing into a very good and stable position. And then - I got ill.

Nobody knew what was happening with my health. My father worked as a medical doctor and took me to several of his colleagues. One of them suggested that I could have had an autoimmune illnes. But nobody was sure. I felt horrible at any possible level. Deep inside I knew, that my body and soul just had enough of that kind of living my life, without a real core. Everything felt grey, around me and inside of me. And then came a moment, where I felt that my whole life makes no sense. It was never what I really wanted. I still vividly remember sitting in my room, looking out of the window and thinking that before I jump out if it, I could give myself a second chance, a second life. But  this time just for myself, just what I really want. Today I know that exctly that moment, when I saw my life without sense, when I hit the bottom - that was a kind of waking-up moment. I looked at my life with a witnessing mind and an instant later my soul emerged out of the darkness.  

My parallel inner life during my teenager time was drawing and painting. I always loved it, since I was a kid. I took many courses during my teenage years and was often drawing and painting without a break until late at night, absorbed in a creative flow. It was something that was fulfilling, regulating and calming me, but I never thought of making it my profession. That was the "real" part of me, that I did not dare to show on the outisde. I also did not dare to believe in it. It was my comforting space, my dream-like reality. So now, in the final crisis and with the feeling that I have nothing more to loose, I decided to be courageous and apply for the Art Academy in my home town. I did another course for that porpose that lasted half a year and applied then for the entrance examination. While visiting the course, I was full of excitement and my integrity was slowly growing. No one knew what I had in mind, it was my secret. I passed the test succesfully! It felt then as if as my life was just starting, as if I gave birth to myself! I remember walking my way to the Art Academy and feeling like the happiest person on Earth. And you probably guess - the moment I started following the way of my soul, the illness disappeared. 

After some time living parallel life of an art student and of a university lecturer, finally I abandoned my working position. I left everything behind. I moved to Germany and continued studying at the Bauhaus University. But more than just studying - after regaining my life, after finally following my heart way and giving kind of birth to my new self, I continued my own re-inventing. I truely started discovering who I am, what I like, what I really want to eat, wear, do, I experimented, I meditated and I dared things and situations I would have never dared as "the old me".  This was my way of developing the first glimpses of a true Self-Love. Doing it for me, not for others. It was a long time practice, cause I was for such a long time living the other way. I was deeply conditioned and that conditioning came back on my way again and again, for many years.

Appart from being my passion since the early childhood, there were many reasons why art had to be my way in those days. I belive, it is because an artist has to be authentic. And I was so drawn to authenticity. An artist has to make his/her own original way and create from within. No hiding. It was just the opposite of what I had lived before. So for decades, authenticity was the center of my development. I had to practice lot of "undoing". And a lot of discovering!

My life as adjusted girl in a science field also gave me resources. I am not rejecting it any more. Thinking as a mathematician definitelly developed a network in my brain. It helped me to learn programming, which later was part of my profession as a web designer. It was a part of all my tools later in life. But more important than that was to embrace my old self, the self I was running away from - the unhappy adjusted girl, so lost, so sad. For many years her Beingness was making me afraid, I did not want to look at her and go back to those traumatised states. Until one day I was strong enough to do it. To hold her and hug her with deepest compassion, with acceptance and love, seeing her for doing the best she could and accepting her destiny. I am still holding her, she needs a lot of holding :). And I am so happy I can give her comfort, love and safety now. It feels like I am healing myself in the past, like I am changing the destiny. It's a kind of magic!