I don’t want it, I feel ashamed about it – but it is there: I am jealous. Of course I do have a big art, that too. But there is also something deep down that feels jealous about something ‘you have’. It cannot be happy you having it without me having it.

Shortly I found the courage to focus on it in a session with my focusing partner. It starts with an unpleasant feeling in my throat, that is the part that feels ashamed, it doesn want this to be there. The jealous part is more deepdown, pushed away in a very far place in my stomach. It is dark there, it feels small, like a child, is feels like it is crawled away. There is an image of a closet, a small cabinet under the stairs, dark, no light, no air. It is a like a little creature, a little child and it is not alone, there are more and they are there already for a long time. I say hello to them. 

After a while compassion is coming up. And the words seem to come from the bottom of my soul: “of course you want this too”. It is the sound of a compassionate elder who is speaking to a disappointed child. The sound of it is lovely. I ask my focusingpartner to repeat it, and again. “Of course you would like to have this too.”

It is softening inside me and I feel a tear rolling over my cheek. The image goes on. I see a row of little children and something that is portioned out. There is not enough for everybody and I don’t get anything.  But it does not matter! It does not matter because I don’t need to go back into the closet. It is allowed to stay there and keep standing. This is such a good feeling!  My back is stretching by itself, literally. I did not get something but it is allowed wishing it, longing for it. That is a huge difference! It changes inside me, completely. Joy is coming up.

And a new image occurs. Not a neat row of children, but they are running, jumping, screaming: me, me, no me. It is so joyful, so alive.

The point is not that I am jealous and should not be. The point, the pleasant freeing is in the allowing of wishing, hoping, longing. What a relief. I can wish, it is allowed to wish! Independent of getting it or not.

I recognize this in different situations, not only in myself, but also in students and clients. The allowing of the desire is more important than the question if you get it or not.  To be clear – this is not the desire that is accompanied by “and I wíll get it”  or with “this is not for me, I will never get this.” In these combinations is no energy.

It was such a joyful session, full of aliveness. Even when I am writing about it I can still feel the life energy of it. It makes me think of a little poet of the famous German poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

Maybe the dragons in our life

are just Princesses

longing to see us

waking up, brave and beautifully  

Maybe every horror is,

in its deepest essence

Nothing different than

Something that needs our love  

My dragon turned out to be a princess. This session made me feel more softly and filled me with space and compassion. Not only compassion for myself but also for the world around me. I don’t know what to do in this difficult, complicated world, what would help or wat is needed. But I do believe when people recognize the princes and princesses in their own dragons, something new can arise. Something with a positive impact on the world. Maybe this start with the acknowledgment that in every dragon a prince or princess can be hidden.
I wish you the courage to face your own dragons and to experience more space and love. My wish is that compassion in you may grow, for you ánd the world around you.