It doesn’t matter
I have done six apprenticeships in my life so far. First, I became a nurse. Then I graduated from high school and studied business administration. I have a degree in business administration. Later I did a neuroscanbalance training over 6 years and after that I was a fine motor trainer. A few years later I did a 2-year coaching training in Konstanz. I am now also a coach. Then I did another 2-year training to be a Holistic Cancer Counselor after that. Currently I am on the Possibility Management trainer path. I am a PM trainer. In addition to that, I have some other smaller specialized trainings. With all these skills that I have acquired throughout my life, I can work anywhere in the world. Anywhere. In every small community there is a nursing service that would hire me immediately, because there is a nursing shortage almost everywhere in the world, as far as I know.
I’m on vacation at the Baltic Sea right now. I live in a little cottage and if I walk a few minutes, I come to one of the most beautiful beaches there is on the Baltic Sea. White sand, seagulls crying, wind, few people and this sea where I love to be. The Baltic Sea. Magical place. Magical. I get up in the morning because a voice inside me says, “Get up. You are at the Baltic Sea, after all. Now you have breakfast and then you go to the beach.” I obey that voice because it’s right. I am at the Baltic Sea, after all. I have breakfast, get dressed and go to the Baltic Sea. I look at the clock. I have to walk for at least three hours so that the voice is satisfied and I don’t have a guilty conscience. When I talk to friends on the phone, I say things like, “It’s wonderful up here, the sea, the nature. I’m at the Baltic Sea for a few hours every day.” No one questions that. It’s beautiful, of course, and it’s fun to walk along the sea. Any person would enjoy it. I don’t. I complete a program. The program is called “Vacation at the Baltic Sea”. It involves walking along the beach, a few hours a day, consciously listening to the cries of the birds, feeling the wind, and saying things like, “It’s wonderful at the Baltic Sea. It’s a pity that my vacation will soon be over.” However, I don’t feel the fun and joy. At any time. Even though I do everything right. I read good books, eat fish, sleep a lot and walk around on the beach. I complete the whole program. Daily. Every minute. Every second.
Yesterday on the Trainerpath Germany call we talked about why we are trainers and what it means to be a trainer. The spaceholder asked me the question, “Martina, are you having enough fun?” I tried for a while to understand what he wanted and tried to find the right answer to this question. Then I said, “No. I’m not having fun.” He gave me another hint regarding my voice. When I speak, there is always a certain sadness that resonates and a tendency to whine. He said I should experiment with it and try different voices. I said I knew what he meant and I would try that. At the same time, I knew that the way I was speaking was just a symptom. Trying to change the voice would be like constantly wiping the blood from a wound that keeps bleeding. I can constantly wash and wipe away the blood and cover the constantly bleeding wound. But it still bleeds all the time. The blood is just a symptom.
All evening I thought about why I don’t feel any fun. Finally contacted a friend and asked him to give me possibilities for my voice and what I can do to have more fun. We went through such an average day of my life. One of those, of which there are hundreds a year. A day when I go to work. Some time ago I observed why I actually get up in the morning. What drives me out of bed? Most of the time it’s the pressure. I have to go to work, complete a morning program before that, and eventually the moment comes when the commanding voice says, “Let’s go. Get up!” Then I get up. Sometimes I wake up and get up right away, without thinking first. Then I unconsciously get up immediately, sort of “by accident.” In both cases, I get up even though I don’t really feel like it. I don’t feel like it either. I just do it, it seems to be right. Then I do my morning routine, which always looks the same and is masked by the pressure to get ready because I have to go to work right away. I am a good worker. I always arrive on time, do the job properly, act responsibly, am intelligent enough to make the right decisions. I am extremely reliable, my colleagues appreciate me and I come to work even with a slight fever. After all, the job is not that strenuous. (Probably something similar could have been said about my mother’s professional life. She died shortly after her retirement at the age of 66).
In addition to work, I have a huge leisure program. I do coaching, write a newsletter, run a homepage, have my own Possibility Team that meets weekly. I have guitar lessons, try to take a walk or do yoga every day, and cook something healthy. All of this only works with a certain discipline and wants to be planned.
A small example: Here at the Baltic Sea I have my own sauna. Yesterday I went there for the first time. I had to calculate exactly when to turn it on, because it heats for 45 minutes and I had appointments before and after the sauna via Zoom. I rarely go to the sauna and was glad there was some sort of instructions on the wall on how to do it: Three 20-minute sauna sessions, with a 30-minute rest break in between. When I started my second sauna session, I noticed that I was getting a headache. It’s mega-hot in a sauna like that, the blood rushes to my head and it throbs and throbs like crazy. I should have stopped, drank lots of water and rested well. But I didn’t want the cottage owner to notice and then think that I didn’t like his sauna. Besides, I didn’t want to deviate from the prescribed program. It said to go in three times. So I completed three sauna sessions, my skull almost exploded, I was afraid to collapse and it was no fun at all.
Maybe I’ll go to the sauna again today. After all, I’m at the Baltic Sea in a vacation apartment with a sauna. Sauna is great. If someone asks me how my vacation was, I can say, “It was really nice at the Baltic Sea. I was outside every day for several hours, ate fish and was in the sauna in the evening.” Anyone would believe me that I had a lot of fun up at the Baltic Sea.
With the friend I had contacted to have possibilities given to me, I finally discovered some kind of machine. I am trying to describe this machine, which is not easy because it is always running, even as I write this. It is making suggestions to me all the time, giving commands or allowing rewards. Suggestions can be, “Get another education. It will take you further and you’ll get new opportunities!” Or, “There’s something wrong with your voice. See if you can do something like voice training.” Or: “Move to the Baltic Sea. It’s beautiful at the Baltic Sea!” Commands sound like this, “Come on now, get up!” Or, “Cook something with vegetables, you eat way too much sugar and dairy.” Rewards sound like this, “Now you’ve given great coaching, now you get to eat a big ice cream.” Or, “Two hours of walking on the Baltic Sea and it was really cold. Four episodes of Vikings as a reward.”
The machine keeps me going from morning to night and has done so for decades.
A strange thing has happened as a result of me uncovering the mechanism of the machine: everything suddenly seems to not matter. It doesn’t matter if I’m running at the Baltic Sea, because I’m just completing a program and I’m not happier afterwards. It is just as possible to stay at home and read. That is also a program. There follows a consequence, a kind of punishment, resulting from a bad conscience. Even then I am not happy. I can do my job super well, it doesn’t make me happy. I can implement all the consequences to be a trainer, hold many processes, give worktalks and go to all the labs. It’s part of the program. In that I can observe and perceive that now, I realize that there is no wrong and right anymore. I can try hard, do everything perfectly, everyone can think I’m great or I can be the last asshole, make mistakes, fail, and be negative everywhere: it doesn’t matter because the machine is running and I’m just completing different programs. And the strange thing is that there is a small gap in this space. A new space that was not there before. And it’s called: there is no right and wrong anymore. I can do what I want. I can stop trying to do everything right, stop trying to behave in a way that others like me. It doesn’t matter if I meet all 10 points, if I do a good job. It also doesn’t matter if I can explain what I do and how I decide. It doesn’t matter if my arguments are good. I don’t have to justify anymore. I can say, “I’m moving to the Baltic Sea.” And, “I’m going to eat another ice cream. Just like that, for no reason.” Or, “I’m eating vegetables. I’m not eating anything for a week.” Or, “I’ll work nothing for a year and sleep until 10:00 every day.” For no reason. Not because I’ll be happier. Just because. For no reason.
In PM circles, it’s called a Gremlin inmeshment, and it means that my Gremlin has taken over 90 percent of my life. So what I’m doing is kind of like living as a soldier, as an order taker. And because it’s so massive and so old, I haven’t noticed it anymore.
I remember a situation that I experienced when I was 4 years old. I was sitting in the meadow cutting flowers and grasses with my stick, which in my reality was a very sharp knife. I cooked a magical, colorful, dangerous and enchanting flower soup and I was very happy. I know what it feels like to be happy. I don’t know why that stopped. The ability to be right there and merge right now with that tiny little thing — a few flowers and a little stick — and be happy with the whole universe.
The machine is already suggesting new things to me: do an EHP, demesh your Gremlin, do things you enjoy, go to the Lab, go to the Baltic Sea. Go to the sauna….
I’ve decided to do nothing for now. Nothing at all, except watch the machine spin and work incessantly.
