Coaching · A personal song
Return to myself
Ways to find your way back to yourself
A personal song about feeling torn between work, partnership and family, about withdrawal, and about the courage to find your way back to yourself and to each other.
How this song came about
My story
“For far too long I withdrew, deep down inside myself, where no one could find me.”
Feeling torn inside, withdrawal, and the courage to find your way back to yourself and to each other.
1 of 5: Withdrawal
These lines open a song I wrote when I reached a point at work where things could not go on like this. On the outside, everything worked. On the inside, I had withdrawn long before.
I knew this. A good ten years ago I slid into burnout: buying a house, renovating it, stress at work, small children. Most doctors simply told me to take a break and that my wife should take everything else off my plate. There was little understanding from the people around us, either. My wife and my children carried me through that time. I found my way back through yoga with Vinayaki Anne: mindfulness, breath, movement. And we saw how it helps others, too.
Out of this grew the wish to support people in similar situations, and I trained as a coach. That knowledge has now helped me pull the emergency brake before I end up in burnout again. The song is a new way of working through it.
Many men know this: you keep functioning, you hold out, you don't talk. This song is my answer to that. You can work through the topics on this page on your own, at your own pace. The introductory meeting is there whenever you want it.
Three perspectives
The other side
Withdrawal is never just one person's issue. Those who live alongside it absorb, interpret and wait. Children sense the mood before anyone puts it into words. Perhaps you will recognise yourself in one of these questions, whichever side you are on.
If you are the one affected
What is happening inside me?
Functioning, holding out, staying silent. On the outside everything runs, on the inside it grows quiet. The body often speaks up first: poor sleep, tension, headaches or back pain, stomach trouble, exhaustion that does not go away even at the weekend.
- How do I notice that I am withdrawing?
- What does the silence cost me, my health included?
- What would have to happen for me to say something?
If you are standing by their side
How am I doing in all this?
Living alongside someone who has withdrawn often means carrying more than anyone can see. And at some point you start to wonder whether it has to do with you.
- What am I absorbing right now?
- What do I make of the silence, and is that true?
- Where does support end and self-abandonment begin?
If there are children in the house
What do those who aren't asked feel?
Children read moods. They adapt, become quiet or loud, and take on roles that are not theirs.
- What do the children pick up without us saying it?
- Who is taking on which role in the family right now?
Help right now
When things are too much right now
Whichever side you are on: sometimes no text and no appointment is enough. Then the right thing is to talk to someone straight away. The Telefonseelsorge, Germany's telephone counselling service, is there around the clock, free of charge and anonymous. For questions about children, family counselling centres can help.
- Telefonseelsorge
- 0800 111 0 1110800 111 0 222
- Emergency
- 112
- Children & young people
- 116 111 (Nummer gegen Kummer)
In planning · Sharing circles
Sharing in a safe circle: would you be interested?
We are thinking about offering circles for men and for women, and a joint one if there is interest. They are about sharing among people with similar experiences, as equals, without judging. Two clicks help us gauge the need. No personal data is stored.
What coaching can be about
The map of the journey
The song asks questions that are allowed to go further. I have turned six of them into topics you can work through on your own: with short explanations, a question for you and a tool to fill in for each. The journey begins with a look at the whole and ends with what brings you back to yourself.
Choose a stage. The preview shows what it is about and whether the topic page is already available.
Stage 1: Wheel of life
Eight areas of life, from health to work, each rated twice: how is it now, and how should it be?
You fill in the wheel and see in one picture where now and wish lie apart. You can save or print the result.
Fill it in directly online, about ten minutes, on your own or as a couple.
Your answers
Your answers from the exercises are not automatically sent to us as a result. Where an exercise offers it, you can save your result as a PDF or print it. With “Send to coaching” you can also add a result to a coaching enquiry. We only receive what it contains when you send the enquiry through the contact form yourself.
Privacy and how your answers are handled →A taste of topic 3
Emotion or feeling?
When we withdraw, allowing feelings is often the first thing we stop. To notice them again, it helps to make a distinction that usually blurs in everyday life.
Emotion
An emotion is the body's quick, mostly unconscious reaction to a trigger: a pounding heart, tightness in the chest, heat in the face. It is brief, comes before any thought and wants to set us in motion.
Feeling
A feeling is the conscious experience and personal interpretation of that reaction: I feel hurt, unsure, angry. Feelings last longer and are shaped by thoughts, experiences and judgements.
If you keep shutting your feelings out, you often lose access to the emotions behind them as well, and the body then speaks up in other ways. The topic page Emotions and feelings shows how you can find that access again.
A detailed article on this is in preparation: To the wiki →
Return to myself · Asato Ma Sat Gamaya
The song
Music can be a way into your own feelings. Sometimes a song opens a door to memories, questions, pain, hope, or even to new strength.
Take your time listening. Perhaps you will recognise yourself in a line, perhaps only a quiet feeling will stir. Both are welcome.
- Asato Ma Sat Gamaya
- From the unreal to the real.
- Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya
- From darkness into light.
- Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya
- From death to immortality.
- Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
- Peace, peace, peace.
For watching on this page · no download
From the song to coaching
Ready for the first step?
The song tells my path. Yours looks different, and that is exactly what coaching is about: your values, your boundaries and what brings you back to yourself. We begin with a free introductory meeting. You can read how things continue after that in the coaching offer.
If you have filled in one of the tools on the topic pages, you are welcome to bring your result along, as a printout or through the contact form with “Send to coaching”. You can just as well keep it to yourself.
Coaching does not replace therapy or the treatment of mental or physical illness.