Transcription
I am Theodor from Youris Forum. Today, I would like to introduce you to the concept of anthroposophic-based stress release and stress reduction.
I have been working on this theme with Dr. Haral H in Switzerland for about 10 years. We run courses in his practice in the anthroposophical branch and also online on Youris Forum. My intention is to encourage you to try these exercises for yourself. They are published in a document, so you can find it. There's a course on Youris Forum that you can follow yourself.
What I would like to do is offer a group course that could start in the second half of April. If you want to do it together with me, I will tell you more about that at the end of this session.
This picture reminds you of stress, I think. But if you look at it, there are different aspects shown—different people, different things. If we go through them, we touch on the themes R. Steiner spoke about in 1912 in his lecture "Overcoming Nervousness."
In that lecture, he said there's always a lot of objection to the fact that we speak of a differentiation of the human being into four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. However, it must be emphasized that if you apply this differentiation to life, it can prove to be remarkably useful.
It will soon be found that these benefits can gradually bring about a kind of conviction of what is available through clairvoyant observation.
Steiner then stresses two things: if you apply this knowledge, you will benefit from it in your everyday life. Through this, you get a sort of inner sensation, an inner perception of what's behind the exercises. You also start to draw from this level and to be nourished from this level, becoming more secure that you are carried by higher forces too.
Let's go into the different aspects. Rudolf Steiner suggested one thing: try to hide objects from yourself. Put your toothpaste in the cupboard in the evening and see if you can find it in the morning. He said to change your handwriting; I'll tell you more about this later.
Another extra suggestion he made was to try to think in reverse order. If you have a poem, can you think it backwards? If you have a melody in mind, can you try to sing it backwards? If you have a telephone number, can you say these things backwards?
Next, he suggested observing yourself as if you were a second person. Watch how you move, how you tie your shoelaces. Look at yourself from the outside. He suggested changing habits—do it playfully. Not just the bad habits, but just things you usually do one way; do them the other way around. Like this lady who has her feet on the cushions of the bed and her head at the end of the bed.
The next suggestion he made was to refrain from little wishes. If you have a little wish, just say, "No, not at the moment, maybe later." Do these sorts of things; just don't follow what you wish at the moment.
The next suggestion was to weigh up your decisions. What speaks for it? What speaks against it? Then make your decision consciously and carry out this consciousness in mind.
The last suggestion was to refrain from criticism. We criticize so much. Don't criticize; 10% would be okay. Criticism is necessary; something is not right. But we criticize automatically much more often than is necessary.
He also suggests not just to refrain from criticism, but if somebody is aggressive towards you, normally you would react with criticism. Instead, think about what's going on with them. What's behind their behavior? Are they under pressure? In this way, refrain from criticism.
These seven or eight exercises he described in this order—hiding objects from yourself, changing handwriting, thinking in reverse, changing habits, self-observation, dealing with wishes, weighing up decisions, and refraining from criticism—show that there is an order behind it.
Rudolf Steiner himself, for every exercise, says what it does. The first three exercises strengthen the etheric body. With the changing habits and self-observation exercises, he said that's strengthening the astral body.
All the time when he described one of the following exercises, he said that's strengthening the I, that's strengthening your will. It doesn't mean the personal will, "Oh, I want this, I want that." The I, the will, is this force in us that asks, "What do I really want?"
Then your soul and your body can much easier follow because they also say, "Yes, that's what she really wants." That can be supported with joy.
When he says that's strengthening your I, your will forces, normally one knows from this lecture that that's the exercise Steiner speaks about. But in the introduction, before he explains the exercises, he goes through an order of diseases or problems or unhealthy attitudes that occur nowadays so often.
We can put them a little bit more into the language of today, how it's used today. So it's a little bit different from how he expressed it, but in principle, he describes in the introduction those problems.
Let's start at the left side: it's forgetfulness. We all suffer from forgetfulness. He speaks of anxiety, which is around. Our skin is so thin. He describes people who cannot start entering their body because the strength isn't there.
He describes the self-doubt and the burnout question. Then he describes what he calls political alcoholism, where you just don't know what to do anymore. You just talk, talk, talk, and decision-making is so difficult.
Then there's restlessness and the loss of control, which you may also experience today. Perhaps he speaks of psychosomatic issues. He also uses not this word, but he describes the illnesses that come from the soul.
Then there's the addictiveness, the addictions we suffer from. Many of us don't know how to fulfill what we are really looking for. This compulsion and indecision lead us to follow the advice of others and not our own will.
We are also hunted by thoughts; the thoughts just circle in our head, and you cannot stop them anymore. In a way, when you look at this, you can say that's the whole spectrum of different kinds of nervousness that are around everywhere, but also in us—some more, some less. But I think we all know all of these things.
The interesting thing is that in his introduction, not in this order he just went through, he began at the end—with being hunted by thoughts, with compulsion, psychosomatic issues, restlessness, loss of control, self-doubt, and forgetfulness.
Then you realize that in the introduction, he described the problems in this direction. He gives suggestions the other way around; he goes back again. That's an interesting motif, and there's a background behind it.
But before we go to that, I will go through the exercises once again so you can just remember. You really have to bring things to your perception and take your time to ensure they are right.
When you do the handwriting exercise, Steiner suggests doing it for at least 15 minutes. Then, maybe at 11:00 or 12:00, when you're really tired and ready to go to bed, you remember, "Oh, I still have to do my handwriting exercise for 15 minutes."
Now, I just show you how my handwriting looks. That's my notebook from January. I was in Canada traveling; it was a nice experience. And that's how my handwriting looks.
It wouldn't be so easy for me to change and write more beautifully. When I'm tired and want to go to bed, I do this handwriting exercise. The exercise is not to write as beautifully as possible.
You can change one or two things. For example, I chose to make one letter, the first letter, very big. Maybe I do it like this, and the others small. Instead of a point on top of an "i," I made a circle.
Just writing like this, can you see how the handwriting changed completely? Not in the way I intended it to be; it just happened. Or I did it this way: I chose to write it very narrow or very far from each other.
Each time, the handwriting became beautiful. I was tired; I did not intend to write. I just changed a few things. This shows that these exercises touch deep layers in us because this inner wisdom of beauty emerges when I make space for it.
I address it in a way that this system likes, and it can evolve and make itself visible. The beauty that lives in us suddenly becomes active, which is often suppressed.
I won't go through everything now, but you see these exercises touch layers in us that are not in front in everyday life. That's what anthroposophy speaks about: that we have a physical body, a life body, a soul body, which really lets us live on earth, and the soul that lives in this body.
Then we speak about that there's also a spirit. This spirit also has layers. There's a spirit self, which is still very close to me and has a lot to do with my personality. But there's a life spirit, which, in a way, is a broader consciousness that takes care of my development.
The spirit man is, in a way, my aspect of my spiritual being, which is related to the whole being of man—our common evolution. It's not so easy to speak about it. What is it? Is it true that these things exist, and how do they live in us?
That's the idea: if we work on these exercises, we can become clearer about how these layers in us work. We can also start the communication with them, gain strength from this encounter, and learn about ourselves.
I want to say hello to Monica, who is supporting me in the background, collecting the questions and putting them forward if there are any.
Do you do one exercise per day? You can do it the way you want. In the beginning, to connect with the exercise, it's good to do one exercise for about a week. People who run with us through the course often say, "Oh, what a pity! Now I've just started to get a grip on it, and I would like to go on with it."
Let's do it for two weeks, and then you have to decide what time span is appropriate for you. If you like it, you can go on. If you feel you've got a grip on it, you can go to the next one.
But that's a good thing to start with—to get a hold of it. When you are used to it, you can combine them. You can change it every day if you want to or even put them in a composition that you can do within a day.
I will bring one more aspect to this question a little bit later, where the daily aspect is emphasized.
Thinking in reverse is not clear to me. What kind of thoughts? Thinking in reverse is an exercise that one easily does not like because it's quite an effort. You can use a telephone number and just go through the numbers in the opposite order, backwards.
What I like to do is take a sentence out of a meditation and then start to think it word for word backwards. If you go into these sentences and do it the other way around, you will be surprised that they change their meaning.
In this simple exercise, you can reach different layers. You have the effort of just managing it; you even have the effort to just start it. But then you can reach a layer where these "aha" moments start to unfold in a different way, and you get a present back out of it.
Okay, are there any exercises that help with panic attacks? Are there any exercises for panic attacks? We did this course from last April to June with 50 participants, and quite a few of them wrote feedback to us.
One person wrote to me in an email, "I couldn't go shopping anymore; I didn't dare to. Now I have exercises that help me, and I can go shopping again."
So, my answer is I would not look for a single exercise, but this series is important because in one problem, many things interfere with each other. If you go through this sequence, you work on this interrelationship, and inner stability starts to grow.
So, I would not look for one exercise, but which ones of this order really help me. It's a little bit about trying it out. You will respond to the different exercises differently.
I mentioned at the beginning that Steiner described the problems in a reversed order as he gave the exercises. What's behind how he started to speak about these things?
About the nervousness of our times and the work with Haras, it was the discovery of Haras. He discovered it's actually the Eightfold Path that works as a spiritual background behind these exercises.
The Eightfold Path was founded or conceived by Buddha 600 years before Christ. Steiner just told his students how important this path is, and he even brought it into contemporary words.
But they are still pretty close to the original words of Buddha. You can easily compare it when you read his texts and the texts available on the internet, for example.
Now, the Eightfold Path starts with the right insight, the right opinion, the right judgment, the right speech, the right deeds, the right attitude, the right striving, and the right memory.
"Right" is not meant in a way of "Is it right or wrong?" but rather, "Does it fit to me? Is it what lives in me? Is it what is really needed?" Not what others say. On the contrary, it's the path towards myself.
Now we start again at the left: the right memory and hiding things from yourself to strengthen your memory. It's related to the right striving in changing handwriting.
You've seen what changing handwriting can bring up. So, there is a relationship. The right attitude is behind this point of the Eightfold Path.
Can I combine my spiritual being with my earthly one? Can I live with this contradiction and accept this contradiction? This is also the thinking in reverse.
The right deed, the heart part of the Eightfold Path, is about observing myself and changing habits. Can I perceive what is needed, and how can I be flexible?
The heart is a thing of flexibility; I can respond to what is needed to help. The right speech is about whether I always have to say what I want to say or need to say, or can I keep it back?
That's exactly the same thing as wanting a cup of coffee. "Oh no, I can wait for 10 minutes, or I can take it this afternoon." Just to play with myself, can I keep it back?
The right judgment and weighing up this position is exactly the same description in both ways. The right opinion is about what I think I need and refraining from criticism.
From the personal standpoint to a more objective standpoint, you realize that the exercises against nervousness are a sort of practical application of the Eightfold Path.
The Eightfold Path is more the spiritual aspect in this direction, while the exercises against nervousness are practical applications for everyday life and ordinary questions in the other direction.
That's the same approach as Buddha. In a way, Steiner went a little bit further. He suggested or attributed the days of the week to the Eightfold Path.
He said to do the right opinion on Saturday, the right judgment on Sunday, the right speech on Monday, and so on. We know that the days of the week are attributed to the Sun, the Moon, Saturn, Mars, and so on.
There are the forces of the planets behind them, and they can all be connected with the qualities of the sounds. That's where your R can come in: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Mars, Tuesday, Mercury, Wednesday, Jupiter, Thursday, and Venus, Friday.
These gestures are not just an idea; there is a reality behind it. Just refraining from criticism, in a way, combines this with the gesture or the feeling.
It's not just the outward gesture, but this feeling of, in a way, connecting with the infinity. I make a parallel gesture, which I try to explain. That comes far from above, goes through my heart, and reaches the infinity.
In a way, I'm here, but in the right entrance, it's just one aspect. There are many aspects. I become very transparent for the space in the periphery.
It's not "I"; it's through me, but I'm becoming aware of this. The right opinion and the gesture of the hour, for example, when you do the judgment, is about what I have to do—the left and the right.
Do I have the inner power to really decide and then go with it? If you look deeper into it in the course, you will notice the head never can decide.
The head must find an argument for this. It has to find an argument that can do it. Think of it this way too: only the heart can decide.
The heart is the energy of the sun. The planets exactly follow what they do. The moon gesture, the I—can I come towards myself, or do I lose myself?
The I is a gesture where you could easily lose yourself. It's just touching, feeling yourself. But if you really go into it and start touching something, this leads you towards your inside.
You will notice you really arrive, and you are not drawn out. This is all these little wishes.
So it goes on and on. All these letters have a sort of specific relationship with the task we try to fulfill in the exercises we pursue in this week.
When you look at it now, what I have done is just put together what I have spoken about. You have in the green part, in the light part on top, the energy of the Eightfold Path with its sounds.
You have the exercises we do underneath, and you have the effects on the body or the problems you're working on in the bottom part. The members of the body build the base for everything.
On top, if we work like this with hiding objects from ourselves, we strengthen our memory. If we change the handwriting, we work on our life body and foster well-being and resilience.
If we practice thinking in reverse, which is connected to the I, we overcome self-doubt and burnout. We work on our soul body and strengthen our self-confidence.
If we change habits in a playful way and practice self-observation in a playful way, we strengthen our flexibility and self-awareness. We broaden the spectrum of our soul.
If we practice dealing with wishes, we start to work on our inner aspects, on our spiritual aspects. We start a way that leads towards ourselves and strengthens our self-assertiveness.
With weighing up decisions, we learn to decide with the heart. With refraining from criticism, we practice to rest in ourselves.
That's the complete picture. That's a little bit the question: do I have to work on one exercise specifically? My opinion is, or what I think or feel, is that if we practice all of them, they start to play into each other.
What comes out of it is not just the strengthening of memory and self-confidence, but we also learn to develop this inner security to spiritual truth—what we know in our innermost being but somehow don't dare to believe or act from what we do feel.
So that's the picture of these exercises and their interconnection. There are even more aspects to it. We will look at them when we practice because it makes sense to use our experience to deepen our inner knowledge.
Yes, now I am open to more questions.
What is the difference between the soul body and the soul? I go back to my presentation. Can I have something to hold on to?
If you look at these bodies down there—the physical body, life body, soul body—that's, in a way, the precondition for us to live on earth. We need a body, a physical body.
That's not just a material body; it's more a knowledge body. It knows a hand of a human being has five fingers. If I have a scarf here, the scarf doesn't belong there. An arm looks like that.
All this inner knowledge about what our body is like—that's the physical body. All the experiences of evolution are in our body.
The life body, in a way, is the body that works to let this body grow. It cares for this body and makes it possible for the scar to go away. But the physical body tells the life body, "I don't want to have it."
The soul body, in a way, has a lot to do with receptivity. Our body allows us to perceive. If you don't perceive the surroundings, if our eyes are closed, it's much harder to be in the body.
I need a rich sensory life, and that's a body for the soul. The sensory life, life experiences, and body experiences make it possible for me to fully live in my body.
That makes it possible for my soul to fully live in my body. If I take somebody's senses away, it's much more difficult for the soul to penetrate the body. It would need much more energy.
In the soul, I express myself through thinking, feeling, and willing. I have different aspects. I have this sensitivity towards the outer world—how do I relate to what I sense?
But I also have a sensitivity towards my inner being—how do I want to be, or what's behind things? Can I look at a tree and not only feel what it looks like but also what lives in the tree?
That's more the consciousness, the being aspect. When I'm completely in me, I can also be there.
Why only seven rights in the Eightfold Path? It's just because I didn't draw the eighth one in the slide presentation. The Eightfold Path has eight members, and the eighth one is the state of presence—the right meditation.
So you have the seven steps, like seven planets, for example. Then you have this encompassing aspect. That's why I suggest we do nine weeks, so in the last week, we can explore how to combine everything.
In a way, this inner trust comes about. How can I not just do one exercise, but how can I be a complete being?
Both paths—the spiritual way of the Eightfold Path and the nervousness exercises—have eight members. You're right.
More questions? According to your presentation, can the Uris exercises replace the stress exercises? I mean, instead of doing hiding objects, can I do a Uris exercise?
It's a good question, and I was very happy to discover that the Uris part can be combined with the everyday exercises. I experience it a little bit like men and women, or a friend and I.
A Uris exercise, in a way, can start a dialogue. If I say, "Oh no, I don't want to hide objects; I would rather do a Uris exercise," I start to feel.
What we try to do is the task of human beings: to work ourselves through our bodies. We do not come down to earth to bounce back into heaven again. We come down to earth to work ourselves through the mud and come out the other side happy and strong.
We have made it; we have come to it alone, but we will make it. That's why I would suggest to combine it. The human being is the contradictory way, so we are far and near.
In a way, this combination expresses an aspect of the human being—to live in two worlds.
Okay, one more question, then I will go on, and we will start thinking about slowly concluding so we don't take more than one hour, maybe even less, to finish.
Can you again expand on the exercise dealing with wishes? You can read all these explanations in this lecture by Steiner. I will give you a link to an online platform, an anthroposophic one, where you can download this PDF and read it.
There, Steiner expresses a lot about this exercise. I cannot go into details now, but dealing with wishes is, in a way, the question in the practical thing.
It's very easy to just observe how many wishes you have all the time without even noticing them. You do this and you do that, always fulfilling a need that you are not even conscious of.
So the first step is to become conscious of all these little wishes we have. Not fulfilling their little wishes is just to become even more conscious of them and to start a dialogue with them.
For example, I do not take coffee this morning. I do not switch on the radio for breakfast today. I see these beautiful shoes in the window of a shop; they are so beautiful. I'm not going to buy them today; I will come back tomorrow.
Just imagine what your soul does then. I don't know if you're men or women; they are a little bit different in these matters. But what does your soul do? You say, "Oh, will they still be there tomorrow?"
Yes, and let's take it as a game. If you really need those shoes, you should buy them. But if you can use it, you have this game.
It's very important in this exercise that you do not use it to change something, an addiction you have. "Oh, I want to stop smoking, and now this week I learn to stop smoking."
Then you lose this playful dialogue with yourself. This way, we learn that our body, the lower system, is a playful system that likes to play and only feels understood when you play with it.
That's an important aspect, not only in this exercise but in all exercises. It's especially important in the last three ones: dealing with wishes, the thinking exercise, and the resting with yourself exercise.
Because so often, you won't succeed, and then just laugh about it. Don't give up and enjoy not succeeding, for example.
Good, we can have one more question or stop.
I have answered the questions we could pick up. Maybe we missed one or two, so I apologize.
I want to invite you because this idea of offering a course, which we could do together with these exercises, was originally planned for the autumn. I wanted to do some webinars like this one just before summer and then start in the autumn.
But now times have changed, and so many of us feel a little challenged. What are the real values? How can I? You cannot do your exercises with me all the time, but you can easily do these little exercises and play with them throughout the day.
You touch very important things about yourself that can strengthen you in your decision-making and your everyday life questions.
We did a scientific evaluation, and every week, they answered a questionnaire. In the end, after the eight weeks, it was an eight-week course.
Then I asked them, "Why would you recommend the ABSR course to other people?" They took just this online course, module for module, and I was not explaining anything.
In this online course, the description of the exercises is there. There are videos that explain the exercises and the backgrounds. There are videos that explain the why.
I love this course because it allows me to feel my body and capture perceptions using the Uris movements. The everyday exercises are thought-provoking tasks that help me make everyday life positive.
It broadens my horizons, providing a lot of helpful exercises. It's the first course I've done online, and it was very good. I would recommend it at any time.
Another example: for me, it's the best and most complete guidance and exercise series I've ever used to get from my head to my heart.
Listening to the view of the world helped me experience my ego in the body and also interact with the forces of my surroundings. In today's troubled and uncertain times, it is a great help for me to reestablish the already almost forgotten basic trust.
I read it not to say it's my or our invention; these exercises are not. But I just read it to you and give you this feedback to encourage you to do these exercises.
Maybe you'll take this lecture to follow these exercises, or you buy this ABSR course on our website and do it for yourself, or you join the group.
But I'm very sure if you work with these exercises, you will profit from them.