REJECTING OURSELVES
I keep writing in all the books I’ve published, that the inhabitants of this time feel alone, afraid, empty and powerless, and for this reason they desperately seek to bind themselves to their similars. But today the lasting bonds have disappeared and are substituted by temporary bonds, that don’t require commitment, hard work, tension or suffering, and above all that do not limit freedom. For this it’s more correct to speak of personal connections, the model of which is the web, where connections are only at long intervals, they come only upon request and can be interrupted as we please, without explanation. Fast and easy relations, of immediate pleasure, without work. In a culture like this, loving is no long an art but only a continuous process of consumption, with an incessant production of trash, without people realizing that we ourselves have become trash.
MY LIVING WITH SOUL
I’ve learned with time how to live each day with soul. I have to say that when you remain in continuous contact with your own soul you desire to refine yourself and you know how, you become more and more essential. This is the destiny of true, alive, free men and women. To live with soul means facing the day in the name of an interior vision that brings you to even more evolved levels of awareness and wisdom, where all the people you encounter have meaning–they were there waiting for you–and where the difficulties that you meet serve to test your courage, above all they provide you with new directions to follow your life. If we do not learn from our errors we will be condemned to repeat them forever. Life, after all, is a roundtrip journey toward our clean and innocent heart.
REBIRTH
Certainly the suffering and psychic wounds of childhood leave deep marks, but they can also give meaning to our adult lives. Being reborn does not mean removal, but rather understanding and taking the past in, transforming it. To do this we don’t need to erase the past, but to take a distance from the suffering we experienced. If we want to become persons gifted with true self-esteem, we have to give new meaning to our past, avoiding judgments and definitive condemnations. We have to be nourished by the disappointments and the suffering too. Anger, for example, toward a person remains unchangeable only if we do not admit it. Once we admit it, it must be interpreted, processed and understood. In this way it loses strength and other emotions take its place, allowing us to be reborn.
MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP
Entering into relationship with others does not mean making yourself a slave to them or giving into their narcissistic demands. No, it means becoming a space of freedom for them, a space of autonomy, of true life and growth, in order to be able to reach increasingly evolved levels of psycho-spiritual awareness. You should enter into meaningful relationships not out of duty or for conformism or appearances, but for intimate inner realization. Not to deprive yourself of something, but as a personal demand, coming from a natural inner drive. In this life vision, that I call soul-filled or heart-filled, even the body we have, however they are, because of their intelligence and character, are exactly what we need to undertake our own journeys of meaning. (taken from LIFE. Fragility of the Heart. Valerio Albisetti. Ed. Paoline. 2011)
WE ARE ENTERING INTO A TIME OF DEATH
Only when a person creates and expresses his interior awareness, does he no longer feel isolated, empty and powerless. If, instead, he is only a miniscule gear of the system, where the powerful are ever distant and think only of their personal interests, he will find meaning in aggression which finishes in destruction or apathy, in self destructive depression. Aggression in order to feel existence. It’s a form of expression I have encountered many times as an Austrian-trained psychoanalyst. Destroying life I have the sensation of possessing life. Destroying I escape my nothingness, and I finally feel important. If we continue to keep interior and spiritual awareness separate from daily survival and material, economic life, we are destined to enter into a time of social violence, of death. The human being is a symbolic being. He lives of words, ideas and ideals, and when these are threatened, the human being reacts with aggression and violence.
“LITTLE VALERIO”
The innocent child, confident of himself, is a powerful, wonderful, fantastic being. Ever since I discovered him, I try not to neglect the “little Valerio” in me. It is he who gives me the strength to keep living. He’s always enthusiastic, curious and rich in creativity and inventiveness. He possesses an inexhaustible vitality, an infinite energy. He is full of joy and always helps me to turn upside down any negative situation, transforming it into positive. He makes me live the day, even the most insignificant one, as a heroic journey. Ever since I rediscovered him, I have forgotten what apathy, boredom, emptiness, futility, revenge, resentment, envy and jealousy mean. When I am with him, I am happy, happy to be alive. Look for your interior child too! Each of us has an innocent child hidden inside. Look for your little one… and love him from the heart! He will never disappoint you. When you feel depressed, useless, tired, unhappy… go to him, embrace him, and make him hold you strong… and stay like this for a while, in this embrace, until you are full of his vital energy, his sweetness and affection. Begin to do it now, while you read this. It costs you nothing. Have you done it? Isn’t what you feel just incredible? If you want, let me know by commenting below. (taken from PARENTS FOREVER. Valerio Albisetti. Ed. Paoline.)
POWERLESS AND FEARFUL HEROES
As long as the inhabitants of this time continue to listen to the people in power that make them believe suffering and death are not proof of sense that regards each of them, they will never know their true humanity. Without suffering, without death there is no greatness, there is no life. One becomes superficial, arrogant, banal, mean, vulgar. exactly like the heroes of this time, created by the mass media, by advertising. These heroes believe they are real but it’s only an illusion, because they are strangers to mortality―their own and others. In reality, they don’t live. They believe they are powerful but they are only powerless and fearful. For this reason they want to flee from the reality of suffering and death. The person who accepts his or her own death and weakness, is not resigned, nor aggressive, but active and open to change. This person is vital, truly optimistic and has good self esteem. She is able to transform situations, because she was able to transform her own weakness. A spiritually healthy person, when he or she makes a mistake, knows that it is the moment to recognize his or her limits. This attitude will bring that person to make fewer and fewer mistakes, because the person has increased in humanity, not in perfection.
HONORING OUR LIMITS
How many times have you thought you messed everything up? Thrown it all away, wasted your entire life… just because you had not reached some goal. Maybe you decided you needed to become socially or professionally important. Maybe you had created in your head the ideal relationship and then lost sight of yourself, your uniqueness and limits. Many of us never look at ourselves. Instead, we invest everything in others. We dishonor our uniqueness this way. And naturally this is easier. Less painful. Most of society unquestioningly identifies with the dominant social and cultural models. Models that are intentionally unreachable. Models that keep people unsatisfied, frustrated, and always ready to buy and compete… and we do all of this to lessen our suffering. Instead we should value our innate powerlessness and weakness. Knowing how to integrate our limits will bring us good self esteem
OLD PEOPLE WITH THE FACES OF CHILDREN
I’m convinced that reaching the serenity of an innocent child–as an adult–means becoming wise. We need to go through a sociocultural conditioning to then be able to undertake the work of discerning, and freeing ourselves from all the useless burdens, constructions, and needs created by the market. Returning to being as we were –fearless, optimistic, happy — after having lived the hazards of life, does not mean being infantile. To the contrary, it is proof that we have become truly mature. It means having truly lived life, having gone through it. Instead, to remain infantile, even as adults – the opposite of innocent children — means never having ever truly lived. Never having even begun the psycho-spiritual growth journey. Never having become mature. Old people with the faces of children. To avoid suffering. To avoid making choices. (Excerpt from ALWAYS PARENTS, Ed. Paoline, 2011).
PARENTS AND CHILDREN
I don’t want to talk about the pre-established roles of children and parents. I’ve always believed in the person. Not so much in social roles that are mere formalities, consecrated by tradition¯like outfits to wear and exhibit. These roles become spaces of power, where personal neuroses are then subtly hidden or masked¯spaces that are almost never conquered, are almost never the result of a psycho-spiritual journey, are never suffered through, are never felt fully in the head and in the heart, or above all, in the soul. I am for an existence that does not oppose itself, that is not untied from being, but rather that presupposes and demands it. (taken from my last book, ALWAYS PARENTS ed. Paoline.)
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