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In between

Silvia • September 9, 2024

My journey

So my journey began when I first started travelling alone in my twenties. I say alone because I had travelled a lot with my parents to the bigger cities of Europe before, but then I started to enjoy the sweet taste of independence and, to put it mildly, I got it. At the age of 22, I stayed in Wales for a more extended period and was fascinated by the landscape, the small community of which I temporarily became a member. The sheep and goats were grazing at the end of the garden, the little stream was babbling across the road, and I walked daily on the rocky forest paths. I fell in love with this tranquillity, the kind, helpful, smiling people, my new acquaintances from the language school, and the traditional simplicity of how the people there lived their lives. Later, I also had a part in this in Scotland, with a slightly different community and landscapes, but I always felt that I was at home, as if this ancient landscape was part of me. So, this path of the heart lured me back occasionally and constantly flooded me with new experiences and warmth.

The same feeling called me to Bournemouth 8 years ago, where I was completely captivated by the ocean's proximity and the New Forest's ancient trees. Indeed, my decisions were strongly influenced by the path of consciousness at that time since I, like most Eastern Europeans, was looking for a simpler, cleaner, better livelihood; we were looking for it anywhere in the world. Actually, I found this too, and I still stand by it today because it is now so much a part of me that it would be painful to part with it. And in this, the influence of the mind and the heart on each other is strongly mixed, perhaps a conflict, because sometimes we have to make a decision based on reason, sometimes we want to do something, feel something, just like that with all our heart.

The problem is that our origins and our present are often in conflict. After all, we cannot cut off, eliminate, or nullify our roots, which is, of course, not a problem in itself; in fact, it is especially necessary. However, with this very strong emotional attachment, which most often lies in attachment to family and childhood, we can never detach 100 percent, so there will always be a tug of the heart there as well.

Anxiety relief

By Silvia • September 2, 2024
2020 rewrote the way we are coping. The level of collective anxiety has deepened every mental problem, and the apparent solution is online counselling. If you are struggling with isolation, fear, grief, or having panic attacks, I'm here to help. You may feel a strong urge to change but don't know how or where to start; online counselling can be your first step. You may be suffering deeply from a loss, have very low self-esteem, struggle with childhood traumas still shadowing you every day, or have strengthened lately. Perhaps you feel things are just not right and should be better. You may have recognised the problem and acknowledged you need someone to lead you through this. Let me show you something.

What kind of psychological challenges you have to face if you decide to live abroad

By Silvia • September 1, 2024
Being in the dream can be sweet and soft but less realistic than setting a goal and achieving it step by step. When you decide to leave your place for a new one, maybe a new country, a new culture, or a new adventure, you have to be the most focused and undoubtedly the most real version of yourself. No dreams any more, just the bleak reality that can be as joyful as harsh. So buckle up; your new challenge is about to begin! These challenges can vary depending on individual factors such as personality, previous experiences, and the specific circumstances of the move. Culture Shock: Culture shock is a well-documented psychological phenomenon that can affect anyone living in a foreign country. It involves feelings of disorientation, frustration, and anxiety as individuals try to adapt to a new culture, language, and way of life. Loneliness and Isolation: Moving to a new country often means leaving behind a support network of family and friends. This can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation, especially if it's difficult to make new connections in the host country. Identity and Self-Esteem Issues: Living in a new culture can challenge one's sense of identity. Individuals may struggle with questions about who they are and where they belong, which can affect self-esteem and self-confidence. Language Barriers: Difficulty in communicating due to language barriers can be a significant stressor. It can lead to frustration and feelings of incompetence, making it harder to navigate everyday life and build relationships. Stress and Anxiety: The process of adapting to a new environment, including finding housing, employment, and understanding local customs, can be extremely stressful. This stress can lead to anxiety and, in some cases, even panic attacks. Depression: Prolonged feelings of homesickness, isolation, or frustration can contribute to depression. Adjusting to a new culture and lifestyle may take time, and this transition can be emotionally taxing. Cultural Adjustment: Different people go through different phases of cultural adjustment, which include the honeymoon phase (initial excitement), the culture shock phase (disorientation and frustration), the adjustment phase (gradual adaptation), and the acceptance phase (feeling comfortable in the new culture). Moving through these phases can be challenging and may involve periods of emotion Career and Financial Concerns: Career and financial stability can be jeopardized when living abroad, especially if one is unable to secure meaningful employment. Financial stress can contribute to psychological issues. Relationship Strain: Living abroad can strain relationships with family and friends back home. Additionally, forming and maintaining relationships in a new culture can be challenging, and this can lead to relationship issues and feelings of isolation. Cultural Misunderstandings: Misunderstandings or conflicts arising from differences in cultural norms and values can be frustrating and lead to interpersonal problems. To cope with these psychological challenges, individuals living abroad often seek support. So you are one of many who need special counselling for some time. Of course, other sources include local support networks, expatriate communities, and online community resources. It's essential to recognize that experiencing psychological difficulty when living abroad is normal, and seeking help and support is a healthy response to these challenges. Developing cultural sensitivity and resilience can help individuals adapt more effectively to their new environment. And remember, every challenge is a seed of growth.

What is Consciousness?

By Silvia • December 12, 2020
Just think about our most ordinary activities, such as alternating sleep and wakefulness, when we are more tired, the state of daydreaming, or those activities we do in automatic mode. Still, we can also have peak experiences, for example, as a result of making love or some cathartic experience. So, some degrees exist between fully attentive conscious awareness and the most profound meditative state, or trance. THE HARD PROBLEM What is "consciousness"? To formulate what consciousness is, we must first turn to those philosophical studies of consciousness, which also question the knowability of consciousness, and the decision of which is called a "difficult problem". A fundamental question is whether something can exist that can only be seen by itself, from the inside, through the subjective observer. We all experience our feelings from the inside; our experiences are organized in a unique pattern, the network of our thoughts and the imprints of our perception in a complex order (or disorder:)) form the internal system that connects us to the outside world. Can this completely subjective system be approached objectively? Several schools of thought are trying to find an answer to the question, and all of them are somewhat right. It is also possible that consciousness in itself cannot be known objectively. That is why the changes in the state of consciousness are so important, during which some similarity or identity can be found in the changes of consciousness that are different at the level of the subject, from which it is possible to infer its functioning. THE PHYSIQUE The other direction of consciousness research, starting from the direction of physical reality, the body, and the brain, examines the traceable signs of changes in consciousness with various medical devices. EEG, MRI, and PET all measure some physical quantity, either the essential electrical activity or a change generated by some physical influence. These tools are generally used to map sleep and meditative states, which are more difficult to separate but still altered states of consciousness. What is the basis on which these states can be distinguished? They differ in different modalities of perception and self-perception, i.e. we perceive space and time, visual and auditory stimuli, our own body, and our identity differently, and we leave different bandwidths for the presence of the outside world, which also changes our attention capacity. Based on these, we can separate sleep from being awake, dreaming consciousness, or lucid dreaming. These parameters change in hypnosis or trance and in different stages of meditation. STATES OF MIND Why is it important to know these? Ken Wilber writes in his book The Integral View (Ursus Libris, 2008) that "the three natural states of consciousness - waking, dream and deep formless sleep - can be a small treasure chest of spiritual wisdom - if we know how to use them correctly." trans. Bence Gánti) According to Wilber, these states of consciousness can contain the entire spectrum of spiritual enlightenment. If we look at its everyday, practical usefulness, of course, it is not the fact of enlightenment itself that can help us but the path leading to it, which can illuminate the dark spots behind our problems that have been going on for years. So, knowing the states of our consciousness can be very useful in acquiring knowledge with which we can "consciously" migrate from one to another. How can a state of consciousness become healing? "Trance is a natural, everyday experience. Allow yourself to see what you don't allow yourself to notice." (M.H.Ericson) So the process in which we make efforts to modify the conscious mind (and here I do not mean taking pills, liquids and smokes), i.e. we do not only benefit from the changes that occur spontaneously (the Freudian dream work of the dream, the contents suppressed in the unconscious meaning the process of its processing here), can already have healing power in itself, since we are actively doing something with ourselves, for ourselves. The bonus is that by moving away from the awake state and paying attention to our inner self, we can tune in to our deepest wisdom, get answers to our questions, find the root of our physical or mental ailments, uncover their cause, and create the most effective remedy available at the moment. Somehow, in this process, we can change, whether it is self-made meditation or therapist-led hypnotherapy.
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