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Forholdet mellem hjælperen og den, der skal hjælpes, må være sådan at man, når det i sandhed skal lykkes én at føre et menneske hen til et bestemt sted, først og fremmest må passe på at finde ham der, hvor han er, og begynde der. Dette er hemmeligheden i al hjælpekunst. Enhver, der ikke kan det, han er i en indbildning, når han mener at kunne hjælpe en anden.
For i sandhed at kunne hjælpe en anden må jeg forstå mere end han; men dog først og fremmest forstå det, som han forstår. Når jeg ikke gør det, så hjælper min mere-forståen ham slet ikke.
Vil jeg alligevel gøre min mere-forståen gældende, så er det, fordi jeg er forfængelig eller stolt, så jeg i grunden i stedet for at gavne ham egentlige vil beundres af ham.
Men al sand hjælpen begynder med en ydmygelse; hjælperen må først ydmyge sig under den, han vil hjælpe, og herved forstå, at det at hjælpe er ikke det at herske, men det at tjene, at det at hjælpe ikke er at være den herskesygeste men den tålmodigste, at det at hjælpe er villighed til indtil videre at finde sig i at have uret, og i ikke at forstå hvad den anden forstår.
~ Søren Kierkegaard
Den enkelte har aldrig med et andet menneske at gøre uden at han holder noget af dets liv i sin hånd. Det kan være meget lidt, en forbigående stemning, en oplagthed, man får til at visne, eller som man vækker, en lede man uddyber eller hæver. Men det kan også være forfærdende meget, så det simpelthen står til den enkelte, om den andens liv lykkes eller ej.
Den etiske fordring giver intet regelsæt for, hvordan jeg præcist skal handle over for mit medmenneske. Det må afgøres fra situation til situation, men der er dog en ramme for, hvordan fordringen skal imødegås. Når min handlen skal være at drage omsorg for det andet menneske, så må det betyde, at jeg bliver nødt til at handle uselvisk og til den andens bedste. Jeg kan altså ikke handle efter forgodtbefindende men skal derimod tage udgangspunkt i den anden person.
Det er ikke det samme som at opfylde den andens ønsker. En sådan handling er ikke nødvendigvis godhed men i stedet ofte eftergivenhed, hvilket blot er ansvarsløs handlen. ’Jeg’ skal derimod selv ud fra min livsforståelse finde frem til, hvad der er til det bedste for den anden. Det medfører dog den risiko, at ’jeg’ påtager mig for meget ansvar, for her kan man ende i den grøft, der hedder: ’jeg alene ved bedst’.
I den situation, hvor jeg ønsker at lave den anden om udviser jeg hensynsløshed. Når man vil handle til den andens bedste, så skal ’jeg’ være villig til at lade den anden bestemme over sig selv. Mit medmenneskes selvstændighed må jeg ikke pille ved. End ikke hvis det i sidste ende vil vær til gavn for ham eller hende, for det andet menneskes ansvar over sig selv må jeg aldrig overtage.
~ K.E. Løgstrup
Den professionelle skal ikke ses som en fejlfinder, der som ekspert skal indkredse, analysere og behandle klientens problemer, men snarere en samtale partner og konsulent, der sammen med klienten kan medvirke til at se nye, fremadrettede vinkler, stille alternative spørgsmål, samt aktualisere skjulte og inaktive ressourcer og potentialer hos klienten.
~ Carl Rogers
Ubuntu er et meget svært ord at oversætte til vestlige sprog. Det vedrører selve menneskelighedens kerne, man siger på en måde: 'Min værdighed er uløseligt forbundet med din. Et menneske er et menneske i kraft af andre mennesker'. Det betyder ikke: 'jeg tænker, altså er jeg', men snarer: 'jeg hører til, jeg deltager, jeg deler med andre, altså er jeg'.
~ Desmond Tutu
Omsorg og ansvarsfølelse ville vandre i blinde, hvis de ikke blev ledet af viden. Viden ville være gold, hvis den ikke udsprang af omsorg. Der er mange grader af viden. Den viden, der er en side af kærligheden, standser ikke ved det perifere, men trænger ind til kernen. Det er kun muligt, hvis jeg, som hjælper, kan sætte mig ud over hensynet til mig selv og betragte den anden ud fra hans egne forudsætninger. Jeg kan for eksempel vide, at en person er vred; men jeg kan kende ham endnu grundigere, og så ved jeg, at han er ængstelig og bekymret, at han føler sig ensom og har skyldfølelse. Så ved jeg, at hans vrede kun er et ydre tegn på noget dybere, og jeg oplever ham som ængstelig og urolig, det vil sige som et lidende og ikke som et vredt menneske.
Alle forsøg på at øve kærlighed er dømt til at slå fejl, hvis man ikke meget aktivt prøver at udvikle hele sin personlighed og derved når frem til en skabende indstilling; og man kan ikke opnå tilfredsstillelse i sin individuelle kærlighed uden evnen til at elske sin næste, uden sand ydmyghed, mod, tro og selvdisciplin.
~ Erich Fromm
Empatisk forståelse drejer sig om at opleve klientens verden, som om det var ens egen, med andre ord at fornemme klientens stress, vrede, frygt, forvirring og problemer, som om det var ens egne, og så alligevel uden at ens egen stress, vrede, frygt, forvirring og problemer blandes ind i det.
~ Lisbeth Sommerbeck
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
~ Henri J. M. Nouwen
An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
~ Carl Jung
Deep Listening involves listening, from a deep, receptive, and caring place in oneself, to deeper and often subtler levels of meaning and intention in the other person. It is listening that is generous, empathic, supportive, accurate, and trusting. Trust here does not imply agreement, but the trust that whatever others say, regardless of how well or poorly it is said, comes from something true in their experience. Deep Listening is an ongoing practice of suspending self-oriented, reactive thinking and opening one’s awareness to the unknown and unexpected. It calls on a special quality of attention that poet John Keats called negative capability. Keats defined this as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."
Our approach to Deep Listening focuses first and foremost on self-awareness as the ground for listening and communicating well with others. This may seem paradoxical—paying more attention to ourselves in order to better communicate with others—but without some clarity in our relationship to ourselves, we will have a hard time improving our relationships with others. A clouded mirror cannot reflect accurately. We cannot perceive, receive, or interact authentically with others unless our self-relationship is authentic. Likewise, until we are true friends with ourselves, it will be hard to be genuine friends with others.
~ David Rome & Hope Martin, Shambhala Sun - Are You Listening? (July 2010)
Unless we are very, very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves. This indifference can be, in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon.
We claim autonomy for ourselves and forget that in so doing we can fall into the tyranny of defining other people as we would like them to be. By focusing on what we choose to acknowledge in them, we impose an insidious control on them. I notice that I have to pay careful attention in order to listen to others with an openness that allows them to be as they are, or as they think themselves to be. The shutters of my mind habitually flip open and click shut, and these little snaps form into patterns I arrange for myself.
The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.
~ Anne Truitt
The idea of helping each other is more subtle than we might think. Generally, when we try to help other people, we make a nuisance of ourselves, make demands upon them.
The reason we make a nuisance of ourselves to other people is that we cannot stand ourselves. We want to burst out into something, to make it known that we are desperate. So we extend ourselves and step out into someone else's territory without permission.
We want to make a big deal of ourselves, no matter if the other person wants to accept us or not. We do not really want to expose our basic character, but we want to dominate the situation around us.
We march straight through into another person's territory, disregarding the proper conditions for entering it. There might be signs saying, "Keep off the grass, no trespassing." But each time we see these signs, they make us more aggressive, more revolutionary. We just push ourselves into the other person's territory, like a tank going through a wall.
We are not only committing vandalism to someone else's territory, but we are disrupting our own territory as well, it is inward vandalism too. It is being a nuisance to ourselves as well as to others.
Most people hate being in this situation. They do not want to feel that they are making a nuisance of themselves. On the other hand, one does not have to adopt a cool facade and a genteel manner and do everything correctly and be polite and considerate.
True consideration is not diplomacy, putting on a facade of smiles or polite conversation. It is something more than that. It requires much energy and intelligence. It requires opening up our territory rather than marching into someone else's. It requires not playing magnetizing or repelling games, not surrounding our territory with electric wire or magnets.
Then there is a faint possibility that we could be of some use to someone else. But we still should be tentative about helping others. We have glimpsed the first step in genuinely helping others, but it takes a lot of time to pick up the thing, put it in our mouth, chew it, taste it, and swallow it. It takes a long time to take our fences down.
The first step is to learn to love ourselves, make friends with ourselves, not torture ourselves any more. And the second step is to communicate to people, to establish a relationship and gradually help them. It takes a long time and a long process of disciplined patience.
If we learn to not make a nuisance of ourselves and then to open ourselves to other people, then we are ready for the third stage - selfless help. Usually when we help someone, we are looking for something in return. We might say to our children, "I want you to be happy, therefore I'm putting all my energy into you," which implies that, "I want you to be happy because I want you to provide me with entertainment; bring me happiness, because I want to be happy."
In the third stage of selfless help, true compassion, we do not do things because it gives us pleasure but because things need to be done. Our response is selfless, noncentralized. It is not for them or for me. It is environmental generosity.
~ Chogyam Trungpa, Working With Emotions, Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa Vol 3, Shambhala Publications
Heart has the notion of being a center; intelligence seems to have a notion of being sharp & enlightened. But this notion of being in the center is not a physical center or physical chakra. It is a question of being right there. That is the idea of chitta, or heart - being there on the spot. And if you are being there - on the spot - then there's also intelligence with it, as well.
~ Chögyam Trungpa, Secret Beyond Thought
(bodhichitta: 'bodhi' means our ‘enlightened essence’ and chitta means ‘heart’ or 'mind', hence the translation ‘the heart of enlightened mind’ - PEJ)
The starting point for the mahayana, the path of the bodhisattva, is that you do not regard your life as boring, nor do you try to escape from your life by any means whatsoever. You do not run after entertainment or substitutions of any kind. You are honest and direct, and you face the facts of life, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of others. You would never let anybody down, or let go of anybody in order to seek pleasure for your own sake. That is what is known as being a fearless bodhisattva warrior.
~ Chögyam Trungpa, The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion: The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma
Generally, it is not that we cannot point others fault out to them but it is a matter of being kind about it. If we are troubled in any way about the situation, then it is difficult to be kind and gentle in showing others fault. When we are troubled and emotional, we will speak with frustration and anger, with less tolerance. We then tend to insult and degrade and speak in an ugly manner that is not pleasant to the ears. Who wants to listen all that even if it is the truth. Though the words are heard, they will not penetrate deep into the heart.
But if we see that their fault is the cause of their suffering we want to relief their suffering then is is easier to have control over our speech. We can then be more skilful and mindful, speaking and watching the reaction of the listener, and knowing when to change tactic or when to stop, etc. etc. - like speaking with care and love and compassion to sick and bed-ridden person; a training by itself. Spoken this way, words will penetrate deep into the heart and sometimes hearts can be moved to tears of reconsideration and reconciliation.
~ Thubten Kway
The slogan “don’t misinterpret” means don’t impose the wrong notion of what harmony is, what compassion is, what patience is, what generosity is. Don’t misinterpret what these things really are. There is compassion and there is idiot compassion; there is patience and there is idiot patience; there is generosity and there is idiot generosity. For example, trying to smooth everything out to avoid confrontation, to not rock the boat, is not what is meant by compassion or patience. That’s what is meant by control. Then you are not trying to step into unknown territory, to find yourself naked with less protection and therefore more in contact with reality. Instead, you use the idiot forms of compassion and so forth just to get ground.
When you open the door and invite in all sentient beings as your guests, you have to drop your agenda. Many different people come in. Just when you think you have a little scheme that is going to work, it doesn’t work. It may be very beneficial to one person, but when you try it on the next person, he looks at you as if you’re crazy, and when you try it on somebody else, she gets insulted. Coming up with a formula won’t work. You don’t know what’s going to help, but all the same you need to speak and act with clarity and decisiveness. Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to look at what’s happening. They come from opening your heart and not running away. Then your actions and speech accord with what needs to be done - for you and for the other person.
~ Pema Chodron, 'Comfortable With Uncertainty', chapter: 'Let the World Speak for Itself'
Det er vigtigt for mig, at møde andre med en åben og fordomsfri holdning, samt at fokusere på ressourcer frem for mangler, da dette ofte medfører en positiv udvikling.
I mit virke som life- og stresscoach, som mentor/coach, samt i de øvrige samspil jeg har haft med andre mennesker, har jeg gjort mig en del erfaringer med ovenstående i en motiverende dialog; og jeg er overbevist om, at omdrejningspunktet i enhver professionel coach/mentor værktøjskasse bør være en eller anden form for motivationssamtale, en sokratisk dialog, en spørgen ind til, på en respektfuld og imødekommende måde.
~ Poul-Erik Juhl
coaching
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stress v/Poul-Erik Juhl
CVR 28618972
Grundlagt 2005 |
Poul-Erik Juhl
25 54 72 83
pe@pejuhl.dk
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