MEET MY MONSTERS

What makes it possible for us to change a difficult situation for the better? What is the interplay between our inner landscapes and our agency in the outside world? What is there to be learned from unpleasant (and pleasant!) feelings? How does our ability to cooperate with our inner monsters affect our sense of fulfilment in life?

My first serious encounters with monsters were through literature. While at Cambridge and later in Berlin, I studied their usage as metaphors for everything designated ‘unwanted’, ‘not normal’, and ‘dangerous to the existing power hierarchies’. After my PhD on monsters in English language picture books, I encountered an entirely different species of monsters: those inside myself. They hit me with full force.

I didn’t want them, but that seemed to make them even more pestering. They ranged from nagging self-doubt and depression to a bewildering lack of orientation and strange, occasional bursts of exaltation. This, my second serious encounter with monsters, became the cornerstone of my work today. This time, I studied inner monsters – not only my own, but those of other people, too. They became the stuff of my second book and initiated my professional engagement with them in my role as coach and trainer.

Our inner monsters’ power to make us feel stuck and the power we can gain through a liberating interaction with them will probably continue to intrigue me for the rest of my life.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation
• Systemic Business Coach training at Coaching Individual Berlin – Anette Schirmer & Partner (200h) – DVCT-certified programme
• intensive practice and study of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), e.g. NVC Train-the-trainer programme with Gabriele Seils, Convergent Facilitation (a decision-making process for groups, based on NVC and designed by Miki Kashtan) with Magdalena Baranska and Roni Wiener
• Systemic Business Trainer at Trainergemeinschaft Berlin (200h)