Again, this week’s post was inspired by a person and her work I found on Instagram. (Yes, there is a lot more level on Instagram than this “important” self-display with posts about fingernails, new hair-dresses, pets, food, and sharing current activities). However, I saw excerpts of lectures from this amazing German woman, Vera Birkenbihl. She was a highly intelligent researcher, an inspiring speaker, and an impressive personality. She worked as a management trainer and non-fiction author. She scientifically explains what we feel as our inner struggles, even though we can’t name them, why they exist, why they are in our nature, and why we run into walls by denying them. I don’t know if her books have been translated into English, but if you google her name, you’ll find a flood of information. I saw several excerpts of her profound and humorous teachings. I don’t know if two of them were part of the same lecture, but they feel like problems and solutions.

First excerpt:
Birkenbihl said that if you are irritated, angry, or upset for longer than 15 seconds, it no longer has anything to do with what has happened, but only with you. Because after the 15 seconds, your program takes over. If your program, for example, holds an antipathy for burping, you will feel offended by someone doing it next to you. She said, maybe you are offended by my example of burping – it’s about you. If you say the example is ok, but couldn’t you use a different term – it’s about you. If it’s not in your program, you won’t even recognize it.

This is something I have often written about. If there is something you are attached to, it will trigger something in you. While on the other hand, you don’t even see particular issues that can take other people to a boil. What triggers you has something to do with you and not with the person next to you. I could get nuts when my husband eats his yogurt. When he comes to the bottom, he scratches that spoon against the plastic as if he were punishing it for something. Then he is scratching every little molecule from the walls of that small container that you would think you can refill and sell it again. I am not surprised anymore that we carry microplastic in our bodies. That all goes on for minutes!! Sometimes, I leave the room for not losing it. Yes, it has to do with me, I know… lol

Second excerpt:
Birkenbihl shared the recipe against anger and rage. Smiling reduces stress and anger. Don’t we know that? But she explained why. She said that regardless of whether your stress is real or imagined, you make your body sick in the same way. The same happens with the positive. If you feel joy, whether what you are feeling is based on reality or in your imagination, it influences your immune system positively. If you are now angry at the roots of your hair and someone makes you laugh, you will have laughed away most of your anger after 10 seconds. After those 10 seconds, you leave the emotional state and drift back into thinking. But if there is no one around who makes you laugh, you need to and can help yourself.

Fake a smile for 60 seconds. No matter how furious you are, keep faking that smile. When you smile, a muscle in your cheeks pushes a nerve that sends a message to the brain that you are smiling, and the brain produces happy hormones. You can trick your own program that way, BUT you need 60 seconds if you faked that smile. So whether you smile or laugh naturally for 10 seconds or fake a smile for 60 seconds, the result is exactly the same. Isn’t that amazing? You can direct your body to calm down, think clearly again, and even do something for your immune system by only faking a smile.

I would love you to try this out, and please let me know about your experience. And I will try this out tonight when my husband eats his yogurt 😂

In Love and Light

Side note:
Vera Birkenbihl died in December 2011. Some said that she was not only highly intelligent but had a difficult personality, too. Hmm, I understand that… she knew too much. She must have looked at you and saw the core of your struggle and the excuses dancing around it.