I Allow: Bert Hellinger on Our Struggle with What Already Exists
I Allow: Bert Hellinger on Our Struggle with What Already Exists
Allowing what exists to exist does not mean agreeing to let it run my life.
I can be angry and want the anger to disappear. Be afraid and angry at myself for being afraid. Be hurt by someone, and at the same time carry on an ongoing internal argument with the fact that he is as he is. Much of our struggle takes place not only with what happened, but with the very fact that this is what is here now.
I love Bert Hellinger’s text “I Allow” precisely because of its simplicity. It doesn’t offer us to analyze the emotion, understand where it came from, or why the other person behaves as they do. It offers a different movement: to stop for a moment the struggle with what already exists.
The person in front of me is as they are. The thought that has already appeared is here. The emotion I am feeling already exists in the body. What happened in the past has already happened. I can still choose what to do, how to respond, what boundary to set, from whom to distance myself, and where to go. This choice begins with meeting reality as it is now.
There is something very Hellingerian about this movement. He does not try to convince us to love everything we encounter within ourselves or in the other. He invites us to let things be as they are, at least for a moment, without intervening in them immediately.
I leave here Hellinger’s words as I translated them. After them I will return to this small word, “allow,” and to the important distinction in my view between allowing, surrendering, and choosing.
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I Allow – Bert Hellinger
I allow, and so it begins,
What a development, what an ending.
That I knew,
Karma and balance started it all.
All that happens – is inevitable.
If I refuse,
I will suffer alone.
All I can do
To allow.
I allow others to be as they are.
I allow them to think as they do,
That they judge me, act towards me as they wish.
That I knew,
They are as they are,
And in their eyes, they are right.
If I refuse,
I will suffer alone.
All I can do
To allow.
I allow my thoughts to flow.
I allow every thought to arise,
To exist,
And then fade away.
That I knew,
The thoughts themselves are without substance, they have no special interest in me
They must come, be, and pass.
If I resist,
I will suffer alone.
All I can do
To allow.
I allow my feelings to float.
I allow every emotion to sprout,
To develop,
To pass.
That is my knowledge
Emotions are just physical sensations,
Not bad or good.
Resistance only increases them.
If I refuse to feel,
I will suffer alone.
All I can do
To allow.
I allow myself to be as I am
I allow it.
This is my behavior, these are my reactions, all my actions.
That I knew,
What is seen outside reflects the inside
Me in my depths, with my wisdom.
If I refuse to accept it,
I will suffer alone.
All I can do
To allow.
This is my knowledge,
I am here for the experiences of the present.
In every moment,
All I have to do –
To allow fully,
To experience everything,
To experience fully
To enjoy fully
Look
Just look
Allow everything,
Exactly as it is.
Bert Hellinger, 16/12/1925 – 19/9/2019
Allowing Is Not Surrendering
When I read Hellinger, this distinction is important to me. Allowing reality to be as it is is not surrender to reality. I can see a person as they are without agreeing to everything they do. I can acknowledge that I was hurt without deciding that the hurt will define the rest of my life. I can acknowledge that a certain relationship is as it is, and then decide if and how I want to remain in it.
Acceptance of reality does not require forgiveness, reconciliation, or closeness. It also does not say that what happened was worthy, right, or justified. When I stop arguing with the fact that something already exists, space opens in me for a different question: Now, when I see what is, what do I want to do?
This is a distinction I find meaningful in the therapy room as well. The desire for something to be different can be a tremendous force for change, and it can also leave us in ongoing struggle with a person who is not changing, with a past that cannot be changed, or with an emotion we demand of ourselves to stop feeling.
Recognizing what is brings us back to the present. And from there we can choose.
The Emotion Can Be Here. The Choice Is Still Mine
I can feel anger without hurting. I can be afraid without letting fear decide for me. I can feel jealousy, insult, longing, or the desire to flee, without turning any of them into an instruction I must carry out.
This is one of the important distinctions for me in therapy: An emotion is an experience. It is not a command.
When we are busy trying not to feel, a large part of our energy is directed toward internal struggle. We explain to ourselves why there is no reason to be angry, why we should have already gotten over it, why the fear is not logical, or why we are not allowed to still miss a person who hurt us.
I prefer to be curious about what is already here. Where do I feel it in my body? What happens in me when I give this emotion space without rushing to act from it? And what do I want to choose when the wave shifts a little?
I can allow the emotion to be here, without handing it the wheel.
What Do I Allow Myself?
Hellinger’s sentence becomes even more interesting when the gaze turns inward. How much energy do we invest in trying to be someone other than who we are in this moment: calmer, stronger, more forgiving, more confident, less needy, less sensitive.
There is a difference between the desire to develop and ongoing struggle with myself. Development can also begin from the possibility of seeing myself as I am now: with the places that have already grown and those that still frighten me, with my strengths and with the places where I need others, with the choices I am proud of and those I would do differently today.
Allowing myself to be as I am is not a decision to remain exactly this way. On the contrary. When I stop wasting all my energy on the war with who I am, more space opens to choose who I want to be.
Seeing What Is
This may be why I return to this short text by Bert Hellinger. It reminds me that movement does not have to begin with fixing. It can begin with seeing. The other person. The thought. The emotion. The body. What was. What is now. I can see all of these without rushing to change them, and without giving up the possibility that something will change.
The agreement to see is not the end of the movement. It can be its beginning. Only after I meet what is can I ask myself a question that already holds more freedom:
What do I want to do with this now?
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