Empowerment: Reclaiming our Essence of Aliveness

In the developmental stage of autonomy*, the human infant needs to master a great developmental task: differentiation from their mother. As important as is to have received and have been enveloped by the golden merging by mother in the symbiotic stage, so is the the stage of differentiation and building a structure on which our autonomy can be based. When we are able to move towards differentiation, we can finally create the right pre-requisite to start being and feeling the Self. We can be our own entity, feel our own impulses and move into the world in order to express ourselves and actualize these impulses. We are filled with a creative curiosity and we can feel the joy of exploration, and the courage to go for adventure. We feel we have wings, we feel excited and empowered. We have the feeling we can do it, and that gives us great confidence. This is the source where we tap as adults to go out into the world, realize who we are and what we intend, and feel excited about participating in life with our own impulse.

No child can differentiate from the mother or parents, without the active support of these parents. When we were not supported to take that crucial step of differentiation, we lack confidence, we stay in a negatively merged state, we don’t know what autonomy is. We are either collapsed or we become oppositional as we know only false autonomy, which is nothing else but reactivity. We don’t respond from authentic inner impulses, we just only oppose, react and resist, or become passive aggresive. In this group we will revisit the stage of differentiation, in order to build a true structure of autonomy and receive an empowerment that will support us to truly claim our Essence of Aliveness, our spirit of exploration, the excitement that comes from sensing and following our onw inner impulses coming from the core. In our daily life this translates to self-confidence, empowerment, the capacity to stand up for ourselves and take our life into our own hands.

*between 8 months to 2 years 6 months old according to Bodynamic theory and between 6-24 months according to Margaret Mahler (separation individuation phase).