The key in letting go is practice.

Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are. – Sharon Salzberg

Looking back, I realize that these years between 2005/2007 and 2010 were a first overly clear experience with the total unreliability of people: people don't mean what they say in half of all cases - today I claim in at best 10% of all cases/situations. The whole day and the whole evening is spent talking and chatting, evaluating one thing, condemning another, everyone thinks they have to have an opinion on everything and everyone, without even rudimentarily perhaps knowing anything about the subject, and, oh, such an opinion!!! God forbid one should not have one! People will look at you with looks that express the question undisguisedly: "Well - are you a bit stupid? Do you live behind the moon, or what?" Being an adult means having an opinion about things. Only naive little children don't have that - their own opinion.

People hold their own opinions sacred, but interestingly, most don't even begin to understand that they are, in fact, parroting the opinions of others - notwithstanding the fact that it is not only since social media that there have been people and entities referred to as "opinion makers." Not to mention the existence of "public opinion.

I found this remarkable even as a young person, how people lie to themselves and delude themselves so much!?…

However, the older I got, the more disapproving looks I received when I openly expressed my thoughts of this kind.

Children are forgiven for saying things as they are; there is a saying in German that goes like this, "Children's mouths speak the truth!" And all parents of small children know that the kindergarten teachers know everything that goes on at home.

Now I'm starting to reach an age again, where I can again mercilessly express what I think, observe and perceive, in public and all openness, the whiter my hair and the more wrinkles I get around the eyes and mouth. But well, I’m dying my hair, yes…

People say so much... and don't mean it at all. And because they don't mean it, they are not even aware of what they are saying, they forget it right away. That's how whole marriages and friendships are led, as I'm beginning to understand here and now, at least halfway.

Well, understand is not quite the right word... it is more a see and "aha" effect... because understand in the sense I do not.

What a waste of time and energy, I ask myself instead actually, all these half-cooked relationships and interactions? Back in those last years in Munich, when I attended all these networking events, I was completely unaware of all this. I took people by their word and fell from one disappointment to the next, sometimes more strongly, sometimes less strongly. Maybe two or three people crystallized as those who at least often meant what they said - so I could rely on them. Everything else is almost always just hot air and much ado about nothing.

Despite the year and a half of therapy, I was depressed and lonely. I was extremely lonely. I sought distraction outside, whether it was with the children in my life, or mountain bike day trips to the mountains, or above mentioned networking events…

But professionally nothing concrete developped, and in my private life neither. And the more depressed and lonely I became again, the easier a prey I became for a certain kind of narcissistic hunter, who doesn't only come in male form.

Our emotions are anything but worthless, and they are not uncontrollable either. They are closely related to neuronal processes, and these must be understood, because on these, we have an influence. Just five minutes of meditative gardening can change neural connections in the brain. And this changes our attitude towards ourselves and towards life, and thus our emotions, because emotions do not arise out of nothing. Emotions are not the same as feelings, and they are an important part of our whole being, they are signposts and connecting channels to our deeper self.

I read all this for the first time in a book by Deepak Chopra, in the summer of 2010, after three promising business prospects for freelance collaboration had broken away within three weeks. This was the moment when I once again found myself in front of a pile of broken pieces, shaking my head and wondering how this could be.

I started looking through job ads again and writing applications, but nothing came of it, nothing at all. By the end of the summer 2010, I was finally hitting rock bottom, both economically and psychologically.

While shopping, a book fell into my hands in which the Indian doctor Deepak Chopra explains the ancient Vedic scriptures of India in a scientific way. I weighed whether I had that ten euros... perhaps if I consumed a little less milk and butter and could therefore save on those supplies this week... That's what I decided and bought the book. I have since given it away and don't remember the title either... but I remember this passage as if I had just read it yesterday:

When a hunter goes out hunting and does not encounter any animal all day, he does not think that there are no animals.

He wonders why he hasn't encountered one today.

When I read this, I suddenly realized that my problem was within me.