Sitting under the old linden tree when the last load of day-tourists just left: that is luxury re-imagined. You are the lucky one, as you are staying for the night. Hypnotised by the boats with the white sails elegantly gliding over the azure blue surface of the Chiemsee, and in that very moment the dimensions switch. It seems as if Irmingard just took over, the saint in the monastery nearby, who has been guarding the island for over 1,160 years. You are in her realm now, and could catch a glimpse of … Liberation?
What if you were able to be in the middle of things – but at the same time seeing it all from a distance?
Things show up in our lives and then vanish – just like the ferries full of tourists that are coming and going to the picturesque Island of the Women, the „Fraueninsel“.
We mostly sit in the boat with lots of people around us. Then there’s getting off the ferry, passing by the beautiful meadows, trying to catch a good seat in the beer-garden – and just by the time you get a feeling for the island, you need to catch the last boat back to the main land.
Or, maybe, for a change, you surprise yourself:
Right when things start going the way you have seen so many times – you press the pause button, and instead of being on the boat you sit down under that old linden tree, calmly watching the lake.
We all have that pause button – our mind just needs a little help to be able to press it. Sometimes exhaling a few times does it, or, maybe, thinking of that magical picture and following the white sails in your imagination.
On the Fraueninsel however, the serene evening hours belong to the resident cats. There are no cars, no bikes, and nature unfolds its vivid tranquility. The cats don’t care about the day-tourists anyway. But the evening stroll is something they give as a treat to their human servants, who are allowed to walk behind them, where they belong.
In this lifetime the cats chose Bavaria over the dream islands in the Pacific or the South See, and so did about two hundred residents of the Fraueninsel.
In the next one? Who knows…
This text, as well as „Follow your Focus“ is inspired by the work of Dr. Gunther Schmidt. He studied with the legendary Milton H. Erickson and integrated his work with the systemic therapy, thus founding the hypnosystemic approach and demystifying the state of hypnosis.