Do you know that feeling? You’re always busy and you’ve started to lose oversight a bit. The pressure of everyday life has taken over your life and current events in the world make you lose courage and feel powerless. What can you now mean as a person in a society where people are feeling overstimulated, overwhelmed and overextended? How can you make the difference?
That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling recently. I had somewhat lost track of my mission and was being influenced by the —obviously well intended— feedback I received about the rather outdated macramé-ish image of Transactional Analysis (TA).
Fortunately, I recalled something that inspired me again. I would like to pass that inspiration on to you, so that you too can regain a clear focus on your own mission!
First love
I fell in love with TA when I was barely 18, so one could say that TA was my first great love. ☺ Back then I already learned that TA is a wonderful, effective tool to be an ‘agent of change’ and to make changes for myself and for others. I discovered that I could make the world a better place by installing the basic values of TA in my own private life and work:
Autonomy, making your own choices with respect for others and for myself. Also, the willingness to access and, if necessary, revisit these choices in the here and now.
This was something that I knew. But still, I was overwhelmed by the pressure of everyday life. Do you recognise yourself in this? Then you probably also recognise that you always end up being “woken up” by something at some point.
Inspiration in Berlin
A few years ago, I was at the World-TA Conference in Berlin. I was there because I wanted to continue to learn and meet my colleagues from all over the world. A TA conference is an excellent opportunity for that. It enables you to get inspired and to inspire others.
Berlin, of course, is of important symbolic value when it comes to freedom and the opening of borders. One of the Keynote speakers said:
‘Walls are not falling down by themselves, people bring them down.’
There were about a thousand people in the conference hall and all of them were touched by this quote. When I remember that moment, I feel within my body again why I am so passionate about TA. My mission is clear to me.
Influence with TA
Over the years, I’ve helped people to make a difference and to use their influence in their own environment. There were people who wanted to make their marriage better or make their workplace a better place, managers who wanted to manage their team in a respectful and inspiring way.
I guide women who, through their key positions in companies, organisations or government agencies, have a profound influence on society. Many of these women have found more meaning in their work and lives because they have learned how to use their influence.
Not stuffy, but innovative
At the Berlin conference, hundreds of people spoke about how to apply TA. In companies, with young people, in prisons, in government functions, in volunteer organisations, on the internet through online courses, universities, in intercultural co-operation, in families, in political structures, in immigration issues, in education, in trauma, in psychotherapy, in coaching, in gender issues and so on.
I am convinced that the value of TA is timeless. That it’s more than ever relevant and needed. There is a large community of people who prove each day that TA is a wonderful tool to make the world a better place.
Hip, fresh and inspiring
TA continues to innovate. Throughout the world, people continue to believe in TA and want to change the face of TA. I’m going to contribute!
Away with the stuffy macramé image of TA! We are going to dust of TA and paint it again! TA is hip again!
Do you want to learn how you can use TA in your work as a female leader, coach or people manager? Come and enrol in the International Female Leadership program, so you’ll never spend another sleepless night, wondering about your role as a female leader and how you can make the world a better place.