What do you want to be? What if, at five, twenty, or even fifty, we can't give a clear, one-word answer? Is there something wrong with us if we constantly switch careers?

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When I was little and people asked what I wanted to be, I couldn’t answer. I remember often slipping away with an awkward smile. I disliked the question, but that was nothing compared to how much I despised it fifteen years later. I still didn't know what I wanted to be. I was curious about so much and sought as much information about the world as I could gather.

People often don’t know what to make of those who have diverse interests. I envied my fellow students in university who, since seventeen, knew what they wanted, even if their only aspiration was as simple as, "Become a banker, get rich, and be surrounded by beautiful women." At least they had a vision. I didn’t.

I loved doing many things and cherished learning. Not econometrics – to this day, I don't understand how I passed that – but almost everything else. I achieved proficiency in most things I pursued. I delved into philosophy, psychology, ethology, novels, drama, crafted tapestries, played sports, and acquired knowledge about hand-knotted rugs, photography, and interior design. I transitioned from a media planner to brand manager at a multinational company, then I became an interior designer. Ultimately, I settled in family constellations and writing.

From a "traditional" viewpoint, this might be seen as a lack of perseverance, a notion I never agreed with. Because I am persistent. I am persistent in learning.

How many times did I see that desperate question in my parents' eyes: "What will become of you?" Not to mention, they still ponder what answer to give to the question, "What does your daughter do?" They can’t simply say "Everything," right? Eventually, I came across Dr. Barbara Kerr's definition of multipotentialites.

What is multipotentiality, and who are multipotentialites?

Multipotentiality is the ability to realize numerous career options due to broad interests, talent spanning various fields, and unique receptivity.

As I researched further, I found that multipotentialites can learn quickly and deeply, mastering subjects at a high level. Then, since they love learning new things, they move on once they feel they've mastered everything they wanted from that particular field. Finally, an explanation for why I changed careers just when I was getting good at something!

Although outsiders often think it's foolish and leads nowhere to keep starting over, that's not the case. We don’t start from scratch. It’s crucial to recognize that with every new career, I utilized and integrated everything I previously learned. This often resulted in more efficient and creative solutions than what's typically seen in that field.

Multipotentialites do have disadvantages, like never having a thirty-year dental practice, thus not accumulating as much experience in one domain as those who’ve been drilling and filling teeth for decades. But they have many advantages. They learn quickly and efficiently, are used to being beginners and thus unafraid of mistakes. Their varied experiences, which they combine to solve problems, make them more creative. They're always enthusiastic, adept at synthesizing ideas, can easily switch between different thought patterns, and are more open-minded than most. These traits make them especially suitable for leadership roles and managing complex problems and situations.

Think of it like the difference between a bread knife and a Swiss army knife. While a Swiss army knife can't slice bread as neatly as a specialized bread knife, it's undoubtedly handier when faced with multifaceted tasks. Most of us own both.

Steve Jobs probably wasn't the world's best coder, but he was a champion at seeing connections that eluded others. He was competent in coding, marketing, design, and logistics but wasn't the best at any of them within Apple. He thought in strategies and overarching concepts and, in collaboration with skilled specialists, revolutionized an entire industry.

In short, if you find a thousand things fascinating and can't say you'll do what you're doing now for the rest of your life, don’t despair! Hone your skills, and once you achieve what you wanted in a particular field, don’t hesitate to switch! By doing so, you're doing the best for yourself and the world. Achieving truly great results requires everyone, both specialists and multipotentialites.

With this comfort, I can return to László Mérő’s book titled “The Logic of Miracles.” Although it has little to do with my current interests, I'll surely integrate probability calculations somehow into family constellations eventually.

– Eszter

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Emma slowly walked into the restaurant. She knew the class reunion would be awkward, as all she could share was that she had divorced and was raising her children alone. As she entered the private dining room, she saw Laslo, her old flame. They had dated for three years in high school. Her heart raced a bit faster. The man had put on some weight, but he was still handsome and also divorced. They talked as if twenty years hadn't passed. At eleven, they left. Laslo helped Emma with her coat and asked if she would like to have dinner with him sometime. Emma nodded.

'Tuesday at seven at Moscow Square, under the clock?' the man asked. Emma smiled and nodded.

'Just like old times…’ she said, laughing, and then turned somber. There was no Moscow Square, nor a clock anymore...

– Eszter

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In a downtown store, on a sunlit shelf, I caught sight of the crystal pineapple. It felt as if lightning had struck me. The early afternoon sun shone directly on the shelf, and the crystal pineapple sparkled and bathed in its rays. I knew instantly that I had to have it. Its price was quite exorbitant, but I couldn't leave it behind. I was aware that this purchase might be deemed madness, as it would definitely mean I'd have to tighten my belt for the rest of the month, but I was helpless against the charm of the crystal pineapple.

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The salesperson gave me a strange look, seemingly not understanding why someone would pay so much for an inedible pineapple, but I didn't care. I hid my precious, silk-wrapped treasure in a bag and with a broad smile on my face, I left the store. It felt fantastic to own it! The sparkling, beautiful crystal pineapple was mine! My steps felt light, and my soul danced with ecstasy.

As I walked towards the bus stop with the crystal pineapple in my bag, I slowly snapped out of my trance. The handle of the bag dug deep into my palm, a pain that grew with every step. I wondered how I was going to buy a birthday gift for my best friend now that I'd spent my savings. I started to crunch numbers. I could still afford the rent, and I'd somehow manage the utilities. If I ate lunch at the diner near my workplace and had cereal for dinner, I'd make it through the month.

By the time I'd reached this point in my train of thought, a sudden anxiety gripped my stomach. What about my student loan? How would I pay the installment?

The bag in my hand felt as heavy as lead. I sat down on the bench at the bus stop and gently placed the package beside me. I looked inside, unfolded the silk paper, and saw the leaves of the crystal pineapple. I caressed its smooth, cold surface. I truly loved this pineapple. I knew it was madness, and that I shouldn't feel this way for what was essentially a beautifully crafted piece of glass, but I was sure I couldn't part with it. The mere thought of losing it choked me up, holding back tears. Despite my efforts, a few tears did escape, and I didn't want to board the bus like this. Two buses came and went before I managed to compose myself.

I resolved that, come what may, I would keep the crystal pineapple! If necessary, I'd eat only two croissants a day for the next three weeks, but I wouldn't give it up!

With this determination, I boarded the bus home. The bag still felt heavy but not unbearably so. The crystal pineapple rested peacefully within, and I hugged it close when I finally found a seat. I got off at the last stop, with only three of us left on the bus. I let a mother with her visibly impatient child go ahead of me. I carefully descended the bus steps, ensuring not to bump the pineapple against anything.

I only had a few blocks to walk home. When I entered the apartment, I carefully set the pineapple on the cushioned chair in the hallway, not wanting to unwrap it until everything else was in order. Once I had changed, I approached the bag and gently unwrapped its contents. Holding the crystal pineapple in my hand warmed my heart, and I smiled. I took it to the living room and slowly, carefully placed it on the shelf, right next to my father's photo. Looking at his picture, tears began to stream again. I caressed the pineapple, and with teary eyes, I smiled and said,

‘Dad, do you remember how much I grimaced when you first made me taste pineapple?’

– Eszter

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I often hear complaints that young people are disrespectful to their elders. I also see many parents insinuating to their child: I gave you life, you do as I say!

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Isn’t it disrespectful to consider a completely autonomous being – albeit tiny at first – as our own property and to control them as if they are characters in a computer game? If children grow up with this example, how can we expect respect from them later? Especially when this ownership reaches a level where the parent practically “pantry-packs” the child for harder times.

That is, conditioning them from a young age to support the parent in their old age, constantly citing the many sacrifices already made for them. By doing this to our children, we essentially deprive them of their own lives, their own decisions, and their life energy, positioning them as a resource in our pantry, next to flour, sugar, and preserved vegetables, always to be available for more difficult times.

Through this conscious or subconscious attitude, we transfer our life’s responsibility onto the child's shoulders; they must then consider our well-being in all of their decisions. As a result, a substantial part of the child’s life energy is not invested in building their life or family but is diverted to maintaining the parent's happiness and standard of living. Within this conditional system, the young adult is likely to avoid making risky career decisions and may abandon their dreams, as they have to provide security to the parent; experimentation has no place in this arrangement. The parent essentially becomes the first child of their children.

Bert Hellinger always said that this situation is analogous to a river flowing backward. According to him, energy must flow from the older generation to the younger and not the other way around. If we reverse this natural flow, humanity will soon be extinct as the younger generation will not have sufficient energy to properly care for their children, take risks and find new ways of living.

Prospective parents should never forget that having a child is not a business transaction, even if many treat it as such due to fear of the future, loss of their comfort, or existential anxiety. Anyone deciding to have a child needs to understand that it’s their decision and their responsibility alone, not the child’s.

Parenting entails making sacrifices in energy, leisure time, and finances, and it is an “investment” that may never pay off. After all, our child’s fate may not involve success, wealth or health but failure, deprivation, or even illness. So, it might be us who will be helping them throughout our lives, and not the other way around. Naturally, in most cases, the situation isn’t this hard, but it’s a possible scenario that can not be excluded.

If we can respect the child's own life path and allow them the freedom to do what they want with their life, a mutually respectful and loving relationship could develop between parent and child. As a result, the adult child will naturally want to help the parents.

However, another important thing must be mentioned. Often, children assist their parents through life energy, attention, and love, not through financial means. Many in today’s world may not value these elements, but they are indeed valuable. What a child chooses to give to their parents in adulthood is their decision, just as what a parent chose to give to their child in their younger years was theirs. Bert Hellinger often stated that just as a child must come to terms with what they have received from their parents, the parents too must accept what a child gives them as an adult.

Let’s not forget; no parents are perfect, even if many like to think they are beyond reproach. Often, what a child lacked during their childhood is never even discussed, not even when they become adults.

Perhaps our children would have preferred more quality time and play, but we were always preoccupied with cooking or enrolling them in extra classes. From this single example, we can see how children have to accept the quantity and quality of what they receive from their parents during childhood. It is only fair for parents to similarly accept the quantity and quality of what they receive from their adult children, even if the parent desires money but the child can only give attention, or vice versa.

Parents often label children who distance themselves in adulthood as ungrateful, but like every relationship, it takes two to tango. The deterioration of relationships is never solely the responsibility of one party.

In relationships with strangers, we understand that one adult cannot force another adult to give something if they don’t want to. Sooner or later, our child also grows up, and just like in childhood, we cannot own their life or their life force in adulthood. Whether our adult child takes care of us—either with love, energy, or materially—is their decision. If we managed to establish a loving relationship with them in childhood and respected their boundaries, they will likely be happy to be with us and will do what they can for us.

– Eszter

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Welcome to the eleventh issue of Eszter’s Weekly Elephant! We hope your week has been pleasant so far! Let's dive into this week's issue!

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Just the other night, before falling asleep, I sat on the bed staring blankly ahead, closing off the day within myself. As I let my gaze drift half-unconsciously over the bedroom decor, I couldn’t help but smile. Among our numerous decorations, which I adore, more than half — in fact, nearly three-quarters — are handmade items. We have items like cross-stitched embroideries, crocheted bedspreads, and wall hangings, some of which I made and others crafted by different artisans. We also have hand-carved or ceramic sculptures, framed photographs from the film and development era, hand-knotted rugs, candle holders carved from mango wood, and a mouse statue sewn together from various textiles by a textile artist.

I remember when we came home after a long time and entered the untouched º+, the bedroom hit both of us with such energy as we stepped in. Tears came to my eyes because I found the room so beautiful. Don’t think it was about some wonderfully, professionally designed space filled with harmoniously matching furniture and artworks carefully chosen to complement the colors of the room. Our bedroom is more eclectic – and I use the word "eclectic" euphemistically. Yet, despite the apparent disorder, these handmade objects, into which so much work, love, thought, and attention have been woven, carved, and shaped, fill the room with energy like mini reactors. I will always be grateful to those creators who make such beautiful objects and imbue them with so much love and energy that, long after they have left their hands and adorn someone's shelf or wall, they still continuously radiate this positive energy, just as the Sun radiates light and warmth.

I myself also enjoy making things by hand. Mostly cross-stitched embroideries, whose designs I acquire from talented textile designers or my own invented small to large crochet projects, and occasionally, I also draw or paint our dogs' portraits.

Once, I saw photos of a funeral where relatives and friends brought the patchwork quilts the deceased aunt had made for them. They spread them over the back of every pew, so those walking towards the coffin could view the aunt's creations as if walking through an exhibition. I think this is a wonderful and touching idea. What better way to show someone's personality, to make their energy felt, than through objects they have created by hand with countless hours of work and attention?

When we returned home after several years away, our house felt incredibly alive even though it had been virtually unvisited for years, not filled with life energy. Our handmade objects, left to themselves during our absence, like tiny reactors, continuously charged the rooms with vitality. We had slowly become accustomed to this energy while we were home, hardly noticing it anymore, so it was a huge surprise to see how alive and beautiful everything was when we arrived.

I know we have limited time and for many of us, financial resources are tight when it comes to home decor. Not everyone can afford to buy and restore hand-carved antique furniture, nor do many have time to crochet a wall hanging. Therefore, we opt for mass-produced IKEA products or printed objects that look like paintings, or ceramics churned out on a production line. But I feel that these items will never have the wonderful energy of pieces that someone has crafted by hand. Just like a hand-polished antique diamond has a completely different energy than a modern, laser-cut version.

All in all, what I want to say is that it's worth paying attention to acquiring things for our homes that are the careful realizations of ideas from the minds of talented artists, because these objects elevate our homes to a different level.

From the above, I am sure it's clear to everyone that I am not a fan of minimalist interior design. At one point, my husband found this bothersome, but fortunately, there's no conflict over this anymore; he has resigned himself to having a wife who likes knick-knacks.

Although I understand those who love minimalist interior design, ever since I sat next to a Norwegian colleague at a business dinner who said that, amidst a living room overrun by Fisher-Price hell and two kids, he longs for nothing more than to sit down in a living room where there is nothing but a sofa, a coffee table, and a TV. While I understand the appeal of minimalist design, I need to be surrounded by objects when I sit down in an armchair or on the sofa. Not just a few objects, but those on which my eyes can rest and from which I can recharge, whether because I am in awe of the creator’s creativity and craftsmanship or because I made them and I am proud of myself, if for nothing else, for my perseverance in managing to complete 32 times 305 crochet stitches, which is, after all, 9,760 stitches.

With life continuously buzzing around us and our rescued dogs hardly settling down for a minute—playing, chewing, rolling around—I hadn't previously noticed to such an extent how much the handmade objects add to the energy in our environment. I've always loved them, but as we arrived at the "dormant" house, both of us were struck by the energy accumulated in our absence. It was not aired out, dust sat on everything, but these wonderful objects created by the hands of talented people still "shone" in such a way that we felt we had arrived at some kind of sacred place. And if you think about it, that's exactly what happened.

True creativity is a “profoundly spiritual activity”, as my fellow Substacker wrote in a comment under one of my essays, and he was very right. Creation is nothing but the pouring of energy, which does not yet exist on the physical plane, into physical form. This is alchemy of the highest order. For a creation to be beautiful, to be harmonious, to be magical, it must contain a pinch of divine or universal energy. Since this divine, universal energy is infinite, it's no wonder that the objects into which skillful hands have woven, drawn, carved, painted this energy really are like tiny reactors. They have endless energy, embodying the beauty, harmony, and the solid form of divine energy. They glow like fireflies in the dark.

As a writer, I myself know that when I manage to weave this energy into a story, then that story becomes imbued with magic. It speaks to anyone who connects even slightly to God, the universe, fate, or whatever we choose to call it.

Thousands of shades, symbols, and details converge, often beyond my control, into a perfect, harmonious whole. This unity speaks to each reader differently, touching them in the precise way they need.

I believe that this magic is the real purpose of human existence. We all long to make visible, tangible a tiny part of eternity and to show it off proudly, happily, like a child shows a glowing firefly in his or her hand, to ourselves and to the world. That's why we writers so crave feedback from readers and why craftsmen who manage to sell their works are so incredibly happy after every sale.

Creativity allows us to manifest the divine in the physical world, weaving universal energy into our works. These creations then enrich, transform, and elevate all who engage with them. And this is the real wonder of creativity, and this is what Dostoevsky was talking about when he said, "Beauty will save the world." If you're interested in why I think he was right, then read my next essay as well:

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So, I would encourage everyone to create themselves and to seek out artists, craftsmen whose work they admire. Give them feedback, recommend them to others, so that more people can see, touch, connect with these tiny reactors and bask in their energy.

With that, I'll start the list. Before we move on to this week's topics, here are a few creators among my favorites, without claiming completeness, because the full list would be very long. On these websites, you'll find creations spanning a range of prices, from affordable to more expensive. These are not affiliate links, just a list of some artists whose work I adore. Receive this list with a lot of love and if you feel like it, add your favorites in the comments!

• theguywiththehook.com

• instagram.com/jamescookartwork

• totherno.hu/szobrok.php

• affianced.hu/en

• degournay.com

• herend.com/en

• curlyjocreation.com

• etsy.com/de-en/shop/TeddyandWool

• reneelopresticeramics.com

• instagram.com/charactersbyjulia

• instagram.com/olga.soldo

• vanessabarragao.com

• sarahpikepottery.com

Now let's move on to our topics for this week!

This week, our article discusses a frequently occurring flawed attitude that many families struggle with. I often hear about how this or that family member is problematic, what they should be doing better or differently, or what they should improve about themselves. Or, if the individual is a minor, how the parents should handle their child's problem. However, things are not as simple as they seem. To understand the appropriate attitude and how we can effectively improve the situation for the entire family in case of a problem, read the article!

Related to this article, it's worth reading an older post about the "Fat Kid Syndrome," which discusses the relationship between the problematic family member and the family's subconscious agreements. What the Fat Kid Syndrome is – which is not the same as the black sheep phenomenon, because while the former accepts and adopts the role imposed by the family, the black sheep actively rebels against the established order – is revealed in the article.

In the "Beyond the Book" section this week, we took a closer look at one of Oscar Wilde's novels, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," from a unique perspective. I examined the novel as if each character were a facet of Dorian Gray's personality. This viewpoint is interesting because, as therapists often say regarding dreams and fairy tales, we fully grasp a story's message only when we see every character as a reflection of ourselves, or rather, an aspect of our personality. Those curious about what the novel says from this analytical perspective should read the essay!

Thank you!

We hope that this week we've provided you with exciting information and entertaining stories again!

Thank you for reading Eszter's Weekly Elephant regularly. We are delighted that you find our writings interesting and hope we can welcome you among our paid subscribers!

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Sincerely,

Eszter & Nam

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It was Oscar Wilde who provided me with the first significant literary experience that I did not start reading because of the well-known school reason of "I must read it because it's compulsory." It was my father who handed me the story of ‘The Canterville Ghost’. The tale of the brave little girl who saw with her heart rather than her mind, and the desperately redemption-seeking ghost captivated me. I believe it was my first consciously grasped lesson that things are not always what they seem, and as Saint Exupéry says, "One sees clearly only with the heart, what is essential is invisible to the eye."

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I believe that this theme also plays a significant role in Oscar Wilde's novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray,' among many other important lessons. In the story, Dorian Gray's beauty bewitches those who only see with their eyes. As he encounters few people who discern his true nature with their hearts, he manages to escape the consequences of his cowardice and, later, the crimes he commits. Fortunately, Oscar Wilde believed that the essence of things, the truth, will eventually be revealed, and so Dorian's punishment catches up with him.

Certainly, many have examined and analyzed this story in various ways. What I love about surreal, magical stories like this one is that they can be interpreted in many ways; they have a thousand layers, and all these interpretations are valid. We all decode the exciting elements, often unconsciously woven into surreal stories by the writer, according to our current level of consciousness, emotional state, and intellect. It's always a great experience for me when readers discover new layers of the stories I write.

That's why I decided to examine this novel from an exciting perspective that I have a lot of experience with as a family constellation therapist, which ultimately led me to further develop and enhance the method of family constellation.

From this point on, there will be spoilers in the text, so if you haven't read the novel yet and don't want to be informed about certain details in advance, you should not read any further.

I have been dealing a lot lately with fairy tale therapy, which, within its framework, helps people learn certain problem-solving patterns through folk tales. In these tales, we find those archaic patterns encoded in symbols that have been helping humanity survive and improve life for centuries. These symbols, stored in the collective human consciousness, remain comprehensible to our subconscious even today. However, to understand them consciously, we must make an effort to examine the tales and their symbols more closely and in greater depth.

In fairy tale therapy, the first and most important thing when decoding a story is that every character is ourselves, each character is an aspect of our personality. The heroes of the stories need to somehow cooperate or overcome these aspects. Even though everyone wants to identify with the brave knight or the wise princess, we are as much the brave knight and the wise princess as we are the iron-nosed witch, the old man, or the dragon. To create our kingdom, to be worthy of sitting on the throne of our own lives, we must defeat the dragon, negotiate with the iron-nosed witch, resist the fairy's temptation, and withstand the trials. If we look at Oscar Wilde's novel in this way, we can see that Dorian Gray fails miserably and ultimately is not worthy of sitting on the throne to live a peaceful, happy life.

Let's see what happens in this novel!

If we decode the novel so that all the characters are actually Dorian Gray himself, then we can see that this young man not only fails to cooperate with his own parts and eventually sit on the throne as a wise king, he wasn't even able to prevent his own destruction.

Who are the characters of the novel, if we look at it from this perspective?

There is Dorian Gray, a young, not overly wise man, who quickly reveals that he has no solid, well-developed moral compass, therefore he is very easily influenced.

Although we do not know much about his childhood, it is clear that he also lacks a healthy self-esteem, as he too readily accepts that in life, the only true value and thus his only true value is beauty. Lord Henry Wotton, who implants this realization into Dorian's ear, represents the hedonistic, vain part of the young man's personality that wants power over the other parts of his personality and, through this, over other people. Since Dorian is fortunate enough to be blessed with good looks, he does not have to do much to be considered valuable by this measure, and he immediately accepts this viewpoint. Here, Dorian chooses the easy path, only to realize that beauty fades with the years, and he begins to fear its loss.

As Dorian sits for Basil Hallward, the painter, he becomes increasingly desperate not to lose his value and wishes from his heart that the painting would age instead of him. In life, we always get what we wish for; the problem is that often our wishes are subconscious programs, which is why it seems that the things we want do not come to fruition, but that is a topic for another article.

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Dorian gets what he desires: the painting, which the painter gifts to him, begins to age in his stead. Basil Hallward's character is interesting because he is the only one in the story who always sees Dorian for who he really is. When he paints him, he sees a beautiful, innocent young man, and later he is the one who sees the distorted portrait as well and tells Dorian that if he does not redeem himself somehow, he is lost. For this statement, he pays with his life towards the end of the novel. That is, Dorian destroys a crucial part of himself—the part that perpetually confronts him with the truth.

Indeed, the painter truly sees Dorian precisely because, as an artist, he sees with his heart and notices things invisible to others. In my opinion, Hallward is not Dorian's conscience but rather that voice we all know, which tells the truth even when we do not want to hear it. That voice warns us that if we do this or that, we will destroy something important to us. We often silence this voice within ourselves, though not as drastically as Dorian did. Only later, when confronted with the consequences of our actions, do we realize that we should have listened.

Sybill Vane, the object of Dorian's sudden and just as quickly extinguished passion, represents the naïve, childlike part of the man that is creative, talented, and needs encouragement, attention, and love to flourish. This part also has the potential to collaborate with Dorian to create something in his life that he could base his self-esteem on proudly. But the man turns away from this creative, childlike part at its first mistake and cruelly neglects it afterward. This childlike part withers from the cruel treatment, barring Dorian from the chance to have a truly happy life.

Janus Vane, Sybill's brother, who seeks to avenge his sister's suicide caused by Dorian, is nothing but that part of Dorian's personality that we all know well. This self-destructive part wants to annihilate the person for perceived or, in this case, actual faults. I am sure we have all experienced making a decision in a given situation that caused harm or difficulty and which we later saw clearly was a mistake. Janus Vane represents this part of Dorian's personality when he tries to take his life.

I will not speak of the other, lesser characters in the novel, as that would make this analysis very long, and after all, the conflicts among the aforementioned characters are what give the story its essence.

Of course, there is still the painting, the living imprint of Dorian's conscience. As Dorian plunges deeper into the depths of the swamp he has chosen, his portrait becomes more hideous, for it bears witness to the atrocities he has committed and concealed with his charming appearance. Eventually, the truth becomes so oppressive and the prospect of his secret being revealed so terrifying that Dorian does not even shy away from murder to keep it concealed. When he finally tries to destroy the painting to rid himself of the risk of his true nature being discovered, he himself dies, because what he truly sought to destroy was his soul. This is what the painting represented. Because in the soul, all our actions, every single word we utter are stored, hence there is no escape. The soul cannot be destroyed; it is only our ego, our personality, that can be killed. This is what Dorian does, although it was not his intention.

Oscar Wilde's novel is the perfect antithesis to the stories we see in folktales. There is no solution born, no dragon is conquered, no witch is destroyed, and the hero does not listen to that central part that could lead him out of the dead end into which his vain, hedonistic side has driven him. This story illustrates well that if a single part of us takes control and undeservedly sits on the throne of our life, ruling us with its madness, then bitter destruction is the end. Dorian also had the opportunity to reconsider his decisions, to turn around, to listen to his soul present in the form of his portrait, or to the truthful part shown in the figure of the painter, but he did not.

This novel is a wonderfully complex fairy tale written for adults, which shows in detail how not to live, how not to succumb to the temptation of a narrow-minded part of us towards the easy path. It tells us that as we grow up and become mature, it is crucial to find those parts of ourselves, those inner voices that we can trust unconditionally, even if they say things that initially infuriate us or cause us pain.

I recommend this book to everyone and look forward to hearing what others think about it!

– Eszter

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If a lawnmower doesn’t work because the spark plug is broken, we replace the faulty part, and it can hum in the garden again. But what if a family member “breaks down”?

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What if our child starts getting bullied at school, or the mother becomes an alcoholic, or the father has a gastric hemorrhage? Is changing schools, removing alcohol, or patching up the stomach enough? Just like changing a lawnmower's spark plug?

Not quite. Members of smaller or larger human groups operate in a much more complex network of interactions. Everyone affects everyone. One of my favorite films is "Wolves of Yellowstone” which you can find on YouTube. The film is only five minutes long, but it perfectly shows the complexity of nature and how a seemingly minor change can have extensive effects.

The family, too, is subject to myriad influences, with every member enduring daily positive or negative experiences that indirectly affect the entire system. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes quite pronounced. Consider that merely the event of a father changing jobs can have reverberations throughout family life in various ways.

So, when someone talks about their father, mother, son, daughter, wife, or husband being unfaithful, aggressive, alcoholic, depressed, struggling with anger, irresponsible, extremely lazy, asthmatic, infertile, etc., I always try to understand the circumstances.

It’s never solely about one person's weakness, flawed nature, addiction, or illness. It’s about how that person maintains equilibrium through their illness, addiction, or bad behavior in the family. They might not have found the best method and failed to establish healthy balance, but at least they are trying to find equilibrium.

Every family is only as healthy as its least healthy member. This means that even though only one family member shows symptoms of a mysterious, often subconscious problem, the whole family system suffers from some kind of disorder.

Staying with the above example, when a father is submerged in a sea of work in his workplace and there is tension between the parents because the mother feels lonely and alone with all the housework and child rearing, one of the children might become severely asthmatic or can have a series of accidents, or develop an addiction directing the father’s attention back to the family. This causes obvious difficulties for the family, the little child suffers, and the adults worry more, but the child reached his or her unconscious goal, family unity is maintained and the father pays more attention to the affaires at home. The child, at his or her level, solved the most concerning problem, since the unity of the family is the most important thing for a little child, who with their child-minds do not make the connection between the work the father does and the money they live on.

Or in another example, the mother has unprocessed grief originated from a miscarriage and is unable to connect to her other child emotionally. The child might become ill, aggressive, or depressed.

Systemic disorder can also manifest when one family member, for example, the father, suffers from overweight or severe health issues while the others are thin and healthy. (More about this in “The ‘Fat Kid’ Syndrome”)

It’s easy to dismiss in such situations and put all the responsibility on the “troublesome” person, but it leads nowhere. To solve the issue, we need to understand the family dynamics and the real motivation behind the behavior, illness, or problem. Once we understand that, we can truly see what we are dealing with, change the situation, and then establish a new, healthy balance for the whole family.

– Eszter

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Welcome to the tenth issue of Eszter’s Weekly Elephant! We hope your week has been pleasant so far! Let's dive into this week's topics.

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This week, thanks to some unfathomable algorithmic whim, I stumbled upon a poem by David Wagoner titled "Lost." For those who, like me, were previously unaware of this poem, I've copied it here.

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

—David Wagoner
(1999)

These few lines had a profound impact on me. Throughout my life, there have been numerous occasions when I found myself unsure of which direction to proceed and felt somewhat lost, either overwhelmed by too many options or feeling stuck without a single viable path forward.

For me, the most challenging part during these times is to wait until my heart somehow senses the right direction to move forward. This "lost state" can often last for days, and in certain aspects of life, even weeks or months. For instance, it's possible for one's career to be progressing smoothly, while their romantic relationship feels stagnant, neither moving forward nor backward, gradually draining their vitality. This was precisely my situation in my mid-twenties.

The waiting is excruciatingly nerve-wracking, and every day you wake up hoping that today might bring some change, only to go to bed disappointed that nothing significant has shifted. The wiser ones among us always say to rest and enjoy these periods as much as possible, for when things start moving, there won't be time to catch a breath. While this sounds like sound advice, it's hard to enjoy life when each day ends in disillusionment because situations that aren't going well, or are stuck, have not progressed at all. Most of us are more likely to be anxious.

In my opinion, this anxiety does not stem from the fear that things will never change. Being rational beings, we are well aware that neither good nor bad times last forever; everything changes eventually. Therefore, our fear is not that we'll be stuck in an undesired situation for the rest of our lives. I believe the anxiety comes more from a feeling of missing out, of being left behind, of being forgotten. It's as if we've fallen off the track of life, sitting on the sidelines watching the game – the game that is our life, yet somehow we're not participating in it. It's this fear of missing out, of lagging behind, that drives us to actions: useless phone calls, forced trials of manifestations, desperate internet searches, consultations with fortune tellers, listening for friends' advice in vain in a desperate attempt to move the stubbornly stuck situations forward. But then, nothing seems to work or yield results.

And so, we struggle until we're drained, feeling immobilized in the marsh of stagnation, our vision obscured by the smoky haze of hope burnt away by our futile attempts. At that moment, we harbor the delusion that life has so forgotten us, we've become so out of touch with everything, that the only thing left to happen is for a similarly situated wanderer to find our bleached bones in the marsh, decades later.

The poem I mentioned found me at such a moment, when I was questioning who I am and why I'm wearing out my feet on this planet.

The only certainty was my family. I realized this isn't about depression, hopelessness, or despair because things didn't turn out as hoped. Rather, it's about a profound transformation during which one questions everything they believe about themselves, stripping away, one by one, the indoctrinated or self-hypnotized images they've held of who they are. During such transformations, an inevitable point arrives when one stands bare, having shed many layers that proved false, yet still not feeling, not knowing where to go next. Often, it feels like we've been sitting on the sidelines for too long, forgotten. It was precisely then that this poem reached me and restored the hope, the feeling, that I'm not missing out on anything, that everything happens exactly how and when it's supposed to.

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.”

This poem restored the feeling that I am part of something greater, for how could I be outside of life as long as I myself live and breathe? How could I be a separate entity within a system where we all breathe together, drawing the same air? No living being can step outside of life, and everyone has their place within it. If I'm not missing out on anything, if I haven't been forgotten, then I don't have to struggle to escape from being forgotten. Then I can stop, listen, rest, and maybe that's all I need to do right now. To be present and in the present, to observe.

The final sentence of the quote below also assures me that I can always return to this place, to the center, to the present, and here I will always find tranquility and, sooner or later, guidance. This is a wonderful feeling, as if stepping out of time, where all urgency and nervousness about needing to act, progress, or develop fades away.

“The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.”

Reading the following lines, one realizes that they are only truly lost when they become incapable of seeing the things around them. When they are on autopilot to such an extent that they no longer see the beauty, no longer perceive the uniqueness of each branch, bird, flower, cloud. And then they are indeed lost, for they lose the real connection with the world and, through it, with themselves as well.

“No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.”

And if we notice that we are no longer able to truly connect with the world, to really see and perceive what is happening around us, then it's time to stop. When I read these lines, I realized that this is exactly what I had done. When I felt that I had accumulated so many expectations, so many attributes, so many principles, so many rigid ideas, that the armor I had built around myself prevented me from seeing the world, from simply connecting with it, I stopped. I stopped to shed my feelings about the past and my intentions for the future. I let go of my dissatisfaction with myself and my performance, along with the uncertainty about what I will become in five years.

When I finally cast off this heavy armor, I once again felt the wind on my skin, felt my chest freely rise and fall without the immense weight that had been upon it. I understood that my only task now is to observe and connect.

“Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.”

I've realized that when the time comes, I will precisely know where to go, what to do, who to be, because in this vast system, each of us has our place, our role. Nobody is ever forgotten, and everyone finds the path that fate has laid out for them.

I can't claim that I'll never unconsciously start to rebuild the armor I've just shed. It's possible that over time I might make this mistake again, but I'm sure that from now on, I'll notice sooner if my own expectations, my own ideas, my hopelessness, dissatisfaction, and uncertainty start to constrict me again. And now, having found it, I know I can always pull out this poem to remind me what to do in such times.

I hope you'll like this poem as much as it has grown close to my heart in a few days and that it will help those going through a similar period in their lives as much as it helped me!

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Now let's move on to our topics for this week!

This week, we continued the topic of energy vampires with an article dealing with the ancient, coded signaling systems within us that modern energy vampires can easily exploit, often doing so either consciously or instinctively. It's worthwhile to know what happens when someone wears revealing clothing or talks loudly on the phone in a restaurant audible to everyone, and also how we can defend ourselves in such situations.

For those who want a fuller picture of why we succumb to the aggressiveness of energy vampires and let ourselves be drained often, or who want to know the most effective methods for recharging our life energy reserves, it would be worth reading the following two previous posts as well:

Another post appearing this week is a personal reflection on the times when my entire life turned upside down within a short interval, and I only managed to get through that period by burying many of my feelings deep inside. Such solutions are never sustainable in the long run, so I also had to revisit my twenty-something self, who at that time was doing everything in her power to stay afloat. You can read about how this “meeting” went in the essay titled “Memories."

Thank you!

We hope that this week we've provided you with exciting information and entertaining stories again!

Thank you for reading Eszter's Weekly Elephant regularly. We are delighted that you find our writings interesting and hope we can welcome you among our paid subscribers!

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Your support makes a whole world of difference; it is what keeps us going! :)

Sincerely,

Eszter & Nam

Here is my personal email for paid subscribers, you can ask personal questions and receive personalized answers to those you might not wish to ask publicly.

Disclaimer: The content in our publications should not be considered professional psychological or psychiatric advice. Thus, everyone reads the posted writings and applies their content at their own risk.

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In 2001, the Water Polo European Championship was held in Budapest. I have no idea why my father acquired tickets for the matches since we had never attended sporting events before. We mostly just played sports ourselves but never sat in the stands.

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Yet, that year, for reasons unknown to me, I found myself sitting in the stands. The atmosphere was fantastic; every time the Hungarians attacked, the crowd roared "Go Hungarians!", and when the opponents attacked, the whole stand rhythmically chanted, "Defend! Defend!" I still get chills thinking about those days.

We were lucky, as Hungarian water polo has been legendarily good for almost a century, so one can be sure that watching a Hungarian match means expecting a high-quality, enjoyable game. That year, the men's team won a bronze medal, and the women's team won the tournament. It was an incredible experience to witness! Such a tremendous experience that to this day, water polo tournaments are the only ones I follow. If I can, I watch the matches on TV and cheer and argue with the referees so loudly that our more sensitive dogs always jump around me excitedly, as if something were wrong with me. They too pick up on the tension in my nerves. It's a wonderful experience every time the boys or the girls win a tournament, as they grab the national coach in their joy and throw him into the water.

Neither before nor since have I sat at a live sporting event in the stands, but as almost always, now too, as the World Championship is happening in Doha, I try to organize my days so that I can watch the live broadcast.

Perhaps watching that European Championship in 2001 was the last time I could be carefree with my father, which is why I feel such a strong connection to water polo, unlike any other sport, at least as a spectator.

Since then, a lot of water has flowed down the Danube, many events have unfolded, and my family of origin has essentially fallen apart, after which I spent several years trying to understand what happened and to ease the tension that flared up from time to time. Fortunately, I experienced my parents' divorce as an adult, but navigating who is with whom in the family, who among friends stands by whom, and who is willing to talk to whom in a whirlwind of changes in my own life was not easy as a child moving between my two parents. The parents' divorce invariably shakes a person's life, impacting them more profoundly during childhood or teenage years than in adulthood. The many tangled, confused relationships that suddenly have to be separated to form two families from the previous one, finding balance amidst frequent mutual blaming, accepting or not accepting the third party if there is one, the responsibility one feels as a child towards the parent deemed weaker, more innocent, poses a serious challenge at any age, not just as a little child.

And what often follows a divorce, starting and shaping the dynamics in a blended family setup, well, it takes a strong person to navigate through that chaos. With the myriad new situations and the thin ice dance of peace, I hardly had a chance to pay attention to my own feelings. I was happy if somehow, through combined efforts, some kind of new order emerged from the chaos.

Eventually, after the turbulent years, things calmed down, I graduated from university, started working, entered a new relationship, and began to delve more into psychology. As my life progressed, one job led to another, then a new relationship, a proposal, wedding, new career path, and so I stopped thinking about those years.

While watching the match against the Italians on TV, which ended in a hard-fought but brilliant victory for the men's water polo team, I felt down despite their wonderful performance. At first, I didn't understand what got into me, since the Hungarian team made it to the quarter-finals, moreover with such incredible perseverance and heart that they can be proud of for the rest of their lives. But I was sad.

As is my habit when confused by my feelings, I retreated to the bedroom, sat in my armchair, and pulled the thick, soft faux fur blanket over myself. As I sat there, I realized that over the past twenty years, I had completely forgotten someone. Someone to whom I owe a great deal, yet I never afforded the opportunity to express her feelings, shed her tears, and share her story.

The girl in her early twenties, whom I was back then, kept her spirits up, navigated my fragile boat across the turbulent river, and skillfully avoided the sharpest, most fatal rocks — if not all. She smiled even when she wanted to cry, tried to ease others' conflicts and pain, and somehow kept her cargo (studies, relationships, health, friendships) more or less intact in the belly of the ship. Well, I indeed forgot about her.

To cross the flowing river as quickly as possible, I jumped out of the boat the moment it ran aground, leaving her behind in the ship's hold, in a dark corner amidst a sea of swirling feelings. Without looking back, I ran forward and have not returned to the ship since.

I was ashamed of myself and so ventured back to the riverbank, which this time showed its calmer face. The boat, tilted to its side, waited. I approached it trembling, fearing that all my feelings would stir up again. As I slowly, cautiously climbed onto the rotted deck, a plank broke under my foot. From the belly of the ship, I heard a grumpy growl, but I decided to gather my courage and proceed.

It was only with difficulty that I managed to open the cabin door; I wrestled with it for a while before the rotten frame gave way. As I opened the creaking door, I saw a pale, hollow-faced figure in the semi-darkness. My former self stared at me blankly. I couldn't read any emotion in her eyes, which frightened me. I began to back away slowly, and she followed me into the light even more slowly. Squinting, blinking, and as she reached the open air, into the cockpit, she slumped onto one of the benches.

Minutes passed, and she just sat there, turning her face towards the sun with closed eyes. I expected her to attack me at any moment, to start shouting and stomping, furious for locking her up and cruelly leaving her alone. But she didn't. She did nothing but enjoy the sunlight. Then, after about ten minutes, she opened her eyes but didn't look at me. She stared rigidly at the river.

I didn't dare to speak, just silently let the tears roll down my cheeks. All the feelings I had locked up with her in the belly of that ship seemed to have flowed into me and wanted to burst out all at once. I felt anger, rage, shame, pain, disappointment, hurt, despair. All at once, so intensely that I could barely breathe. It felt as if a huge hole had been punched in the middle of my chest. I gasped for air and almost fainted as my tears fell.

My younger self looked at me, but in her eyes, I saw not a desire for revenge or hatred but pity and understanding. Through my tears, I stared at her bewildered. How could she not hate? How could she not seek revenge on me? How could she not be angry? I was puzzled, yet she smiled as if reading my thoughts. Just as she had heard my thoughts, now I heard hers in my head: "It's good that you came back for me," then she hugged me.

– Eszter

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We've discussed how personal experiences contribute to allowing ourselves to be drained by energy vampires. (More in “Energy Vampires – Why Do We Allow Thieves in Our Treasure Chest?”) We’ve also touched upon how to replenish our depleted energy reserves after such encounters. (Article “How to Replenish Our Life Energy Reserves?”)

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Let's explore another type of energy vampire – those who don't prey on our negative personal experiences but instead on our atavistic, or deeply ancient instincts. Throughout the centuries, those individuals who had quicker "thinking processes" and were able to anticipate or predict dangers earliest had an advantage. This allowed them more time to react, flee, or prepare for combat. What was needed for this? Sharp senses that immediately alerted the brain to even the slightest noise or the smallest movement.

Another essential instinct for species that live in packs or groups was the ability to understand and coexist with an established hierarchy, especially if they weren't the alphas. They had to constantly watch, at least out of the corner of their eyes, what the dominant individual was doing.

For instance, when an alpha male in a gorilla group displayed dominance, everyone was expected to show their submission. Failing to do so would lead to a brutal confrontation. This attention, essentially, is a form of energy transfer from the weaker individual to the stronger.

I believe we're all familiar with situations where we might be in a restaurant or on a train, and someone around us speaks excessively loud or gestures prominently, perhaps constantly standing up and sitting down to retrieve something from their bag. In such cases, this individual has learned that they can gain energy in crowds by behaving conspicuously. Depending on their behavior, they activate either the "dominance module" or the "danger-alert module" in those around them. Consequently, people can't fully concentrate on their books or their conversation partners because they're subconsciously focusing on this potential "source of danger".

Whether they trigger the dominance or danger alert in others depends on their behavior. We've surely come across someone who sprawls in their chair, conspicuously places their arm on the neighboring chair's armrest, and converses loudly, often in a patronizing manner. They are playing the dominant role, extending their dominance not just to their conversational partner but to everyone in the vicinity. And from everyone’s attention, they draw energy.

Conversely, those who behave erratically, pacing about without exuding dominance—instead appearing unpredictable—instill a sense of danger in others. Their unusual, restless behavior suggests a potential unknown threat that others might not be aware of. As a result, people might find themselves constantly observing these individuals, gauging whether there's a need to escape from a perceived threat.

There’s another behavioral pattern, commonly used by women, that can effectively drain those around them. This includes conspicuous behavior, plunging necklines, exceedingly short skirts, and flirtatious demeanor, which all play on an ancient instinct: the reproductive/conservation instinct. For many, this is an energy-gaining tool; they capture the attention of men due to this reproductive instinct and from more reserved women because they feel dominated by them. And as always, a dominant individual requires attention because they can be a threat.

Most commonly, these are the three general methods used by those seeking to drain energy from their surroundings. Due to our ancient instincts, it works on most people. Historically, the hallmark of gentlemen and ladies was subdued speech, restrained behavior, and elegant yet inconspicuous attire. People knew that the aforementioned behaviors violated others' boundaries and hence were unacceptable. Nobody likes to be dominated—be it through physical force, conspicuous behavior, sexual tactics, or by instilling a sense of danger, especially when peacefully dining in a restaurant or traveling by train. Everyone likely encounters such situations daily once they leave home.

To protect ourselves from these individuals, there are several useful tactics to consider:

• Place a hand or a book over our stomach to shield the area where most energy tends to be drained.

• Adjust our seating so we either don't face them directly or we should just turn our backs to them.

• If necessary, move to a different location: switch to another car on the train, choose a different table at the restaurant, or leave entirely if we feel overwhelmed and find no other solution.

Always remember, our life force energy belongs to us, and no one has the right to take it!

– Eszter

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Welcome to the ninth issue of Eszter’s Weekly Elephant! We hope your week has been pleasant so far! Let's dive into this week's topics.

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This week, we continued our discussion on life energy

This topic is crucial because most of us do not realize that money is not our most important resource; rather, it is our life energy. The world—erroneously and deliberately—conveys the message that money is what we need to solve our problems, what is necessary for survival, and what we must prioritize above almost everything else.

However, if we strip things down to their essence, we will see that this is not true. One only needs to watch Jon Jandai's TED talk or spend some time in a village where people are still able to grow their own food and store what they need.

One branch of my family originates from a village, and although my grandmother lived in the city, we often visited relatives during my childhood. Witnessing the vegetable gardens, the chickens, and the orchards was always a wonderful experience, even as a child when I didn't fully grasp the amount of work involved in growing plump peaches, combating aphids on tomatoes, or making delicious plum jam for dinner.

When my husband and I moved from the city to a small village and began revitalizing a completely barren garden that had been thoroughly plowed over, I truly understood the extent of work required in gardening. As we dedicated hour after hour to beautify the garden, and then to watering pea seedlings, weeding pumpkins, and staking tomato plants the following year, we gradually realized we had created a garden. A beautiful garden filled with carefully selected, colorfully leaved plants where roses bloomed, and from which we harvested strawberries, a few raspberries, countless pumpkins, peas, and plums. We made so much plum jam from those plums that we still have a few jars left to this day, and they remain edible even after three years!

Experiencing how a few planted seeds could grow into abundantly fruiting plants changed our perspective. The constant sense of scarcity promoted by consumer society was replaced by a sense of abundance. Simply saving the seeds of two tomatoes for the following year yielded fifteen to twenty seedlings, which in turn produced twenty to twenty-five tomatoes each in one season. Viewing this from a financial perspective, and simplifying by not accounting for the water we used or the labor hours, nature converted one dollar (one seed) into 25 dollars (25 tomatoes), which if replanted, would yield, say, 10 viable seeds from each, resulting in 250 tomato plants, each bearing 25 tomatoes. That totals 6250 tomatoes.

By this logic, we would have turned one dollar into 6250 dollars in two years. In the financial world, this would be deemed a significant profit, even if we deducted labor hours and water. Achieving a 6250-fold profit in two years is rare in the financial realm, right? This illustrates how the world intentionally fosters a sense of scarcity around money. Otherwise, why would the state compel people to work on an assembly line or spend their entire day in a noisy office when the sun is shining outside? When earning a living requires money and money is hard to obtain, only awarded in exchange for hard labor, people resign themselves to their fate, and most end up in jobs they despise.

However, nature shows us that it doesn’t have to be this way. I'm not suggesting that growing food isn't hard work—far from it. But I aim to highlight that while people barely earn enough at their jobs to live comfortably and save money, often feeling as if they're fighting an uphill battle, nature offers a different paradigm.

A paradigm well worth experiencing, even if one ultimately opts for office work over gardening. Because until we witness firsthand how much nature assists us—the sun ripening the harvest, the soil providing nutrients with minimal intervention, and in many places, minimal need for watering—we can't fully appreciate what it feels like when a system operates supportively and our invested energy returns abundantly, not merely minimally. Without this paradigm, thriving and succeeding in urban life may seem impossible.

It’s not about everyone needing to tend their own garden and grow vegetables and fruits but about reintroducing a long-lost feeling into our lives. The feeling that our work, our attention, and our invested energy yield abundant results. This is critically important even for those who choose to live in the city and work in an office or factory. Because if the belief that one can thrive and be successful is deemed an impossible feat in our minds, our chances of success and prosperity in our urban careers are slim.

As I wrote in Eszter’s Weekly Elephant #7, indeed, more and more evidence shows that we ourselves create our reality, and the things we consider impossible often elude us. From my experience, whether we view the world as a supportive system or as a hostile, obstructive one fundamentally determines what we will achieve with our work, and until we change our fundamental beliefs, we will indeed achieve the same results.

This is precisely why gardening and growing plants are so important, as they rewrite the belief in scarcity and the belief in struggling alone, thus helping even in launching an office career.

That's also why Jon Jandai's talk is worth listening to, as it puts our lifestyle, detached from nature and manual labor, into context. Even if we don't want to simplify our lives as much as he does, from his perspective, we can surely find elements in our lives that we only think we need but actually complicate our lives and would be better off letting go. On the other hand, it shows us that there's always the possibility that, if things get really tough, we can let everything go, move to the countryside, cultivate a plot of land, and create our livelihood. As long as we have life energy within us, we will not starve.

And here, I believe, it becomes clear why life energy is the most valuable thing in this world. Yes, money can buy many things, but in a real crisis, when everything collapses, money is worthless. Over the past decades, we've lost sight of the most important thing and allowed the knowledge that humanity survived on for centuries to disappear.

Human energy, attention, and cooperation with the natural, not artificial, world bring abundant results, and in this process, money plays almost no role. The main actors are nature and human life energy, which plants, cares for, harvests, and then preserves things. So, what is truly valuable for our survival? Money or life energy?

The question then is, do we treat our life energy, or in other words, our attention, as carefully and well as we do our money? Do we protect it, think carefully about what or whom we spend it on? Or do we waste it on insignificant conversations, on activities through which it flows away but creates nothing of value?

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If we viewed our daily amount of life energy the way we view the money we plan to spend that day, would we still gossip with our colleague? Would we still not say no to the energy vampire neighbor even if we felt uncomfortable, or would we choose to spend our time playing with our dog? Would we really eat in a fast-food restaurant just to return quickly to the office instead of sitting down in a cheap eatery to have a hearty, two-course meal?

If we truly made conscious decisions about our next activity, recognizing that the life energy we can allocate for the day is finite and considering our goals, which we have long wanted to achieve, what would we choose?

I once heard a story about a pianist who was approached by a fan who, admiring his play, said, ‘I would give anything to be able to play the piano like you!’ The pianist smiled and replied, ‘Would you practice twelve years for eight to nine hours a day?’ The fan's smile faded, and he walked away.

Although the pianist's response was not exactly kind, this story perfectly illustrates the power of our focus and attention, or our life energy, and our choices on how we spend our life energy. We either squander it, scatter it, or focus it.

I hope I have managed to convey some interesting thoughts, and perhaps the kind reader will also consider planting a few tomato plants or pumpkins, even on their terrace in a pot, and perhaps examining how their life force energy is distributed.

Last week, we tackled a frequently mentioned topic. We felt it necessary to delve deeper into this subject because, although there's often discussion about who energy vampires are and how and why they drain others' life energy, the reasons why someone allows themselves to become a victim of an energy vampire have rarely been explored. The issue of lacking boundary protection is frequently brought up, but the deeper reasons why our boundary protection might fail are seldom discussed. This article focuses on these reasons and offers insights into why we might find ourselves vulnerable to energy vampires. For those interested in reading the article, you can find it here:

Building on last week's discussion, this week you can discover the methods that most effectively replenish life energy reserves and which of these methods are our favorites.

Additionally, a short story has been published on the site alongside the article. It underscores the importance of closely examining even our most intimate relationships. There are relationships that, by our own definition, we consider essential to our lives and believe are surely based on love. However, an objective examination often reveals this isn't always the case. It is frequently these very relationships that deplete our zest for life and our life energy. Recognizing this and taking timely action is crucial.

For those who haven't yet, do read the latest 150-word story. It's less a story and more a moment—a wonderful moment indelibly imprinted in our memories. Our beloved dog Töki, who crossed the rainbow bridge at the age of seventeen, may no longer be with us, but his memory vividly lives on in us.

We hope that this week we've provided you with exciting information and entertaining stories again!

Thank you for reading Eszter's Weekly Elephant regularly. We are delighted that you find our writings interesting and hope we can welcome you among our paid subscribers!

Your support makes a whole world of difference; it is what keeps us going! :)

Subscribe now

Sincerely,

Eszter & Nam

Here is my personal email for paid subscribers, you can ask personal questions and receive personalized answers to those you might not wish to ask publicly.

Disclaimer: The content in our publications should not be considered professional psychological or psychiatric advice. Thus, everyone reads the posted writings and applies their content at their own risk.

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Susanne and I are siblings. I don’t like her and, unsurprisingly, she doesn’t particularly like me either. Everyone said we’d grow out of our mutual animosity, but the past thirty-five years have proven them wrong. We both politely attend family events and support our mother, who despite her fragile health, hardly needs our assistance. Both my sister and I know this, but if we didn’t act this way, we'd have nothing to talk about. She has everything I lack in life, and I possess everything she misses out on.

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Susanne, verging on martyrdom, is the perfect mother to her four children, cherishing the fading memory of her late husband. Every Christmas, the children, the youngest of whom is already ten, have to draw some family scene featuring their father. Their father, whom even the older two barely remember, passed away nine years ago. Truth be told, I barely remember him either. John was a stern, very rigid man. Things had to be exactly as he wanted them to be, and he rewarded deviations with hours of punitive silence. I wasn't particularly fond of him. Once, when the eldest nephew was just three, he spilled milk on the carpet. John made a huge fuss about the machine-woven, synthetic carpet, and after dramatically cleaning up part of the spill, he refused to communicate with the toddler. Susanne tried to intervene; I tried to distract my nephew from his father's behavior, but most of the afternoon was still incredibly awkward. I had no idea what Susanne saw in John, but it wasn't my business anyway. The point is, when John passed away, Susanne was left alone, and their relationship and the man’s paternal merits were placed on an almost unreachable, towering pedestal. From then on, Susanne compared everyone to John, and unsurprisingly, John always emerged superior from any comparison. My sister didn’t stand a chance at another relationship. Of course, our mother kept suggesting she find another man, but realistically, with four kids and the shadow of a deceased husband, there wasn't much hope.

It was March 26th, and I was waiting for my sister at Piccadilly to buy our mother a birthday gift. The celebration was the next day at Susanne's. She had already procured the ingredients for the birthday cake, which she would surely transform into a dazzling dessert by the next day. I didn’t even have the energy to buy a greeting card. I had returned from New York the previous night, where two days of nearly non-stop negotiations, business dinners, and a long flight drained me. As a corporate lawyer in the midst of a significant acquisition, I simply didn't have the patience or energy to fuss about cakes or frivolous greeting cards. My sister arrived looking neat but with tired eyes. As it turned out, the youngest nephew was feverish and couldn’t sleep all night due to a suffocating cough. As she told her story, we headed down Regent Street and entered our mother's favorite clothing store. While Susanne browsed, I tried to stay awake. Shopping invigorated my sister; it bored me to death. Although I could afford quality garments and accessories, I never felt the thrill my sister did when shopping. To me, shopping was a task – approached with clear objectives, efficiently, and preferably quickly. Moreover, I hated trying things on. If it were up to me, I'd never buy anything other than stockings, scarves, and loose sweatshirts – items that didn’t require trying on. Yet, every day, I had to squeeze myself into a suit.

As I was pondering this, Susanne came up to me with a colorful scarf. It looked good, though I knew our mother already had about fifty scarves. Since I had no ideas, I agreed to it. We walked to the cashier and I paid. Susanne lived off her husband's life insurance since she couldn't work with four kids. Hence, our unspoken agreement was that she would cook, organize, and host, and I would pay. This way, I didn't have to let anyone into my apartment or deal with the aftermath of guests.

After the quick purchase, Susanne promised to wrap the gift, and then we parted ways. I headed towards the subway, eager to get home and take off my not-so-high-heeled, but painfully tight, pointed shoes.

Just as I entered my apartment, my phone rang. It was my mother.

‘Hello, Mom!’

‘Hello, Sarah! What time do we need to be at your sister's tomorrow?’

‘I guess around four,’ I replied, aware that my mother's question was not a simple one. Her questions were never just for information.

‘Oh, I'll be at the hairdresser's until half-past three, I won't make it,’ I understood the situation. That meant I had to pick her up by car because she wouldn't arrive on time by public transport. I got frustrated. I never understood why she couldn't just straightforwardly ask for something.

‘I think it's okay if you arrive a bit later. After all, you're the guest of honor, we'll wait,’ I answered calmly.

There was a brief silence on the line.

‘Or you could take a taxi,’ I continued.

My mother was still silent, then she said, ‘Alright, we'll see. Bye!’ and she hung up.

I had barely counted to twenty in my head when my phone rang again. It was my sister.

‘Hello!’

‘Hi! Why can't you pick up mom tomorrow? It's not a big detour, and she seems so fragile lately.’

‘She didn't tell me to pick her up and she's not fragile. Didn't you hear how she yelled at that punk guy who was messing with the trash cans…’

I couldn't finish because Susanne interrupted.

‘I can't believe you can't do this much! All you have in your life is your shiny career, but you'll realize how much time you've wasted when your life becomes empty and there's no one around you.’

I sighed. I knew these were our mother's words, which I had heard a million times before. I always make wrong decisions, I can't live with anyone, family isn't important to me, even though it's the only thing that matters in life, and so on.

‘Alright, call her! I'll go for her at three forty-five.’

With that, I hung up the phone. I really felt like I needed a break. Half of the weekend was gone, there's a family afternoon tomorrow, and on Monday, I have to work at full throttle to finish the contracts on time.

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Then there was a knock. I was sure it was Tom and Elena from next door. And I wasn't mistaken. Tom and Elena had lived in the apartment next door for two years and during that time, we became quite close. Somehow, they always showed up just when I'd had enough of the world, and they always managed to cheer me up. They had brought a bottle of rosé and a few dried-out store-bought pastries, which honestly tasted better than what the dinner next day would. We talked for three hours, and I laughed so much that my muscles ached from it. I slept deeply that night, and didn't wake up until after ten the next morning. Jet lag always hit me harder when I was coming back from America, than when I was heading there.

I went to the neighboring Thai diner and ordered some noodles for myself. After eating, I headed over to a café two blocks away and, among young people on their laptops and cheerful tourists, drank a strong coconut latte. I finally started feeling more human. It was half past one, so I had to start heading home to prepare for the big family gathering. It was the fifth one this year. First, we always began with the twins' birthday in January, followed by Susanne's and my eldest cousin's birthday in February. The attendees were always the same: my sister, her four children, our mother, and my mom's two friends who didn't have children. They channeled their maternal instincts through my sister's kids, while my mother, with a slightly smug grin, relished in the joy of her beautiful family. These gatherings were always awkward and tense. I always felt that, apart from Susanne and my mother, no one really enjoyed them. To truly belong in this elite club, you needed to have at least one child and a husband. Whether the husband was alive or not was irrelevant. In this world, neither the girlfriends nor I belonged to the elite.

Sighing heavily, I slipped into a mauve sweater and beige canvas pants. Instead of the usual bun, I tied my hair into a loose ponytail. A touch of makeup and I was ready. I grabbed my car keys and headed to the underground garage. My footsteps echoed, and the sound lingered for a while. There was nobody else there. I got into the car and drove out into the March sunlight, squinting because I left my sunglasses upstairs. A quarter of an hour later, I arrived at my mother's hairdresser's. Luckily, I found a spot almost right in front. After waiting for ten minutes, my mother appeared, dressed elegantly, with a perfectly styled hairdo. Her face was cold and stern. I was sure the twenty-minute ride to my sister's place wouldn't be pleasant.

After a brief greeting, she didn't say much at first but eventually began to speak.

‘How was America?’

‘Good, productive. If all goes well, we'll sign the contract at the beginning of next month.’

‘And what about your new boss?’ she inquired.

‘He seems to like me. Only performance matters to him, and since I know what I'm doing and work efficiently, we get along well.’

‘What about the leakage? Have you found a professional to fix it?’ she probed.

‘You won't believe my luck! Tom's neighbors know a good painter. He said to wait another two weeks for the wall to dry, then he'll fix it in a day.’

My bathroom had a leak two weeks ago because the upstairs neighbor was renovating, and they improperly installed the washing machine. It flooded their bathroom and a bit of mine too.

‘And what are you getting for young Peter's birthday? Have you decided?’

I sighed.

‘Mom, my cousin's birthday is in three weeks. I'll figure it out by then.’

‘One can tell you don’t have a family of your own; otherwise, you’d know you need to plan and organize these things in advance. Once you have children, you need to learn to plan ahead.’

I took a deep breath. We were on that topic again. No matter what I did, how well I performed at my job, how much I tried to organize my life, or how honest I was, as long as I didn't have a husband and children, I was an outcast in my own family.

We spent the rest of the ride in silence. Thankfully, at my sister's place, the focus shifted to the grandkids, and my sister was too busy with dinner preparations to nag at me.

Around seven in the evening, I got up to leave. My mother decided to stay longer with her friends. I don’t think my sister was too thrilled about it, but she didn’t object. I took a deep breath of fresh spring air as I stepped out of the door. My lungs expanded, and I felt relieved to be free.

Two years passed before I found a man I loved with all my heart, who loved me back. He was the polar opposite of both my father and John. He laughed, spoke his mind, and didn't care if I obeyed the silly societal rules imposed on me. He loved my independence and was inspired by my work. Knowing how distressed family gatherings made me feel, he planned surprise trips for us during those times, sparing us the interrogation and indignation about not having kids yet. Apparently, one isn't truly grown-up until they've become a parent.

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My mother and sister couldn't stand Richard. Whenever we were alone together, they would nitpick about what Richard did wrong or what he failed to do. My mother would compare him to my father, and my sister would contrast him with John. Amid memories of their perfect marriages, I defended my living relationship. The situation escalated to the point where both my mother and sister felt offended by both Richard and me. By the fourth year of our relationship, Richard stopped accompanying me to family gatherings. Neither my mother nor my sister inquired about him. We had our wedding at the city hall surrounded by friends, followed by an intimate dinner. Neither my mother nor my sister attended.

The following year, I became pregnant, hoping it might change things, especially since my mother always wanted another grandchild.

After Stevie was born, my mother and sister visited us twice, each time while Richard was at work.

During their second visit, my mother looked around our newly renovated apartment, glanced into the crib, and said:

‘I see you're doing well. The renovation must have been expensive.’

‘We managed it economically,’ I replied.

‘Do you have savings? Children can be expensive, especially now that you're not working,’ she probed.

‘Richard earns well, and we have set aside some money.’

‘You've lost the pregnancy weight quickly,’ my sister chimed in, ‘Don't let your milk supply decrease because of it!’

‘I have milk, Stevie feeds well,’ I responded.

‘Did the doctor say the baby's development is on track?’ My mother interrupted.

‘Yes, he's gaining weight at the right pace.’

‘When will you start baby swimming? All our children went, and it was beneficial,’ my sister asked.

‘I don't know. He's still very young, and I'm exhausted from the nightly wake-ups.’

‘Well, someone who only works wouldn't know about that, right?’ my sister smirked.

I was growing increasingly irritated.

‘Even when I was working, I had nights when I was on call,’ I retorted. My mother raised an eyebrow.

‘By the way, when are you going back to work?’ She asked, pouncing like a cobra.

‘I don't know yet.’

‘You should start planning your career. Who knows how long Richard will stay? How will you and Stevie manage?’

That was the breaking point. I exploded, telling them to leave and never come back. I struggled to keep my voice steady; I wanted to scream. As I shut the door behind them, I felt immense relief, as if I had finally set down a massive burden I had carried all my life. Standing there, tears streamed down my face. Excluding my family from my life was excruciating, but for the first time in decades, I could breathe. I heard Stevie begin to cry. I went into his room, sat in our rocking chair, and began to breastfeed. Exhausted, I fell asleep with him in my arms. When my husband returned, he found us like that. I woke to him gently taking the sleeping baby and placing him in his crib, covering me with a blanket.

I grabbed his hand and said:

‘I sent them away, once and for all.’

He looked at me in bewilderment.

‘Who?’

‘My mother and my sister. I told them to never set foot in here again.’

‘I'm sorry it turned out this way, but I think it'll be easier for you like this.’

I nodded and snuggled closer. He pulled my favorite chocolate bar from his jacket pocket.

‘I brought this for you,’ he said. ‘I knew you'd have a tough day.’

I smiled through my tears and kissed my husband.

– Eszter

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Having discussed how energy vampires operate, let’s now explore how we can repair the damages following such encounters! (More on energy vampires in “Energy Vampires – Why Do We Allow Thieves into Our Treasure Chest?”)

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The most crucial aspect is awareness. We should be aware that we need to monitor our life energy, just as we need to eat regularly and consume adequate amounts of water. When our souls are depleted, we often feel compelled to eat something substantial and sweet or drink a lot of alcohol at a party, or devour a whole bag of chips. However, doing these is akin to eating when we are thirsty and drinking water when our stomach is growling. It doesn’t satisfy our actual needs.

Therefore, the next time we feel an inexplicable urge to eat or drink alcohol, despite having a full stomach or already having two glasses of wine, let’s first try to “feed” our souls, meaning let’s try to absorb life energy. There’s a high chance that the unnecessary cravings for food and alcohol will pass.

Many methods can replenish our energy reserves. Here are a few; try them out and see which works best! Everyone likes different things.

• Silence – One of the most effective methods. Just be silent for a few hours. If possible, put down smart devices too. Don’t utter a word! Silence is incredibly replenishing. Initially, we might feel lonely or restless, but don’t give up! Our soul will eventually savor the silence, and we might incorporate a “silence day” weekly.

• Nature – (More on this in “Biophilia vs. "Human Zoos”) Take a walk in the park, run in the forest, do some gardening, sail, ski, or do anything else, as long as it is an outdoor activity. This is another very effective way to replenish energy reserves.

• Eastern Practices. Qigong, yoga, Tai chi, and meditation all work very well. Even one or two sessions a week can make us feel much more balanced and joyful in everyday life.

• Sports – Any sports can help in effective rejuvenation, as long as we enjoy it and don’t torture ourselves in the name of competitiveness or hope for weight loss.

• Hobbies – Any hobby or activity in which we can lose ourselves helps to replenish life energy. Achieving a flow state makes our entire soul dance, and we will surely no longer crave a huge amount of chocolate cake. For more on this, I recommend Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book titled “Flow.”

• Pets – Interacting with our furry friends can be therapeutic. Spending time and playing with our pets, whether they are dogs, cats, birds, or any other creatures, offers unconditional love and companionship. Their simple joy and innocence can be a direct source of positivity, helping us forget our worries and stresses. So, the next time you feel drained, perhaps some quality time with your pet could be the perfect remedy.

As for me, I prefer silence, nature, pets, and meditation from the above methods, although the first one is quite challenging with so many dogs around (we have 8 adopted ones). It’s funny when I try to herd them, gesturing without words. I can’t say they take me very seriously.

Most people don’t pay attention to keeping their bodies and souls adequately charged with life energy, even though everyone holds the key to their own rejuvenation. There’s no need for hard-to-get or expensive equipment. If everyone dedicated just ten to fifteen minutes daily to staying silent and focusing inward, I believe we would encounter significantly fewer energy vampires, and the world would be a much more pleasant place.

– Eszter

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We were sitting on the lakeshore, my husband, Töki, and I. My hand was buried in the dog's grey, curling fur, feeling her soft coat. I smiled as we watched the wild ducks take off from the lake's mirror-like surface and songbirds bidding farewell to the day. I felt our dog pressing warmly against me. She always wanted to be a single dog, but it was never granted to her. Except for moments like these. I looked at her. Her intelligent gaze was fixed on the lake, but it was obvious she wasn’t focused on the birds, but smiling inside, enjoying the moment. I knew that this was an eternal moment for her too. A moment that etches itself into memory, like the lines of an etching into a copper plate. It will remain just as vivid among our memories, even when we are no longer together. Forever, unchangeably.

– Eszter

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I cannot deny that I eagerly await the release of a new installment in the "Thursday Murder Club" series year after year. As soon as I grab it at the bookstore, I rush home to carve out a few hours for myself to peacefully immerse in the story. For me, it feels like a special occasion.

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Richard Osman has crafted a bittersweet and unique world with a sea of empathy, a healthy dose of humor, and a slow-burning crime plot in the fictional luxury retirement home of Fairhaven—a world that's a pleasure to delve into. I won't claim this book offers answers to life's big questions, but it's certainly a refreshing read after heavier tales like Hermann Hesse's "Beneath the Wheel" or Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

From here on, the review contains spoilers. If you wish to read the story without any prior knowledge, delve into the novel first!

For some time now, the author doesn't narrate through all four main characters but predominantly uses a narrator and Joyce—the most communicative of the four retirees—to recount the tale, which, of course, begins with a murder.

The novel introduces new characters like "Computer Bob" who, with his tech-savviness, uncovers a scam committed against another new character, Mervyn. Bob also finds a way for the Murder Club members to be done with the midnight toast by 9 pm on New Year's Eve, watching the fireworks on TV, allowing them to go to bed early, as they wished.

Amid a slew of bad guys meeting their end, an antique-dealing woman is also murdered. What initially appears to be a series of drug theft-related murders takes a turn when it becomes clear that the stolen drug amount wouldn't warrant the immense risk associated with committing so many murders. I won't reveal what the real rivalry is about; if you're curious, read the novel.

I'd rather focus a bit on what intrigued me the most about the novel's human, non-criminal side. It's evident from previous installments that three of the "Thursday Murder Club" members grapple with some form of grief. Joyce mourns her late husband, Gerry, and even as she tries to connect with other men, she inevitably compares them to Gerry—and they never measure up.

Elizabeth, from one book to the next, mourns the happy years she spent with Stephen, as she increasingly loses him to advancing dementia.

While Ibrahim hasn't shared much about his past, in this installment, we learn of the deep-seated, unresolved grief behind his solitude. Ron is slightly sidelined in this novel. We don't learn much about him, except for some friction in his new relationship. Yet, his presence is palpable, as he often silently and inconspicuously acts as a pillar for the club.

Alongside the criminal threads—of which there are two in this novel—the most poignant is the farewell between Elizabeth and Stephen. The question is whether Stephen should be admitted to an institution with 24-hour supervision due to his escalating dementia or remain with Elizabeth. Halfway through the book, it's evident that this deeply loving couple faces an insurmountable problem. Elizabeth doesn't want to separate from Stephen or see him move to a home. Stephen doesn't want Elizabeth to transform from his wife to his nurse. In the end, they choose a third, and characteristically for Elizabeth, illegal solution. This resolution, though painful, is acceptable to both. It grants a genuine farewell that Stephen can clearly and consciously experience and ends a life and a relationship that would have brought them immense suffering.

"The Last Devil to Die" is just as human and lovable as previous series installments. However, I feel that Richard Osman now more boldly delves into themes he previously flirted with but never deeply explored.

The topic of a dignified death, how friends react, how two people handle such a grave decision regarding their own lives, and the nature of final moments all prompt us to ponder these questions.

While every "Thursday Murder Club" installment introduces various facets of aging—something we should all prepare for, given that the lucky ones will eventually face these issues—the series isn't depressing. Instead, it's a bouquet of novels that, besides entertaining, offers useful insights on handling old age, solitude, and grief. It emphasizes the importance of community and illustrates that one may not always have their children around, necessitating the creation of new relationships and meaning in life. All this requires patience and tolerance. Observing the diverse club members and their quirky friends and acquaintances, it's evident that harmonizing various interests, personalities, and worldviews is essential for the complex yet entertaining system to function.

One more thing I'd like to highlight from the book is the fox that also makes it to the cover. Snowy, as Stephen calls the white-tufted-eared fox that visits their garden every day, dies towards the end of the novel. Stephen and Bogdan set out together to find it and eventually discover its body not far from the house. It's evident that the bond that formed between Stephen and Snowy, even if it only deepened through their glances exchanged through a window, was no accident. Snowy, too, is nearing the end of his life, much like Stephen. Elizabeth feels this, which is why she chases the fox away every time she sees it. The fox reminds her each time that Stephen does not have much consciously lived time left.

Foxes symbolize intelligence, ancient wisdom, perseverance, and the survival instinct, and many cultures view them as animals that know when it's time to act and when to remain still. Therefore, Snowy's death shows Stephen that it's time to make a decision, and he acts accordingly.

I suspect that in the next novel, we'll find out, among other things, how Elizabeth deals with the grief of losing Stephen and how the others help her cope.

As for me, I eagerly await the fifth installment of the Thursday Murder Club – hoping there's a fifth – possibly featuring a wedding or two, as the narrative is gently leading us in that direction.

In the meantime, I recommend reading the novel because, despite its serious themes, it's a pleasant, light-hearted entertainment! Lastly, a piece of advice for those less familiar with this series: don't expect a solely crime-centered, fast-paced, Agatha Christie-style narrative, because The Thursday Murder Club is as much a crime story as a latte is an espresso.

– Eszter

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The existence of energy vampires is a recurring topic, especially when discussing the experiences of feeling like a wilted prune after interactions with them. Avoidance can be impossible when dealing with roommates, bosses, or in-laws, who might be such entities, thus, the real question remains, why do we let ourselves be drained?

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The phenomenon of being drained often indicates a defect in our boundary defenses. (More about border defense in "Border Defense – Do Our Psychic Bastions Even Exist?") The good news is, it’s fixable.

How Does Life Energy Work?

Everyone has life energy, allowing us to navigate our days, love, work, exercise, cook, be enthusiastic, smile at our children, and express annoyance. In short, it empowers every step we take. When this life energy depletes, we die. Although it seems finite, it's not! In fact, we decide when and how much of it we tap into. It can be replenished, and when we feel it is too much and makes us restless, we can go for a run.

Think of this system like a car’s electronics and engine. The engine needs fuel, just like our bodies need food and fluids. However, if the battery is dead, a full tank is useless; the car won’t start. Life energy provides the “spark” or “electricity” for our bodies.

Considering life energy as a scarce resource, in economic terms, we battle for it. Those fortunate to be less worrisome, aggressive, or fearful generally have more life energy than those stressed, angry, or frightened. Processing traumas and resolving anger, aggression, and fears grant access to abundant life energy, as negative emotions cease to drain reserves. Some intuitively know how to recharge their depleted batteries, others don’t. (More on recharging in Biophilia vs. "Human Zoos”)

Those unable to recharge resort to stealing energy reserves from others, referred to colloquially as energy vampires.

Attention and Energy Vampires

Energy vampires demand attention as giving attention means giving energy. Hence, a child receiving parental attention is happier and healthier than a neglected one. A plant we look at daily with love is more beautiful, and new relationships are exciting due to the extra energy received from mutual attention. The more energy we have, the healthier our bodies and the lighter our spirits are.

Energy vampires invariably seek attention, be it through offense, complaints, showiness, aggression, long monologues, or silent treatment. The essence is not what they request since anyone can make unjust demands, but whether we comply. We have control over our life energy. We can choose to give it to whomever we wish. The problem arises when energy vampires persuade us to part with a significant portion of our life energy. To defend effectively against them, we must understand which buttons they press within us that make us open our treasure chests and let them in to take our “gold.”

Some donors are regularly drained by older women, like a mother-in-law or neighbor, reminding them of a harsh older female caregiver from childhood. As a child, continuously observing the caregiver’s steps and mood was an efficient survival and conflict avoidance strategy, giving energy in exchange for safety.

As adults, our toolbox is much more advanced, allowing us to defend ourselves differently. Yet, such unprocessed fears from the past surface when encountering an older woman perceived as potentially harmful. This results in giving all attention and subsequently, a significant amount of life energy to her, feeling utterly exhausted afterward.

Some people feared their fathers due to physical or verbal abuse; thus, when encountering an older, slightly aggressive man, or a person in a position of authority, resurfacing childhood fears can cause intense reactions. These reactions can narrow one's focus, rendering individuals silent listeners to the man’s monologue, while their life energy transfers to him.

Some, bullied by classmates, are terrified of their peers or colleagues, while others can be drained by owners of large dogs due to a past dog attack.

Importantly, the mentioned donors do not react this way to every older woman, man, peer, or dog owner for two reasons. Firstly, not all are energy vampires; many have their own energy sources. Secondly, not everyone reminds us of those we feared in the past.

The key is to observe our patterns and identify to whom and in what situations we surrender our valuable energy. Is it to women? Men? Elders? The youth? Those in subordinate or superior positions? When we're tired? When we’re hurt? Identifying this allows for preparatory energetic protection and subsequent deeper exploration of the underlying issues.

Two Things to Remember

1. As adults, the decision to give our life energy to someone else, whether consciously or subconsciously, rests with us. Manipulating life energy from others is inherently unfair, and we have the right to defend ourselves from such treatment. This might mean shutting down a conversation or leaving a family gathering early, actions that might seem impolite. However, isn’t draining someone's energy inherently impolite as well?

2. Mostly, we give life energy unwillingly because we fear the consequences. Often, the fear intensity is unjustified by the current situation and stems from exaggerated reactions to past experiences. Recognizing that our current emotional responses are not commensurate with the present situation, and reminding ourselves that we are not in the same serious danger as we were in childhood, can lower our stress levels.

All in all we need to identify our patterns and then discover the root cause of the fear we are reminded of by these energy vampires. This can be done with introspection, guided meditation, family constellation, Theta-floating, or many other methods. And in the meantime it is imperative to find the best way to quickly recharge our energy tanks!

– Eszter

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Welcome to the eighth issue of Eszter’s Weekly Elephant! We hope your week has been pleasant so far! Let's dive into this week's topics.

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First of all, let's play a little!

I ask everyone to imagine waking up in the middle of nowhere, in the Colorado mountains during winter. In the vicinity, there are only trees, a stream, and a single makeshift hut. The hut stands empty. It's cold outside, so the only logical decision is to go inside and look around. Inside the hut, there's an iron stove with a small door for inserting firewood, a bed with a few crumpled blankets, a chair, and a pocketknife on the table. It starts to snow outside, and it gets colder in the hut. Clearly, it's necessary to start a fire, so you step outside to look for something to burn. Behind the hut, logs are piled up, but each is much larger than the stove's door where the wood should be inserted. No axe can be found, so you reluctantly start to whittle some wood shavings from one of the logs with the knife found in the hut. An hour passes, your fingers freeze, and you gather only three or four handfuls of small wood pieces. Obviously, this won't last through the night, so you decide the knife is unfit for the task and discard it.

In order to fashion something axe-like, you start looking for a larger stone.The wind whistles in your ears, and falling snow constantly impedes your vision. Despite this, after half an hour, you find a flat stone with a somewhat sharp edge, which you try to attach to a thicker branch to split the logs. With much difficulty, you sharpen the flat stone with another rock, then attach it to one of the hut's chair legs, which you've broken off, using your belt. After you're done with the makeshift axe, you go outside and start hitting one of the logs in the increasingly heavy snow. The log jumps away, then a small piece breaks off, but the axe isn't sharp enough, and the belt doesn't hold the stone well enough to exert real force. After a few hours, all your energy is depleted, and terrible anger overtakes you. In the midst of furious cursing, you blindly throw the makeshift axe into the forest and resign yourself to the idea that starting a fire was foolish to begin with. Who the hell needs a fire anyway? Only the weak. You are a strong, resilient person and can endure the night and even the entire winter without fire!

I'm curious to see how people evaluate this short story. Who thinks they could endure the winter, survive the night, and who thinks the idea of starting a fire is indeed sensible and necessary, just needing the right tools because neither the small knife nor the blunt, poorly attached stone are suitable for the task.

Why did I tell this story and ask the reader to imagine themselves in this situation? Well, because lately, I hear more and more that mental work, dissecting feelings, is utterly pointless, and with the help of psychologists and psychiatrists, generations of adults have become completely useless, overly sensitive, incapable of living and fighting. What we need are tough people who can stand their ground in life and achieve their goals, in which the new kind of upbringing that deals with kids' moods and feelings apparently failed, leading to more adults suffering from depression and various mental illnesses. Back in the good old days, there were strong and courageous men and resourceful women, unlike today's constantly whining men and women.

In my opinion, this argument is as sensible as claiming in the story above that the idea of starting a fire is stupid and unnecessary. The fact that we've been using the wrong methods so far, haven't yet found truly effective tools, and haven't achieved the expected results, doesn't mean the entire idea is foolish. It just means we need to try a different approach.

My experience also indicates that although psychology can offer help in some areas and aid in understanding certain relationships, it is not equipped to resolve real, deep-seated emotional issues. I know this statement will upset many, but I emphasize that I am speaking from my own experiences, and this is what they show.

I have seen some people who have spent years with a psychologist and have sunk into a kind of self-pity. After a while, they may no longer see beyond their problems and might even forget to live, merely licking their emotional wounds. I understand that seeing this in their acquaintances or experiencing it themselves, many people may think that the entire concept of dealing with one's feelings, addressing traumas, and striving for healing is completely pointless.

But this is exactly like rejecting the idea of starting a fire because the method we started with wasn't right.

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Recently, Elon Musk recommended a book whose key message is that children need structure, strict rules, and not to focus on their feelings, then they won't grow up to be whiny snowflakes. However, the ironic situation that has arisen is that the very tough, resourceful adults we now refer to, saying we should teach that old model and show that example to children—that their feelings are not important, that they should do nothing with their traumas, that they should just forget all the bad things that happened to them—led exactly to generations who, based on their own bad experiences and cold childhoods, wanted a better childhood for their own kids and started to deal with their own and their children's feelings.

In other words, the thesis that forgetting our feelings, not dealing with our traumas, and strict rules result in happy children was disproven in practice. The parents of today's youth did not see that as the key to happiness, so they tried something else. They tried to start a fire.

Maybe they didn't have the right tools, maybe they haven't managed to start that fire yet, maybe only smoke is coming out of the stove, but they tried. And if we decide that instead of further refining our methods, correcting the stone's attachment to the handle to make it more effective, fine-tuning our tools, we discard the whole idea, then I think we're making a very big mistake.

This would be akin to Elon Musk deciding to give up and return to seventies technology after his third rocket exploded. He didn't decide that, did he? Just as other engineers, inventors, researchers didn't. Experimentation, failures, dead ends, and successes are all part of progress. And I believe that in this area, we are far from having perfect tools. We may be at the point where we have quite effective tools, like my personal favorites family constellation and craniosacral therapy, plus there are a few more, but we are still not at the point where these couldn't be improved.

This requires time, patience, and experimentation. And my husband and I have done exactly this over the past decades, as have many others who understood that there is now a greater need for emotional and self-awareness work than ever before. This is precisely why I write and publish articles, short stories, guides, and essays in Eszter’s Weekly Elephant, so that the knowledge and those methods we have gathered, which are more effective than previous ones, can be accessed and benefited from by others.

Although I understand the mindset of disregarding our emotional lives and feelings and I emphasize I am aware of the current most widespread methods' shortcomings and deficiencies, in my opinion, it would be a mistake to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I'm curious about your opinions on this matter. Please share your experiences and opinions in the comments.

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Now let's move on to our topics for this week!

This time, we've explored topics related to work, success, career, and childhood sexual abuse in Eszter’s Weekly Elephant.

This week, one of the articles discussed why adults who have experienced childhood trauma find it harder to cope with workplace stress and why they react more intensely when involved in any workplace conflict. Understanding this correlation gives us a compelling reason to start processing our childhood experiences. Those interested in the article can find it here:

This week's short story addressed a topic that affects many but is seldom discussed willingly due to the shame, fear, anger, and pain associated with it. Many people, even in adulthood, are hesitant to confront the fact that they were victims of sexual abuse in their childhood, let alone start processing their feelings about it. Reading the short story titled "The Veranda" can be the first step on this difficult but promisingly positive journey.

Why do I say this journey promises many results? Having worked with many clients, I've seen the extensive impact that unprocessed childhood sexual trauma can have on various aspects of a person's life. For instance, it influences self-esteem, relationships, career, health (for example in many cases the unprocessed childhood sexual trauma is directly linked to extra pounds), boundary-setting abilities, and much more. Hence, I've often seen that as my clients worked on themselves and healed, more and more positive changes occurred in their lives. Often in areas we didn't even assume could be related to this issue. So, anyone who wants to start on the path of healing should read the short story! And let's not forget: healing and inner work are never as daunting as they seem.

This week also saw the publication of a personal essay, in which I explored through one of my childhood's defining fairy tales, "The Little Match Girl," how to work with fairy tales, like those by Grimm and Andersen, and folk tales. This story has always been close to my heart and never left me at peace. I never understood why until I examined precisely where I see myself in the story and realized that this tale highlighted a significant blind spot for me. Those interested in what this blind spot is and how I finally managed to illuminate it within myself, read on!

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We are offering a new opportunity for our paying subscribers! Anyone who would like to ask me about their own problems or about the topics discussed in "Eszter's Weekly Elephant" privately can do so by sending their question to my email address, which is available exclusively for paying subscribers. If you are curious about my experiences and perspective on your problem, do not hesitate to write to me!

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This brings us to this week's content for paid subscribers. Your support means a lot!

This week, we're discussing a very common phenomenon with our paid subscribers: the glass ceiling, which appears in many families, many human relationships, and embitters life. To decide and clearly see whether we live our lives under a glass ceiling, I've described in the paid article the operational principle of the glass ceiling and the signs that it hovers over our heads. The article also discusses how to eliminate this uncomfortable state if we wish to.

For those who enjoyed the short story "The Veranda" and feel like they want to take a few more steps on the path of healing, read the guide associated with the short story, where I talk in detail about the different layers of emotions caused by sexual abuse. Those who want to heal from childhood sexual abuse should first understand the emotional baggage they need to unpack. Honest answers to the questions posed in the guide can help in identifying these packages, and assist the reader in healing.

Thank you!

We hope that this week we've provided you with exciting information and entertaining stories again!

Thank you for reading Eszter's Weekly Elephant regularly. We are delighted that you find our writings interesting and hope we can welcome you among our paid subscribers!

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Your support makes a whole world of difference; it is what keeps us going! :)

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For each short story we have created a guide that elaborates on the subject/conflict of the story and offers some more insights about the topic. The guide also offers a quick exercise that helps the reader examine their relationship with the subject and see themselves more clearly.

We recommend reading the short story first, you can find it here:

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In the short story "The Veranda," we delve into a very sensitive topic, specifically childhood molestation or sexual harassment. This type of childhood trauma leaves deep marks on a person, even if it is "just" molestation without actual sexual violence. Molestation and sexual harassment come in many forms, including those that people tend to dismiss, claiming it was just a stupid joke, a dumb comment, or an unpleasant touch.

I've heard many say that it wasn't a big deal that their fathers watched pornographic films in their presence during their childhood, made comments of a sexual nature or just charged with sexual energy about their breasts beginning to develop, which made them feel uncomfortable, or how an uncle would sit them on his lap as children and they could feel him get an erection.

If, as adults, we are unable to clearly determine whether what happened to us in childhood was actually molestation or sexual harassment, then the best thing we can do is ask ourselves the following question:

If anger flares up within us, if we become outraged, and if the instinct to protect our child is immediately activated, then it is clear that what happened to us was much more than just a poorly executed joke or misunderstanding. If it turns out that we too were molested or sexually abused, then the only thing we can do is start processing this trauma.

Sexual harassment, molestation, and abuse are emotionally complex topics. In addition to the loss of a sense of safety, victims often struggle with immense feelings of shame and dirtiness after the incident. They also commonly face the problem of having no one to share their experience with, which is particularly true if the abuser is a close family member or someone close to the family.

Even if the perpetrator is a stranger, the child might still fear not being believed if they tell their story. Naturally, if the parent-child relationship is truly based on trust, then there's a greater chance that the child will report what happened to their parents.

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The situation becomes more complicated when one of the parents is the abuser. In this case, the child must take a huge risk if they want to share what happened because it's uncertain if the other parent will take their side. If they are not believed or, even worse, ridiculed, they lose not only one but both parents in an instant, and their whole world collapses.

The short story "The Veranda" vividly demonstrates the turmoil of many feelings swirling in a child's soul when they become victims of sexual abuse. Just as Julie connects many positive experiences to her grandparents' house because of her grandmother and her mother, there is also the boiling anger, shame, and weight of the secret caused by molestation, which she never shared with anyone in the family. Despite her attempts, Julie was unable to process what had happened to her by adulthood. When she returns to the house in Southern France, the nauseating memories immediately resurface.

Julie clings to the house because it is where she experienced her most beautiful summers with her mother, whom she lost early, but it is also where she experienced the worst moments of her life, thanks to her pedophile grandfather. These memories still sour her relationships in the present because she feels uncomfortable with sexual advances from men. As for the decision whether to sell her grandparents' house or keep it, I won't reveal that; those interested should read the short story.

Regarding the dynamics of sexual harassment, it is necessary to somehow map out and heal many emotional layers within the victim because without processing all of these, we will not be able to recover from the trauma.

Of course, this doesn't mean that we won't experience partial results during the time we work on ourselves, but we will only fully heal when we have examined and addressed every aspect of what happened.

It's important to honestly look at what we feel, and even when potentially confusing feelings arise, not to blame ourselves. Sexual assault or molestation is never the child's fault, no matter what they may feel towards the perpetrator or about the act itself.

For example, I've seen a woman who as a young teenage girl tried to get revenge on her mother by flirting with her stepfather who eventually raped her. The adult daughter blamed herself for what happened and for initially enjoying the flirting.

The shame caused by her original motivation, and the initial excitement of an adult man responding to her budding femininity, generated a sense of shame so profound that she was unable to admit her true feelings to herself for a long time, and thus unable to heal for decades.

We must be aware that the molestation or rape of a child or teenager is always the responsibility and shame of the adult. No matter what a young child does, at the end of the day, it is the adult who must know what is right and what is wrong and act accordingly. Just as we do not slap a three-year-old, even if they slap or hit us for some reason. As adults, there are various methods to handle such situations, and it is our responsibility to choose the appropriate one.

Now, let's examine the emotional dimensions related to abuse that survivors of childhood sexual abuse need to explore within themselves:

1. How did we feel when the molestation or violence happened? Here, we are not discussing our feelings towards the perpetrator, but rather our feelings about the incident itself. Fear? Shame? Disgust? Anger? Or possibly some positive sensation? Indeed, this is possible, as various family dynamics can contribute to complicating such situations, as mentioned above.

2. What did we feel and what do we feel now towards the perpetrator? Hatred? Pity? Anger? Disgust? Or some other feeling?

3. If we didn't tell anyone at the time what happened to us, what was it like to have to keep it all to ourselves? What was it like to not be able to trust anyone enough to tell them what happened? And what was it like knowing that the perpetrator could still prowl around us innocently?

4. If we did tell someone what happened, what feelings did it evoke in them? Did we encounter understanding or disbelief? What was that like? Reassuring? Providing security? Frightening? Shameful? Or possibly infuriating?

5. Was there any change after we told someone about what happened? Were there any consequences for the perpetrator or not? What was it like to be believed or not believed? What was it like to have someone stand by us or not? Did we feel safe after we shared what we had gone through?

6. If it wasn’t one of our parents who committed the sexual abuse, what do we think as adults, did our parents know about it regardless of whether we told them or not? Do we blame them for what happened? Do we think they should have taken better care of us? What does that feel like?

7. If one of our parents abused us, what do we feel deep in our hearts about whether the other parent knew about it, collaborated as an accomplice, even if only by turning a blind eye to the signs? What kind of feeling does this evoke in us?

8. What feeling does it evoke in us that we involuntarily experienced the first sexual experiences of our lives with the abuser?

If we honestly answer these questions, we can identify the points that elicit the strongest emotional response in us. It is worthwhile to begin the processing journey with these themes. Expressing our emotions, even if only to ourselves, can be greatly helpful. We might even imagine the characters of our story and tell them one by one what hurt us, what angered us, and how we felt. Understanding anger and resentment more deeply and releasing them in a safe manner is advisable. To fully comprehend what they mean and how to release them safely, it would be worthwhile to read the following two articles:

As for the safe release of anger and how to continue processing childhood sexual trauma, here is a guide:

I hope that the aforementioned questions and topics will help you better understand and untangle the complex emotional knot caused by sexual abuse. While finding a solution is never easy, investing energy into it is worthwhile because such traumatic childhood experiences often result in wide-ranging subconscious behaviors, which most often lead to some form of self-sabotage. This can ruin not only our relationships but also our health and careers.

– Eszter

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Julie sat alone on the veranda of the charming South-French house. The last time she was here was in the summer of 1987. Before that, she spent every single summer, every day, with her grandparents. Her father would visit her on weekends until September when school began, and they would return to Nantes.

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Julie first spent her summer with her paternal grandparents when she was two. For that year and six more, her mother always accompanied her. She still remembered how they would sit outside on the veranda in the evenings, sipping raspberry syrup, as her mother told her stories about the local wildlife. Julie would snuggle close to her mother, taking comfort in her scent, which felt safe and familiar.

Sonja, a second-generation Russian immigrant in France, adored Julie. After trying for a long time with her husband, Sonja finally became pregnant. The day she held her newborn daughter was the happiest day of her life. She gave Julie everything she could, never entrusting her to anyone else. She was always nearby, just in case Julie needed her, even when the three-year-old wanted to explore the vast and intimidating garden in the South of France on her own. Sonja would sit on the veranda, pretending to be engrossed in her book, but in reality, she was watching her daughter's every move, grateful to Lautrec, the French bulldog owned by her in-laws, for accompanying her child.

Julie remembered how many times she looked back at her mother. When she had a tantrum about wanting to go alone, she hadn't thought about how expansive the garden was, how the young magnolia tree seemed so intimidating, with its potential to hide any strange creature behind it. As Julie ventured further from the veranda, her confidence dwindled. Sonja noticed Julie wandering more sideways than venturing further out into the garden. She could sense her daughter's inner struggle between her fear and pride. Picking up the sunscreen from the table, Sonja took the forty steps separating them.

As Julie saw her mother approaching, pride flashed across her face, but Sonja reassured her from a distance that she just wanted to apply sunscreen to protect her pale skin, inherited from her mother. Reluctantly, Julie let her mother apply the sunscreen, but she was secretly relieved she came over, feeling safe even by the intimidating magnolia tree. Once done, Sonja simply told Julie to return to the veranda for some raspberry syrup if she felt thirsty and then resumed reading her book. After wandering for another three minutes, Julie, with Lautrec by her side, returned to her mother, claiming she was thirsty. She showed her mother the round stone she had picked up, which Sonja examined carefully, promising to paint a small fox on it the next day.

Sonja was a talented painter, even though she had never studied painting. As a young girl, her mother wanted her to attend art school, but she chose to get married instead to escape her aggressive father. Her first marriage wasn't successful, and they divorced after a few years. Later, she met Émile, Julie's father. Both felt they were meant for each other, quickly married, and lived happily, except for Sonja's difficulty in getting pregnant. They had been married for over twelve years when they decided on in-vitro fertilization, leading to Julie's birth. From then on, their life was complete. Both parents adored Julie. Since they were well into their thirties when she was born, Julie had more composed and wiser parents compared to those raised by parents in their twenties.

After the birth of their granddaughter, Émile's parents finally accepted Sonja, and from then on, the family spent a lot of time on the beautiful estate in the South of France. Sonja got along well with Émile's mother, Charlotte, but always sensed a cold distance from his father.

Happiness lasted for Julie until she was eight years old because Sonja became sick. Not long after her diagnosis, she became bedridden. After a grueling year and a half, she passed away. Julie was so devastated by her mother's death that she stopped drawing and became an exceptionally quiet child. Her father tried everything to help her, but the void Sonja left behind was a massive, paralyzing gap in the little girl's soul. Life seemingly continued as before. Julie attended school, and Émile worked. During the day, Julie was looked after by Sonja's mother, who, affected by the tragedy, wanted to be closer to her granddaughter and moved into their ground-floor guest room. Émile was grateful to his mother-in-law; without her, he wouldn't have been able to manage Julie's care until he returned from work. They got along well, and seeing her granddaughter every day eased the grandmother's pain.

Julie still spent her summers with Émile's parents, but everything seemed to change. While Émile still visited her every weekend, Julie no longer enjoyed the things she previously found magical. She became even quieter and sadder than when she was in Nantes. Her father thought the summer vacations stirred too many memories of Sonja, so after two summers, he decided they would only visit the grandparents in Southern France, not leave Julie with them. It seemed he was right. When Julie learned she wouldn't be staying with her grandparents that summer, she seemed relieved. Her mood improved slightly, and she began to talk a bit more. However, she never returned to drawing.

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Julie came back to the present, glancing around with her teacup in hand. It would have been more fitting to drink raspberry syrup, but it hadn't been in her grandmother's kitchen for a long time. In fact, the whole house had been empty for about ten years. Three years after her grandfather's death, her grandmother moved into a retirement home, unable to maintain the vast garden and afraid to be alone on the edge of the forest. Since then, her father had paid a neighbor to occasionally mow the lawn and keep the bushes in check. The magnolia tree had grown massive since she last saw it.

Julie sighed deeply. She hadn't wanted to set foot here for decades. The house and garden conjured too many painful memories. Yet, the warm and secure feelings connected to her mother were also tied to this place. Exploring the world on her tiny, uncertain legs with her mother was an adventure. She vividly remembered how her mother made it easier for her to retreat from her overly ambitious exploration without hurting her pride. She smiled.

Now she came here in place of her father, who no longer undertook such long journeys. In the three years after her grandfather’s death, she had been here twice, visiting her grandmother. During her last visit, they had a significant falling out, so severe that the elderly woman passed away without speaking to her for five years. Julie was deeply hurt by how distant they had become, even though they were close throughout her childhood. Her grandmother never understood why Julie no longer wanted to spend her summers with them and why they saw her only once a year, around Christmas.

When Julie had been living in Bordeaux for years as an art consultant at one of the renowned galleries, she could have easily visited them, but she didn’t. Her relationship with her grandfather became particularly strained. The little girl who once turned to her grandparents with so much love seemed to have grown into a selfish adult woman, neglecting her family. Her grandfather often chastised his wife about the selfish granddaughter, who was solely focused on her own life and never spared time for her family. Julie's grandmother occasionally relayed these criticisms, which always infuriated Julie. She would have loved to hang up the phone during these times, but she refrained. She loved her grandmother and didn’t want to hurt her. She would silently listen to her, then change the subject, trying to share a lighter story.

Her other grandmother had been alive until Julie became an adult. When Julie was seventeen, she was suddenly taken away by a stroke. Even then, the young girl knew that for years her grandmother's heart had longed to join her departed loved ones. Yet she stayed alive while Julie deeply needed her. At seventeen, Julie was left alone with her father, who, without his wife, never smiled again. He raised his daughter responsibly, saved money for her to attend university, and when Julie moved out, he immersed himself even more in his work. He never remarried. He always said that his other half was Sonja and a person doesn't have a third half.

After Julie moved to Bordeaux, she visited him once a month and spent a weekend with him. But in 2009, he had a fall while trying to repair the roof, shattering his right leg. He struggled with it for years until the doctors decided that the unhealing bones needed to be amputated. Thus, they amputated his leg below the knee, and Julie moved him in with her. He couldn’t work anymore, especially not physical labor.

A year later, after successfully selling the house he was born in, they bought him a small apartment in the neighboring building. Fortunately, the man accepted his situation and began carving small wooden sculptures. Even though Julie constantly worried he'd hurt himself, he skillfully managed the chisel and hammer. Professionally, she believed his sculptures deserved attention. Her grandfather had been dead for three years by then, and her grandmother had moved to the city’s retirement home. Julie tried often to take her father to visit, but weekend exhibition openings often disrupted her plans. Work, her father, her grandmother – they all kept her so busy that she had no energy left to find someone for herself, even though she was already thirty-eight. Years quietly passed her by as she listened to her best – also single – friend lament about unreliable, commitment-phobic men. Julie hadn’t even gotten to the point of meeting one.

As she sat in the twilight, listening to the chirping of crickets, she melancholically tried to recall the last time she kissed someone. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t decide whether it was one-date Robert or three-date Julio who was the most recent. In the end, it didn’t matter as both “relationships” had been over for about four years. Julie was incapable of letting men get close to her. She felt sick from their touch, couldn’t stand feeling their breath by her ear, just like she used to feel with her grandfather. It made her nauseous. She had no idea how many hours she had spent on psychologists' couches, trying to get over her molestation. She cried for hours, raged, threw tantrums, did everything self-help books suggested, but she still couldn't bear men.

As darkness slowly settled in, Julie resigned herself to the idea that she would spend her life alone. She could never confide in anyone about what happened during those two summers she spent at her grandparents' without her mother. How could she? Her grandmother adored her wonderful husband, and her father looked up to his dad. How could she drop such an atomic bomb in the middle of the family living room? It would have shattered her grandmother, and most likely her father too. So, she remained silent all these years. She bore her grandfather's reproaches for not visiting, but honestly, she felt nauseated every time she saw the old man. She pretended to her father that the memory of her mother was the reason she didn't want to vacation with them. She remembered the relief when she found out she wouldn't have to be alone with her grandfather again. She was overjoyed!

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Now, she sat on the house's veranda, as she used to. Surrounded by whispers of both beautiful and painful memories, alone. Rain began to fall again. It had been raining on and off for days. She needed to decide the fate of the house — to sell it or keep it. Her father, in the early stages of dementia, couldn’t help her. She was at a loss. Looking at the magnolia tree in the distance, she saw her mother, approaching with sunscreen, and her heart warmed. But when she peeked into the living room, she remembered her grandfather's clammy touch, and she began to cough, feeling choked. It felt like riding a giant roller coaster — one moment up in safety and joy, the next plunging into the suffocating darkness of pain and trauma.

It grew dark. Julie still lingered on the veranda, her cold tea in hand, staring blankly into the night, lost in thought. Three days ago, her grandmother’s neighbor expressed interest in buying the farm. Initially shocked, Julie requested time to think. As soon as she realized what was at stake, a flurry of emotions erupted from within, and a thousand thoughts raced through her mind:

‘Sell it! Get rid of the place and its monster!’

‘Don't sell! You had your happiest moments there, beneath the magnolia with your mom!’

‘Sell it! Perhaps it will help you move on from what happened!’

‘Don't sell! That would be just running away, leading nowhere!’

‘Sell it! It’s too much trouble and unnecessary!’

‘Don't sell! It could be a peaceful sanctuary for weekends!’

She had hoped coming here would clarify her decision, but she remained uncertain. One thing was clear: she wouldn’t sleep in that house. She had booked a room at a nearby motel. Actually, the veranda was the only part of the house she really liked. She and her mom spent days outside in the garden, the fields, or the veranda. They only ventured inside for another glass of raspberry syrup.

Around midnight, Julie locked up the house and left for her motel room. The next day, there was a grand fair, a flea market, and a May Day festival on the other end of the village, behind the hills. Julie immersed herself in the crowd and enjoyed the hustle and bustle, staying until late afternoon. She bought two bottles of artisanal brandy made by a Hungarian family who had moved to the village three years earlier, and two types of artisanal cheese. She thought to bring some delicacies to her father. She walked back to the farm and sat on the veranda. She opened a bottle and poured herself some of the strong liquor. The brandy burned her throat and warmed her stomach. After her third glass, a thought suddenly sprung into her mind:

‘I can't sell this place, I love it too much. But I can't stay in this house; I despise it so.’

Julie stood up, walked to the center of the living room, and looked at the photo of her grandfather and the other family photos that her grandmother had left on a covered chest of drawers. Her grandmother had a thousand framed pictures of the family. Her room in the retirement home was filled with them, and these were the ones she just couldn't fit in there. Julie saw the one her father had taken of her sitting on her grandfather's lap. She began to shout.

‘You were a disgusting monster! I hate you! I hate you! You should never have done this!’ Then she turned to the other photos and screamed out everything that had happened to her.

When she calmed down, she took the other bottle of brandy, opened it, stuck a kitchen cloth into it, and lit it on fire. In her hand, she finally held the fuse of the atomic bomb, and with all her strength, she threw it at the chest where the photos stood. She watched as the flames ignited, scorching the old furniture, the photos, and consuming the curtain. She felt relieved. She opened the door and stepped out of the burning house. Fortunately, due to the recent rain, the ground and vegetation were very wet, so the fire did not spread beyond the house. By the time the firefighters arrived, both the house and the summer kitchen were consumed by fire. Julie watched the flames with delight. The night went on with the firefighters putting out the fire, and an investigation was initiated against her. However, her lawyer friend informed her that she wouldn't face severe consequences; after all, it was her own house she had burnt down and not someone else’s.

For the first time in years, she slept peacefully. When she arrived at the house early the next afternoon, only three remnants of walls pointed towards the sky. The roof was gone, the beams burned, and all the furnishings were destroyed. Julie felt an incredible sense of relief. She turned around and saw the magnolia tree standing unharmed, as it always had since she could remember. She took out her phone and dialed her father's former boss, who had a construction business.

‘Hello, Julie! Everything okay? Is Émile well?’

‘Hi Dominique! Yes, thank you. I'm calling because I want to build a small house in a beautiful garden, under the shade of a magnolia tree. Would you take on the job?’

– Eszter

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