How “small” must one become in order to survive?
How much do we have to shrink ourselves to survive? A reflection on adaptation, the loss of language and identity, family histories, and how to break the chain of “making oneself small” through knowing awareness and reconciliation.
Some time ago, I read Dr. Dain Heer’s book Being You, Changing the World and came across a metaphor that shook me to my core. Dr. Dain Heer compares relationships to trying to cut off your arms and legs just to fit into a tiny Mini Cooper, all as a sacrifice for a love that is supposed to “save” us.
We believe we must sacrifice ourselves to be loved, to survive, in a relationship, in a country. But what if this “making oneself small” not only threatens the relationship, but also life itself as it changes?
Mini Cooper and the “Klein Gatter” a symbol of adaptation or survival?
The Mini Cooper, a symbol of the British automotive industry, a people’s car. Small, charming, practical, very much like the “Klein Gatter” many years before the Mini Cooper. Both sound cute, unassuming, yet they are solid and reliable. But what does this stability cost us? How much of ourselves fits in there, and how much no longer fits? The “Klein Gatter” did not make it into our time, the Mini Cooper did.
We cut ourselves to size in order to survive.
Henry Ertner
We adapt to family expectations, we give up our language over time under difficult circumstances, we give up our dreams. We fall silent, to be loved, to avoid causing trouble, or simply to have peace.
My father Jan and “making oneself small”
My father Jan adapted himself into smallness, quietly and unobtrusively. He left his dreams behind, gave up his mother tongue, nearly lost his identity. Until the age of six, when he started school, he spoke only German. When asked in my dissertation, “Who are you? How do you feel?” he replied, “I am a European,” so as not to have to choose between “German” and “Czech.”
His life revolved around the shifting ground of identity. In a conversation a year before he left us, he whispered “I feel Czech.” Yet on his deathbed a year ago, he spoke only German. In his world, he searched for a way to survive in Czechia. He found comfort in the mountains, in beer, in playing bridge, and in gardening, until it became too much, and then he was gone.
Grandfather Heinrich, lost in his homeland and his “making oneself small”
My grandfather Heinrich, born in Austria-Hungary, later a citizen of Czechoslovakia, then of the German Reich, long stateless, and finally again a citizen of Czechoslovakia. He spoke only German and worked in a mine, a life-saving stronghold against war and expulsion.
The miner who smoked and drank in order to stay “small.” To avoid dangerous thoughts, to not get involved, and above all to stop the flood of feelings and emotions. Alcohol became the mask. For almost all male family members, it was an issue. For some, the “demon alcohol” was deadly. They did not want to be aware.
How much really fits?
We cut off parts of our being in order to survive, to avoid feelings, to protect ourselves. I know that myself. I cannot drink alcohol, it doesn’t feel right. I can barely visit the Sudeten German regions. The energy there is still tangible after 80 years, people who live there, have forgotten everything and want to know nothing. Gone is gone!
A trusted person once asked me “Are you aware of the fate you carry? That your ancestors processed so little? Do you want to pass this heavy energy on to your children?”
My answer was clear, I want this chain to end with me. I want to forgive, to reconcile, to create understanding through conversation. That’s why I write these lines, to show that I love this country, eventhough it often stirs my emotions. I hope more people find the way back to themselves, to facing their own past, to the knowing awareness that one can have their cut-off arms and legs back again.
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved through knowing awareness.”
Albert Einstein
In German its “Verständnis”, in english it was translated as “understanding”, in my opinion “knowing awareness” is more precise then “under — standing”.
This knowing awareness arises through exchange, through conversation. “All life is encounter,” as it says so beautifully on the entrance sign at Heiligenhof, only then can we open and heal the wounds of our “making oneself small.”
The way out of “making oneself small” begins in the self
We are not Mini Coopers; we are human beings, with dreams, languages, identities. We do not need to distort ourselves in order to “fit.” We may grow and show ourselves, allow the reality of our being.
Let us forgive ourselves, learn to understand, and break the chains of “making oneself small” not through force, but through empathy, through language, through conversations about history, even when they are painful. Through conversations about ourselves, with a sense of deep feeling of being safe and warm-hearted kindness.
Deutsch https://www.henryertner.com/wie-klein-muss-man-werden-um-zu-ueberleben/
English https://medium.com/@henryertner/how-small-must-one-become-in-order-to-survive-f886f697a126
Česky https://medium.seznam.cz/clanek/henry-ertner-jak-malym-se-clovek-musi-stat-aby-prezil-178918
