Consistent self-love: AEG-Method shows you how you can accept mistakes and use them

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psychology
With the AEG method you learn to accept mistakes and use them for yourself

© Just dance / Shutterstock

Everyone makes mistakes – and yet they are sometimes quite annoying … With the AEG method you can learn to systematically accept your failures and turn them around for the better.

The head says “okay” …

We all know clever sayings and wisdom about mistakes. “The biggest mistake one can make in life is always to be afraid of making a mistake.“, said the theologian and Nazi opponent Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example. And the quote comes from Marlene Dietrich:”If I could live my life again, I would make the same mistakes. But a little earlier so that I have more of it.“

Everyone knows that mistakes are part and parcel of life in order to grow. Only if you don’t dare to make any decisions and never go to your limits can you possibly avoid mistakes. But what kind of a wasted, sad life would it be, would you always just sit in your own comfort zone and never dare to do anything? Exactly!

… and the feeling “doesn’t work at all!”

But even if we know all this and have long made friends with every failure and failure on a rational level: How often feel after a trip, slip or mistake do we still feel bad, small and simply incapable? How often do we beat ourselves up because “our emotions got over us again”, we said something mean in an argument that we regret afterwards, or we haven’t worked hard enough? Too often we forget our resolve to love and accept ourselves and throw all self-compassion overboard on the smallest occasion.


 Signs that you don't love yourself: A young woman is hiding under her sweater

The AEG method for more consistent self-love

AEG method: book cover "Get out of relationship burnout"

© Ariston-Verlag / PR

The author and trained psychotherapist Daniela Bernhardt recommends in her great book “so that this may happen less to us in the future”Get out of relationship burnout“(Ariston-Verlag) the AEG method. The core goal of this method is that we learn to love ourselves – with all our inadequacies and also when we have just screwed up total crap. Because only then, according to Bernhardt, are we are able to show the same mildness towards others and to love a person unconditionally. Sounds good? Good! Then the method works as follows:

Step 1: accept

According to Bernhardt, if something stupid happens to us, we should first of all accept it openly and without analyzing – and without deriving any generalizations such as “again” or “typical”!

  • “Oh dear, I was a little hasty!”
  • “Shit, didn’t think about it!”
  • “Ouch! Very annoying!”

Step 2: relax and comfort

In the second step we imagine we are a small child (we are in our hearts!) And treat ourselves that way.

  • “Don’t worry, nobody is perfect.”
  • “Half as wild! The world is still turning and none of the 7 billion people have noticed anything, let alone suffered damage.”

Think – from a mother’s perspective – who or what could comfort you now. The best friend maybe? A “Modern Family” or “Friends” episode? Decorate your apartment nicely or have a piece of cheesecake?

Step 3: happiness in misfortune

Now we are (hopefully) in a position to reconcile ourselves to our fail and see something good in it.

  • “After all, it happened to me once without causing a catastrophe. Next time I’ll be smarter.”
  • “At least I got rid of my emotional burden, who knows what would have happened if I had kept it to myself.”

Because in the end there is something positive in everything that annoys us. But if we immediately attack ourselves full of anger and hatred, we only have eyes for ourselves – and are no longer able to see what is good.

Brigitte

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