Souls Undressing: How the Ability to Unlearn Can Change the Way We Live and Connect

By Zoltan Pinter

In ancient times many teachings were written in the style called Sutra. The idea behind Sutra is if there is something you can say in six words – say it in five. The sixth word has to be found. They believed this was the only way in which you could understand life.
In Souls Undressing I set out to find the ‘sixth word’ as both a therapist and as an individual. As I embark on this journey I will relive and revive some of the pivotal moments from my therapy cases through the lens of literature and my own life experience.  Along the way I found unlearning becoming more important than learning. Undressing. Loosening the hold on old patterns, unbuttoning and perhaps even throwing them away. When souls meet other souls without their usual costumes.
In these stories you may easily find yourself facing your own feelings, dilemmas and life situations. You may even come to meet yourself. And me. For writing about unbuttoning our souls, the therapist cannot remain dressed either. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Aug 12, 2021

Book preview

Introduction

The man who did not board the aeroplane which crashed and buried all of its passengers is now silently showing me his ticket, booked and numbered with a seat just for him. Yes, he too would have crashed. But he did not, and now he is standing here, with his life, granted to him as a gift from fate and blind chance, his life, this incomprehensible, unmerited gift. What is he to do with it? He could squander it as something he had not paid for, or he can protect it even from the wind, guard it from stomach upsets or upheavals of any kind, for it is a life that has been marked, a life precious and extraordinary and fate is bound to have something in mind for it. So now he stands here, somewhat bewildered. Up until now, he had just been alive. Now he knows that he is alive – and he is all but shattered by this insight.¹

Sándor Márai – The Man who was destined to live

Up till now, he had just been alive. Now he knows that he is alive. This sentence speaks to me loud and clear. It invites me to fantasize – what would I do, were I standing there holding a ticket like that in my hand?

I can clearly see my seat number, the date, the flight number. A television announcer sums up the dry facts. Then they show the wreckage. That is where I would have been. I too, would have been there. It is heart-wrenching to think what happened to all those people… and… what would have happened to me. But it did not. The sense of shock comes like a slap around the face – what am I to do now with this ‘ticket’?

Two pathways emerge in my imagination. Just like the crossroads in a fairy tale where I have to make a choice: which way to go on? ‘My life like before’, reads one of the signposts. Beyond the sign, road winds on toward familiar landscapes. The other calls out in shrill exclamation marks, ‘Now you know that you are alive!’. I have no idea what is down there for me. What does it mean: ‘now I know that I am alive…’? Márai’s words suggest or rather, shout out loud that this is the direction I should take. ‘Now you know that you are alive.’ But I just stand there, eyes wide open, like a dog waiting outside a shop, staring longingly at the wicked door that hides the master.

In ancient times many teachings were written in the style called Sutra. The idea behind this is if there is something you can say in six words – say it in five. The sixth word has to be found. They believed this was the only way in which you could understand life.²

Márai’s words affect me like a Sutra. What could be the sixth word here?

I guess my dilemma sounds unreasonable for many of you. I’m stuck in a question to which many people have undoubted, evident answers. We can easily find a wide variety of solutions for this riddle from all kinds of sources, ranging from spiritual to academic, from hedonistic to altruistic, and you may have your own ‘sixth word’ right now. Still, I believe it is worth reaching back for ancient wisdom and I invite you to a journey of a Sutra, because both my experience as a Gestalt therapist and my own life suggests that it is the inevitable inner process between the five words and your own personal sixth word that is the most authentic source of real human transformation.

What makes me say so? What is the underlying learning power of Oriental teaching methods, be it a Sutra or, more commonly heard of today, a Zen Koan? These philosophical riddles (like Márai’s sentence) are meant to do more than inspire you to search. They mean to confuse you. The goal was not that this way the old masters could have a great time by making fun of their young students and bring some laughter into the monotonous life of the monastery. Rather, the uncertainty is the ground on which genuine development can occur.

They would tell a story, or often just a sentence, ‘Up till now You had just been alive. Now You know that you are alive…’ You begin to ponder. One thought comes to you, then the next, then a third one. A hundred, a thousand. A hundred-thousand. The search brings occasional flashes of hope – I am nearly there! But at other moments, it angers you, nauseates you. Occasionally you drift into a state of near sickness. Can it get worse? Yes. If you ask for help, the master will say you had achieved nothing. Great, I am a piece of crap, on top of everything else.

But the question has now become a part of you. It is with you when rise in the morning and still with you when you go to rest. It has ingrained itself into your life, your cells, your tiny little molecules. You are almost one with the question. It is an altered state of mind. The conscious mind slips off track. This is when the answer might come. From inside. This is what they call enlightenment. Satori.

I believe this is the context and process of true learning and human growth. We cannot escape the inevitable stages of elation, nausea and sickness. My goal with writing this manuscript is to create a similar experiential climate on the pages of a book. My personal disclosures, revealing my own ups and downs and the conversational tone all serve this goal. Sharing my own feelings, ideas, stories, beliefs and concepts evolved from the riddle of Márai, I try to encourage and support your own unique trip.

With this style I also attempt to focus on awareness, not knowledge. We are overwhelmed with information today, a huge universe of academic knowledge is available for all of us, but it is hard to achieve real awareness on our personal patterns that constitute the major ingredients of the life we live, the relationships we form. I strongly believe that to transform the ingrained personal structures that impact our life and relationship satisfaction, we need to develop awareness, not just knowledge. In my experience, a search for the sixth word can provide a fertile ground for that.

Following the underlying principle of Sutra, if I can say something in six words, I will say only five. I don’t suggest one meaning. I even hope that I can often agitate you, confuse you, frustrate you. Just like Sutras did with ancient students. But I also hope that this will develop into a creative tension in you. All of us are unique. I hope you will have a unique, meaningful journey between the five words I say and your own sixth word.

On my journey my fellow travellers were mostly writers, poets, clients and friends. The clients agreed to appear here and, of course, I have modified some of their features, so they would not be recognized.

We have known since Douglas Adams and The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy that if you want to go hiking round the galaxy you must make sure you take a towel with you. What do you need to take along for the roller-coaster ride you embark on after a Sutra type sentence? A towel might come in handy. It can get rather sweaty here. But, more importantly, you will need your imagination. According to Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt therapy, ‘fantasy is diminished reality’³ I would like to put this in a more positive language, by saying that fantasy is the beginning of reality. All of our actions start out as a fantasy that then go on to sprout into action.

I remember how, when I was a small child, my mother used to read folk tales to me. She would sit on the side of my bed and read these beautiful stories over and over again, with the same patience and charm, no matter how many times her stubborn little son would ask her to repeat them. I used to immerse myself completely in this world of fancy, the unique play of the enchanting stories and their magical world. This is how we learn about life when we are children. It might be a good idea to try the same idea now that we are grown-ups. Right away, if you like.

Can you imagine what it would be like if it you were holding that unused airplane ticket in your hand? It is you twisting it around and looking at it from time to time. Flight No. 1980. Seat No. 25. 19:30. Yes, the plane crashed. You were supposed to be on it.

But you were not.

A strange line begins to echo in your ears, ‘Up till now, You have just been alive. Now You know that you are alive.’

Dressed Up to the Teeth

Part 1

Tangles

There is so much I could learn. And so much I would love to unlearn!

A young woman of uncommon beauty enters the room. Her long, golden blond hair is resting on her shoulders, her movements are graceful and soft as she gently descends into the armchair, then looks at me with eyes of a unique, shining blue radiance.

But her eyes suddenly glide off me. Like a startled young doe which suspects there might be a predator in the bushes, her gaze escapes to one side – where there is a cupboard with dark glass doors. Her face is faintly reflected in the glass.

‘Oh, my God, I can see myself here,’ she says in a soft and startled voice. ‘Oh… this is really uncomfortable, I don’t like seeing myself. Could we move the armchair somewhere else?’

I was shocked. Many people had sat there before, many had seen their reflection in the glass. No one had perceived it as a mirror.

I still remember that moment vividly. The girl’s eyes, vibrant with fear, her startled face, her flash of a reaction. My own surprise at the vast difference between how I see her and how she sees herself. And still, what touched me most was the way in which this fear proved to be a permanent visitor, there to stay throughout our sessions. Even though we did re-arrange the room and put an end to the threat from the mirror, her insecurity was like a whimsical Indian deity which would re-incarnate in our midst in the most unexpected forms. ‘Am I good enough?’ ‘Is it possible for someone to love me?’ ‘Am I beautiful enough?’

After one of our sessions, I was sitting alone in my room. As I was contemplating over the nature of human fears, insecurities and restricting patterns, a line flashed through my mind from a poem titled Souls Undressing by the great Hungarian poet Mihály Babits, a piece with a unique ambiance. ‘Our soul longs to shed its robes…’

Hmm… What a lovely turn of phrase. Probably referring to items covering the soul like this young woman’s fear. Which muffles her like a winter overcoat. Even in summer. Costumes and customs – there may be a good reason for the relation.

My fingers rush to the internet, I look up the entire poem. It transports me, just like when I first read it. It’s an amazing cocktail of scents, sounds and flavours. Hot with passion that makes you dizzy and heady. But this is not the body’s eroticism this time. It is the soul’s.

Souls disrobed? Souls without costumes? Tempting images which once more invite me to games of fancy about human nature. I image how, nice and slowly, we could begin to unbutton the hard-collared legacy of our soul; carefully wiggle out of the sleeves of the various, thin and thick layers of our emotional auto-biography. Layers of fear and shame, cramped behaviour-patterns that hold you tight around the stomach, the motley old garments of the soul’s history all pile in a heap. We rip and tear off the most hidden and secret items of our attire, until ‘skin’ touches ‘skin’. We embrace with naked souls.

‘Your soul struck up with mine so bared,’ ⁴ runs a later line in the poem. This is beautiful. Is it possible that the mystery of the sixth word is lurking somewhere around here? In some secret place which is to do with souls that shed their clothing? The encounter of naked souls?

I don’t know, but the trace is suspicious! Sadly, there are so many things that can squeeze their way in between two souls so closely inclined toward each other. So many things that act like a thick woolly jumper, a fluffy pair of mittens or even a ski mask. This is why I have called this book, ‘Souls Undressing’. Perhaps I will get an answer for that sixth word on this misty path.

Eric Berne writes, ‘Awareness means the capacity to see a coffeepot and hear the birds sing in one's own way, and not the way one was taught." ⁵ Is it all about unlearning rather than learning? This quote from Berne slips into my mind and brings further elation. There is so much more I could learn. And so much I would willingly unlearn! So much I want to unbutton, throw down, rip off myself! So much I was not born with, I have just learned to be.

In my experience, we cause tremendous amount of trouble to ourselves with personal patterns that we are not born with but acquired and mastered in response to our experiences. Nobody is born with lack of self-confidence. No one is born with negative self-image, feelings of not good enough, not worthy or loveable. No one is born with shame, performance anxiety, grudges, eating disorders, addictions, insomnia, mood swings, depression. No one is born with messages like „I should solve every problem of my own, never rely on anyone., „I should always control my feelings and I should please others all the time. or „I should be the perfect wife, husband, artist, teacher, lover, whatever. No one is born with patterns like „I had better not be attached to anything or anybody. Or „I should never be tired or ill, I should never feel hurt."

These can be parts of many of our lives, but we have just learned them. And if these are our learned patterns, can’t we get the best results from unlearning them? If we can strip these layers of ourselves?

What we usually call personality is – in my opinion - the collection of inner responses and resources that we have mastered the most. Our individual ‘expertise’. If I grow up in cold northern landscapes, a warm jacket may come in handy. I easily learn that it is worth wearing it. But if I keep wearing it when I’m on a tropical beach, I’ll get in trouble. Personality is a kind of attire that we learn to wear. However, what is useful in Alaska can be a serious problem in hot landscapes.

My memory brings to me just another client from the recent past. Similarly to the young woman I had described earlier, she, too, lived a life where ‘fear of the eyes of others’, as they sometimes call it in the East, played a great role.

‘You know, I have always known that I was very scared what other people might say about me. Whether they think well of me or not. Do I say the right thing or not? Do I perform well enough or not? But I had not realized that this kind of fear was there in my every particle. In my every moment. It lurks in my voice and turns it down when I come to the delicate bits. It is lying in wait behind my compulsion to prove myself. It drives me on all the time to perform well. As if otherwise I were valueless. .. At work, at home, or… anywhere in life, really. It won’t leave me alone. It won’t let me be free…’

Her eyes well with tears.

‘You talk about it as if there were the two of you,’ I say, noting her turn of phrase.

‘That’s interesting; it is actually kind of what I experience. As if I had a true, genuine self, but this other one would not allow it fulfil itself. (A brief silence…) You know… in the past I used to think that my fears were only present in my decisions. Now I believe they are there in my every relationship. It is my fearful part that goes to look for a job. It is she who finds a job or gets rejected. She builds a relationship, she chooses or is chosen. She takes a liking to someone, she has conversations and she makes love…’ The air stood still for long moments.

Whose life are we living? Who do we actualize? The answer seems related to items like the fear this girl was wearing so close to her soul. Encompassing not only her soul but her whole life. Unless she can unbutton these heritages.

I believe it was no accident that my memory brought back to me the cases of these two women. The question that emerged was no accident, either. Goethe claimed, ’Whatever you write, you are writing about yourself.’ Indeed, in the mirror of these girls I see myself. The overdressed costumes of my own soul. My fears. My doubts. My insecurities. My manoeuvres to