Henriette – Page 4 – Henriette Nolte

Don’t Argue for Your Own Shortcomings

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Henriette

What we tell ourselves matters. A destructive internal dialogue can be as damaging as a bad habit. This is especially true for things that we repeatedly tell ourselves over years. We’ve all encountered phrases such as: I’m not good with names. I’m not good with mathematics. I’m not qualified enough. Not intelligent enough. Not strong, educated or creative enough.

Although these narratives might (at times) hold some truth, it’s often only an excuse to avoid difficult growth.

Awareness and Exercise

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Henriette

Any growth that we want to cultivate (whether that growth is health-related, career-related, emotional, or spiritual in nature) must be rooted in mindfulness. It must.

Exercise is a great example of how this applies.

Lucid Dreams and Dream Interpretation

Posted on April 23, 2025April 23, 2025 by Henriette

Some people believe that if you respect the messages in your dreams, you should never try to lucid dream or control aspects of the dream in any way. I don’t agree. It’s in the act of trying to control, that we realise what our true obstacles are.

I’m using the word “control” in the positive sense here, meaning that you have an intention to accomplish something and you are directing focus towards that goal.

Most lucid dreamers understand that not all goals are easily attained in dreams. We might be able to accomplish our mission of, say, flying to Jupiter, but more often than not, we will face obstacles if we have a lofty goal like that. The obstacles that we come across give us valuable insight that we can apply to our waking life. The obstacles in lucid dreams are the dream messages.

Let’s take a common lucid dream activity: flying.

Daily Consistency and Writing

Posted on April 17, 2025April 21, 2025 by Henriette

Daily consistency in writing is the best way to finish novels. That’s my experience. Writing two hours every weekday is much better than doing ten hours on Saturday.

Stephen King makes a similar point in On Writing. For aspiring writers, he prescribes four to six hours of reading and writing per day. Six hours is a lot for new writers. It’s a great aim, but I think it might scare some people off before they even try. One can achieve quite a lot in half that time. Two hours of writing and one hour of reading can be very productive, provided you approach the work with focus.

Create Something Great

Posted on April 16, 2025 by Henriette

In a previous post, I wrote about how creating something tiny, like a drawing for instance, can show us just how distracted we are. By creating something tiny, we build focus. We might even achieve flow state.

Creating something large and majestic, on the other hand, can show us something different. Creating a larger piece of art does something more than build focus. It shows us our level of inner maturity.

Investigating Tendencies | A Tool for Emotional Growth

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Henriette

Cultivating self-awareness isn’t easy. An honest and serious look at our own behaviour and habits might not be such a pretty picture. But the fruits of expanded self-awareness are great. It helps us to do work that is important without constantly getting distracted. It helps us to cultivate inner strength to meet ongoing criticism and hurdles. It helps us to become more stable in a chaotic world. Investigating our own tendencies can be a powerful tool for emotional growth.

What’s the hardest?

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Henriette

Often, the thing that will benefit us the most is the hardest. It’s also likely the thing that we’ve been avoiding for months, years, or decades.

If it’s really hard to stay away from sugar, then that’s probably a priority. If a certain exercise is really hard, that’s probably the thing that will yield significant gains. If we tend to avoid difficult conversations with a certain person, it’s likely that this tendency has caused some buried resentments and internal knots.

What AI Can’t Do

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Henriette

A list of what AI (Large language models or LLMs) can’t do.

Confronting Fear | How Jung Cured His Own Neurosis

Posted on April 8, 2025September 15, 2025 by Henriette

When Jung was around twelve years old, a fellow school student knocked him over. As the young Jung fell, he hit his head such that he nearly lost consciousness.

It was after this point that Jung experienced fainting spells every time he was supposed to go to school. For more than six months, Jung stayed away from school. He spent his time in nature and isolation. He read and played in the woods. He drew pictures of battles and castles. And he drew pages and pages of caricatures.

Here’s a quote from Memories, Dreams, Reflections about the period:

“But I was growing more and more away from the world, and had all the while faint pangs of conscience. I frittered away my time with loafing, collecting, reading and playing. But I did not feel any happier for it. I had the obscure feeling that I was fleeing from myself.”

Not Smart Enough? Or Just Afraid To Feel?

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Henriette

Over the years, when I talk to people about mathematics, reading, writing, and even artistic pursuits, like painting and drawing, I encounter this block that says, “I’m not smart enough to do that.”

This idea of not being smart enough prevents many people from trying anything new. It prevents them from stepping out of their comfort zone. It prevents them from exploring new interests and skills.

Author: Henriette