A greater vision of yourself | Sebastian Scheler | TEDxFHKufstein

Research on crises, post-traumatic growth and near-death experiences show that the confrontation with existential threats have unimaginable potentials for personal development. But does it take extreme circumstances to allow fundamental changes in life?

Sebastian Scheler decided to use his Beautiful Mind as well as his education in psychology to connect it with innovative technology. With his company Innerspace, he is using virtual-reality technology as a practice tool for emotional and social skills. With 3D animation and storytelling, the user walks through what feels like real-life scenarios. This helps people to deal with key situations in their work life; they are able to change their role as a user to open their minds to other perspectives and to learn from that. Wouldn’t you sometimes like your fellow humans to show a little bit more empathy now or then? It’s about to happen!

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

So, trying to find out who I am ...

Trying to find out who I am:

this was the most
important question in my life,

but of course, not at the age of three.

Here you can see me as a child.
You can see my eyes were shining.

I was super exited about reality,
super happy just by being,

not by doing, just by being.

But as we all grew up,
as we're all getting older,

this question of "Who I am"
is getting much more important.

In psychological statistics,

most of us will have much trouble
with this question

at least once in a life time.

So, this was for me, at the age of 18.

I was very depressed. I was very down.

Others came to me and said,
"Sebastian, just believe in yourself."

But how can I believe in myself
if I even don't know who I am?

What I found out at this time
is that this question "Who am I?"

is, from a psychological point of view,
sometimes misleading,

because when you're asking
yourself "Who am I?",

there's maybe the assumption behind

that this self or the "I"
is a static thing.

It's a static thing,

and when you are thinking
about yourself in terms of fixation,

there's not much space for growing,
not much space for self-development.

By the way, if you are thinking about
if I was working at NASA at this time,

the answer is ''no'',
this is just a tee shirt.

But there is an interesting connection
between exploring the outer space

and exploring the inner space.

So in order to reach out
to another planet,

you have to understand
some basic rules of nature very deeply;

otherwise, there's no chance
to build a space rocket.

It is the same thing with the inner space,
with self-development.

There are some psychological principles,

there are some psychological rules

you have to know
in order to really go further,

to really go beyond your imagination.

And I want to talk today
about two of them.

The first is self-experience,
and the second is self-reflection.

So what do I mean by this?

Self-experience - I mean experiencing
yourself differently or on a deeper level.

When you are like most of us,

those experiences where you experience
yourself deeper or very differently

are not that often.

But in this moment
when you widen your horizon,

where you experience
yourself differently,

there lies the highest potential
for self-development.

But in order to get there,
you do have to have another thing,

and this is self-reflection.

You have to reflect
on those self-experiences

in a very specific way
in order to go deeper.

So here are two examples.

The first one: self-development
through Naikan.

Naikan is a practice from Japan.

It is the Japanese word
for "introspection."

And Naikan is all about
reflecting the relationship

to the most important
persons of your life.

And this reflection is happening
in one of those cabins,

completely isolated from others:

no handy,

nothing else but just reflecting
seven days, 16 hours a day.

So when you're sitting in there, you
do have a very strict method to follow,

and this method is three questions.

First question:
What have I received from person X?

Second question:
What have I given to person X?

Third question: What troubles
have I cost to person X?

You know, when you're asking
these questions very strictly,

and you are diving into, for example,
the relationship with your mom,

the interesting thing about it

is that you're getting
so much deeper into your memories,

and by getting so much deeper
into your memories,

your relationship will change

because relationship, by definition,

is always influenced by our own memories.

So in Naikan practice, you'll sit there
in the cabin, and you'll ask yourself,

"What I have received from my mom,
at the age from 5 to 10?"

"What I have given to my mom
at the age from 5 to 10?"

"What troubles have I cost to my mom
at the age from 5 to 10?"

And the Naikan guide
always reminds you on those questions.

So, it was for me, very special

when I did my first Naikan experience
many, many years ago

because on the first two
of the seven days,

I was proving the relationship
with my mom and my dad -

first day my mom, second day my dad -

and to be honest,
I was a little bit frustrated

because I found out

that I was thinking more about
what I've received than what I've given.

After the first two days,
the Naikan guide came to me and said -

he was sitting down,
looking straight into my eyes -

"Sebastian, now you're ready.

Please begin the Naikan practice.

Prove yourself the relationship
with your mom from the age from 5 to 10."

So it was going another round.

And this second round on the third day
about proving the relationship with my mom

was getting even deeper
than the first one, proving myself.

What I want to tell with this
is that self-experiencing is endless.

You have so much more potential
for self-experience than you can imagine.

The clue about this, to really dive deep
into those kind of experiences,

is through those really focused
reflection methods.

So, that one was the first one: Naikan.

Second one: Self-development
through reflecting about mortality,

our mortality.

We know from science that when people
are confronted with death,

they have a better chance
to change important things in their life.

That is proven.

And the reason why it is so
is a very simple argumentation:

it's because when you're
confronted with death,

you're confronted
with some kind of limitation.

When you're confronted
with this limitation,

it's much easier to differentiate

between things which are important
and things which are not.

So when you have
this differentiation in your mind,

it is easier to behave in another way,
to change yourself, to develop yourself.

You can find this practice
in almost every religion,

for example, as you
can see here, in Buddhism.

But there are also ways
to do it by yourself

in a very subtle or easy way,

and I will do it now with you.

So, the first self-reflecting question is

"If you had one more year to live,
what would you do?"

"If you had one more year to live,
what would you do?"

Just ask yourself this
[for] a few seconds.

So keep in mind what you have,
what [rose] up in your mind.

And let's go to the second question,
the second exercise.

So now, imagine yourself 10 years ahead.

Because of illness -
just in your imagination -

your life expectancy at this point
is only one month or less.

Imagine this.

And now ask yourself what do you wish
you had spent more time on

in the last 10 years?

What do you wish you had spent
more time on in the last 10 years?

So when you're like most of us,
the second kind of self-reflection

leads us even deeper
into reflecting about values,

about our aims,

about what to do,

about things that we want to accomplish.

And this is really the power
of self-development.

When it's possible to combine
those two things,

to combine self-experience
and self-reflection,

it is much more easy to really go further
in your self-development.

That's what we can see in Naikan,
in reflecting about mortality

and any other supportive
self-development practice.

All practices have to respect

those two principles
of self-experience and self-reflection

in order to work effectively.

So, when we look into the future,

I have chosen one quote
which is very important to me.

And the quote is

"The information age is over;
welcome to the experience age!"

In other words, the accessibility
of information is given,

what is rising up

is the accessibility of experiencing.

What I want to say with that
is that in regard to self-development,

in regard to self-reflection
and self-experiencing,

new technologies,
new immersive technologies

do have a much greater impact
on those kinds of self-development

than any other medium before.

On the one hand, immersive technologies

always have the risk that you'll get lost
in some virtual worlds,

but on the other hand,

they do have the power to support you
in those two basic principles,

to support you
to get deeper inside yourself

to support you to really get those kinds
of self-experience and self-reflection

you need in order to go further.

And when this is the case,
then I think the question "Who am I?"

is not [so] challenging anymore

because there's another question
that could be much more helpful.

The question is: "Who can I become?"

"Who can I become?"

I think this is because you
not only have the potential for change,

in my point of view,

you are at your deepest
self-potentiality for changing.

You know, this potentiality
is your true nature.

So believe in your ability
for self-development.

Believe in your ability
for self-reflection.

Believe in your ability
for self-experience.

Believe in a greater vision of yourself.

Thank you.

(Applause)