What I Learned Along the Way

Hranice – one Czech word, two meanings

Petra Peyer · 1 min read

In Czech, “hranice” is where I end and you begin. It is also the pyre.

A little fun fact from my mother tongue.

In Czech, “hranice” means a border or a boundary – where I end and you begin.
But “hranice” is also the pyre – the stack of wood where witches were once burned.

And not only witches. Jan Hus – the Czech church reformer – was burned this way too, in 1415 in Konstanz.
He spoke out against the corruption in the church – like selling forgiveness for money – and preached in Czech, so ordinary people could understand. When he was asked to take it all back, he refused.
He held his boundary – to the very end.
Czechs still remember him with a public holiday.

And… Konstanz lies right on the border with Switzerland.
Maybe the two are more connected than we think.

No surprise, then, that boundaries and our own space were exactly the topic of my training day at IKP Zurich.
Lots of movement, lots of interaction – and some very interesting exercises around:

Where are my boundaries?
Where is my space?
How do I communicate that?
And how do I receive it when someone else sets theirs?

~ Petra