Life is a journey. Let’s take it together…

Biography

Short and simple:

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”  Carlos Castaneda

Dimitar Tenchev was born and currently resides in Sofia. He is a psychotherapist, a writer, an inspiring lecturer, seminar leader, a moderator of InSighing retreats as well as training courses for hypnoses and personality potential development. Dr. Tenchev is a supporter of the formation and distribution of the Different View of Life. The new perception of the world and alternative living strategy as opposed to the conventional, conformist and “ready-to-use” formulas and clichéd ways of thinking, ordinary purposes and illusive “lifestyle and accomplishment” standards, implanted in the ideology of the contemporary “matrix human”, who belongs to the consumer society.

He is a founder of the Personality Development System InSighting and author of the bestseller Wishpin.

A more comprehensive and first-person perspective (for people keen on deeper quests in the dimensions of freedom):

“You have to get lost, before you can find yourself.” Santiago Del Toro

My name is Dr. Dimitar Tenchev and I am…

“Cut, cut!” The Director within me “cuts the scene and says I have to start over. The name was not important, nor the titles, but the real matter. (Why should I be like some people, who identify themselves more with the title Doctor, than with their own name?) Isn’t the content the essence of this project?

OK… Let’s try again… My age is…

“Stop” My internal “corrector” starts to get angry already. Age didn’t matter as well, he tells me. Some kids talked like wise men and many mature people acted and lived like fools. That also shouldn’t be content determinative.

OK… then, let’s get to the point.

I was born and grew up in Sofia. I graduated the Medical University in Sofia twice – First – Medicine and the second time – Health Management. I live, work, write, “hang out” mainly, guess where? Yes, right… in Sofia again. 

I don’t know what made me come into the world exactly here – in Sofia, Bulgaria. But in my opinion there is a reason behind everything – often invisible and belonging to a system of higher, supreme order, which cannot be captured by our minds and is rather considered non-existent and put aside in the so called “chaos” section. But whatever the reason, it is most probably sensible. At least I hope to have checked it before I’d come down to the planet Earth.

I am positive about one thing, though. When you are in a certain place at a certain time, destiny brings you together with people, who are in the same place at the same time. And that is not just a coincidence. It is fate and it has brought me and keeps bringing me together with incredible people. Our lives cross shortly or intertwine for longer periods in the thread of time. Eventually, I help them find the lost way to their inner selves and wipe the compromises out of their lives. Not just finding the cure, but reinventing the entity of their true identity. They help me too. They help me catch sight of a new piece of the unfinished puzzle that is my life and find the matching space for it in the whole picture.

Considering my personal timeline, I would say that in the first twenty years and a few of the thirties I fluttered about a lot. I was not just looking for the right job, where I could spend in vegetation the best years of my life (here, the “Director” stops me again and says that our best years are not necessarily set in the so called youth. If you live from your heart and you don’t compromise, every year will be better than the one before, like a mature wine or whiskey (a matter of taste)…. that is one point in the Different View of Life…). Getting back to the story, I was looking for my place in the universe and the thing that will give a meaning to my existence here now and in the future. I was searching, but I was not finding. I later called it the “time of standstill”. I often refused to be different and tried to be like the others. I tried to delude myself that there are no real revolutions in life and to convince myself that realists (whom I today call “ordinaries”) are not tormented by existential issues and their life is much easier. After such periods I felt reckless and troubled; something was waking up inside of me again and again and pushing me to go on searching, even though the “finding” itself was continuously escaping.

During the “standstill period” I spent some time in the Bulgarian Academy of Science (I still sometimes have nightmares, in which I am walking through high-ceiled corridors as an employee at the Academy) and as a lecturer in the Medical University of Sofia (Thanks to the Public Health Faculty for giving me the time and the chance to develop what I presently do! )

In the period between the Academy and the University I got to know the “big business” in the multinational pharmaceutical companies and I came to despise the corporations forever. Their “corporate values”, their way of making business, the “corporate matrix”, which depersonalizes the zombie-like employees, often enslaved forever (no matter if ordinary staff members or top management representatives). I completely disapproved of the “corporate code”, which nips the individuality, creativity and originality in the bud out of everyone, who is fool enough to stay there for more than a year.

In those nearly 10 years of what I then thought was fruitless, dissolute and painful wandering I arrived at some major conclusions, which later became cornerstones in the InSighting philosophy and my methods of psychotherapy:

1. When you try to be like the others and give up your uniqueness and originality you are always on the losing side – first you lose yourself and then – your way.
2. The price we pay giving up on ourselves is always high. It comes down to one word – problems – health problems (mental and physical), emotional, personal and interpersonal, existential or purely domestic problems. The “cubic centimeter of luck” starts to slip away and we respect less and less the person, who we can never leave… at least till the rest of our lives… the face, who stares back at us from the mirror.
3. Every closed door is a hidden blessing. It just shows us that we are not on the right track, we do not live our life or it simply indicates the end of a chapter in it. That was one of the hardest life lessons for me to learn. Society categorizes closed doors as failures and if there is a series of such, you are already condemned to be a loser. Today I can refresh and paraphrase it: “Every closed door just shows us that there is another one to be easily open and it will bring you something much better.” So do not break your head in what seems to be a “closed door”, just trust life!
4. Clear indicator for the extent to which we have “deviated” from our natural being is how much we compromise ourselves. The more and the bigger the compromises are, the deeper we drown in the swamp of hopelessness and the situations we get into in our life will become more disadvantageous.Did I say “in our life”? My mistake! Compromises make us live according to the others’ expectations, i.e. live somebody else’s life, not ours.
5. When we started talking about life … Fundamental rule for me is: Life is a change. The person, who sticks to safety and security, is a status quo man. The status quo has nothing to do with change. People with status quo mentality prefer the familiar evil to the unknown freedom, hidden behind the enigmatic veil of the ever changing universe. Thus, they make themselves and the world they live in more miserable.
6. The familiar paths lead to repetition of familiar destinies. Breaking trails into the unknown territories makes us original and eliminates the risk of becoming someone else’s copy. The unfamiliar roads lead us to fulfillment of our dreams.

There are many more insights, which I could share with you but I don’t want to become wordy. Some of them you can find in the Philosophy and the Emphasis of InSighting, but there is one rule (and another one following) that I don’t want to leave out. I still couldn’t claim it is universal, but it is 100% valid for me:

7. Don’t work for anyone else but yourself. Otherwise your potential abilities will be suppressed, your creativity will be restrained and that will make you “unfree”. Nevertheless, if you do work for someone else, do not stick around too long, especially if the place looks reliable and secure. Create alternatives to allow you to do what you really love and do it for yourself.
8. Security is the most deceiving thing in life …. May be as much as sugar …;) What they have in common is that they both make you want more and feel worse at the same time.

Along with my rambling through life I had many spiritual travels. At the age of 17 I was introduced to Raja Yoga and later to the treasures of Eastern philosophy – Buddhism, Daoism, Vaishnavism, Shaktipat etc. I entered the underground society where hundreds of spiritual literature editions were distributed on paled out photocopies. It was the end of the 1980–ties and the communist regime took a dim view of these things. With the arrival of Democracy the “spiritual market” flourished in Bulgaria. I was 19 and I left for India without telling my parents (it’s called running away from home). The trip had a sobering effect on me. I kind of realized that all that glitters is not gold. And not every road called spiritual is actually one. I returned ingloriously to Bulgaria. I considered my journey to be a failure because I hadn’t found my spiritual leader. Now I know that it wasn’t true. It was just a closed door. I was just too conscious for my age, because all the gurus whom I met there and who were ready to give me Deeksha (enlightenment, awakening into higher states of consciousness) did not succeed in convincing me that they had every quality to be such.

In the following 15 years I became acquainted with diverse spiritual paths and therapeutic practices based on experience – eastern and western, until I choose one (the only right one) – the one that leads to myself. The practice that doesn’t imitate other systems; it is not in bondage to authorities; does not preach doctrines and rigid rules. It became fundamental of the inner journeys and deep transformations of identity. The personality development philosophy, which continues to advance and revive in time, is known today as InSighting.

I became an InSighter or an inner traveler in the infinite, multidimensional Universe of Human Consciousness, which turned out to be richer and more exciting than any other journey to exotic destinations.

It was a logical consequence to share with the readers a piece of my traveling experiences and the method of Intending in my first book “Wishpin: The key to success”.

So…where do I stand today? I will quote the introduction of insighting.eu, because I couldn’t say it better:

Now, looking back in time, I can definitely say that I did not choose my mission, but rather the mission chose me, when I was mature enough to recognize it.

My Master’s degree in the Medical University of Sofia on one side, and the spiritual seeking and wandering through the unknown sides of the human soul on the other, rearranged the puzzle of my life in a way, which predestined my choice of profession. It was not a logical consequence, but passion and impulse of the heart. To be a psychotherapist and a leader of the InSighting seminars, helping the other “strangers” on the way to healing, self-discovery and more complete existence, turned out to be most natural for me. It has been and it is now expressing most naturally my personality and determines my lifeline direction.

Thus, the profession of a psychotherapist and the foundation of InSighting as a way to self-discovery turned out to be the prize I won by walking on the road of my Personal Myth. A treasure which is invaluable, because by meeting each and every one of the numerous patients, clients or InSighting seminar participants I enter a new, unique and different world. Getting to know them helps me reveal the still unknown nooks of the endless and mysterious universe of the human soul… of others… and my own. Hence, I became aware of the eternal truth that helping someone else is the best way to help yourself.

I will wrap up with another quotation, which I find suitable for an ending to what has been said so far and at the same time appropriate for a new beginning:

“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don’t know.” Ambrose Bierce

За Димитър Тенчев Д-р Димитър Тенчев е психотерапевт, писател, инспириращ лектор и семинар лидер на тренинзи, курсове и ритрийти по InSighting, хипноза и развитие на потенциала на личността. прочети повече