My story

Authentic - self-aware - playful - curious - life-long learner- out-of-the-box thinker - embodier

For many years, I travelled the world as an expat and English teacher, desperately looking for a sense of belonging and connection.

My body started to say "No" when I was diagnosed with a severe back condition while living in the Middle East. A while later, I suffered from depression and was put on medication combined with talk therapy, but I kept ignoring the signs.

Turning 30 woke me up somehow. I looked back at my life so far and I realized that my nomadic lifestyle had left me feeling detached and alienated; which was quite the opposite of what I was after. It became time to look at the root cause of this behavior. Acknowledging that my coping mechanism of "always being on the run" had an important function: It had kept me away from the pain that was buried deep inside of me.

Flashback to my childhood:

Going from job to job, house to house and country to country, I ignored the pain that I had been carrying since I was a little girl. I grew up in a small town in the South of The Netherlands, taking on the mediator role in an unstable household. I coped by running away and spending hours in the nearby forest, roaming the small trails. Both running away and connecting with Nature became leitmotives in my life that resulted in the gypsy lifestyle I used to live.

The problem was not so much that I had to go through this as a child, but the fact that I had nobody that listened to me and stood up for me. As my teacher Gabor Maté says: "It's not so much about about what happened to you, but the main trauma is the disconnect from yourself that was a result of having nobody to talk to".

Fast forward to 2018:

After nine years of living abroad, I decided to move back to The Netherlands and started working as an English and Communications lecturer. I got in touch with the healing properties of plant medicine and breathwork. I went on several Ayahuasca, Mushroom and San Pedro journeys which connected me to that sense of belonging I had been searching for all my life. I decided to do the year-long soul coach training with Tanja & Lars Faber, so I could become a guide for the Sacred Voyage organization.

In the beginning of 2021, I started the year-long training with Dr. Gabor Mate in Compassionate Inquiry, which gave me great tools to be with my own pain and taught me to be that safe, relational container for my clients. After the program I decided to continue with the Mentorship and Internship program, in which I am currently enrolled. I now hold space for my clients using this transformative approach!

In that same year, my gut feeling told me to move to a tiny house out in the forest. This turned out to be one of the best moves I had ever made. Connecting with nature reconnected me with my own roots. I went to Belgium to be trained in eco therapy by Ilse Geusens. I now support others to reconnect to their true nature in co-creation with Mother Nature.

A couple of months later, I got Covid, which led to a burnout. For 6 months I was not able to read, write or look at screens. My language ability was affected too as I was always at a search for words in both Dutch and English. How strange for a language and communications lecturer, right? I used to love going places but my body was forcing me to slow down. I would go out in nature every day and that's when I realized it was time to give up the old to make space for the new.

2022 has been my most transformative year so far: I started my own coaching practice called Renessence, and bought my tiny-house in the forest! I now help my clients to live authentically and connected to their true nature!

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