When people ask me why I started coaching, I can´t always explain it in a few sentences and it often turns into a longer story. If you have a minute, I will tell you the story of my ´why´.
For a long time, I did not know what I really wanted. I went from one job to the next, life came easy to me and I was living on autopilot. Until my body started showing me all sorts of signs and discomforts, and I felt like I was forced to listen.
I worked in IT for a long time, where I was afraid to accept management positions out of fear for the responsibility that came with it. Even though I was not happy with the job I was in, I stayed in my comfort zone because I didn´t know what I truly wanted.
I decided to press pause and take a 6-week trip to Asia with one of my best friends. Around Christmas 2002 our boyfriends came to Bangkok and the four of us spent the last few weeks traveling to tropical islands, taking diving lessons, partying at the beach and drinking watermelon juices. Life was good!
At the end of the trip I discovered that I missed my period by a few days. Back home in the Netherlands I took a test and I turned out to be pregnant. Surprise :-D. ´Made in Thailand´ said our daughter Zoë´s birth announcement card 9 months later 😉
Looking back, it felt like I was being guided (I call it God, others might call it the Universe) to experience a big change in my life. Being pregnant gave me a strong urge to take responsibility. I no longer wanted to waste my life doing something that didn’t make me happy. Which does not mean that I encourage everyone to get pregnant to come to this realization😉
But for me it has been a turning point in my life. From that point on I started listening to my body, to feel and to act upon my feelings. I started rediscovering my ´healthy boundaries´, because I had been very far removed from them. I was completely stuck in my thought patterns.
When we lived in Geneva in 2004, I started losing blood in between my periods. A gynecologist’s analysis showed that I had an ovarian fibroma. Instead of getting it removed, I decided to investigate alternative methods and discovered a truly special form of bodywork from Israel, the Grinberg method.
During the weekly sessions I experienced as a client I was able to access the hidden layers of my trauma. I felt more and more liberated and was able to really appreciate and enjoying life, our growing up daughter, motherhood, my friendships and relationship, and living in a new country. I got back in touch with my heart, and from the deepest layers of my body I felt that I wanted to work with people and help them to deal with their trauma’s.
Guiding people to free themselves from the cage of fear and other suppressed emotions as anger, rage, sadness, pain, which allows them as well to access their deepest longings.
During this intense process for a couple of years I started remembering the sexual abuse that had happened when I was 8 years old, by a friend of my parents. For 28 years I had suppressed these memories and erased them from my conscious mind. It amazed me how we can hide trauma in our body, in our system. Deep down I knew I had to face this trauma. Not just for myself, but also for our daughter.
In 2008 we moved back to the Netherlands, and I got reexamined by a gynecologist. The ultrasound scan showed no signs anymore of the ovarian fibroma. Even though I knew deep down that my body had healed itself, my ego wanted proof.
I tried talking to my gynecologist, but he wouldn’t hear of it. This experience made it painfully clear to me that this doctor from the medical world was not open to hearing about alternative methods to healing, methods that are often way more effective in healing the true cause, and not just fixing the symptom.
I have been doing this trauma work with people for almost 14 years now, and I see now that the path does not have to be as long, heavy and lonely as I experienced it some the time.
I notice that people are way more ready and open to walk this uncomfortable path. While it might bring up a lot of shit, there is room for humor and lightness as well.
Do you experience symptoms related to your menstruation or pelvic area?
Whenever you feel ready, I am open to really hear your story. Are you willing to walk this vulnerable path?