#Self-love: it’s everywhere on the social media. Including pictures of hot baths and nail appointments. It’s absolutely magnificent that more and more men and women are paying attention to their own well-being and happiness. They are looking for ways to nurture themselves and to end exhaustion. Wonderful! It’s not the whole story though.

Showing up for yourself

True self-love is bringing to life what is inside of me. Creating what I want to create. And yes, that includes work, mainly inner work. Self-love is showing up for myself and dealing with my self-doubt so that I have the courage to write another 500 words of my second book. Self-love is dedicating myself to my morning routine, as I know that it will help me to be a powerful creator during the rest of the day.

Read More »

Let’s celebrate International Women’s Day together today. My suggestion? Reach out to one other woman whom you know will benefit from your attention today. Sharing your presence with her is all that is needed.

I have two inspired actions on my list today:

1. I will call my eleven-year old niece Marieke. I haven’t celebrated International Women’s Day with here before, but now that she has turned eleven, I feel it is a good moment to start.

2. I am sending a copy of my book ‘Als een luchtballon op een reuzenrad botst’* to Ellen. I haven’t been in touch with Ellen for quite some time, but I feel she might feel inspired by the content of the book. It’s an intuitive call; I’ll just go for it.

Read More »

Why is it that one health worker feels overwhelmed when speaking about that one Corona patient she cared for during the first weeks of the pandemic, while a colleague who has worked under the same extremely difficult circumstances feels steady and back on his feet again?

Reading through the beautiful and personal interviews this morning, I noticed that the health worker who had taken the time after every intense night shift, to go to the beach and scream to the sea and cry about all the horrifying things he had gone through during the night, felt relatively well.

This doesn’t surprise me. His willingness to make space for his emotions and to allow them to move through him, must have helped him a great deal.

Read More »

‘I feel completely stuck and if I am really honest with myself, I know that I have felt this way for at least three years now – if not longer. Something needs to change here.’ I always applaud people who come to me with great honesty and openness. They have taken the important first step of acknowledging that they are not in their happy place. It takes courage to do so.
Kudos, designer dresses and university degrees

Listening to their stories, I realize that many of them have been looking in the wrong place. Feelings of happiness and fulfilment can’t be obtained through the next shiny gadget, designer dress or educational degree. Neither do they come from collecting kudos from a partner or friends.

Read More »

Don’t know what to do with your life? No clue how to find direction? It’s simple: change your modus operandi. Chances are that you have been relying on your mind to figure out what is next. Well, you have been looking in the wrong place.

Thousands of thoughts

Your brain is a great instrument when you are about to implement a project and need to think about all the different tasks at hand. It isn’t a reliable wayfinding tool though. Every day, you have thousands of thoughts. As a result, your mind will tell you A on Monday, only to find out on Tuesday that it strongly suggests you do the opposite. This 180 degree change can happen in a day. Or in a few moments.

Read More »

Last February, I travelled to Southern Senegal to take part in a cultural exchange between people from Southern Senegal and Europe. At the end of my travels, I realized I had to get my phone and little microphone out of my bag and film a new episode of CarolienTV with entrepreneur and host Antje Tenhaaf. Under the palm trees, of course.

Antje created Sindeye, a meeting center for cultural exchange and collaboration, together with her Senegalese partner. The two started the project from scratch, as there were only two hectares of overgrown land and no budget to work with.

Read More »