Just my face.

A floating head, framed by a laptop camera.

And from that an assessment of my overall health.

Something in me paused. Not with defensiveness, exactly. More like a quiet internal flag going up. This doesn’t feel right. I didn’t say anything in the moment. I smiled, nodded, and later sat with it.

Because what struck me wasn’t the advice itself.

It was how quickly a conclusion was formed from a fragment.

One visible piece, interpreted as the whole.

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This is something I see everywhere. We’ve normalized forming conclusions about the body, about health, about what is “wrong” based on partial data.

A symptom. A look. A number. A moment.

And then we treat those conclusions as truth of the whole.

I believe in being open. Open to perspectives, open to insight, open to being wrong.

But openness without discernment is just absorption.

And health — real health — doesn’t come from absorbing everything that is handed to you. It comes from deep discernment.

From knowing what is actually true for you and your body.

Not intellectually. Not conceptually.

But in the quiet, internal space where the body responds before the mind explains.

Because even the most well-intentioned advice is still external.

And truth speaks from within through the body.

This is where discernment becomes essential. Because not every sensation means the same thing, even when they feel similar on the surface. Sometimes the body is asking for nourishment. Sometimes it’s asking for rest. Sometimes it’s asking to be moved, or challenged, or held still. Sometimes what feels like hunger is longing. Sometimes what feels like resistance is wisdom. No external rule can reliably tell you which is which. Only you can.

Discernment isn’t something you think your way into. It’s something that grows through experience. Through listening. Through trying something and staying honest about what you actually notice afterward.

I remember a period where I was convinced I needed more structure around food. Every wellness voice I followed seemed to agree. But when I actually paid attention not to the advice, but to my body I noticed I felt more anxious after meals, not less. More rigid, not more nourished. The structure I thought was helping was actually feeding the control I was trying to move away from.

That’s what discernment looks like in practice. Not grand revelation. Just noticing. Adjusting. Staying curious about what’s actually happening rather than what’s supposed to happen.

What actually happens when I eat this? How do I feel hours later? What changes over time? You give your body data. And over time, you begin to understand its language. Your body’s wisdom is something alive, not a fixed system that works the same for everyone. What your body needs today may not be what it needed a year ago.

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And yet most of us have been trained to override this.

To trust the external voice first. To defer to expertise before consulting ourselves. Even when something in us hesitates. Even when it doesn’t fully land.

A mother doesn’t need a chart to know when something is off with her child.

She senses it.

She feels it.

She knows.

Not because she has more information, but because she has a connection no one else has. That kind of knowing isn’t less valid than clinical knowledge. It’s differently sourced. And for questions about your own body, it may be the most important source you have.

Health doesn’t live in isolated observations. Not in a single symptom. It lives in context. In patterns. In the full picture of a human being.

And no one sees or feels that full picture better than you do.

You can listen to others. You can take in perspectives. You can experiment with what’s suggested.

But you cannot outsource authority. Not when it comes to your body. Not when it comes to your health.

Sovereignty isn’t about rejecting others opinions. It’s about staying connected to yourself when you hear them.

That’s the practice. Not closing off. Not absorbing blindly. But staying present enough to know the difference.

Your body has always been speaking. The question was never whether it knows. The question is whether you’ve decided to listen to it.

A part of you.

Shaped through every interaction,
every word, every gesture,
moulded over time.

An imprint of you.

Like Voldemort in Harry,
you imprinted on me.

My Voldemort part.

It is a part of you
living in me.

It seeks you.
It was fed by you.

Now it lingers
in a liminal space
where you no longer are.

What is its purpose now?

It feels dark.
Sticky.
Not fully mine,
even if I can sense it within me.

It is intertwined with you
your essence, your existence.

A part formed by you,
sustained by you.

I wonder,

when the intertwining is undone,
will the words return?

What will remain?

What will come from this?

My Voldemort part
kept us bound,
kept us intertwined.

But now that you’re gone,
it has no function.

A part of you within me
never meant to be forever.

It served its purpose.

Now, in your absence,
it begins to alchemize.

It makes itself known.
It craves you.
It reaches, frantic,
grasping for something to hold.

Like air.

Wild.
Uncontained.
Trying to find control.

And for it to die,
something in me must die too.

Not only the part of you
but the parts of me
that only existed with you.

So again I ask

what will remain?

Will the words return?

My Voldemort part,
imprinted by you.

Not forever
but for a time.

To survive.
To build faith.
To learn what is mine
and what is not.

And when it is gone

you will still be part of me.

No longer entwined.

No longer feeding.

A because of that…

I started trusting my charts more than myself.

Astrology. Human Design. Gene Keys.

I wanted answers. And I wanted them yesterday.

Why is this happening? What am I here to do? What is my next step? What is aligned?

We want answers. We want certainty. We want a permission slip to act on something.

It’s human. It’s okay.

And charts can absolutely be a supportive tool.

But I do believe there is greater wisdom within us.

When we turn inward, when we listen deeply, there is a truth available that is felt, that is known.

And feeling it inside of you, maybe even seeing it, hits differently than reading about it.

So I believe we always have to start with the inner world.

The problem is not the tools.

The problem is when we start outsourcing our authority to them.

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When it comes to Human Design, I’m a Projector with the strategy:

Wait for Recognition and Invitation.

There is a lot of information out there about what this means.

I am a doer. I initiate things. I get the ball rolling.

That is a natural part of me.

Which, on the surface, seems to contradict the Human Design strategy.

And I questioned myself and my natural instinct over this information.

I thought I had to “only” wait until I get clearly invited into something like receiving a handwritten note delivered by the Queens servants. That people had to approach me.

I got confused af and hence stopped my own magic as I was doubting my inner knowing in favor of what has been written about my “type”.

And honestly, I have had success initiating things.

I always created incredible opportunities.

But over time I realized something important:

I’m successful when I initiate things when I feel an internal pull.

I move when I feel called to move.

And that, for me, is the invitation.

It’s like life’s invitation to me.

However, there are also situations where I’m in conversation with someone and immediately insights appear about how I could support them.

My mind is putting things together.

But if that person hasn’t asked for advice or support directly, I’ve learned that offering it often creates friction.

I can feel this in my body.

My body is constantly communicating with me.

And usually this happens in real time, during the conversation.

There is a subtle tension when it comes from the mind instead of the inner wisdom.

That for me is a moment to wait for the clear invitation.

And the invitation can show up in different ways.

The person might ask directly while we are talking.

Or after the conversation I might come across information related to their situation and feel a clear internal nudge to send it to them.

Sometimes I feel a nudge to reach out again later.

So for me, the invitation is always a signal coming from within and from the body.

And it’s not only about initiating things.

Sometimes I get the nudge to start something.

But further down the process, even though everything seems to be going well and looks like the “right” opportunity, something inside of me no longer feels aligned.

And if it doesn’t feel aligned within, then it isn’t the right invitation anymore.

Yet I had to go there in order to learn something. To be invited into something new.

So I’ve learned that the invitation doesn’t have to be a handwritten invitation to participate in life.

It comes from being in constant communion with life.

By being open to life and what life has to offer.

When life is inviting me, there is a clear pull.

That pull is the invitation from life itself for me to pinch myself in the butt and fucking act.

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When I didn’t listen to this – this deep internal pull, intuition, guidance – I made choices because I thought they were the right thing to do.

One very life-defining moment was after I completed my BSc in International Management.

I received a job offer from one of the Big Four consulting firms.

Everyone wanted to work there and many people were rejected.

Yet somehow I received the offer.

Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure why, because my interview was a disaster.

But when I received the offer, I cried.

Not happy tears.

I don’t even know the right word for it.

Maybe heartbroken. It simply felt awful.

Even though my intuition was so strong, I wanted to ignore it.

Because all I wanted in life was to fit in.

To have a successful career.

To make a lot of money.

To follow the expected path.

I didn’t want to end up in the healing world like my mum, even though that path had been calling me my whole life.

So I accepted the job anyway.

You might think: how could someone ignore such a clear inner signal?

But at that time I truly believed this was what I was supposed to do.

And in many ways it was.

I learned some of my biggest life lessons there and I learnt to handle pressure.

And looking back, I’m grateful for the experience.

When I left the job two years later, I was completely burnt out.

No surprise that it didn’t end well.

Looking back, that moment was one of the clearest examples of ignoring my inner invitation.

Life had already spoken, I just didn’t want to hear it.

Every time I forced things, when I ignored that internal pull or tried to do things the way everyone else seemed to be doing them, I would burn out.

I would feel depleted.

Even before this, going all the way back to school, I always had the feeling that we aren’t meant to live, study, and work the way we currently do.

Even though the world is changing, many people are still following the old path.

Studying my charts helped me put words to something I had felt for a long time:

That I am here to live and work differently.

Honestly, I resented this for a long time.

I resented being a Projector.

I worked against my design – the design of me — against my natural rhythm even though I felt it so strongly within myself.

I looked at how others were doing it.

How they worked.

How many people achieved success.

And I thought: maybe I need to do this and this and this.

Maybe that’s what it takes.

But every time I tried to force myself into that rhythm, I burned out and became resentful.

There is grief in that.

Grief for the part of me that tried to survive in this world by working like everyone else.

And then realizing:

This simply doesn’t work for me.

There is anger in that too.

And frustration.

So even though my design confirms that for me, ultimately it’s an inner process.

Feeling all of this and coming to acceptance of what feels true for me.

So combining this internal wisdom with what I see reflected in my chart, while holding it all with discernment, I’m currently being invited by life to fully accept and embrace the design of me.

To stop trying to live and work the way everyone else does.

And instead turn inward and move from there.

To cultivate a deeper trust that I am here for a reason exactly as I am designed.

And yes, that can be scary in a world where most people operate differently.

Taking a two- or four-hour break because you know you work better that way.

Allowing longer periods of rest.

This is a big piece for me right now.

Life has been inviting me into this for years, anchoring this slower way of being even deeper.

I actually believe that Projectors — and maybe anyone who doesn’t naturally operate in constant output mode — are here to model a different way.

A slower way.

Not necessarily better.

Just different.

A slower rhythm.

A way of living that is less about constant output and more about awareness, discernment, and attunement.

Because the truth is this:

Even though the world is largely built around constant output, the whole world is exhausted.

Burnout is everywhere.

Stress has become normal and even something to be celebrated.

We are trying to do more and more inside systems that are increasingly disconnected from natural rhythms.

Maybe Projectors simply embody a reminder.

Maybe we are the invitation itself.

That life can also be lived differently.

Seeing parts of that reflected through my charts helped me accept that more.

But I don’t see Human Design, astrology, or Gene Keys as guiding authorities.

The real answers are always within.

There are so many subtleties that can only be felt through direct experience.

What is true for me?

What is the best way for me?

How do I thrive in my working rhythm, my social rhythm, my own rhythm?

Life is constantly inviting us into things.

Into rest.

Into pleasure.

Into reaching out to someone we haven’t spoken to in a while.

Into visiting a certain place.

Maybe a place keeps appearing in conversations.

People randomly mention it again and again.

Sometimes there is a subtle sensation.

Maybe that is life inviting you.

The friction around “waiting for the invitation” comes when we interpret it as passivity.

As sitting at home waiting for someone to invite us into life.

But you still have to live your life.

To stay open.

To listen.

To sense.

Through that you become more attuned to which invitations are actually meant for you.

I believe we are here to co-create with life.

Life is constantly inviting all of us into different experiences.

The real question is:

Which invitations are truly aligned?

Because many invitations can appear.

Discernment becomes essential.

So ultimately, it comes back to returning inward again and again.

Exploring what is true for you.

And acting from there.

Feeling it deeply inside your own body.

Because it’s so easy to start trusting external systems more than our own inner knowing. More than the innate intelligence of the body.

Personal development tools can be helpful.

But they can also keep us stuck in the mind.

For me, it always comes back to this:

Turning inward.

Listening.

Feeling.

Because the deepest answers were never in the charts. They were always within.

However, what I didn’t realize was that I indeed carried shame with me; it was so deeply buried within me.

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The first time I felt shame was during my first psychedelic mushroom ceremony. I traveled all the way back to when I was a baby and my mother held me. And what emerged from within me was a deep:

I am sorry.

I was confused because, wait, what? Is this shame? Am I feeling shame? And then, ah yes, this is shame. Okay, this is new information.

I just felt like I was a burden to her and it was my fault. A deep sense of being ashamed for being alive and being me emerged.

Hence, shame was probably one of the first emotions I ever felt. As a baby, I couldn’t make sense of things as my prefrontal cortex wasn’t yet online (it begins more noticeable development around ages 6–7), so I associated this feeling of shame with the idea that something was inherently wrong with me and that I had to behave a certain way to survive.

Without realizing it, shame was one of the deepest emotions that shaped me. I buried it deep within me and created coping mechanisms to not have to feel this way again. Because I wasn’t aware of it, it orchestrated my life from behind the scenes. Never taking too much risk. Not allowing myself to dream. Survive. Survive. Survive, by acting in a certain way, doing what others were doing.

And I am so grateful for the psychedelic mushrooms (which I love so deeply) for having shown me this memory, for having laid bare the shame. As I allowed this emotion to enter my consciousness, I became more aware of where shame was present in my life.

Shame is a sneaky little thing.

It can be very subtle, so we try to push it away with our minds, telling ourselves that it’s not relevant, that it’s stupid.

But shame can also be loud; it can be paralyzing. It is often accompanied by a big fear that feels like one is dying if one does “the thing” or if a certain thing has happened.

No matter how loud it is, shame is very powerful and very human. Shame emerges when we think we won’t fit in if we do something or if something happened to us. It goes way back to when we lived in tribes and our whole survival depended on the tribe, on fitting in.

So when shame creeps in, we usually try to hide something. Maybe we think it’s only us who is experiencing this. Not feeling the “motherly” emotions everyone is talking about. Not having had an orgasm. Not having put in all the effort at work. Not feeling good enough to do something or wear something.

Shame isn’t an emotion that will just be gone once you’ve “done the thing” or felt it. And definitely not when you tell it it’s irrelevant. It will always be part of our lives and it’s up to us to build a relationship with it.

I used to use my mind to “solve” my shame so I could move past it. But that was just another coping mechanism, a way to bypass the actual discomfort of being human. I realized it was never about making shame disappear so I could be “free”, it’s about becoming so solid in our own presence that shame can be there and we don’t lose ourselves in it. To be able to live our most extraordinary lives, while taking shame by the hand.

For me, yes, shame was present as a baby, but it’s also present now. It creeps in with new situations, like not having done enough for my business in the last year, or moving partially back to my parents at 33. Like, who does that? Why don’t I have the family yet? I can justify it by saying: I am following my mission. I am following my intuition. But guess what?

Shame doesn’t care about your justifications, no matter how good and valid they are.

Shame cares about being acknowledged. Shame cares about being expressed.

Because shame never comes alone. Shame protects something deeper. And every time we try to justify, we are not only pushing the shame away, we are also pushing the deeper meaning behind it away.

But what if we gave shame the space? Allowed it to be here? To be felt, to be expressed?

Not in the sense of “oh, I have to move my shame to expose something deeper.”

No. Never.

We always meet every part and every emotion of ourselves with curiosity and compassion. We allow it to be here. We allow it to be expressed in the way it desires:

• Voicing it to a friend

• Making art out of it (write a poem, make a movie, paint)

• Moving it through the body

• Screaming

• Breathing through it

• Maybe being ready to be taken by the hand to do the thing you are ashamed of doing*

*Yet here, I truly believe that discernment is in order. Doing the thing you are ashamed of especially if you feel deeply afraid doesn’t have to be the first thing you do. I know there are people who say this is the approach, but I believe this can be a process depending on how deep this shame has been buried within us. Before we do the thing we are scared of doing, the shame itself can and needs to have its space. To move with it. To allow it to be here. To build a relationship with it. To not be paralyzed by it.

Rushing the process can be counterproductive, hindering our long-term growth instead of delivering the freedom we seek. By moving with the shame at our own pace, we prepare ourselves not just to “do the thing,” but to fully process the experience and reclaim the parts of us that have been hidden.

One thing I definitely realized was that no matter how much I love plant medicine, it wasn’t enough just to become aware of the deep shame within me. Even though I felt it to a certain degree in that ceremony, the shame was still within my body and my system.

Something I have been seeing quite often in plant medicine ceremonies is, first, the belief that a single journey is a “magic pill” for trauma. While so much can be shifted and integrated in one night, the healing itself is rarely a one-time event. Then, there is the rush back into the noise of daily life before the experience has even had a chance to take root. And finally, I see people overanalyze the journey, trying to solve it with their minds or through constant talking, rather than letting it land in their bodies and whole system. They stay in their heads to avoid the very thing they went there to feel.

Shame, like every other emotion, is ultimately just energy. Our bodies, too, are energy. In my sense, our bodies are our main manifested energy of lifetimes accumulated. When we feel stuck, what we are actually experiencing is an entanglement, a knot where that energy has stopped flowing and started to manifest.

This isn’t just floaty spiritual talk. We know that according to the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. When your body mobilizes the energy of shame and you suppress it, that energy doesn’t disappear; it just becomes potential energy trapped in your muscles and nervous system. Science calls this a “stored stress response.” I call it an entanglement. Either way, the only way to get it out is to convert it into kinetic energy: to move it.

I have found that the least effective way to move a physical knot is by talking to it. While understanding the “why” helps, it isn’t enough to untangle something that lives deep within your (nervous) system.

Energy doesn’t want to be analyzed; it wants to move.

It moves through expression, through breath and through the literal movement of the body.

We often think we are “feeling” our shame when we are actually just thinking about it. But feeling is an act that is done through the body and hence, through our whole system. It is allowing that suppressed, stored energy to come forward and move however it needs to. My shame might want to move like a slow, heavy wave; yours might feel like a sharp, jagged vibration. It might even have a color, a temperature or a weight.

The most natural human response is to nudge that energy back down with the mind, telling ourselves it’s irrelevant. But when we do this, the shame simply stays entangled in our system, waiting for the next trigger to resurface.

I have realized that my shame isn’t an enemy to be conquered; it’s a strong protector. It guards the door to my deepest pains, but also to my greatest gifts. It will keep guarding that door until it feels it’s safe enough to open it, until it trusts that I am finally here to hold whatever is behind it. So you can ask yourself: How would you feel safe? By being fully seen? By being allowed to be here? By being allowed to feel whatever it is you need to feel?

When we finally stop justifying and start moving it, when we build a relationship with it, shame begins to loosen its grip. It becomes more accessible. We can find the liberation we are craving. We can find the courage to do the thing we are scared of doing. We essentially find what we need.

For my paid subscribers: Below is a guided somatic practice designed to help you identify where this energy is entangled in your own body and how to begin moving with it on its own terms.

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Sounds so easy. So simple.

Yet when you’re a problem solver, a thinker—an over-thinker—like I am, there is a natural tendency to camp out in the rational mind and analyze the sh*t out of things. We are so determined to find the “right” solution. To understand. To know. We want to know the why and the how and all the things.

And I think this problem solver is a beautiful attribute to have. This part is incredibly smart. It can navigate almost any situation. But usually, it is also a protection mechanism. It protects me from the helplessness and the fear that come with not knowing the exact plan of how it’s all going to work out.

Not knowing is uncomfortable in a world where a “clear” path is laid out for us: go to school, get good grades, get a good job, follow the ladder, or build your own successful company by strategizing harder. Even though so many of us are breaking this cycle, the programming is still deep within: the need to have a “clear” path, to know the next step.

A scary thing for most is to quit the 9-5 without having another job lined up or going self-employed. To be in that space of not knowing. So, we return to the rational mind and make a plan. To have clarity, to have safety. We think we are so smart when we do that: that we have it all figured out because we have a plan.

Everything has been set out for us since the beginning. In school, we always had a clear curriculum. We knew after first grade came second grade, and so on. But we never learned how to be in the unknown.

To go into the deep end without knowing what awaits can bring out our most terrified parts. Anxiety kicks in as we try to find safe land as quickly as possible. This isn’t just about work, it’s about relationships, too. When something doesn’t go as we thought it would, we start questioning everything in our minds instead of allowing the uncertainty to be here.

Uncertainty is part of living. Yet, we are trained to treat it like failure.

Being in the unknown, in the confusion, is uncomfortable as fuck, so we retreat to where we think it’s safe: our heads. My problem solver part has kept me safe for a long time, and I thank it deeply. I see its strength and its capabilities. But at the same time, I sense there must be another way of living: away from survival and into full living.

A life based on trust. A life where I don’t know how good it can get. A life where I get more and more comfortable in the uncomfortable, allowing the uncertainty and the confusion to simply be here. To be a part of life instead of something to fix.

To move away from finding a solution that simply keeps me alive and to actually start living.

To not rush immediately to the next solution, no matter how well-planned, no matter how much I think I am “breaking a pattern.” (I wrote more about how this spiraling of patterns showed up for me when my outer stability fell away in just three days).

Read it here

To become okay with not knowing the next steps or even the bigger plan. To allow life to take shape. To be surprised. Even when you hate surprises like I do. Because with this problem solver also comes the desire, the need, to be in control. To not feel overwhelmed. To not feel whatever it is we are scared of feeling.

For someone who grew up in an unsafe environment, this is terrifying. This protector part, this problem solver, is a young part. It was trained over years to take care of itself. To find solutions alone because there might not have been anyone else to rely on. To put the pressure on ourselves to figure it all out because we always had to figure it out. It was trained well. And I am so grateful for this part that has kept me alive for so long.

But I also sense that when we let this part take over, anxiety is tied into its very core. How do you feel, how does your body feel when you are in your head analyzing, strategizing and overthinking? How is your breath? How are your shoulders?

Can you allow these sensations to be here, little by little? To stay with the discomfort, breath by breath. Moving if the body requires movement. Screaming if the discomfort gets too big. What is it that your body wants to tell you? Can we stay with it instead of hiding out in the head?

Instead of staying in survival, trying to find a solution to keep us safe, can we allow it all to unravel so that we move beyond survival and into fully living?

It’s time to think less and feel more. To move from the false “safety” of the mind into the true safety of the body. To find safety in our own presence. This is the definition of “Descending into the body.”

To gather evidence that it’s safe to be in the unknown. To find a belief that it can only get better, and that we and our problem solver may not know all the “right” answers. Especially as there are no “right” decisions, but only decisions that bring us closer to our truth.

So we don’t have to know what comes next. We have to become okay with not knowing, and in that, find a deeper trust. Little by little, the protector part will become more visible and its voice more urgent. But the more it acts out, the more we have the choice to become aware of it. We can allow it to be here and make different choices. To stay with ourselves and find our way back slowly into the body and hence ourselves, instead of giving the mind all the power.

This is what I am moving through right now.

As I move part-time back to my parents and navigate the total dissolution of my previous “stability,” my own problem solver is screaming for a plan. It wants me to fix things. It wants a concrete plan of where I am going to live and clarity on all the hows. How the mission will be funded. How to secure the future.

How. How. How.

But I am choosing a different path. I am practicing the high art of waiting for the right invitation, rather than rushing into a mental solution. I am staying in the uncomfortable because I know that is where my next level lives.

I am no longer interested in just surviving. I am interested in the kind of life that can only be built when you stop trying to control.

So, what about you? Are you ready to stop fighting the unknown and start incarnating into your body and life?

The fact that you already know it feels like you’ve been here before makes it a different situation. Because you have more awareness around it. You collected information the first time, and now you are encountering a situation with new wisdom and insight which you haven’t had before.

So this is NEW.

It’s not the same.

You’re not stuck.

You’re just living life. Moving in the spiral of life. Encountering similar situations with every move in the spiral. Yet, it’s never the same. We keep on moving in the spiral until we’re up and out or down and out. Depending on how you’d like to look at it.*

*Footnote:

I used to look at it from the angle that I’m moving up and out of the spiral. Probably as I thought I’m ascending, I’m evolving. However, now I am looking at it from the angle that we’re descending. Descending into the body. Incarnating in this human experience. Fully living without escapism. Hence, we’re moving down and out the spiral. Becoming more alive with every descent.

How this showed up for me recently

My main stability, not only the human but also the material part: my home, my financial security, all fell away from one day to the other. Everything that can give you a sense of safety in the outer world.

My world was shaking.

So I did something which I never thought I’d do: I asked my parents for help.

To most, calling your parents for help is the obvious move. But to me, it felt like a massive step. After five years of no contact, we’ve only been back in each other’s lives for a year and a half.

So, plot twist…

This was a BIG moment of vulnerability as this thought entered my mind: that I have to call them and tell them about my situation. I didn’t really want to do it, yet it felt like the right thing to do.

I was scared to tell them. I thought they’d think I’m a failure. Here I was turning 34 this year without a boyfriend, without a home, and with an unstable income. And I knew I could find and afford my own apartment, but this just didn’t feel right. It logically doesn’t really make sense.

So here I was calling them, and I hoped my mum would pick up as she was more understanding than my dad with these kinds of things. (She is the one who sends me articles about when astrology is good for me to make money). But plot twist again: only my dad was home. Hence, I took all my courage and I shared with an open heart about my situation. And to my biggest surprise, he was so understanding. He immediately took charge of my moving arrangements and I didn’t even have to ask (ohhh love this contained masculine energy). My heart cracks open a little while writing this. Thank you, Dad. And the same thing happened when I had my mum on the line a little later: complete support and understanding.

I then took the time to contemplate this. I realized that a couple of years ago I was in a similar situation. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, quit my job and moved back to my parents.

This made me think deeply (because what other kind of thinking is there? :P): Am I repeating a pattern? Next to the maybe more obvious thought of: Am I failing at life? Everyone is getting married, having kids, having a stable job and then there is me…

At first, I thought, oh fuck, I am repeating a pattern. What have I done wrong? Didn’t I do “all” the inner work? Why the fuck am I back here?

Yet the more I let this story go and found acceptance of this situation, embracing it, I realized that I felt and behaved differently in this situation. Not only on the outside, but especially on the inside.

I thought even the external reality looked the same. But it wasn’t. Because last time I moved back to them, it was out of a survival strategy. I had planned it with my mind: that I’d go and do my MSc in Innovation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship in France and hence would have my home base with them. Everything was planned and strategized through as something I “should” be doing as the “right” thing to do.

This time, I didn’t plan this at all. I even had resistance towards it. And as I am doing it, I am doing it out of devotion to my mission and myself. Out of trust that I know it’s not the time for me to find my own home (for whatever reason that will be, another plot twist in the making… stay tuned).

So I didn’t cling and strategize with my mind, but I followed the thread of life which invited me back to my parents. My heart was open and not closed as before. Yes, there is some fear around how I will feel when I live back with them. I have a deep trust in myself and my inner resources, as well as a deep knowing that there is a bigger plan for me in the making and that I just have to take the next step that is being asked of me.

A persistent fear of mine has been the feeling of being drowned by other people’s energy and emotions, losing my own sense of center in the process. Especially as when I grew up, there wasn’t any space for me to feel my feelings as my mum was overspilling with her emotions. So there is definitely some concern around how it will be living with her again. Yet, one of the biggest pieces of wisdom I’ve gained in the last two years is that everything I sense from others is always something inside of me too. It’s not the other person’s fault that I feel anxiety or depression. It’s within me too, and hence, when others are feeling that too, it gets amplified within me. So I can take responsibility for what I am sensing, knowing that what I sense won’t destroy me but is inviting me within.

I have integrated this wisdom deeply. I am sure there is still some thread around this as I am invited back to my parents, where this fear is the biggest, to sense my mum and lose myself by being eaten by her energy. But yet here I am, with an open heart and the courage to go there. To embrace it.

So instead of it being the “same” situation, this feels like a new cycle as I relate to the things I sense differently. I relate to myself, life and others differently with more trust, allowing, curiosity and compassion. I don’t fight it anymore. I don’t fight myself anymore. I don’t fight life anymore. It’ll be interesting to see how this will apply to living with my parents again. To relate to them differently, too. To find more compassion for them. As one of my big desires is to be so intimate with myself and others and especially with my future husband, I also sense some learning and integration around this.

I am curious to see how this will unfold, as I know it’s not a repeating pattern but that I am moving down the spiral. Meeting a similar situation which isn’t the same at all, as I relate differently to myself, life, and others, and especially to what I am sensing.

As within, so without.

You sense when something isn’t right anymore.

And here the most important thing is to be honest with yourself and acknowledge it.

We can easily shrug it off and say oh we had a bad day or whatever.

But you can’t lie to your inner and bodily knowing.

If we don’t listen and keep ignoring this inner knowing, this inner nudge. Shushing it away, thinking it’s just a “thought” or a “sensation”, the body will start to whisper and then to scream undeniably till you listen. Unfortunately, a lot do then still don’t listen and think it’s just “normal”. But there is always a deeper reason for your body screaming at you with tension, pain, disease.

On the other hand, one can leave a situation too fast.

We sense something is off and we immediately kick into problem solving mode. How do I leave this partnership? How can I save enough money? We escape into the mind and try immediately to find solutions instead of staying curios and listen deeper to what this situation is asking of us, to what this situation is teaching us.

I used to be one of the second one.

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As soon as I felt this “this isn’t right anymore” I would go into action mode. And I am beyond grateful to have this ability, this strength and will.

Yet I had to learn to stay. To stay in the uncomfortable. To learn to hold the pressure with an open heart. To know this isn’t right anymore and yet the time to leave isn’t either. Because when the time to leave is here, you don’t have to go into problem solving. God will escort you out of the situation. There is a flow present. Even though it will hurt, it won’t cost you as much energy as God is leading the way. You just have to be non-resistant and follow. And again being honest with the situation. You won’t be able to resist the change.

All that is required of you is an open heart and curiosity. To be open and allow life to unfold. To know you’re supported and guided.

open heart. open path.

Just brave and honest enough to stay with what is.

With what you’ve been pushing away.

We’ve been taught that the shadow is something to integrate, transcend or outgrow.

But the ”good” girl is not the opposite of the shadow.

She, too, is a shadow.

A shadow that learned to survive by being admirable.

By being reasonable, self-aware, spiritual and easy to be with.

In the attempt to heal or transcend the shadow, we often stay numb and disconnected.

What’s left is a woman who understands herself deeply,

who can analyse her thoughts and patterns

yet does not feel fully alive.

Because what we exile doesn’t just go away.

It lingers.

The shadow is:

• exiled life force longing for contact

• intelligence without a home

• a protector that learned to hide so you could belong

The parts of you you’re trying to outgrow are often the ones starving for intimacy.

Jealousy.

Meanness.

Quiet resentment.

Comparison.

These are not failures of consciousness.

They are doorways.

And so is the good girl.

By exiling the “bad” parts,

she also exiled

her hunger,

her no,

her deep inner knowing.

Within me, there lies a devious little demon.

Jealous thoughts.

Mean thoughts.

Judgments I was quick to silence because I knew better.

Thoughts I was first trained to disown

and later trained to transcend into light, positivity and spiritual correctness.

To be a good woman.

A conscious woman.

A “healed” woman.

And in doing so, I kept myself subtly disconnected

from myself,

from others,

from life itself.

What I realized was that these parts were never asking to be corrected.

They were and still are portals.

Portals into deeper intimacy with myself.

And therefore, deeper intimacy with others.

A doorway into embracing the full range of humanness

not the curated, acceptable version,

but the real living one.

When I stopped needing these parts to disappear.

When I stayed.

When I gave them space to be here,

allowed them to be here,

every little mean thought

and let myself feel them rather than manage them.

Feeling the devious little demon within me.

Embracing her.

I did not only find more compassion for myself but also for others.

When we stop exiling and suppressing parts of ourselves,

judgment softens,

superiority dissolves,

triggers disappear

and

intimacy becomes possible.

Nothing in you needs to be transcended away for you to be a good human, a powerful human, a sovereign human.

This is an invitation.

Permission to stop being spiritual about your wounds.

Permission to stop outsourcing intimacy to understanding.

And to begin relating to every part of you.

Because the more we allow of ourselves to be here,

the deeper our connection to ourselves, others and life becomes,

and the more of life we are able to experience.

A big part of it was how everything seemed to revolve around money.

50k days. 100k weeks. Million-dollar months.

Numbers instead of people.

And alongside that, the constant messaging: you need this practice, this program, this framework to get there.

This is feminine. This is masculine.

This is what you must do to become “aligned.”

The energy behind personal development began to feel like yet another thing to achieve. Another thing to optimize. Not only the self, but life itself through routines, practices, and endless self-monitoring.

Coaching. Spirituality. Healing.

Different faces of the same machine.

All of it fed into a deep repulsion for me.

It nearly made me shut down my business entirely.

And in truth, for most of this year, I barely offered anything at all. I couldn’t. I didn’t feel it. I was too put off by the whole thing.

I stopped speaking about my work and my services because I no longer recognized myself in them. Even in person, people could feel it, when I spoke about what I did, it didn’t come from my heart.

I tried to “feel it” again. Whatever it was supposed to be.

I considered doing something else entirely, but nothing felt true.

So this year became very different from any year before.

I devoted much more of my time to domestic and household work, something I never imagined for myself. I had always assumed I’d have a big “career”. That seemed normal.

Yet this year, I was invited to receive money in a completely different way. And with that, to work more within the home: cooking, cleaning, tending.

Receiving money from someone else, and being dependent in that way, was huge for me. I had always thought of myself as being an independent and “strong woman” as it was normal in our day and age. Learning to receive this was the most delicious experience yet. And it also opened up questions about worth, productivity, value.

To my surprise, I also learned to genuinely enjoy tending to the home.

On many levels, this was the most magical year I’ve ever had. I am deeply grateful for it.

It wasn’t what I planned. It wasn’t what I expected.

What was hardest was the constant surrender into nothing.

Even when I sat with the resistance, with the discomfort, what emerged was… nothing.

There was nothing to pursue. Nothing to let go of. Nothing to optimize.

Just nothing.

I tried to feel more into and again to redefine my offerings. To return to providing services. But it felt wrong. Every time.

And then I’d go online, see the endless stream of coaches and feel physically turned off.

Even though studying self-healing and the body’s innate intelligence is my deepest passion, I felt no desire to immerse myself in any of it.

I unfollowed a lot of people.

I simply couldn’t stand it anymore.

The constant talk about making more money.

Needing to be this.

Doing that practice.

It all felt like performance.

And more than anything, it felt like the same old program: always striving, achieving, optimizing dressed up as change.

This wasn’t the change I longed for.

It didn’t feel like liberation.

It felt like the same system, repackaged.

Then, a few weeks ago, something shifted.

I came across a coach I had followed for some time but never really felt connected to. Out of sheer boredom — and what a privilege it is to be bored — I joined her free masterclass.

I didn’t expect anything. I was just curious.

And it was different.

You could feel that she genuinely cared about people and their missions. At one point, she said that personal development is like personal hygiene, something you tend to daily.

That sentence didn’t resonate with me.

But something in me softened.

What shifted was this:

I saw that personal development, for me, isn’t about achieving anything or fixing something that’s broken.

Humans have always evolved. We always will.

We can meet that process consciously or be dragged into it by life.

And personal development is not self-improvement.

For me, it’s self-connection.

And connection with others.

It’s exploration.

Curiosity.

Remembering.

It’s experiencing more of oneself and more of life.

It’s what makes life feel magical.

It’s about being human with all the feelings.

It’s about trusting oneself.

Trusting life.

Trusting other people and their bodies to know what is right for them.

As I feel this again and reconnect with my care for people and their true well-being, I feel grounded excitement for 2026.

Because I feel more aligned than ever to guide people inward.

To unbecome everything that isn’t true.

To feel themselves deeply.

To explore who they are beneath conditioning.

To establish an unshakable connection to the innate intelligence within and through the body.

To trust themselves enough to become their own guides. As it was always meant to be.

If something in this resonates with you, and you feel curious to begin 2026 rooted in deep self-trust, embodied truth, and a quiet knowing that your body already holds the answers, I’d love to connect.

Taste the Medicine

As within, so without.

It’s my most favorite thing to do.

Immersing myself in different worlds and characters.

Expanding my own views.

Learning.

For a long time, thinking about all the books I want to read—and the limited time we have here on earth, used to give me anxiety.

Now I experience it as abundance.

And I’m deeply grateful.

The books I read have changed over the last few years, as I’ve become more aware of what I consume and how it affects my overall being.

And because I love receiving book recommendations just as much as I love talking about the books that moved me, touched me, or simply brought me joy, here are my most favorite books of 2025.

If you have any recommendations for 2026, please let me know.

I’m always open to new ones.

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1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

This book series, and especially the first one, OMG.

I am absolutely in love.

Highly, highly recommend.

I read it three times within one to two months and will probably read it a fourth time before the year ends. It made me feel things I hadn’t felt before. When telling people about it, I often say it’s like Harry Potter for adults…

It was recommended to me in December 2024 by one of my dearest friends. Until then, I hadn’t read fictional novels for quite some years even though Harry Potter is one of my absolute favorites. I felt some resistance starting it… and then, my oh my.

I couldn’t put it down. I had to pace myself just to make it last. I was completely absorbed in the world Rebecca Yarros built, obsessed with the story, the characters, the intensity of it all.

This book truly touched me and opened something within me.

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I cannot believe I only read Jane Eyre this year.

Wow.

And I also cannot believe it was written in 1847 which somehow makes it even more touching.

This book is now one of my treasured favorites. Jane follows her inner wisdom and guidance with such integrity, and she allows her heart to be open and follows it. Quiet strength. Moral clarity. Deep feeling.

Timeless.

3. Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life by Azra Bertrand & Seren Bertrand

This year I went down a deep rabbit hole of history.

I wanted to better understand why our society is the way it is today, how and why we moved into a patriarchal structure. Therefore, I read many books on matriarchy and patriarchy, which was fascinating.

Yet Womb Awakening was the one that truly touched me and I didn’t expect that.

It gives a beautiful account of matriarchal societies and how we once lived, without trashing patriarchy the way many other books do. Instead, it emphasizes creating something new, something that hasn’t existed before. A world that is neither feminine nor masculine dominated, but co-created.

This deeply resonates with what I believe.

4. The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous

I technically started this book years ago, but it feels like a 2025 book for me.

As my desire to understand our society and the world we live in deepened, so did my curiosity about the financial system. This book offers a powerful account of the history of money and how it shaped/shapes our society – then and now.

It also opens the question of what could change, if we dare to believe there must be another way.

Very well written. And while this topic might sound boring to some, it’s actually highly captivating, once you get through the first chapter :)

5. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Emily Henry is one of my favorite authors, so her newest book had to be on this list.

I love her writing. I love the worlds she creates.

She captivates me every single time.

6. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

This book definitely has to make the list for 2025.

Even though I started it about three years ago and had it on my shelf for two years before that, I finally finished it from beginning to end this year. And somehow, I loved it across all three years.

It doesn’t really make sense that it took that long… and yet it does.

When I first read the opening chapters and the artist affirmations, I didn’t believe any of them. Not really. But returning to them now, I find that I believe all of them.

The last three years have been a deep dive into discovering my own artistry. So of course this book took as long as it took.

Trust.

other books i read and loved this year

• the Outlander series – started but not yet finished. I love a good, especially long, book series.

• In a New York Minute – such an original story.

• The Game of Life and How to Play It – I read this over and over again, usually a chapter each morning.

• The Surrender Experiment – one of my all-time favorites, which I reread every year.

can’t wait for 2026 and the books we’ll read and remember a lifetime.

Optimisation.

Expansion.

Achievement.

Faster, better, more regulated, more healed, more evolved.

Even healing has become a performance.

In recent years, there has been a shift. More awareness around trauma that is stored in the body. Around the nervous system. Around the fact that we are not just minds walking around in bodies. That healing doesn’t happen purely through thinking.

And yet, despite this progress, the mind and body are mostly still treated separately.

Which I think is strange because how could they ever have been separate, if we live in our bodies?

If thought arises within sensation?

If my brain where I sense, “think” my thoughts is in the body?

If perception, meaning, memory and belief are shaped through lived, embodied experience?

Before language, before logical analyzation, before interpretation, there was sensation.

There was contact through our body with other humans.

There was a sense of safety or danger, openness or contraction…

And now, we approach both mind and body through the same old lens:

Optimisation.

How long can you stay in the ice bath?

How intense can your Breathwork session be?

How many practices can you stack into your morning routine?

Healing becomes another metric.

Another achievement.

Another thing to get right.

A panic attack arises:

Quick, regulate.

Breathe correctly.

Tap here, release there.

Repeat the affirmation.

Get back to baseline.

But what if this isn’t healing, but suppression dressed up as self-care?

What if much of what we call “nervous system regulation” is actually a refined way of saying:

“I don’t want to feel this.”

“I am afraid of feeling this.”

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It often feels as though the underlying intention is not to meet sensation, but to override it.

To neutralise it.

To move it away as quickly as possible.

In addition, many somatic and spiritual practices, especially the ones that are praised most prominently, are still rooted in a deeply masculine framework:

Control.

Mastery.

Intensity.

Transcendence.

Do more.

Go harder.

Push through.

Rise above.

Even when the language is soft, the orientation often isn’t.

Because the question is rarely:

“What is this sensation asking of me?”

But almost always:

“How do I make it stop?” “How do I get it under control?”

We are still not being taught how to hold the duality of being human.

How to remain present when the body contracts.

How to stay when anxiety hums through the chest.

How to listen when depression slows everything down.

How to allow panic, burnout, grief, numbness without immediately diagnosing them.

Mostly these states are treated as malfunctions.

As signs that something has gone wrong or is wrong with us.

But what if every sensation, every so-called “dysregulation”, is an invitation?

Anxiety is not the enemy.

Depression is not a flaw.

Burnout is not weakness.

Panic is not betrayal.

Like all forms of dis-ease, they are messengers.

They arrive for us, not against us.

But how can they show us what they carry if we meet them with resistance?

If our first impulse is to fix, correct, override, transcend?

How can the body speak when we keep trying to silence it with technique?

There is a profound difference between supporting the nervous system and controlling it.

True regulation does not mean constant calm.

It does not mean never feeling intensity.

It does not mean staying functional at all costs.

Sometimes regulation looks like trembling.

Sometimes it looks like grief.

Sometimes it looks like rage moving through.

Sometimes it looks like stillness so deep it feels like nothingness.

The body does not want to be optimised.

It wants to be heard.

And listening requires something we have largely forgotten:

Slowness.

Receptivity.

Curiosity.

Compassion.

Capacity to stay with discomfort without trying to turn it into a problem to solve.

Listening has NO AGENDA. It’s presence.

This is not passive.

It is not indulgent.

And it is certainly not weak.

It is radically honest.

Because healing does not come from doing something against the body.

It comes from restoring relationship with it.

From allowing sensation to complete its movement.

From trusting that the body knows what it is doing, even when the mind feels uncomfortable with the pace, the mess, the uncertainty.

The truth is:

Not everything that feels bad needs to be regulated away.

Not every contraction is pathology.

Not every uncomfortable state is a sign of failure.

And if we keep silencing the body in the name of regulation,

we may look calm on the outside,

but we will remain profoundly disconnected from ourselves and the truth within.

The Sovereign Way is not about control and outsourcing our health and wealth.

It is about remembering and learning to listen to ourselves and our bodies again.

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how to create your relationships

how to create your businesses

how to work

how to eat

how to exercise

how to sleep

…

studies around every topic, experts on every topic tells you something different. the big revelation. this is the way. do this to get that, to become that.

but how can someone else know better than yourself what is best for you?

have they lived in your body? have they experienced what you have experienced?

there is no one size fits all approach in nothing.

no psychic knows your heart better than you do

no physician knows your body better than you do.

even if you’re not adversed in a topic.

if you hear about something, your body, your intuition will know before your mind can even grasp it.

there is an intelligence within you that speaks through your body that is beyond the rational mind.

yet we either have been taught to ignore it or we’ve never been taught to connect to it.

we’ve been conditioned, programmed to rely on data, on facts.

to follow this step, you will get this.

these evidences give us a fabricated sense of control in a world which doesn’t make sense.

it’s scary to let go of that.

to do things differently than others do.

to trust that nudge of there must be something else, a different way.

your intuition, your intelligence within

it doesn’t make any sense

so to listen to it and act upon it takes courage.

This article isn’t about what to do or not to do, how to set more boundaries, be more loving…

No.

In this article, we’ll explore a different way, an artful way in processing, alchemising the situations, feelings that can surface or are stuck underneath the surface.

Because talk therapy helps you understand but art helps you transform it.

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More and more people starting to see the truth of their family and that hurts.

And yet it’s one of the most bravest thing one does to see the truth of ones family.

This isn’t about blaming someone. It’s seeing being honest with oneself of how your family makes you feel and behave. To see with compassion the limits that might exist of how you’re being seen, understood in your family and how much belonging you feel with them.

To not get lost in thinking if I try a bit harder, if I talk just a little more how my therapist told me to talk they’ll change…

And yes, family members and relational dynamics can and often do shift drastically when you shift within.

To create this inner shift, we first have to see and feel the truth of what was and what is.

We have to allow and acknowledge the parts within us that never received what they needed or longed for.

When we make space for the parts we’ve buried, the ones that maybe are screaming from the inside through a tightened chest, headaches, tension or a sense of disconnection, something begins to change.

When we allow emotions and words to take shape in a different way, not just through blunt analysis or trying to “understand a little more”, transformation becomes possible.

Because they’re allowed to come alive, to be brought into the light, to be alchemised.

So this holiday season, instead of numbing ourselves a little more with food, Glühwein, parties, or thoughts like “let’s just get this over with” or “why me,” what if we took the situations that drive us up the wall, the ones that leave us feeling empty, overwhelmed or even sick, and made art out of them?

Art doesn’t only mean painting or creating pottery.

It can be anything.

Making art out of our shadow aspects, the parts of us that are deeply hurt, is profoundly healing and, more often than not, more effective than talk therapy.

Most of our shadow material, the painful memories, patterns, wounds and parts of ourselves we learned to hide, did not originate in language.

These parts formed before we had the words to explain what was happening.

They live as sensations, impulses, imagery, emotions and symbolic patterns.

So when we try to talk our way through them, we’re using a tool that belongs to the conscious, logical mind to reach material that was created in a pre-verbal, non-logical realm.

Talk can help us understand but it often can’t transform.

Art can.

Art creates a bridge between the conscious self and the part that has been hidden.

Creating something out of pain gives you power.

You’re no longer the one merely experiencing the pain, you become the one who shapes the experience.

When you write a poem about your abandonment wound, sketch the rage you were never allowed to show, or act out your shame as a character in a play, you’re not just talking about the wound — you’re moving it.

And movement is what creates alchemy.

When you turn a shadow aspect into a character, an archetype, a scene, or a symbol, you create space between you and the pain.

This allows you to witness your experience from the outside, opening the door to insight, compassion and choice.

This is why theatre, writing and storytelling are some of the oldest healing practices on earth.

If you’re curious to go deeper into this work and I truly recommend it, as it’s both playful and profoundly healing, I invite you to explore my dear friend Victoria Wild’s Substack, where she shares deep expertise and rich artistic approaches to working with the shadow and unhinged artist’s ways.

Alongside this, I also share a few practical ideas and practices in the paid section of this piece on how to get started with turning shadow aspects into art, especially around family dynamics, though they can be adapted to any situation.

And if you’re feeling stuck around this topic, or struggling to access the emotions beneath the stories, which is completely normal, as most of us live in our heads and were never taught how to truly feel, I invite you to reach out. We can explore how this might become accessible in a safe and supported way.

Let me know in the comments how this lands for you, what resonates and what kind of practices or tools you’d love to see more of.

Find Artistic Ways to alchemise heavy emotions and situations below.

1. Spoken word: turning family dynamics into art

Write a spoken-word piece about everything you are experiencing when it comes to your family.

What do you feel?

What do you truly want to say but maybe never have?

Write it all down.

Nothing is too much. Everything is welcome.

I personally recommend writing this by hand. Handwriting carries a different alchemy than digital writing, it slows you down and allows something deeper to come through.

Once you’ve written your piece, place your phone or a camera in front of you.

You’re going to perform what you wrote and record yourself.

Imagine your family members standing in front of you as your audience. Invite their presence, not only the ones you feel charged around, but all of them.

You may want to speak to those you love, honour what you carry forward from them, and at the same time release guilt, expectations or emotional weight that was never yours to hold.

You can simply read the piece out loud or, if it feels right, bring in movement, gesture and sound.

Feeling disgust? Let the sound come out.

Feeling rage? Let your body show it.

Let the truth move.

Recording yourself is not strictly necessary, but I highly encourage it. Being witnessed even by yourself is a key element in alchemy and healing.

2. If you feel “not creative”, receive support

If you feel blocked, not creative or unsure where to begin, receive support from ChatGPT 😉

Write down your family situation and dynamics:

• who is involved

• what each person does

• how they make you feel

If using real names doesn’t feel safe, make them up.

Then try one of the following prompts:

Prompt 1 — emotional support

“Turn the emotions I shared into a short poem or spoken-word piece that expresses the truth without exposing personal details. Keep it raw, grounded, and embodied and help me express emotion without collapsing into it.”

Prompt 2 — mythic reframe

“Rewrite my family story as if it were an ancient myth or folklore. Turn each person into an archetype. Transform the conflict into a mythic initiation I am walking through. Preserve the emotional tone but shift the frame from ‘personal problem’ to ‘hero’s journey.’”

Prompt 3 — ritual

“Transform my family situation into a symbolic ritual or creative practice (art, writing, movement) that helps me process and release the emotional charge. Keep it simple, safe, and empowering.”

Same as in Number 1, read it out loud, perform it, let the emotions move through the body. Become aware of how it makes you feel in your body.

Maybe this takes a couple of times. Do it as many time as feels right. If you feel resistance toward it, you know you’re on the right path ;)

3. My absolute favourite: casting your family as archetypes

Write down your family situation and the characteristic behaviours of each person.

Then either do it yourself or ask ChatGPT to match each family member with a character from a movie or series.

Suddenly, your family becomes a cast of archetypes rather than emotional triggers.

From there, create a fictional scene for example, Christmas dinner, and lightly act it out.

The body completes what was frozen. Movement, voice, and gesture allow the body to complete what once had to stop.

Optional: make it communal

Want to make this even more fun?

Invite friends to a sacred theatre evening.

Share the practice, then play out scenes together.

Some friends might even step into the characters you created.

If you do this, tell me how it goes.

4. Somatic release practice (when words won’t come)

If you don’t have words but feel it in your body, tension, a racing mind, elevated heart rate, try this:

Create a sacred space.

Close the doors.

Set intentional time for yourself, your body, and your emotions.

You’ll do this practice standing, with space around you.

Visualise a rock or stone in front of you.

This rock symbolises your family, the emotions and everything you’re ready to alchemise.

Feel it fully. Pour everything into it.

Now imagine you’re holding a sword with both hands.

Using the sword, dismantle or transform the rock.

Move as your body wants. Make sounds as your body wants.

Bend your knees when bringing the sword down.

Stay present.

Continue until the rock feels transformed or complete.

The body knows the way, let it show you

And there are so many more ways to create art out of difficult, triggering situations. It’s your playing field. I encourage you to give it a try even if you think you aren’t creative: use ChatGPT or reach out to me to talk about how we can make art out of this.

The goal isn’t to fix you, your feelings or a situation, it’s to let them move. There is no right or wrong way to do it. That is the beautiful thing about art. It’s about the process.

As within so without.

I remember that in school we once had to write a story, and I had this thought: Oh, I’m not as creative as some of the other girls in my class. And with that came the follow-up thought: So why should I even try?

I made up these stories about myself and because of them I never allowed myself to explore creativity or writing.

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One specific girl comes to mind, someone I labelled as “the creative one,” thinking this is what creative people are like. Looking at it now, I wouldn’t even describe her as artistic. Her paintings and her writing were perfect as she was. Meticulous in her appearance and in her art.

I’m not a meticulous person when it comes to tiny details or the way I move through everyday tasks. I’m a bit messy by nature. Even when I try to be precise, to color inside the lines, I somehow end up crossing them. I’m probably more rough around the edges, not quiet an elephant in a china store but more in this direction.

Even something simple like cutting veggies. I’ve tried slicing them into perfect little pieces, but it takes so much energy and no matter how hard I try, they still end up chunky and definitely not even 😬

So because I equated “creative” with “perfect and detail-oriented,” I thought I wasn’t a creative person. That it just wasn’t for me.

However, over the last three years I’ve started The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron three times. I currently have two chapters left, and I’m confident I’ll finish before the end of 2025 🎉 If you haven’t heard of it or tried it yet, I highly recommend it 💯

The gist is that we’re all creative beings. Even though I believe that for others I still don’t quiet belief it for myself but by just thinking about it, well I’m not going to change it.

Through this journey of discovering my creativity and embodying that I am creative, I started making reels, bought paint and pottery tools and use them from time to time. And even though I journal, it’s not the kind of writing-writing I actually desire.

So I wrote one article for Substack two weeks ago. While it took a lot of energy, I really enjoyed it and I thought: Oh yes, I have so much to say.

But since publishing that article, I haven’t written anything.

Writer’s block? Can you even call it that after just one article? Probably yes. Because all these old thoughts, stories and fears have been surfacing.

There is huge resistance within me, disguised as clever fear.

Telling me: Maybe writing isn’t for you.

But how will I ever know if I don’t try?

There’s this fear that if I try and fail, the dream will come crashing down, leaving me shattered in pieces.

Every day I tell myself: I’m writing tomorrow.

And it never happens. I always find something “more important” to do: listening to this teacher, reading that book, rearranging the entire apartment, buying shampoo (seriously, I went twice to the shop over the last three days just to buy shampoo 🤷‍♀️)

Basically, I’m distracting myself with everything.

But today I told myself: no more.

Even if the dream bursts, even if it wasn’t meant to be, something new, something truer, will emerge as I give this dream space.

My little inner artist wants to write.

So here I am today, writing about what is present and how I am moving through it: by voicing what is true for me in this moment.

I feel and see all these parts and stories coming alive within me through my body and my mind. I also notice a familiar protector part rising up, wanting to say to these stories and fears: No, this is not the truth. You’re creative. Shut up. We’re doing this.

And with that, it dismisses them and therefore dismisses me.

This pattern is so subtle yet so familiar. It’s the head through the wall, no feeling just doing. And yes it can be very effective but also does it actually work?
…are those fears gone?
No.
…or have I written regularly so far?
No.

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So instead, I’m practicing compassion for this old protector part, the one that means well by shushing the fearful parts.

It doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to the fears or buy into their stories. No.

I allow them to surface, to be here, to be seen, to unravel.

By bringing my breath to where I feel these parts in my body (Where do I feel the trigger? The discomfort? Where does my body want to escape?)

I tell them they’re welcome. I see them. I visualize them. I sit with them. I ask what they need.

They tell me they need gentle nurturing, space to think, to feel, to recover from the cave they’ve been hiding in. To soak up beauty and life around them.

To breathe deeply.

To not perform, but simply to be.

And as I bring more awareness to these sensations, allowing them space, I can feel my body and these parts soften. I can sense them becoming curious about life and others.

They move from being overwhelmed, stuck and frightened…

to observing life, breathing into life, getting curious and seeing beauty again.

With that, a flow returns. A trust. A possibility.

As within, so without.

Not “rest” as in reading, journaling or trying to make the most of it. As I would have usually done it.

Actual rest.

The kind where you do nothing, not because you’re tired, but you do it with intention.

For the last 6 months I deeply desired to connect to my womb.

So I cleared three days in my calendar and put an OOO in. I thought I knew what would happen. I didn’t. What unfolded during those three days, the softening, the clarity, the way the world sharpened around me was unlike anything I could have imagined.

The reason I chose to try this now is because rest has been following me the entire year.

Sometimes gently reminding me… sometimes in ways that were honestly so annoying.

Every time I thought, “okay, I rested, I got it,”

the message came back again.

And again.

And again.

It frustrated me because I genuinely believed I was resting.

But now I see that I never actually was.

When I “rested,” I filled it with things to do:

reading (not just the juicy fictions that take you into other worlds and make you feel things like Fourth Wing, but educational books too),

a little Netflix as a reward,

some comforting food,

a walk in nature,

maybe journaling.

It looked like rest to me.

But it wasn’t stillness.

It wasn’t surrender.

It wasn’t the empty, spacious kind of rest my body had been asking for.

It was rest that still somehow felt productive in a soft, acceptable way.

Even when I gave myself those “menstruation rest days,”

I planned them like a gentle to-do list.

But then, the day before my bleed, I read something that shifted everything.

For months now, I’ve felt the pull to deepen into my heart and my womb, to understand not just the physical cycle, but the lineage and meaning beneath it.

So I started reading more about the history of women, ancient tribes, their rituals, the way they lived with their bodies instead of against them.

And just a side note here but something that I feel is so true for me was confirmed to me in these historical books: that ascending is not about leaving your body but actually about descending into your body fully as a human being. And that the body holds all the wisdom we are seeking.

And just as my bleed was about to arrive, I opened Womb Awakening.

In the early chapters, they spoke about how women once bled together in the red tents or deep in the forest, not to hide, not to be “out of the way,” but to dream.

To listen.

To dissolve into the inner worlds.

Some tribes didn’t separate men and women at all, both would retreat, slow down, cocoon, enter a kind of shared stillness.

It was time set aside for intuition and feminine psychic.

They described menstruation as a natural portal into visioning, a place where insights, images, guidance and ancestral memory emerge form within. Like how cool and juicy is that, that this was just the norm?

So the next day, when my bleed came, I curled into the couch with my tea, my candles and my kindle…

But then as I was about to open my Kindle, I stopped and put it away.

And for the first time ever, I set the intention to do absolutely nothing and to just let myself simply be with any distractions.

And honestly? It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t chilled.

Within minutes,

my mind went wild:

What are you doing?

Time is wasting.

You should be productive.

You’re being lazy.

This is crazy.

And with this I felt panic arise.

But I stayed. I was committed to this experiment, to meeting menstruation the way women once did,

to dream, to vision, to just be.

So I brought my awareness to my breath. To the sensations in my body. To that familiar tightness in the centre of my upper body, the one I usually push away so I can “keep going”.

As I surrendered more and more by breathing into it, a shift started to happen (oh surprise).

I started to soften and with this

I started noticing the way the light moved through the window

how it wasn’t just light, but texture.

How my grey fuzzy blanket felt like a cradle.

I felt like an artist witnessing all these things.

How my whole body was expanding and softening, something I only experience from time to time.

I started to drift into little snoozes without life-changing dreams,

woke up soft and spacious.

I kept thinking the “big” visions would come,

those mystical, magical dreams they talked about in the book

but nothing like that happened.

I thought maybe I’m doing something wrong.

When the second day came, there was less resistance, less gripping as it felt so good to be so soft, spacious and slow.

And as I was feeling so good, let go of the expectation of what this experience should be and I surrendered into this state of being.

And that’s when the most remarkable things began to unfold.

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