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Happy Birthday to Me!

I don’t know about you, but for a long time I’ve been hating to celebrate my birthday. Guess that was the result of how birthdays were celebrated during my childhood. As a little child I probably liked all the presents people brought with them and to play around with the kids. But growing older, birthdays became more and more boring. People you wouldn’t normally spent an afternoon with sitting on a couch talking about nothing. I just hated it. The days became longer and longer and I had no idea how to get out. It just weren’t my kind of people! Lees meer

Stretch Your Self Again!

Free hugs for X-mas!!!Have you ever seen that wonderful clip on YouTube? If you haven’t, go check it out at www.youtube.com. Search for ‘free hugs campaign’. Well, we just did that! With 8 of my wonderful colleges at TalentFirst, this was our Christmas challenge: in the center of Amsterdam, we went out to contribute to the joy of the world by giving people free X-mas hugs. Wonderful!!! Amazing what happens if you step into that experience! Of course, quite a lot of us had two thoughts at the same time when this challenge came up: one was: O yeah, that’s fun, let’s do it! And the other one was O my Goss, do we really have to? Where can I hide out? The fact that we were together, made it a whole lot easier. Like every challenge you take on in live: if you find some people to join you on your path, it’s easier and more fun!And it was so interesting what happened to ourselves and to the people we encountered!Although we all are coaches who have stepped out of our comfort zone before, lots of us felt some threshold in stepping forward to people and just give them a hug. And just like in real live, once you start doubting shall I, shall I not, it’s getting more difficult. Like the window of opportunity is closing again and it’s getting harder. Also, if we were just holding our signs with Free Hugs, people would look, some would smile, some would frown, but very rarely someone would come up to us for a hug. But when we opened our arms, smiled and approached people in a nice way, hardly anyone refused the hug. How interesting! Where do we do that in life? How often are we holding back, while people really would like to be approached by us, in whatever way?And then, this is just great, some people just have to grow into a new experience… And because we were with 9 of us, they had the opportunity… they would hide away at the first approach of a free hug, then there would be a second they would say no thank you to, but when the third came up, they smiled, gave us a hug and smiled even bigger as they walked on….And that is what can happen from a just funny challenge: we stretched our selves, overcame our fears, had lots and lots of fun, opened our hearts, connected to people of all ages, races, rich and poor and made them smile and feel great too.Funny detail: since we were in Amsterdam center, there were a whole lot of tourists, who were eager to get a hug AND a picture, so if you see my face in a Japanese magazine with the text this is what the Dutch do for X-mas… now you know! Lees meer

Stretch Your Self

It is funny. How some things can be quite natural for you and other things that seem similar can be so scary!I just had the opportunity to experience that myself again. Although I still can get a little nervous when I have to talk to a large group of people or before I meet a new group I will train, that nervousness usually disappears the moment I start talking.Now another challenge was put in front of me. An opportunity to stretch…When I was younger, I played the guitar pretty well. Harry Sacksioni kind of stuff. You can find him on YouTube if you like to dig into that. Anyway. When I moved to Amsterdam I pretty much left the guitar behind and never really played again. Till a few months ago. Amazing how after 18 years of not playing at all pretty difficult songs can pop back into your fingers. Speaking of body-memory…. Anyway. This week I had the opportunity to play in front of a group of people. And I got scared….But hey, as you know me, put a challenge in my face and I will probably take it on, so I took this one as an opportunity to stretch myself. And so I did. I played Harry Sacksioni. Pretty bad I must say. Although the audience was kind of impressed due to the fact they had no idea I could play at all…I was soaking wet afterwards, that was the level of scariness this stretch brought me. But I did it. And hey, I’m still alive! And I enlarged my comfortzone again.So if you ever have the opportunity to stretch yourself… Just Do it! You will live a greater live. Lees meer

Celebrating life

This is so funny! While working on this site, I was looking for some pictures of me defending my lecture to prove worthy of my Phd. It was the most scary thing I have ever done in my whole life. You have no idea.They put you in a small room with NO WINDOWS, no way out. The whole wall is full of words and signatures of those who went before me. Really, I was so nervous, if there would have been a window, I would have found a way to get through it and get out of there...Then this whole ceremony of professors and ringing bells. “All rise…..”…I remember being so nervous I was trembling all over for the first few minutes. Then I managed to find my own calmness and trust and at the end I even had fun answering the questions that were meant to test my knowledge about the subject and the suggestions I made in my book. Time passed rather quickly, which surprised me…Anyway. That was 5 years ago and now I was looking in this box for the pictures of that day. And I realized I never looked back. I never re-listened the tape they made that day. I never put the photo’s in an album. And to my surprise: I never read all the cards with amazing compliments and I never took out the gift certificates in there…I forgot a really important part of life: to celebrate! I just went on: next job to get done. I had 2 little boys, was pregnant of the 3th, had my own private practice, was teaching at different universities. No time to celebrate. But in that I forgot a real important law in the universe: be grateful & celebrate life. Cause in doing that, your gifts from the universe will be send out! My ant used to say “gratefulness is the doorway to Heaven”. Guess what I will be doing tomorrow: buy wonderful flowers with my gift certificates and celebrate my accomplishment from 5 years ago. It’s about time…. Lees meer

Driving a Porsche on a dirt road

Driving a Porsche on a dirt roadHave you ever had that feeling, that you have everything you need. All the power to get to your goal FAST and without much effort. You feel like a brand new Porsche. But then life shows up as a dirt road and suddenly your Porsche doesn’t feel that comfortable anymore… You prepared so well, put all your time, money and energy in it and here you are: shining like a bright star, so proud of all your new idea’s, your new commitments. You feel the power. This time, you’re gonna DO it… You ARE the Porsche. You’ve got everything…. Photo HansDeGerman: flickr.comBut come’s mondaymorning, your good intentions run into reality of everyday life. The kids are wining, the clock runs faster than you can catch up with, the pile of papers on your desk seems to increase by the minute and you start to feel hopeless. Who are you to think you can make it. You can’t even handle yourself, let alone contribute to the lives of others and make this world a better place…Your Porsche hit a dirt road. And here it’s put to the test: It is so easy to trust on your own capabilities, on other people and on life/God/the Universe when things run smoothly… But what really matter is how much you can trust that things are just as they are suppose to be when things get rough. When your Porsche has to go right through the mud. No other way out….It’s a good thing to realize there are no highs without the lows. You can not ‘hop’ from one high to the next. You have to take te slopes and go down to get enough momentum to climb the next mountaintop. And you will. Just keep faith, take a deep breath and surrender…. You are never alone, even in your darkest moment. Your Porsche is taken care of. Always… There are times you got to take control, hit the gas and go. AND there are times to just surrender, lay back and trust. Open yourself to the view beyond the mud you’re in. See the bright light? It’s waiting there for you….. So don’t put your attention to the mud. You will get stuck. Put your focus on the light beyond and follow through. You WILL get there…O and by the way, don’t forget to take the handbrakes of, it’s a whole lot easier, it won’t wear you out as much and keeps your engine running…. Lees meer

The Game of Life

Hey you! How great you are here! A new adventure has begun. This adventure is called the game of life! Do you have the life you have always dreamed of? If not, ask yourself this question: Did you play your game of life full out? Did you give it your all? Or were you holding back on it? Did you play it safe? You know what? There is no such thing as safety... Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and jump! Follow your hearts desires... Me jumping for my goal in the forest from a very high pole. San Francisco area, summer 2008 Lees meer
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