From being lived to fully alive
I recently announced that I started my own coaching business that helps young women and men to step into their full potential and fully live life. This made people curious about what series of events or experiences built up to this decision. Reason enough to tell you my story.
Before I stepped into my full potential, I was being lived by life instead of fully living life. I lived inside my head most of the time, and was always looking for fulfillment outside of myself. From the outside, it looked like I had everything going for me: I travelled the world, graduated Summa Cum Laude in Economics & Business and started a great corporate job as a strategy consultant. I lived in Amsterdam and spend my weekends partying with old and new friends. I truly embraced the “work hard, play hard” mentality.
But: it felt off.
I started to feel discontent. Restless. Unhappy. I felt stressed in my job, constantly looking to be perfect and successful. But that was part of building a career, right? Right. I felt unfulfilled in my private life too, but I had the best time of my life being young and wild, right? Right. I had everything that I thought I wanted. Or at least what I saw other people want, but I wanted out.
At the time, the only option for me was to escape. I felt a huge urge to get out. I contemplated just quitting and travelling again, but that did not seem like a financially sustainable option. So when the opportunity arose to move to Tanzania to work for an amazing solar energy startup, I took it. Within 2 weeks, I requested unpaid leave, packed my bags and woke up to my new life in Tanzania. I felt a huge relief. I basically lived the life of my dreams: working for a company with purpose, enjoying the wild nature of Africa every weekend, and living in a wonderful community of adventurous people. I decided to stay and quit my job in Amsterdam. My boyfriend joined 6 months later and we moved in together for the first time. We lived in a house as big as a castle on a hill with a garden full of avocado trees, tropical flowers and the occasional monkey popping by. We had breakfast outside every morning with the sound of exotic birds before we drove our badass 4x4 Landcruiser to work. I thought we discovered a life hack and lived our dream at the age of 26.
“I was 27 years old and burned out in a country where that does not exist.”
What I only realized 1 year later, was that I changed locations, but I had not changed myself. I had not changed my mindset nor my perspective on life. I started to feel stressed again. I was overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility and expectations at work. In the chaos of building a startup, combined with a lack of autonomy and decision making power, it became a source of frustration. The perfect recipe for burnout it seems. And so that happened. I was 27 years old and burned out in a country where that does not exist.
My recovery has been wild and it completely woke me up. Being in a country where conventional psychological help was a scarce good, I was forced to tune within and look for the solution inside. I listened to a calling to meditate and went to “hardcore” 10-day Vipassana retreats in Kenya. I started practicing yoga every day by myself and started to feel connected with my body, a connection I realized I had never really had. I had a bit of therapy, life coaching and online group coaching with a group of amazing expats. I dove into alternative healing, had a pranic healer by my side and a reflexologist that popped by my house each week. I read tons of books, and connected with nature. Slowly, but surely I started seeing the patterns that had made me ill. And with that awareness, I started to have choices. Conscious choices.
I was forced to take care of myself after neglecting myself for so long. I was forced to look inside, whereas I had only looked outside all my life. I am forever grateful for that experience and what it taught me. Because once I discovered this whole world within, I found myself.
My life feels completely different now, although it may look quite similar. I probably “work” more than ever, but it does not feel that way, because I found a lightness to it and connect everything I do to my values and purpose. I am now a strategy manager at a young and growing fintech startup in Amsterdam, but I am also a yoga teacher and a Life and Leadership coach.
My mission is to help young successful women and men built sustainable success from the inside out. I help you uncover limiting beliefs, conditioned patterns or anything else that is holding you back from stepping into your true self, even if you are unsure what that means right now. You deserve to live a lighter life, full of creative energy and confidence to bring the world what you are here for. Let’s do that together.
If my story resonates with you, feel free to reach out. I look forward to connect with you!
