english
Gracefully facing everything
It’s one of those things you hear people say all the time. To ‘live in the now and fully enjoy it’. It sounds so simple, so obvious, but HOW do you do it? And if you actually could: wouldn’t that make you lazy and naive?
Hell no!
What do you want?
Yes, what is it you want in life?
What would you like more of, and what could be less?
What would you like to improve, and what would you love to dismiss?
How do you want to live?
What is it you long for?
What would need to stay, and where would you like to go?
Do you want it someday, or straight away?
If you have the answers to these questions, I can coach you toward the solution.
But it will require a fair amount of courage, effort, and dedication.
Change is deep
Tricks and skills
I have coached and I have been coached in many different ways in recent years. There was a lot of spiritual coaching, a lot of intellectual coaching, and eventually also a lot of mindset coaching, where everything was about ‘the right attitude’. Everything brought me something. Each approach taught me some useful tricks and skills that made my life more pleasant.
But somehow I always fell back into old habits, and I had to work really hard to maintain the result somewhat.
By now, I’m absolutely convinced that many methods, almost all self-help solutions, and most spiritual philosophies, do not cause fundamental change. There’s often a temporary excitement and early euphoria, but our deepest beliefs and learned habits almost always eliminate that unstable gain.
Disappointment and disillusionment are waiting to happen.
As long as we’re controlled and constrained by the hidden side of our psyche, where the essential ideas about who we are and how we view the world are stored, change will almost always fail. This very deepest and cunning system guards our safety nonstop, which means that we robotically live by principles and assumptions from our childhood that are maintained at all costs.
Hidden fears
A lot of self-help, coaching, and spirituality adds something to our lives, as a kind of extra layer on top of what’s already there. Often quite promising and tasty, but in most cases those beautiful ideas about love and unity and abundance don’t penetrate to the core of our operating system.
That’s why the effects are often so disappointing.
Believe me: I am very sensitive to all those enlightening messages and I recognize the temporary value of a chunk of spirituality or a well-written self-help book, but it just does not really transform us. If you really want to do something about your obstructive beliefs, if you really want more freedom, it’s inevitable to go deep first.
The only thing that works sustainably is the direct realization that you don’t have to get away from anything and can handle everything. What you need is an exploration of your hidden fears, sabotaging ideas, and limiting beliefs.
Freedom is not a sweet idea, but a personal victory.
Your true power
I didn’t realize it, but in all the years where I experimented with self-help and spirituality, I was more concerned with avoiding my fears and stifling the belief that I’m not good enough, than concentrating on my true power. And that is my ability to endure discomfort and accept pain and uncertainty.
If you can do that, you can do anything.
Being human is incredibly difficult and complex. We want everything, we even want to work hard for it, but deep down all kinds of hidden processes play out that constantly get in the way. And as long as you don’t challenge and retrain that system, you keep thinking and doing the same thing, endlessly.
Maddening stuff!
What I offer.
What I offer is extremely simple and clear: really getting to know yourself.
I create the welcoming space to confront the hidden fears and sneaky beliefs that continue to confuse many things in your life. Not only do I make my clients feel comfortable and understood: I fully and safely accompany the process to ultimate freedom and the confrontation with what we (unconsciously) run away from.
You can probably imagine that this can be quite challenging, but without examining your hidden foundations and your personal thoughts, we’ll never achieve real, lasting transformation.
Of course, eventually there’s also more than enough time and attention to the wishes that you probably have, and the goals with which most people approach me. Delicious things like increased happiness, rest, lightness, self-confidence, success and fulfillment, or less anxiety, stress, worry, and confusion.
It’s a unique process that starts deep and ultimately goes higher and higher.
What to expect?
The effect of truly powerful coaching is the same for everyone, and it’s also completely different.
The same is the freedom to live joyfully, and the sweet simplicity of following your intuition every day. The variation is found in what to do with that freedom, or what to leave behind.
That’s completely up to you.
Some examples
Self confidence.
Doing what feels right, saying what you want to say, being who you truly are. It sounds ideal and awesome and free. But also far away, because: HOW do you go about all that?
Meaning.
Why are we here? What are you living for? What is your vocation, if any? And can you live more fully, deeper, more authentic? Existential questions can really open things up.
Less worrying.
Many people do it all the time: worrying. It is physically draining and keeps you awake at night. What would happen if you’d stop doing it? Is that even possible? What does a life without stress look like? Let’s find out!
Playfulness.
Sure, it’s pretty cool to play adult, but it’s also VERY serious and complicated. How about bringing back some of the pure childlike pleasue and curiosity we once knew? It will make everythying more fun!
Beating addiction.
Being addicted doesn’t necessarily mean living under a bridge. There are many generally accepted ways of escaping reality and numbing out profoundly. Become free of the things that hold you captured and small!
Anxiety no more.
Always scared of something, or nothing. Stressed out and restless all the time. It seems to be the modern way of life and very much unavoidable, but it’s really unhealthy and unnecessary. How about we explore a new way of being and living?
Can’t find your thing?
The examples above are purely to give you an idea about the versatility of transformative coaching.
You can rest assured that I’ve come across most of the things people struggle with, and I’ve also seen most of those things vanish.
My coaching is all about uncovering and restoring YOUR resilience, independence and self-reliance. This ensures that it will be you who comes up with new solutions for old and habitual shit.
You are capable of so much more than you think right now, and once you’ve tasted that power, you’re on your way to being unstoppable!
And what makes me the right person to help you?
That is actually a solid and relevant question, because you don’t just put your mental health in the hands of any weirdo with a slick story.
So it’s good to know that I have won my spurs. With education and endless ways of (self) study, but mostly in life itself. By living, and suffering, and owning that.
I have been a coach for years and helped way over a thousand people.
A miserable resume.
Apart from my ‘normal’ careers (as a copywriter, and author, and a singer/songwriter), I’ve struggled for years with dark and suffocating moods. So my mental health resume lists impressive labels like Addictions, Depression and Anxiety. Loads of them.
Those are all experiences that belong to the past, though, and I’ve been in a very good, balanced, and clear mental (and spiritual) place for quite some years. But it means I know what I’m talking about when it comes to pain and suffering and anxiety, and that makes a difference.
How and where are the sessions?
Well, where do you want them? In general they can be everywhere in the world, both digitally and physically (depending on Covid-restrictions, of course). Most of my coaching is done online, and that works absolutely perfectly.
If you’d rather meet me in person, we can arrange that. We can meet in an inspiring venue close to the canals, or go for a hike in the forest. Sometimes people visit me in Amsterdam for a couple of days, to be fully emerged in a ‘coaching intensive’.
Whatever you want!
Podcasts
and videos
A TEDx-talk
In 2015 I was asked to do a TEDx-talk. I had one year to prepare, and I used that time mostly to worry about it. At first I didn’t really appreciate it that we were supposed to do it in English (I hardly did ANYTHING in English back then), but that turned out to be a really good thing.
The TEDx-talk has been doing quite well on YouTube, and most of the visitors are English-speaking, so there you go!
In this talk I tell people about my years of crippling anxiety around almost anything, and I share a pretty powerful metaphor that helped me completely change my life.
Jacquie Forde
I had a really cool, unashamedly human conversation with Jacquie Forde, a well-known Scottish coach and amazing human being. We had fun!
Amy Johnson
Oooooh, this was SUCH a pleasure! Having a chat with my favorite Amy: Dr. Amy Johnson. We talked about waking up, non-duality and feeling really scared. And much more!
Enjoy!
Amanda O’Shea
My friend Amanda O’Shea is an excellent coach (specialized in addiction), living in Spain. You couldn’t wipe the smile from her face in a million years! Listen to our bright and sunny conversation, that was the start of Amanda’s ’90 in 90′-project.
Christian McNeill
I had a really cool conversation with Christian McNeill, a great coach living in Glasgow. Together we explored the topic of ‘being addicted to bliss’, and the trap of working very hard to be a ‘spiritually perfect’ person. Christian, like me, has a personal experience with addiction, and we talked about how we can always find new ways to numb ourselves.
Jachym & Natasha
A conversation I really cherish, ‘Live Life Aligned With Jachym Jerie & Natasha Koo’. A sweet and bright couple that has a unique flavor when it comes to podcasts!
Dave Knight
This is a really cool conversation I had with Dave Knight. About addictions and willpower (what is that anyway?), and the ‘risk’ of making complicated situations simple (which is the best thing we can do for suffering people, if you ask me). You’re gonna like it!
Marina Pearson
Can you talk about addiction, depression and anxiety while having fun? Well, find out for yourself and listen to this really cool episode of The Joy Of Being with coach Marina Pearson.
Dennis Tardan
Now this was a pretty special and inspired conversation, while being on the podcast of Dennis Tardan. We talked about love, addiction, healing, consciousness and what it means to be a man in 2020.
Make some space, relax and surrender to this talk.
Nicole Barton
Nicole Barton is ‘a Self-Rediscovery Mentor and Creativity Coach who helps people feeling lost and burnt-out to unravel a life they love by embracing simple self-rediscovery principles. I have a passion for gently reconnecting people to their wisdom and truthful possibility’.
I had a really cool and engaging chat with her and some participants, where we talked about creativity, miracles, following your heart and not taking life too seriously while doing all that. It was a pretty amazing and inspiring conversation, so go and check it out!
Stephanie Benedetto Padovani
How do you sell yourself without selling yourself? How do you find your voice and learn to trust it? How do you get to a place where you feel real and inspired and authentic and powerful? In this conversation with the amazing Stephanie Benedetto Padovani we talk about all this stuff that can seem so daunting and complicated… and make it really simple again.
No methods, no steps, no tricks. What’s left? Just find out for yourself!
Your new life starts with a single conversation
If you are serious about your wish to live more playfully, more free and much lighter, let’s meet. My coaching is not for everybody so we’d better be sure, right?
A Zoom or Skype session to get to know each other is easily set up, so let’s get it on. If you REALLY prefer to meet me in person, of course we can look into arranging that.
Ask anything.
When we meet, you can ask me whatever you want to ask. I tend to reserve at least an hour for these initial conversations, so we get a better feeling about our connection. If it turns out we’re not a good match, that is not a problem for me. On the contrary: it’s just pretty practical to know so we can avoid wasting each other’s time.
To get in contact use the form below, or send me an email straight away!
Contact!
So, is there anything I can do for you? Are you looking for some life-altering coaching? Ready for transformation and eager to life a full, joyful, playful and creative life?
Or do you have a question for me?
Send me a message and we can discuss it!
You’re welcome!
All visuals made by Pablo Stanley, for Open Doodles.