When we don’t express our emotions we become stressed. We bottle up strong feelings and avoid confronting people. To reduce stress, we need to express our emotions and set boundaries.

Today I will share a personal story from my trip to the U.S. and give you an insight how to strengthen your emotional competence so you can reduce stress in your life. (Read to the end to grab my free gift!)

The Perfect Evening

The sun was setting at Pismo Beach, on California’s Central Coast, as Rihanna’s “Umbrella” blasted from the speakers. Tourists hung out by the food trucks enjoying tacos and beautiful views. Some watched the surfers, others were mesmerised by the sunset.

Pelicans flew over our heads as we sat at the table waiting for our food. ‘This is the perfect evening’, I thought to myself.

My 10-year-old daughter, having had her fill of road trip fast food, finally ordered a salad. I took off my sandals, leaned my bare feet against the wooden fence, and took a sip of cold white wine (served in a plastic cup, but oh well, I decided not to be annoyed by that). 

You know that perfect moment when you’re with the people you love and you don’t want to change a thing? Pure bliss. 

In the last week, my daughter had gone from an impatient, “I want my food NOW!” kind of kid, to someone who calmly read her chapter book while we waited for our food to arrive. 

But after 45 minutes l began to wonder if they had forgotten about us, then quickly reminded myself that we were not in a hurry. Rushing from one place to another is something I know too well from my daily life. I could feel how much my body and soul really needed the break from the busyness.

An Unexpected Question

I took another sip of my wine, then all of a sudden came an unexpected question: ‘Mum, are you going to drink alcohol again tonight’? 

My jaw dropped. 

The first thought that went through my head was ‘you can’t decide whether I will have a glass of wine or not’! It was my teenage self speaking, not wanting someone else telling me what to do! 

Luckily the thought stayed only a thought. Though I had to fight some mind gremlins before I answered: ‘It sounds like you don’t want me to drink wine tonight’. 

‘It makes me scared’, my daughter answered with a serious look on her face, then continued reading her book. 

There I was in that perfect moment, completely chilled out, enjoying the sunset with a plastic cup of California Chardonnay, and my kid doesn’t want me to drink ONE glass of wine! 

Hmmm.  

A bit puzzled, I started to check in with my emotions.  

Memories came back from when I was a kid surrounded by my parents’ friends jamming and having drinks in our basement. Yes, I remember how unpleasant it was when the adults’ personalities suddenly changed. But did I say anything?? No, of course not! 

Back then, I don’t think I would have been able to put into words how I was feeling anyway. I just dwelled within that uncomfortable feeling of loneliness. 

I decided not to finish the wine. Instead, I looked out over the bay and felt a strong sensation of joy.  

‘Joy’? you might ask. Yes, I actually felt joyful. I felt deep gratitude for my daughter’s ability to express her emotions. 

She dares to confront me. 

She knows I will listen. 

She won’t always get what she wants, as such is life, and it’s good that way. BUT she knows that her opinion matters. She hasn’t given up before trying. 

She knows that even though she is still a child, she has the right to ask adults to stop doing things she doesn’t like. 

She matters. 

I matter. And now that I know that (after four years in therapy!), I don’t answer from my rebellious teenage self anymore—at least most of the time…  

This time, the answer comes from my adult self: ‘I understand,’ I said to my daughter. ‘I was a bit different last night after daddy and I had a glass of wine. I get it.’ 

Oh life… the beauty of personal growth!

Boundaries Matter

Sitting on that dock, I remembered a book I had read recently, When the Body Says No, by Dr. Gabor Maté. The book shook me to the core of my being.

I believe it’s the most important book one can read if you take your health seriously. ‘It could save your life’, Peter Levine writes on the cover. 

One line that stuck with me: ‘In important areas of their lives, almost none of my patients with serious disease had ever learned to say no.’

When we welcome the expression of a ‘no‘, either from our child or partner or anyone else, we make them feel that they matter. Their boundary matters! 

How to Build Emotional Competence

So what can we do if we didn’t learn to say no as a child?  

What can we do if we didn’t learn that what we needed mattered?

We need to build emotional competence such as:  

• the ability to express our emotions.

• the capacity to feel our emotions.

• the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past.

Stress occurs in the absence of these three points. 

A lot of clients come to me because they feel stressed and want to learn how to express their emotions. To be able to express our emotions, we first need to be able to identify them.  

And then learn to feel them. 

In order to feel our emotions, we need to slow down and stop living as if we are on fire!

“Should I just sit there and feel”?? many of my clients ask. Well, ideally, yes. But just sitting there and feeling is not that easy. So I have created something else to do instead—a different way to help you identify your emotions.

Download My Guided Journal

My one-month guided journal TIME TO THRIVE, will help you track what causes you stress and make you feel energised again!

‘Thanks a lot for creating this amazing journal! The journal helped me to recognize the thought patterns that drain me, and helped me identify what I’m avoiding in life. By reflecting on my life every week, I started to develop more honesty with myself, more gratitude in life, and more awareness about my values. I used to be very critical of myself, but writing one thing that I can give myself credit for every week helped me develop more compassion for myself, which is something I have been trying to achieve for a long time. Thank you for creating such a helpful tool. It’s truly life-changing!’

– Mohammed, Manager, Spotify 

Sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming knowing how much work we need to do to stay healthy and energised. I get that. You’d rather watch another Netflix show or hang out with your family or friends.

But I promise you, the award is HUGE. And all you need to do is take the first step.  

Get started today by downloading my FREE journal! I’m offering this valuable guided journal for free to anyone who is ready to commit to their personal growth. 

Love,

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I was strolling down Kastanienallee, one of the trendy shopping streets in the former East Berlin, with my bestie visiting from Sweden.

‘Life is finally back to normal’, I thought to myself. But is it really back to what it used to be? No, not really. We socialise, travel and everything is open again, but life is different than what it used to be.

I have more real conversations.

I forgive and move on faster.

I look the people I care about in the eyes and ask: ‘How are you?’

I interact with life on a deeper level.

I’m more honest and say, ‘I don’t enjoy camping’ and let my husband go alone with our daughter on a camping trip.

I have noticed I’m more grateful and I compromise less.

How do you experience ‘the new normal’? What has changed in your life?

My bestie and I walked into a random shop and the first thing I saw was a bag that said: ‘Think less, dance more’. If there had been music playing I would have started dancing immediately!

After some cheerful small talk with the shop owner, we headed towards our favourite ice cream place. I left feeling like something amazing had happened, and I laughed to myself when I realised it was just a normal interaction with a stranger!

‘What actually gives life meaning is the willingness to live it’. – The Untethered Soul, Michael A. Singer.

I hear so many people talking about finding their purpose and I always think about Elisabeth Gilbert’s talk about how much anxiety this search can lead to.

There is nothing wrong with trying to find your purpose, but for me, today, I find it far more valuable to ask myself ‘what gives life meaning right now?‘

Sometimes it’s just sitting at my favourite restaurant having lunch on my own in the sun.

Sometimes it’s calling a friend and sharing how we actually are doing.

Sometimes it’s reading (for the 10th time;) another poem my daughter wrote for me.

My bestie and I ended the day on my terrace. It was one of those unforgettable evenings, so warm we could stay outside as long as we wanted. We had a glass of wine and talked about the pain and the joy we had experienced since we last met.

Close to midnight I took out a photo album from a trip to Guatemala we had taken together in 2001. I hadn’t seen those pictures in a long time.

As we looked through them I noticed two things: one part of me was proud that I had embarked on this adventure, but I also felt sad.

I felt sad for the 20-something girl who was so lost and deep down unhappy. In my search for love and fulfilment, I was always looking outside of myself for a new adventure or relationship.

For a long time I felt incredibly lost. I was constantly looking for love and appreciation from the outside, never feeling satisfied.

Reading The Untethered Soul, I realise how much meaning my life has now. There is nothing I need to find, as I have what I need right here in front of me. If I’m just willing to live my life.

And just like the message on the bag in the shop, when I think less and dance more I feel like I’m living my life in every cell of my body.

What helps you to think less? I would love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.

Love,

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I started to jot down all the things people said to me in the past when I set my boundaries—when I stood up for myself or for my daughter:

“You’re rude”

“You’re cold”

“You’re not respectful”

“You’re not empathetic”

“Psycho”

The list goes on…

No wonder it’s so damn hard for us to set boundaries! Who wants to be called all those things?

What are you called when you set boundaries?

Or maybe you’re only met with silence.

That’s the passive aggressive version of saying the same.

Setting boundaries is the area I worked on the most in my own personal development journey, and the area that many of my clients need support with.

I love talking and reading about boundaries!

Currently I’m reading Gabor Maté’s book When the Body Says No. He writes about how people with indistinct personal boundaries live with a lot of stress:

‘The blurring of psychological boundaries during childhood becomes a significant source of future physiological stress in the adult’.

Boundaries are learned in our formative years, and those of us who were raised by adults with poor boundaries have had to learn boundaries later—the hard way.

It usually starts just like that—the body says NO. We get headaches, belly aches and back pain. The body does what the mind can’t express.

Most people don’t like to hear a ‘no, I disagree’, ‘no, I don’t feel like coming, no, I can’t do that right now. So, we keep on people pleasing and swallowing all the ‘nos’.

We all want to be liked, right? So of course we do anything for people to like us.

What is it that’s so uncomfortable about other people setting boundaries?

What I have learned to be true is: We’re triggered by the things we’re not allowing ourselves. When someone else sets boundaries, we’re reminded of how badly we want to stand up for ourselves and others—but can’t!

When that child called me a “psycho”, she might have been upset about something she was not able to do herself, or maybe there was a lack of support in her close surroundings.

When that adult called me “not empathetic” she might have been angry for not being able to stand up for herself in the same way.

How other people treat you is a reflection of THEM. How you react is a reflection of YOU.

Two weeks ago, Gabor Maté was in Berlin to talk about the film that was made about him: The Wisdom of Trauma. During the Q&A afterwards, he advised:

‘Be as interested in your emotional reaction, as in the people who caused it’.

We can’t change others, but we have the power to change our reactions.

We have the power to unlearn our people pleasing behaviour.

We need to keep on saying NO, and stand up for ourselves. We need to do this for our mental and physical health. We need to do this for our children, family and friends.

Are you with me?

I’d love to hear what you are called when you set boundaries. Let me know in the comments.

Love,

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You know what I’ve been thinking lately? – That I’d like to be a snail sometimes.

I wouldn’t want to carry a big house around, but I would like to be slow as a snail from time to time.

When I trained as a psychotherapist, a teacher once compared me to a horse; I was the one in the race who always started before all the other ones. Being fast is very familiar to me; I always walked fast, talked fast, wanted to see results fast.

But things have changed since then.

Have you ever thought about an animal you would like to be?

When we were on holiday in Fuerteventura a few weeks ago, I convinced my family that we should go out for Paella on a Sunday afternoon, just like the Spanish families do.

Outside our hotel there was a wide beach with hard sand that you could easily walk on. I was moving my legs in that direction when my husband pointed in another direction and said, “let’s take this way, it’s faster.”

A few years back it would have stayed as a thought, and I would have swallowed the possible confrontation and the inner battle of expressing my own needs.

“Yes sure, let’s do that”, “I’m fine”, “Yes, it sounds like a good idea”… but what I actually wanted to say is:

“I don’t want to do that”,” I’m not fine”, “I prefer to…”

Does this sound familiar to you?

When we don’t get what we want we end up blaming our partners, friends, or managers for not giving us what we need.

It seems to me that many of us are out of sync with our own needs.

“How can I know what my needs are?” a few clients have asked me.

And of course, it’s not a simple question with a simple answer. Many of us grew up learning that our needs are not important, and we have buried them deep down in our consciousness. Usually we have already resigned before we even try to express them:

“I won’t get what I need anyway”, you might think to yourself and quickly adjust to the situation. You say “yes” even if you mean “no”. You say “no” even if you mean “yes”.

Easier right? No confrontation or risk of not being liked.

The problem starts when we see confrontation as “bad”, we’re not seeing the value in confronting another person.

When we confront someone with our needs, we’re letting someone see us. We get in contact with the other person, instead of just being in a diffuse harmony bubble of fake happiness.

The other person sees our needs and has the chance to help us fulfil them.

But how can we express our needs if we don’t know what they are??

The first step is to SLOW DOWN. We can’t know what we want if we’re constantly busy.

I don’t want to take a short cut.

I don’t want to take the faster way.

I don’t want…

I don’t want…

I want…

I want to be a snail sometimes.

Take it slow.

Walk on the beautiful beach instead of on the busy road.

When I take it slow, not rushing around like a headless chicken, and stop trying “to get there faster”, I start to feel my feelings. I hear my heart whispering my needs.

Watching the ocean, breathing in the fresh air, and listening to the strength of the waves coming into the shore is something that makes me feel alive.

“I don’t want to take the faster way, I want to walk along the beach,” I answered my husband.

Yes, it took longer. And we found a place on the way where my daughter started collecting snails.

Saying YES to myself and my needs has been a practice for many years. It didn’t come easy to me, I needed to relearn it. Get back in touch with the child in me who clearly knew what I needed.

It all changed when I stopped listening to the part of me who had learned what the world wanted me to say.

I still forget sometimes, and then I blame and criticise (yes I’m not perfect!).

Behind every criticism there is a wish.

Realising this was a huge game changer for me. When I started to say what I wanted instead of what the other person does wrong, my relationships changed tremendously.

I believe when we start talking about “what is” (I am hoping you can cook today because I don’t feel well) instead of “what is not” (you never support me when I’m feeling weak), we will get much more of what we need.

My biggest role model is my daughter.

The other day I was getting ready to drive her to school. I was stressed, and rushing around our apartment when she sat down on the back of the sofa and looked up and said: “Mama, I need a hug.”

As a reminder you can put a Post-it note on your computer:

Say what you want, don’t say what the other person does wrong!

“When we can name it, we can change it”, Gabby Bernstein says. Starting to name my emotions is something that has helped me understand what my needs are.

If you wish to get more in touch with your needs to feel more confident, I have created something really valuable for you: The one-month tracking journal TIME TO THRIVE.

If you are looking for increased energy, peace and clarity, this journal will support you to be kinder to yourself and create room for the things that really matter.

You’ll be amazed by how this simple life coaching tool transforms your daily life! And I’m giving it away for free!

Get the journal here.

Love,

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I have a confession to make.

I said I would never look at my e-mail while waiting for the traffic light to turn green in my car. When my husband does it, it always annoys me, “are you crazy? It’s really dangerous!”

And yet I did exactly the same a few weeks ago, frantically scrolling through my emails while stopped in my car, waiting for the light to turn green.

“Fill the time.”

“Kill time.”

“Using the time right.”

There are many things we can do with our time while we’re waiting.

A friend of mine shared she felt she was in a kind of “waiting mode”, nothing much was really happening in her life.

Is this state familiar to you?

Many perceive this state as “wrong”. As if we’re not being productive enough or optimising our lives enough. As if time is just being wasted…

Our culture tells us that if we’re not rushing around, racing to get things done, our life is useless!

What do we think we are wasting by waiting or pausing our precious lives for a few minutes?

What was it I thought couldn’t wait when I was at the traffic light?

When we’re constantly busy with “filling our time” our minds tend to be in the future.

“You’re busy thinking about what you’re going to do next. You’re a month ahead of yourself, or even a year. You’re not living life; you’re living mind.” – Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul.

One of my mentors once gave me an exercise to spark inspiration for writing. I should practice “cloud gazing”. Easy, I thought to myself, not realising how challenging it was at first.

I have no problem laying in a hammock gazing at the clouds while being on holiday, but doing it just like that, in between tasks? More difficult than I imagined.

I can guarantee you – cloud gazing is not a waste of time. When I take the time to gaze into the clouds, I usually come up with either the best ideas for my business or get an answer to a question I was pondering.

The same mentor also taught me a simple exercise. Whenever you’re feeling guilty about being in a “wrong” state, for example blaming yourself for being lazy, ask yourself: what is the gift in being lazy?

Tough one, right?

I know you’re thinking: “what on earth can be good about being lazy??”

The gift in being lazy is – REST. You are resting. You are letting yourself REST.

And the same goes for waiting.

What is the gift in waiting?

The gift in waiting is – you are creating space to see and listen, aka “being present”.

You see the beautiful couple crossing the street while you wait for the traffic light to turn green.

You see your daughter – how she enjoys performing in front of the mirror.

You hear the birds singing.

You hear the exhaustion in your partner’s voice so you give him a hug.

And you might hear your heart whispering the answer to the question you’ve been asking yourself for months, while you’ve been too busy racing for the next thing.

Just imagine that for a moment.

Our “filling the time behaviour” makes us exhausted.

At the beginning of each session, I always ask my clients what their most dominating mood was in the last 24h. Guess which is the most common one?

Exhausted.

Therefore, I have created a special free gift, a journal to boost your energy. You will recognise hidden energy drains throughout the week so that you can feel healthy, free and energised again.

If you would like to receive a free copy of my guided journal – sign up here.

Love,

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How is the beginning of the year unfolding for you? Do you have new energy or are you already tired from trying to make this year different? (aka I hate you 2021, let’s finally have a year when we can travel, hug properly and do ALL the things the pandemic has deprived us of).

Resolutions, intentions and goal setting–a new calendar year is a potent time for imagining something different. It’s easy to get lost in all the promising messages out there about how we can change, improve, optimise and just be all-around better versions of ourselves.

I have skipped setting my yearly personal goals this year.

So, what have I done instead?

I came up with an exercise to do with my clients this month where I took them through a visualisation exercise and asked them:

1. How do you want to feel?
2. What do you want to share with your friends/family on New Year Eve 2022?
3. What were your learnings?

I did this exercise myself and I want to feel:

LIGHTER.

I want to let go of another kilo weighing on my shoulders—the pressure of keeping myself busy even if the only thing I need is to rest on the sofa and say ‘I can’t take care of that right now’.

What about you?

How do you want to feel?

After my last blog post I received so many messages thanking me for being so honest. I had friends and people I hardly know sharing their deepest secrets.

‘It was so worth it’, I thought to myself.

It hasn’t been easy writing articles from a raw, vulnerable place during the pandemic. It’s been the first time that I’ve gone through similar challenges at the same time as my clients and readers.

Before the pandemic my rule was: Don’t share when you’re in the middle of a struggle, share when it’s not that raw anymore and when you have created enough distance to recognise the learning.

As soon as the pandemic started, I broke that rule and asked myself how I could best serve.

It’s been a balancing act not losing my professionalism as a coach and therapist.

I took a risk of not being liked.

I took a risk of being laughed at.

I took a risk of inviting unpleasant comments and questions.

I’m happy I took that risk. I gave people the feeling that we’re all humans, including coaches and therapists.

This is what I want to share with my friends and family on New Year’s Eve 2022:

• I showed up as myself.
• I asked for help when I needed it.
• I drank more tea than coffee even if that was uncool.
• I said no when others wanted more of me than I could give.
• I said ‘I don’t agree’ when I felt I had a different opinion.
• I said ‘I have to think about it’ when it was not a clear yes.
• I did not check my email first thing when I woke up.
• I called my friends and asked ‘How are you?’ instead of having an opinion about their life.
• I went to bed even if I hadn’t ticked things off of my to-do-list.

And my learning in 2022:

‘When I prioritise my well-being, I will be less reactive when I’m together with the people I love’. 

Feel like like doing the same exercise? Here are the three questions again:

1. How do you want to feel?
2. What do you want to share with your friends/family on New Year Eve 2022?
3. What were your learnings?

I believe it will create less anxiety than setting your yearly goals.

I would love to hear from you how you experienced it. Please share in the comments.

Love,

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