Until August 2018 I was living a life a lot of people would dream of. I was an officer in the Dutch Navy for twenty-six years, had my private pilot licence and earned enough money to travel to the most beautiful places on earth. But there was always this inner knowing that I had to walk a different path. I liked my job and as an idealist I wanted to contribute to peace, but I also identified myself with the roles of being a tough navy officer and pilot. It was hard to let these identities go and to follow my heart. I didn’t dare to take the step. In many cases something has to happen to be able to change our lives completely. For some people it’s loosing their job, for others the death of a beloved person, it can be anything. For me it was the meeting with a beautiful man, who became my most intense mirror.
By meeting him I experienced that the universe is taking care of us and brings us the lessons that are needed to find inner peace. From the first moment we met I felt intuitively that he is the love of my life, but we were not meant to be together. After a while I knew that it was needed for my inner journey to be separated. If not, I would have made the same mistakes as in former relationships with men, which never really worked out so far. I had to learn that unconditional love for myself is needed to be able to experience the purest form of love for others: true, sincere and without expectations. By being separated, which was very painful at times, I had to go within to look at my shadow sides and accept them as a part of me. More and more I was able to release the bagage that I carried with me during life and that blocked the way to self love.
During my mission to Mali I organised yoga sessions for other military personnel and I meditated almost daily to calm my mind from not being able to be together with the love of my life. I became stronger in defining my borders and I could take decisions which I could not take before, like quitting my military job. After years of struggling to integrate my spiritual self into my military career, I was finally able to focus full time on spirituality. And from that moment I could follow my heart and create a future from a state of being completely at ease with myself. Since I experienced how difficult the journey towards inner peace and unconditionally love can be sometimes, I decided to share my story and the tools that supported me along the way. I hope I can inspire and support others on their inner journey with this website.