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Ignite Your

Dream. Grow. Glow.

In these blog posts I share lessons learned, and of course, learning

Intending to provide insights and ignite your inspiration  

For a Life That Lights You Up!

In the hectic of our daily lives or after a hard phase, we can find ourselves having drifted off, in a different spot than we had hoped to be. Missing the dreams we once had, the energy to go for them, excitement, or all of it. If this is you right now, no worries. It happens to the best of us, and there is always a way back.

Creating a Lifestyle of Love

How do you integrate your values, and particularly, love, into your daily life? That's the theme of this blog post. We'll start with ways to fill ourselves first, learning to love those close to us even better, then spreading the love to 'strangers' and turning them into friends.

Nowadays, there seems to be a coach at every corner. You may know someone who is a life coach, a friend or coworker may have recommended a life coach to you, or you may have seen it advertised en masse on social media. But what exactly does life coaching entail?

How often do we tuck away those sides of ours that are not necessarily societally accepted. Of course, this doesn’t mean we have to express and expose our every vulnerability, but… it can be freeing to lift the tip of the mask that we show to the world, just a little, so that people can peek behind the perfectly-seeming facade and find out more about our true selves.

One look at the rising number of stress-related complaints and burnout , shows us where this go-go-go philosophy is taking us. None of us is immune, there is no pill or vaccine against it. Most of us see it rest as an afterthought, a necessary evil or something to save for our vacation. This is where reframing comes in.

Party! How do you define one? A gathering with good music, great people, dancing, drinks? A warm and loving time with those close to you? A victory dance or a high five after a success? Something more subtle, such as a moment of celebration during the day, or even better, turning each day into a celebration?

Progress is a word I never linked to burnout recovery until I ended up with a burnout earlier this year.  Progress was lacking at first, requiring faith. Progress was bumpy afterwards, requiring acceptance. Progress has become clearer as I look back, providing hope.

This month marks the anniversary of an event that took place a year after unexpectedly choosing Christianity. So to celebrate, I wanted to share the story four years later, and perhaps provide a perspective moment for you too, on the life-defining decisions that you may have made in your life.

What do you think about when you hear the word “play”? You may think of children having fun in the sun or sand or in the rain, busy with building blocks or barbie dolls, drawing or dancing. When was the last time you had that childlike, carefree feeling? Which words would you use to describe the way you felt? Joyful, fun, giddy, excited, happy, worry-free, light? That’s what we’re talking about!

How would you define peace? When was the last time you experienced a sense of serenity, a piece of peace? Where were you? What did your surroundings look like? Who was there with you or were you alone? What did you hear, smell, see? How did you feel? Let’s take a deep breath and relive that moment of peace. Wouldn’t it be great to have more of those moments in our lives? Let’s have a look at peace.

How often do we prefer the road towards perceived productivity over presence? But when we honestly think about it, are we truly more productive when we arrive at work those few minutes earlier? When we skip our lunch break to get things done? When we talk or type faster? Of course, we know the answer. It’s just that the pace of society is so easy to get caught up in.

The Power of Positivity

Positivity may not fix our problems, it does provide a different perspective on dealing with them. In addition, it turns out that a positive mindset brings a whole host of benefits: From increased life expectancy to increased creativity, from better immunity to better social skills and relations, from lower levels of stress and pain to a lower risk of mental and even physical disease. The list goes on.

We simply need to escape our external and internal culture, that is, our mindset, from time to time. Not just on vacation, but on a daily basis. Simply said, we need to sometimes: Press Pause. Because stress, to me, brings the image of having to keep on keeping on. We can interrupt the chain of events that make up most of our days, by taking short moments to stop moving and to. simply. be.

What does it look like when you live lit up? When you shine and glow from within? How does it make you feel?? This is a hint towards the purpose and priorities that will keep your fire burning. Yes, that inner flame that we all have. It can be lit by a spark of insight or inspiration. We receive an idea and choose to pursue it. Moments of motivation.

If passion is the spark that ignites a flame on the inside, then perseverance is the breath that continues to blow, in order to let that fire grow. Perseverance is an underestimated quality. It’s the grit that brings you to your goal. That whisper on the inside saying: take. just. one. more. step. It’s the award of accomplishment after achieving the purpose you had been pursuing.

Is passion a feeling you experience on a daily basis? Do you need to blow onto your inner fire from time to time? Is it a distant memory from the past? Or are you still searching your passion (for life)? Regardless where you stand on the scale, I’d love to introduce you to a different perspective on passion which hopefully brings a lot less pressure.

How to move on after parts of our world have been locked down, shut down or slowed down? There is no manual on how to continue after a Covid-19 Pandemic. There's also no certainty that it is truly over. There's no clear vision of what the world will look like moving forward. But then again. Do we really need to know?

1. Start Your Day The Right Way If I could share only one advice, it would be this. The way you start your day makes all the difference. This begins with the alarm. Even though you could theoretically sleep longer, I can wholeheartedly recommend setting your alarm at your usual

Happy New Year!! (Poem)

Dear You, Just wanted to write you a personal post to wish you the most beautiful beginning of this new decade! Hopefully you are ending the old and starting the new year on a fulfilling, fun and focused note.Below is a reflection poem for the transition into the twenties.May it

Facing and embracing our emotions, especially the ones that we label as ‘negative’, is not something we’ve been taught how to do. Unfortunately. There are innumerable incredible ways to distract ourselves and keep our attention outside of ourselves. But we have never been taught how to look within and often don’t

This is a letter from my heart to yours, for those of you who are in transition times. Those phases in life when you can’t see what’s next, when you’re tempted to give up, even though deep inside you know you shouldn’t. Whether it’s a break-up or a move to

As some of you already know, some months ago, I converted to Christianity. A change I had never, ever, ever expected myself to make in my life. It has taken me some time to share my story, but here we go, below are some milestones along the way that led to this literal leap of faith and change of heart:

There are phases in our lives that are quite difficult at the time, but offer powerful potential to change ourselves and our lives for the better...

Ignite Your Inner Fire!

I have a question for you: if you knew you had a fire burning inside of you… what would that look like at this moment? You can even close your eyes as you determine its state: Is it burning bright, peacefully alight, perhaps a flickering flame, or is it even

  The new is ready to unfold, deep dreams that can come true surrender what you were once toldto believe and receive what’s due. Sometimes in life there are moments when you know it’s time to draw a line in the sand. You may have outgrown behaviors, patterns, situations or

Free to Be Me [Poem]

“Freedom is the message here. No longer being held back by fear” Nicky de Koning This paragraph belongs to a poem I recently wrote and will share below. About living life free as we’re meant to be. So often, we adapt to external expectations and situations and may lose ourselves

Author and counselor Gary Chapman states that we all have a primary love language, in other words, a way in which love is best received. When someone expresses their love to us this way, our love tank get filled and love blossoms between the two of you. When both individuals speak different love languages though, it can create many miscommunications and difficulties in relationships.

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