Courage & Fear Archives ~ Exploring Deeper

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How to Stay Sane in Relationships – with Jamie Catto

I love talking with my dear friend Jamie Catto. Sometimes we record our sessions to be able to share them with you. Does the name Jamie Catto ring a bell? Jamie is an amazing musician (co-founding the legendary band Faithless and nowadays still bringing amazing musicians together. He’s a great documentary maker. he created 1 GiantLeap and What About me?, where he and Duncan Bridgeman travel the world to create music with widely know pop stars (Michael Stipe, Alanis Morisette) as well as indigenous musicians, and then combining that with words of wise people like Stephen Fry and Kurt Vonnegut. He recently released Becoming Nobody, capturing the message of Baba Ram Dass, and managed to release that just before Ram Dass…

It’s Time to Debunk some Myths about Personal Growth

There are some myths going around in the personal growth and conscious workshop scene. Not just amongst participants, but amongst teachers too. Let me debunk a few. Note: this is my personal experience. Not double referenced scientific research. ❧ Magic happens outside our comfort zone. Largely false. Every time I see that picture of a comfort zone and then magic happening far outside it, I want to scream THAT’S NOT TRUE! Because far outside of our comfort zone, is where fear happens. When we stretch ourselves too much, our survival mechanisms kick in. At best, we survive. At worst, we retraumatize ourselves. Magic happens júst outside our comfort zone. ❧ You learn through catharsis, facing pain and fear. “If you…

My Favorite Tool for Growth (and Why 50Shades Sucks)

Over the years there have been many tools that helped me grow from a shy girl into the woman I am today. One of my favorites and most helpful tools I have encountered is kink. It helped me step outside the social paradigms around gender. It helped me state my boundaries and desires. It made me feel my power.

Changing Attachment Dynamics Can Feel So Wrong

Wilrieke wearing her boyfriends blue checkered shirt

It’s interesting. How when changing the patterns around me, the results become different. Of course. Different input (by conscious choice) creates a different output. But the brain! My mind says: “It’s different, which is not the usual pattern, which means whatever is happening is wrong!” ~ I have worked hard to break through the pattern of attracting avoidant men, which mainly was breaking through the safety-measurements I took to keep a safe distance from intimacy (because avoidant/unavailable men will never come completely close, supporting my fear of intimacy, and we both felt comfortable yet unfulfilled – and often easily triggered as this anxious/avoidant dynamic creates very little safety). But then, when this pattern breaks, and I decide that I actually…

Sitting with Overwhelmed Children

Eight years ago on this night, I wasn’t sleeping. My body was feeling the contractions of my third child coming. The Little Pirate was on her way. Her birth was special. It was calm, peaceful, fast. Just like her sisters, she came out of my womb on a stool in front of the fridge in our kitchen. No pain killers, all-natural, her father sitting behind me and a nurse to guide her straight into my arms. She didn’t cry. She just came out at her pace, we looked each other in the eyes, and all was well. Tonight she did cry. Her middle sister too. We’re right in crazy-week. Tomorrow is her birthday. The day after it’s Sinterklaas, maybe the…

The Viking & I: Emotions when Entering a New Relationship

You may have seen the Viking on my media. Yep, he’s there. Entering my life the way Vikings do: effectively, present, and thorough. It’s the thing about attracting what you desire: once you actually realize what it is you really need, which may differ from what you want (or may be that, but come from a different direction), all sorts of things may be triggered. I’m welcoming the intense entertainment my head is offering me mostly with a big smile, but also with impatience, compassion, and many other emotions.

When Anxious meets Secure – Attachment Dynamics

We all have attachment patterns. Some of us are securely attached, and have no challenges letting intimacy come close. Others are insecurely attached, and love can be the thing we most crave and fear at the same time. We have our preferred strategies, that are either anxious or avoidant. In my experience (rather than some theories say), these strategies aren’t fixed, but dependent on who we meet, when, where, etc. This is what I, primarily anxiously attached person, encounter when meeting someone who feels secure. P.s. check my previous videos or blog for more about attachment patterns

Do I really want what I think I want?

Lately, I’m enjoying entertaining myself contemplating if I really want what I think I want. I think I know about all the things that I want, and I enjoy time meditating as if what I want is there. You know, the first step in the Law of Attraction, right before taking conscious action towards these dreams. But do I really want what I think I want? Take the example of attracting a romantic partner. Around me, I have quite a bunch of amazing, single, female friends. We all want a similar thing: a conscious man, adventurous, tantricly experienced, amazing lover, hot body, and maybe some nicely placed tattoos and piercings. A man who is beyond the nice guy pitfalls, who…

Nothing Happens in Winter. Or?

Human processes are like the seasons in a temperate climate. There are the bigger waves, aligned with the seasons where the general tendency in summer is to go on adventures, and in winter many of us like to snuggle under a blanket with a book. Then there are the individual waves of our personal climate, where we have our own patterns and rhythms of waves moving inwards and outwards (though an interesting question may be if humans in different climatological seasons may have different flows). Our disposition on the introvert – extravert scale probably adds in, as well as tons of other factors. But most people recognize the four seasons in their journey of personal growth. Spring, where we sow.…

Embracing Anger

Anger, for me, is an emotion I easily bypass from a place of reason. But tapping into anger can be an amazing tool to release, as well as to feel our boundaries. There is a caveat though. When we, consciously or unconsciously, direct our unprocessed anger at someone, we can break all that we love. So how can we release anger ánd set boundaries without unnecessarily hurting others and fucking up our relationships?

Category: Courage & Fear

It’s Time to Debunk some Myths about Personal Growth

My Favorite Tool for Growth (and Why 50Shades Sucks)

The Viking & I: Emotions when Entering a New Relationship

When Anxious meets Secure – Attachment Dynamics

Do I really want what I think I want?

Nothing Happens in Winter. Or?

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