Home Archive by category "Relationships"

Category: Relationships

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…

Continue reading

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…

Continue reading

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…

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

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

Continue reading

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…

Continue reading

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?

Continue reading

Intimacy is So Much More than Sex – with Jamie Catto

Me and Jamie Catto talking about what intimacy is, how sex can be more than rubbing things together.  Sex is not just an act. But culture teaches us to approach sex in a ‘yang’ manner: directed actions with a clear goal in mind. But when we learn to listen to our bodies and the bodies we’re playing with, sex becomes a different experience. The best sex doesn’t depend completely on what you’re doing; but on how you’re doing it. Also: Jamie & I talking means loads of hilarity and not taking things too seriously.

Continue reading

The Fine Line between Things to Face & Boundaries

One of the most common pitfalls in the field of personal growth that I see is the belief that we have to face everything that triggers a response in us. After doing my research, I concluded this is absolute nonsense. Not everything we face is a challenge to overcome. Some things are a boundary, and we can say a loud and clear ‘no’ to the experience. Sometimes it can be a fine line whether something is a challenge or fear worth facing, or when it’s a boundary. I’m using my rollercoaster-analogy to explain how I feel the difference between what I do and don’t want to face.

Continue reading

What Does it Mean to Hold Someone?

To hold space. To be there for someone. What is that, what does it mean? To me, it means being fully present with someone, without wanting to change anything. It’s dropping my agenda about what they need to feel, understand, go through, drop, invite or change. It’s offering my heart, wide open, and ask for nothing on return. It’s letting go of my own desires while keeping my boundaries in check. It’s allowing the process to unfold without wanting it to move in any certain direction. It’s being able to drop taking any of the process personal. To drop the idea that I’m decreasing or increasing the depth of the process. It’s not about me. It’s being patient, taking the…

Continue reading