The inner healing of diseases

This world makes you believe it’s not ok not to be ok. It makes you believe you always have to try and be positive and happy. And yes, of course, positive thoughts create positive outcomes. However, sometimes it’s ok not to be ok. It’s ok to feel unwell. It’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to feel angry. This is part of the human experience. Allow yourself to experience the human life in its full spectrum without judging the highs nor the lows. The more we embrace all of this, the more we ride the different waves with more ease. Especially today, more and more people are interested in personal development, mindset and spirituality, yet there’s an increasing misconception. Spirituality doesn’t mean you have to feel happy all the time. It means embracing your shadows as well. As the word implies, shadows often bring deep emotions to the surface. Emotions we usually don’t want to deal with. Topics we usually don’t want to look at. However, those uncomfortable emotions and topics are part of our growth. That’s why next time you feel bad for feeling bad, don’t. Allow it. Know there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s part of the human experience and the growth process. There’s an even greater benefit to it. Just like after the rain, the air is so much fresher. The grass is so much greener. The same applies to our life. After a low, it feels so much lighter. So much fresher. Our mind is so much clearer. But only when we dare to feel it all instead of escaping or hiding our true feelings while trying to pretend to feel happy all the time. If you try to feel happy while suppressing your true feelings, you remain on the surface level. The more growth and potential we want to activate, the deeper we have to heal and feel. Sometimes before we can see the sun, we’ll have to move through the rain. Just like when you’re on an airplane. Sounds a little cliché, but it's so true. So remember. It’s ok not to feel ok at times.

As the days and years pass, I realize social media has made me more anti-social. I remember the times I used to pick up the phone and call a friend with no phones or apps available. It felt more carefree. We played. We had fun. We told each other secrets. We had no need to show it to the world or prove ourselves to others. Today, each moment is recorded. People smile for the camera. Often for a platform that has made us become more lonely and anti-social as a society than ever before. We suffer from our own loneliness and the constant need for attention and self-approval. Yet, in the old tribes, people lived in communities. Even the old people today still gather in some pubs and play cards. It’s necessary for our well-being. And here I am, reflecting “Heck, who have I become? What are my values?” And I notice now being in my 30s (and I'm sure it doesn't even matter what age you are) it’s considered quite weird to connect. People have family, are married or everyone kind of feels more stressed about their days. All while at the same time you see each day how people upload images on social media pretending to lead the perfect life’s putting a mask on or portraying just their best moment of the week, or putting a smile on just for the camera to get attention, not as a reflection of their true inner self. It’s the connection and authenticity that truly matter though. The moments and days where you long to spend them with like-minded people in real life, not watching their perfect and well-crafted stories on social media. It’s not necessarily about dating and flirting either. Heck, with the years, priorities shift and what used to be fun is no longer as fun. You crave for something more meaningful. Something more real, rather than superficial. Someone who’s at the same wavelength as you are, accepting you for who you truly are beyond the money, status, attention and the perfect life that social media often portrays. And so over the past few weeks, I noticed it’s in my hands. So I went to the forest and after a long time I truly connected with Mother Earth again. I felt, I sensed, I observed. I didn’t even feel the need to take an image. I left my phone in my car to engage with life. To be fully present. And after a while, the energy came back. I felt more alive. I felt calmer. I felt more balanced. After a simple visit in the forest without a phone. Nature spirits are great companions, too. Many of us would think only humans are the “real deal” and those are "just trees" but nature spirits carry so much wisdom. They survived storms, experienced wars in some areas of the world and still stand there deeply rooted within themselves. They don’t move or travel as us humans do and yet they are alive. That’s when you get to know the real world. Not on social media but when you finally choose to engage with life again. And so here I am today, taking my dog out for a walk leaving the phone in my car. How freeing not to hold or look at my phone all the time. You start to move differently. Observe differently. You get more attentive. Give it a try if you feel the pull, just for one day or one activity.

When I went through a so called spiritual awakening (although I believe there is not just one, as it's an ongoing process), I first had many misconceptions about spirituality. In this article, I want to summarize the main misconceptions and beliefs from my personal view. Spirituality doesn't mean anything concrete, it depends on what you make out of it and what it means for you. Having misconceptions about spirituality can hinder you from activating your inner gifts and step into your full potential. Sometimes it can even hold us back from manifesting. So gaining clarification helped me accelerate my inner growth journey. Those points are not a generalization but are intended to serve as a source of inspiration only based on my personal experiences. 1) Spirituality doesn’t mean you have to do Reiki and yoga unless that’s your preference. When I started out I thought I had to do Reiki or yoga. I forced myself into Yoga classes. Ironically, I was a very inflexible person, often leaving me more stressed after the yoga session than before. Those position names alone were far too complicated for me to remember. The downward dog, the fighter… all I knew so far was the little and big spoon - jokes aside! What I'm saying is, it's more than doing a pose. It's about exploring who you are. 2) Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go to an ashram or travel to a sacred site or land. It doesn’t mean you have to do something special. Spirituality means you embody more of your spirit. In other words, you are more of your true self. That can be applied in daily life. Sometimes people escape on a retreat in a foreign country only to return and fall back into their old reality. There has to be a balance. There is no escape possible. You need to face your current reality. 3) Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean you have to wear special pants or be vegan. Obviously the more you release, the less you actually need. And the more you usually have a preference for healthy food. But it’s not forced or a prerequisite, it’s a natural feeling. A natural pull to feel drawn towards healthy food, not like “I need to be vegan now in order to be spiritual.” Trust me, I’ve observed people who really struggled with this because they trust another one more than themselves. I remember one day when I felt very ungrounded, my intuition told me to eat a fish. I was shocked, but that was the moment I realized you need to eat the food you feel drawn towards, not what a “spiritual guru" or "teacher” tells you to do. 4) Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean you have to channel Archangel Michael or ET’s. It means embodying more of who you truly are. If you don’t know yourself or your own soul, how shall you even make friends with other beings? Of course they always support you, but if you focus on yourself, you’ll eventually meet other beings quite naturally without forcing the connection. Too often, people channel their eg o, not Archangel Michael, especially when channeling is based on expectation. 5) Spirituality is not limited to being clairvoyant. I used to admire channelers who could see a lot. All I could see at the beginning was black. I thought I wasn’t spiritual enough. Then I discovered my own gifts, or at least my own ways of how to perceive my intuition. Even at the beginning of my journey, I couldn’t see images, it was more of a feeling. A voice. And I noticed that it's as beautiful. Never compare your gifts. Later, you can discover and activate more inner gifts. 6) Spirituality doesn’t mean you have to say yes to everyone and always be kind and loveable. Honestly, if you feel like telling the other one he’s an arsehole, then do it. It can be healing to be your true self. It’s not about being good. It’s about being real in the moment. And no, I’m not advocating acting like an arsehole, but if you always try to be nice and good, you’re most likely acting out of your limiting patterns, also known as a people pleaser. You're most likely not your true self when you say yes to everyone and everything even if it doesn't feel aligned. 7) Spirituality doesn’t mean you have to meditate all day long unless you want to. I sometimes don’t meditate a lot throughout my day, but I know how to shift my energy. On other days, I keep a meditative practice for hours. So you see, it depends on you, your mood and your energy levels. In other words, you can still have a "regular" or worldly life. 8) You don’t necessarily have to give up your material life and run around naked nor live in the bush. ...unless that’s your preference. Spirituality and a material life can go hand in hand. How and why? You’re here to remember more of who you are and you’re more than welcome to create the life you desire. That means you create things you like or that support you. There’s nothing wrong with it. A mobile phone is as spiritual as a pen and as a yoga course. Everything is spiritual. Everything started with a thought, a vision and is created with your life force energy. You most likely may opt for a more sustainable life, caring for other humans, animals and nature too, but it doesn’t mean you have to give up your material life just to be "more spriritual". 9) Spirituality doesn’t mean you’ll never have challenges again. In my experience, I have more challenges than ever before. But the challenges are of a different quality. It’s not the challenge of fighting with a client or co-worker over a useless topic. It’s rather about overcoming a fear or limitation. Why is it often so hard? Because you can no longer blame another one. You realize it’s you. Your limitation. You have to take over responsibility for that. But you know, if you overcome that challenge, it will take you to the next level of growth which, quite frankly, is a beautiful process. 10) Spirituality is not all about love and light. Some people make you believe it’s all about love and light. Erm, no. It’s about balancing polarity. There is light and darkness. If you always claim to be light, you may provoke the darkness to feel attacked and experience it a lot stronger, wondering why you can’t make your life work. 11) Spirituality doesn’t mean you have to have complicated healing methods. Yes, sometimes, if there are addictive patterns or any deep limitations, we may have to dive deeper, but if I’m honest based on my personal experiences: Sometimes all it takes is a clear decision. You can choose how you wish to feel in the next moment and what you wish to do or which action you would take without practicing a difficult healing technique. It’s about awareness. 12) Spirituality doesn’t mean you have it all figured out, or you’ll never get ill again, or you have all the answers. No. It’s a continuous journey of self-exploration. There are no real limits, so there aren’t limits to our consciousness levels. We can always expand. Sometimes it can happen that you have new realizations that override your previous way of seeing the world. 13) Spirituality doesn’t mean we all have the same answers and experiences. I used to believe that there is just one answer until I realised there isn’t. There are so many perspectives. What truly counts is your own experience, not that of another one. Imagine someone living in Pakistan would say something different about Planet Earth than someone living in the Maldives or someone living in Germany. Our experiences are different, and so are opinions and truths. There isn’t one truth. There are many facets. In the end, it’s not about leaving old concepts and putting yourself in a new box. It’s about being more of who you truly are in each moment, being the best or most joyful self that you can be. Not how someone else expects you to be. 14) Spirituality doesn't mean you have to take over another one's truths or beliefs No. It means you allow yourself to explore your own truth. That's why true spirituality cannot only be taught. Teachings for me have always served as a source of inspiration and orientation, like someone guiding you towards a certain direction, but it has to be explored and practiced. You can end up having your own truth or beliefs even if those differ from other people. 15)Spirituality doens't mean you're better or worse than anyone else It's more like a radio. It's a different experience. You're simply taking a different route. Not better or not worse than anyone else. Does some of the points resonate with you? What does spirituality mean to you and what doesn't?

I remember the day when my intuition told me that I was quitting my job soon. They told me another path was waiting and I'm not going back to the corporate world. I was shocked. Could I trust that voice? I had always been intuitive, but that was a whole new level. It was about my job, my security (I thought back then). It's not just trusting your feeling about something. It can be fairly easy to trust your intuition when it comes to "minor" things, but when it comes to "big life decisions," it's a whole different level. I had studied for several years. I I thought my path was in the corporate world until they told me again. Nope. And the oddest thing was when I ignored that sign and started looking for a new job, nothing felt aligned. Nothing truly excited me. It always felt like compromising. Safe to say I made a lot of mistakes at the beginning. But all those turned into valuable learning lessons. However, I ended up finding my passion. Something that truly lit me up. It was writing! I never thought I could ever turn my hobby into a business. I never thought I could have fun while working. I never thought I could look forward to Mondays. And no, not everything is perfect. I went through massive challenges, but they all felt worth it. It's not the same challenges as back in the corporate world, where you're arguing over a useless topic. It's rather about embracing my challenges and about my inner fears, limitations and subconscious beliefs I didn't even know were within myself. Those were the challenges I was suddenly confronted with for the first time in my life. I had no idea how to approach them. I just felt like, "Omg, I can't do it." Until I learned about energy, my intuition and my internal world. I wish someone had given me a roadmap. Almost like a step-by-step guide to know what to pay attention to. Just like a pilot getting a rough idea on how to fly. It doesn't mean you can fly straight away, but if you know the theory, the practical part is a lot easier. If you don't know the theory, you're lost in the dark! I mean, basically you could fly anyway, but with a roadmap it's so much easier. You know roughly what to expect or what to pay attention to. And that's dear to my heart - to pass on what I learned and failed at in 3 years so that you can have a much smoother start if you feel like your life is shifting, too. If you feel the same soul nudge or intuitive feeling that tells you another path is waiting for you but you're unsure how to shift or what to do next. It doesn't mean you have to change your life straight away. It doesn't mean you have to leave your relationships or quit your job just yet, no! There are many approaches, but in the end, it comes down to this: understanding yourself, your passion, how much you can trust yourself, what's going on in your internal world, and your energetic state. That determines what you're going to experience. What makes my work different? I show you a step-by-step guide on what to pay attention to. You can apply it to any life circumstance, no matter where you are, if you're just starting out or already in the process. This approach works for any situation. I still use it to shift into new versions of myself and accomplish new dreams. Because in the end it's the same principle. It's a bit like driving a car or listening to the radio. Once you know, "Oh, that's a dead road," you know to turn quickly instead of driving against the wall for years. Or the same with a radio. You know how to switch the frequency in no time, like, "Oh boom, I don't like this song. I change the frequency to get another song." That's what you can do. You know how to shift your reality, your energy, and as a result, your life! Isn't that cool? You are no longer a victim to outer circumstances; you become your own co-creator. You create your own realities. And if you find yourself in a difficult situation, you know how to switch it rather than staying stuck with it. The truth about life is this: We don't always get what we imagined, but we always get what we're an energetic match to. And if we don't like something, instead of condemning it, we can go like, "Oh something made me magnetize it, but now I will switch it. I no longer choose it." It's the same principle. So instead of thinking of "red roses" all the time, which doesn't exist. Life is not just about happy moments. Life is about embracing everything. Navigating through the highs and lows. Without giving too much attention to either one. We become like a surfer that enjoys the ride. That flows with the wave, and as soon as we learn to flow with the wave, rather than being overwhelmed by it, we learn to enjoy the process. We know that both the ups and the lows teach us a lot! I've learned to never condemn the lows or the challenges, for they teach me a lot! The highs could never teach me that. But if you know how to navigate and shift it, imagine how much you can grow. How much you can go for your wildest dreams because no challenge can hold you back. Because with each challenge you grow and you become one step closer to who you truly are, to your dreams, and to your wildest inner soul desires. You are suddenly living a reality that's far greater than you initially thought it could be when you were first scared to quit your 9-5 or your old job in the first place. Suddenly you become grateful you had enough courage to listen to that quiet feeling. Even if other people considered you crazy. Or your own mind considered you crazy. And then you suddenly know. You just know that you know. That all has a deeper purpose even if you can barely grasp it at the beginning. And so, I ask you. Are you ready? Are you courageous? Let me be honest. There are people out there who don't want to change. And that's okay. Everyone moves at their individual pace. There is free will. But I tell you honestly. There's a famous sentence that goes, "Life begins outside of your comfort zone." At the beginning, when I used to hear that phrase, I used to roll my eyes. But now, 3 years forward, I can honestly say it's true. It holds a certain truth. It doesn't mean you have to bungee jump or do some crazy shit. No. It's not about crazy or dangerous. It's rather about having the courage to do things differently. To approach them differently. To have the courage to go for that idea or passion even if you have no idea where it will take you yet. But that's what life is all about, isn't it? Do you really think life was supposed to be struggling, staying in a dull job each day, and just getting by? I don't think so. Life is what you make out of it. It's a choice. So all I can say from my own journey is this: Choose wisely. If you need some inspiration and a road map to get started on your soul-aligned mission, feel free to check out my Masterclass where I share everything I learned in the past 3 years. Trust me, you can avoid a lot of desperation, frustration and confusion.

In a world full of doingness, we often forget one thing: To be. But it’s the silence that brings us clarity, solutions and inspiration. However, a lot of people have a hard time sitting in silence. In a world, that’s so full of doingness, we forget to be. I remember one day, I came across a woman who had an injury on her leg. It meant to put up the leg for 2 weeks. She was angry. She was on holiday. She was used to doing a lot. She had a lot of plans. Just the thought of lying and resting felt dreadful. That made me reflect. It made me reflect on how much we are focused on doing, instead of just being. So some people may have a hard time with just being with themselves, taking a day off, and just sitting there and being still. I tried it out one afternoon to sit still. I was inspired by Sadhguru. He once shared that precious exercise of just sitting there in stillness without your phone and observing your thoughts and emotions for a day. He added, ‘You have to become aware of your own madness.” While that sounds harsh, it’s true. Sometimes we suffer from our own thoughts and emotions. Our mind constantly sends us from one place to the next, from one activity to the next, so that something as natural as resting feels hard. And why? Because when you start to sit in stillness, your mind most likely will give you a thousand reasons why you can’t. Or why that neighbor is terrible, or why your boss was in a bad mood. Or why Gina broke up with her husband. Or why you can’t achieve your dreams yet. There are a thousand thoughts and more often than we think, not always thoughts that serve us. And yet it’s those thoughts that co-create our reality. What you think about, you become. One day, I made an interesting observation. I had worked a lot for my business, and I still thought I hadn’t done enough. Only when a woman told me, “You’re exhausted. Take a break.” I realized what a distorted way of looking at things I had. In my perception, I hadn’t even worked or accomplished enough, whereas she felt I had worked too much. You see how sometimes we can’t really see things about ourselves? That’s why I truly believe it’s precious to have other people around. They can observe and tell us things from their perspective that we may not be able to see. And so I would just sit there and allow my thoughts to run wild. I had to practice that for days to just sit still. It’s become one of my favorite exercises. You see, even in some spiritual communities they make you believe you have to do a guided meditation. You have to visualize. You have to breathe to 5. You see, all that is linked to a certain activity and doingness again. But on that day, I allowed myself to be. I just breathed the way that felt most natural to me. I didn’t care if it was too fast or too slow. I didn’t care about a specific breathing technique. I just sat there, centering in the heart and feeling all black in front of me. But it’s not black as in sadness. It’s stillness. It’s the nothingness. And that reminded me of our essence. We are pure energy beings. We co-create physical matter from the nothingness. I’ve heard some call it the “zero point.” I n the nothingness there is everything. And when you allow your thoughts to calm down, there comes peace. There is no need for striving hard. For working hard. Peace is as natural as breathing. You can’t strive for peace. It’s a natural state of being that arises once you dare to no longer pay attention to any thoughts. And every time, I come out of the meditation that I call the “no thought meditation,” I feel more rested. I feel more inspired. I feel more alive. Not from doing a lot, but from doing nothing. I learned the most important lesson in my life. Inspiration doesn’t come from doing more; it comes from being more. Clarity doesn’t come from worrying more; it comes from being more. Solutions don’t arise from thinking more; they come from being more. Because suddenly out of the “nothingness” there is the “everything.” It’s the dichotomy that some spiritual gurus have talked about in the past. You realize that the inspiration you search for isn’t found in a book but within yourself. You realize the clarity you crave isn’t found in another energy reading, but within yourself. You realize the solutions you crave arise when you choose not to believe your thoughts. Because then you often don’t need solutions anymore. You heal the pattern that caused the problem to arise in the first place. When you no longer believe your thoughts and emotions, a lot of problems will disappear. Just like when there are no clouds in the sky, there will be no rain. In other words, no drama without dramatic thoughts. No problems without problematic thoughts. Then there comes a point of allowance. You can allow everything to be exactly as it is. And then there is like magic happening. You move back to the natural flow of life. Effortlessy. Without striving hard. Without doing more. Without working hard. Without trying so much. Just by allowing yourself to be more and taking more time to sit in stillness. Enjoy your own presence. That has solved half of my problems without doing anything. Afterwards you realize if you still carry those thoughts with you, then it’s a conscious choice. But then you can’t blame anyone else. Then you want the problems. You have fun with the problems. Because you now realize you create the problems yourself.

There is an increasing number of health problems, diseases and illnesses. The number is increasing. No matter if it’s viruses, cancer or mental health issues, the numbers are on the rise worldwide. That can be quite alarming. Although in today’s world, we have access to different technologies and healing methods like never before, there is something beneath the surface that’s hard to ignore. A disease is more than just a disease. To our human mind that often thinks in logical terms, it’s a disease. So, we’ve learned to treat the symptoms and get some pills to function as soon as possible. But ever wondered what’s behind a disease on a deeper level? E.g. out of a spiritual perspective? There can be all kinds of reasons. What’s important to understand is that we don’t just have a physical body. We have a mental body, an emotional body, an energetic body, an etheric body. They are not all visible to the human eye and that’s why we start doubting it. But healing on an energetic level can accelerate our healing journey in ways we may never consider or even imagine possible with the human mind. One very curious observation about humanity is we doubt alternative healing methods such as energy healing but we don’t doubt the existence of a radio. Interesting, isn’t it? Basically, the radio consists of electricity. It’s energy, too. You can’t see the electricity but you can hear the song on the radio. Each radio sender has a different frequency. That frequency determines which radio sender you listen to. You wouldn’t doubt that, would you? You exactly know if you don’t like some sort of music when you’re on your way to work in the morning, you’ll switch the sender. There’s no doubt about that. What if inner healing worked the same? What if a disease means you’re plugged into a reality that has certain characteristics and as a result, you get to experience certain events? Now some people would argue a disease is mean and unfair. And without a doubt, it can be life changing and nerve-wracking and can be filled with emotional ups and downs. But seeing a disease the same way we see a radio, would you say a music sender that plays very loud and inconvenient music is mean and unfair? No, it’s an experience. If you don’t like that experience or type of music, you’ll switch the sender. So often it’s just our mind calling that disease mean and unfair. On a deeper level, nothing is mean or unfair. It’s simply an experience. When you start to identify with it all, that’s often where the true suffering starts. So sometimes it’s not about condemning the disease, it’s about opening up to new perspectives. New perspectives can actually accelerate or even facilitate your healing journey. Instead of calling the disease mean and unfair you could be asking: Why am I experiencing it? What is it co-creating deep down? What’s my energy like? What’s going on in my internal world? Those could be some questions to ask to become curious. The same way we would ask ourselves why we listen to that sender on a specific radio realising we’re plugged into a certain frequency. When we change our frequency from within, we start vibrating at a different level. The same as a radio. The result? We change our outer reality. Because our outer reality is not so real after all. It’s a reflection of the inside reality. Here lies the great potential and opportunity. To heal from the inside out. It doesn’t mean that classical healing methods are bad. Not at all. There are so many different healing methods. However, we often just treat the symptoms, not the root cause. So, this is an invitation to look a bit deeper, to not just treat the symptoms but get closer to the root cause. It would be the same for a radio. If you don’t like a music sender, you can turn down the volume, you can attack it with your hands, you can yell at it and you may not listen to it for a while but that’s not really solving the problem, is it? That’s what we sometimes do with diseases. We take pills and undergo surgeries that kill our cells or where we’re even more likely to experience heavy side effects. Not really true healing. But we often ignore the fact, which by the way, is also known to scientists, that everything is energy. Even our cells vibrate. Our cells react to energy and different vibration levels. This is not a healing promise. It simply serves as some sort of inspiration to open up to new perspectives on healing. In the end, everyone has to find their own healing journey and what feels best to them. If you're interested in learning more how you can shift your reality and tune into another energy and get some practical inspiration for your daily life, check out my Masterclass: Co-create the life of your dreams. You'll learn how to shift your energy and become an energetic match towards your dreams or desired outcome.

I remember when I was a teenager, maybe 15 years old, I was first interested in spirituality. Back then, it wasn’t “normal.” You could hear things like “You’re too young.” Or “You can do something like that when you’re older.” And for a while I thought there was something wrong with me. Maybe I wasn’t normal. But what I’ve learned is your craziness becomes your uniqueness one day. At first you really think you’re not normal, but then again, you ask yourself, what’s being normal in the first place? Being normal is being someone that often follows society's expectations. Get an education, get a job, get a car, get a house, get kids. If you’re not adhering to those society expectations, you’re often considered not “normal." And it’s obvious. That’s what most people know. “Not normal” simply means you’re not doing what society generally knows or expects you to do. But here’s a curious observation: A lot of people following those exact footsteps of getting an education, getting a car, a house and kids increasingly suffer from burnout or a feeling of emptiness. Isn’t that interesting? In a time where the world is full of possibilities, the number of burnouts is increasing too? When I was younger and I was drawn to spirituality, I was never really interested in any particular spiritual practises. I just felt there was more to life than what the human eye could see. I was curious to learn more about myself and the world. Soon after I joined spiritual communities, I realized how many struggles they had themselves. How many ideas and concepts they held that didn’t align with me personally. It didn’t align with me back then to eat vegan. It didn’t align with me to do yoga or travel to India or meditate all day long. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it simply wasn’t my personal idea of how I wished to lead life. However, deep down in my heart, I just knew I came here for more. I just couldn’t name it or didn’t know what it was. I always felt drawn to writing and while I could perceive some ideas and visions of what I really felt like doing in life, they all sounded too crazy for my own mind. So indeed, I followed society’s expectations and went into education instead. I turned my back on spirituality. And for a couple of years, I would often act against my inner desires without realizing it. I thought I needed to get the money, the house and the job to be happy and live the life I love. Boy, was I wrong. Soon after I entered the corporate world, I felt how much competition there was. How much rivalry. How much jealousy. No one would talk about it. It’s not just competition in your own team but amongst companies. Amongst your competitors. Doing a competitor analysis was once part of my daily tasks. Until one day, this all didn’t feel aligned anymore. It was not something obvious, but deep in my heart, it felt so useless. To cut the story short, this time I made myself a promise. I would no longer ignore the whisper of my heart. I would no longer ignore my feeling that was telling me that the path I was on didn’t feel like my path. There was a bit of confusion. The spiritual communities didn’t entirely feel aligned. The corporate world didn’t either. I just wanted to create a life on my terms. I didn’t want to follow any pre-existing ideas of how to live life. I wanted to live with more purpose and passion just the way I am. Back then, little did I know what I could do instead. I always admired others who had a passion like painting or acting and now they became painters or actors. I thought I had no gifts or talents like that. Boy, was I wrong. As soon as I discovered more about myself, for the very first time I discovered gifts and aspects I didn’t even know I had. And soon I noticed how there’s an infinite amount of possibilities and potentials within each single one of us. I was amazed. Why we can’t see those potentials is because they’re dormant. We often don’t nurture our dreams and desires enough. It’s a bit like a flower. If you don’t nurture the seeds regularly, no flower can grow. I was at a point where I was no longer satisfied with the status quo. I started to follow my heart. At the beginning I was scared. I was scared of what other people would think of me. I was scared if it wasn’t working out. I was scared I would fail so hard and have to go back to my old job. But one day, you learn to embrace those fears and at some stage, you learn to turn the page. You’re now more scared of going back to your old job than being scared of doing your own thing. And there comes a point where the outer opinions of people become less and less important to you. Not because you don’t care, but you realize it’s your life, not theirs. You’re not here to make others happy; you’re here to experience more of yourself. The most important thing is to follow your heart. Then everything that is meant for you will come to you. It comes from a place of inner alignment. Not from a place of pushing or fighting for a goal. That was the miracle I saw. In the corporate world it all felt like hard work and pushing all the time. When you follow the heart, it’s the other way round. You can’t really push or fight for a goal. If you do, then most likely, something is not truly aligned otherwise you wouldn’t have to push. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any challenges. But pushing often happens in the mind. The mind makes us believe we have to make certain things happen. But sometimes it’s just an image we have. Like some people may have the image of achieving a certain job title “to be someone” or to have made it. But who defines that? Those images are created in your own human mind, not in the heart. And now that we have those ideas in the human mind, we think we have to achieve certain things. We start pushing, hustling. Once you spot the ideas and limiting concepts in your mind, you realize what a natural flow there is when you allow your heart to take over instead. There is a power about the heart. It’s like a technology. It’s where AI can never get. AI is fed by humans. But your heart is greater than you can currently think. It’s beyond all your limitations, where everything you long for is possible. Where everything you long for is already within you. Yes, it sounds surreal. But once you tap into the energy of your heart, you understand what I’m talking about. And so I made it my mission to follow my heart. To let my heart guide me in my business, in my daily decisions, in my relationships, in my health, basically in any aspect of my life. Not only did it bring me so much more joy, healing and a sense of purpose, but also it feels much more aligned with who I am. Is it always easy? Oh no. I’ve gone through moments of pure frustration and despair. But those moments helped me to shed a little more of the ideas I created in my mind. Sometimes, it’s very hard because you go against the norms that are known in society. People would give you odd looks, “Are you crazy, you give up your safe job? You give up the security?” And as Sadhguru once put it so nicely in a video, “Security is what you have on your grave.” Then indeed, nothing can happen anymore. If you want security, you don’t want life. You will usually settle for less. You will usually be too scared to take risks. You will usually be too scared of going against the norm. Because that’s security. You feel secure in your body when you don’t stick out. When you do as you were told to do. When you want security, you often want comfort. But you don’t grow in comfortable situations. You grow when you’re challenged. The biggest learning lessons in my life didn’t appear when I felt comfortable. They happened when I was either so uncomfortable or in the middle of a challenge or even a painful situation. It doesn’t mean pain is necessary to grow. But sometimes I realized I wouldn’t have changed otherwise. The pain becomes bigger when we’re unwilling to adapt, change or transform. When the heart screams “Yes” and our mind goes “No” or vice versa. When we do things and say yes to tasks and people when deep down the heart screams “no”. You have to choose who you trust. Do you choose life or security? Do you choose your heart or your mind to guide you? Do you choose to do it like everyone else does and most likely follow society's expectations, or do you do what feels most aligned with your heart even though it may go against all expectations? You choose. Sometimes people say they don’t have any other choice and my younger self thought the same. Today I am convinced we all have a choice. Not choosing is also a choice. 10 August 2025 by Laura Becker

Sometimes life crumbles. It can come so unexpectedly. Everything may seem so smooth. We go on with our daily life. But suddenly something shakes us. A disease, a layoff, or even a sudden death of a loved one. Or even something like burnout or a job rejection. What often happens is we condemn them. We judge them. We judge those experiences. We sometimes may even make our own self-worth dependent on it. Now we feel like we’ve done something wrong, or we feel like a failure. Especially when you can’t find a new job or you’re laid off while your colleague is not. It can hurt. However, that’s just one perspective about it. The real reason behind those challenges often remains hidden. Unknown to the logical human mind. Sometimes behind those challenges can be a conscious awakening. What does that mean? Let’s be honest. We don’t change in our comfort zone. It’s too comfortable. However, when a major life event or challenge appears, we start questioning ourselves and life. And while it can appear like a challenging phase, it’s a gift in disguise. It can lead us to a lot of realizations, learning lessons, and deeper truths about ourselves and life. And really, that’s what we’re here for. If there was nothing to experience or realize, it would be boring. As much as we say we’d like to have it all figured out, it would be the same to say we would like to play with open cards in a game. Yes, it would be easy, but also we wouldn’t need to play if everyone had their cards open. Our souls sometimes love a challenge, even if for our human it can appear so unfair or not enjoyable at all. I was once denied a job position. If I hadn’t been denied, I would have probably never gone self-employed. I would have never created my own blog. I always dreamed of having a blog, as I enjoyed writing and sharing my thoughts. But I always postponed that dream or didn’t even consider that dream for real. My mind gave me too many reasons why it wasn’t worth creating a blog. See how I was holding myself back from my dreams? So that job rejection, which felt awful back then, was a gift in disguise. The special thing about a gift in disguise is that while you’re going through them, they can feel like hell. Only much later is the gift revealed. And the gift is often a redirection. You’re redirected onto a different path with new experiences and opportunities to grow. So here are 3 signs you might be going through a conscious awakening. Those are no generalizations, just some general guidance. A major challenge such as a disease or a job rejection A depressed phase as if nothing makes sense anymore and you don’t recognize your old self A deeper longing for the truth and wanting to spend more time alone than usual just doing nothing and sitting in a quiet space A conscious awakening is chosen by the soul, and in my experience, it’s determined by your own subconscious beliefs, trauma and limitations. What’s important is to allow the process to happen. Some people fight against change. They do everything to keep their current reality going. But if you want to move to a different reality where you may experience more joy, peace and fulfillment, you have to be willing to release old versions of yourself. That can feel like a dying. It can suck. But let’s remember with each dying aspect, there is a new version of us born. A lighter version. A version that has grown. Just like nature. What appears like autumn to us means death to the leaves of a tree. Nature has often been my teacher. You can learn a lot from trees. They go through the dying and rebirth process so naturally. They don’t fight as much as we humans. They simply allow it. If something is not how you expected it to be, follow the unexpected. Trust that life has a plan for you. Trust that there is a deeper message or even a different path waiting for you even if you can’t see what it is yet. That’s the magic of life. It comes in all shapes and forms. No life is perfect, so we've got to embrace the highs and the lows and trust that everything brings us the exact experience or lesson we need right now. So what is a conscious awakening, some may ask? Well, it’s becoming more conscious of who you are deep down and who you’re not. It’s becoming conscious of what the world is and what it is not. It’s about the deeper truth of who you are.

Treating the symptoms versus healing the root cause: What is the difference? This morning, I came across a headline on social media about older baboons (monkey/cat-like creatures) that were killed in a zoo due to overcrowding in the zoo. There were a lot of animal activists trying to prevent it. No matter the deed, the outcome or what opinion someone might have about that incident, each one of us may have their unique intention and opinion. And without a doubt, no matter whether you see innocent people or innocent animals being killed for some shallow reason, it is a tragedy. It reflects something deeper about humanity. That something is so foul. And again, it’s not about searching for the bad guy. Or judging others for their bad behavior. It showed me how much humanity often tries to solve the symptoms instead of the root cause . In this case they’re trying to save the animals in the zoo (=the symptoms), but the real question that popped to my mind is, “Why do people still go to the zoo in the 21st century knowing that the animals suffer?” (=the root cause) Yes, it’s a pleasure, but if the pleasure is one-sided, it can cause harm and pain to everyone. Because after all, we remain one humanity. One world. And I noticed how humans tend to solve the symptoms so often, no matter if it’s with animals, relationships, finances or health. Isn’t it alarming? So today I want to provide some insights on how to heal the root cause instead of the symptoms. Have you noticed how we humans tend to solve the symptoms instead of the root cause? Here are some examples. A disease Humans often ask: What pills and therapy forms help? How can we do better therapy? Instead of asking: What caused me to feel ill or at dis-ease? A failed relationship Humans often ask: What can you do when living with a narcissist? What are techniques to calm a husband who is a narcissist? Instead of asking: Why do I choose to spend my time with this man in the first place? In a zoo with a killed animal Humans often ask: Why do they kill the animal? How can we prevent the zoo owners from killing old animals? Instead of asking: Why do we still go to the zoo knowing that it’s no good for animals? Mental health issues Humans often ask: What techniques and pills help against depression? Instead of asking: What causes me to feel depressed about myself and my life? What does life invite me to change? In finances Humans often ask: Why are our politicians and economy so bad? Instead of asking: What can I do or offer to the world that can make additional money? What skills do I need to build a side business instead of waiting for the politicians to decide on a new rule that will improve my situation? Healing the symptom is like an open wound that bleeds through again and again. It can cause a lot of pain and struggle, just like an open wound can. Healing the root cause is like a scar. You won’t necessarily forget about it. The experience shaped you in a way, but it will no longer bleed through. It will no longer cause pain. It ’s about a behavioral and attitude change. Healing the symptoms means you play the victim. You look for the guilty one on the outside. Healing the root cause means you become the Creator. You take responsibility for your own behaviour. Imagine if only half of the population would take responsibility for their own behavior. What would the world look like? It would look like a healed place. Because change doesn’t necessarily start in politics or in the economy. It starts in the heads and minds of each single human. Never feel small. You play a significant part in this world. And sometimes it also means that you don’t pursue hobbies for egoic reasons. In other terms, just for your pleasure when you know others suffer from you having pleasure. Such as going to the zoo. It means seeing the bigger picture: if someone else suffers, we all suffer, as we are all one humanity. We are not so separate after all.