Since I became a mother in the year 2000, I have been writing about everything that can touch and move a woman's heart, but which can also feel so hard sometimes. It helps me process feelings and gain insights, which I only really discovered when I became a mother. I woke up. Women can touch each other and be touched so much, whereby we get stuck in our emotions. We remember disappointments and especially who disappointed us. That already starts in the contact with your own mother and continues in our contact with friends. I have seen that my mother also had to figure it out, because she too had not had a positive example of dealing with feelings. When we talk about desires and growth, are busy with that, we are often not aware of the phenomenon of 'crab basket'. If a crab is caught and put in a basket, it is very capable of climbing out of it. Unless it is filled with several crabs. Covering is not necessary, no crab will come out of the basket. On their way up, they pull each other down. Women in a group can unconsciously hold each other back from standing out from the crowd. And that does not always happen in a friendly, loving way. Especially when you are happy and your heart is radiating with enthusiasm, it is not strange that people close to you do not react so positively to that at all. That sounds quite strange, doesn't it? It is what I usually hear from women who share their desires with me. Their environment often has the most difficulty with their growth. Friendships can become complicated, or your family no longer wants to support you. When that happens, it is logical that you start to keep yourself small, you want so much for the contacts to remain pleasant, with the result that your heart becomes disappointed, can even become bitter. And in that process we close our hearts and often lead in silence.

If you close your heart, others can no longer feel your love and you can no longer share love. Maybe you are confused and wonder how it suddenly happened. Often there were signals, you overlooked them. Or you did not want to see them. Everyone has a part in a story. We are all much more connected to each other than we realize.

The great thing about that is that we can also take each other into account. Tune into each other's hearts. When you grow, you change and that change is often most noticeable to the people close to you, especially unconsciously. No one really likes change, even if you can't stop it. It makes people insecure, jealous, envious and people react from those feelings (the ego). And women tend not to do that openly and clearly, but behind your back, or through digs. There is a lot of feeling involved, a lot of gut feeling, which you CAN make up whole stories about yourself. And you don't have to do that! That's when it's important to start working with what you feel.

Write down who affected you and why. It is not about complaining about someone or a situation. You can also honestly look at what your part was in the story. Let it go, or do something else with it. That is also possible. Remember that the other person can still be affected or can be affected if you do something towards that other person. Let go of what the other person should do with your action, have no expectations. What is your intention if you still want to do something with it? Is it love? Or is it to affect someone else? Then ask yourself if it is wise. An intention that is not loving can come back hard. Maybe you should then take the lessons with you so that you can react differently in a next situation.

Such as: better indicate your boundaries, stay calmer, distance yourself or have understanding for the feelings of the other. Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Which does not mean that you should do something with it, especially not with people who can react rather oversensitively and unreasonably. In this process I discovered nonviolent communication where you speak from the 'I' form and you can stay close to yourself and I discovered the power of silence. Sometimes it helps to do nothing at all and say nothing.

Could it be that you have learned to fight? Everyone comes from a nest, with certain behavior. Which is very normal behavior for you. Or surrounds themselves with people who all show the same behavior, which you have become accustomed to. And now I tell you to be quiet and to let that fighting go. To do it quietly. Or to distance yourself. Which can feel like fleeing and does not suit you; you think. So interesting; who do you want to be? A fighter or a refugee? There is a third form and that is different for everyone. That is a very beautiful search. What suits you? Not fighting or fleeing, but what then? I mean that you are not concerned with the other, that you examine your feelings with yourself, that is called contemplation, and then process them. The other is just a mirror.

Instead, search for what your own heart really has to tell you, without the influence of the outside world. Don't be distracted by the negativity of others. Discover what you really want to do, but perhaps put aside because of disappointments you have encountered in your life. The results may surprise you, because mothers are very good at hiding what the heart really has to say. As if a space has been closed off since that child came into your life. First make the child happy and then... Or when the children have left home, life is over until there are grandchildren who give you happiness in life. I am talking about your heart, your desires, as a person. Contemplation can help you with this, a deep form of thinking, in which you concentrate on a certain subject or idea in a calm, often meditative way. It goes beyond superficial thinking and requires a conscious, slow and reflective attitude, in which you are completely in the moment and pay attention to what is happening in your mind and soul.

In religious or spiritual contexts, contemplation is often seen as a way to connect with the higher, to understand yourself or to fathom reality on a deeper level. It is less goal-oriented than analytical thinking and more focused on inner peace and insight. What I have learned through all this is that my heart had something completely different to say than my head. When our eldest son left home, I could think in my head about what I would do with the space in the house when the other sons would also leave home, but my heart had trouble with that change. Our house in the future suddenly no longer felt like a nice home. Until we moved our home office to an office outside the house at the end of 2024 and my husband asked what would you like to do with that empty space? I discovered that I loved to set up that space as a women's cave. I can do what I want there, decorate it the way I want and spend time there whenever I want. A desire that I had always pushed aside, because it was not possible and I already had so much. That's what I mean with that deeper layer, I started looking beneath the layer of motherhood where I took everyone in our family into account. I did that as a small child, I already felt like a mother to my 8-year-younger brother while I wasn't even an adult myself. I didn't want to run away from or fight the feelings I would encounter if I really listened to my heart. I felt vulnerable because it had to do with an unprocessed memory from my childhood. I still remember how my heart was hit hard when I had to leave my nice light bedroom with balcony because of the arrival of that younger brother and went to a smaller room on the shady side of the house. Without consultation; suddenly when I came home from a school trip I had a different room, where I never really felt at home. Admitting that I hadn't felt at home there and that I was so disappointed in my parents' decision felt like weakness. Who was I to want more than I had gotten.

Unconsciously, many years later, I was still working from an energy field that did not belong to me, but which I did allow myself to be influenced by. This energy field came from my family system and certain patterns within it that I had accepted as reality without realizing it. And which I could now heal and integrate into this training. Because it was precisely in this space that I wrote about that deeper layer that we are usually not in contact with, but that may be seen and felt so that it is not passed on to the next generation. Because when I really started to feel, I also missed that little brother who had joined us so many years ago and my older brother; I had not had contact with either of them for more than twenty years. I did not miss them personally, there had been too little common ground and too much had happened. I missed my place in a system. A family in which I was the only girl, just as in my own family there was more male energy for so many years, which fortunately changed with two daughters-in-law. But since those two women joined, my place in our system has also changed and I felt that our house was no longer in balance. Since I have my women cave, combined with the laundry room that I have also been longing for for so long, there is so much space for my feminine energy that my heart regularly jumps for joy. It is a lovely room, where I work at a small table, have my collection of books and photos, do the ironing, our dog sleeps at night and also the dryer runs. A practical, cozy room and it is special to notice that my family also grants me this place for myself, that feeling influences me enormously, it brings me so much peace. Especially because in the past I have experienced that things were not granted to me by my parents and other people and I suffered a lot from that. You should expect something different from your family and people who are close to you. By this simple change of a place in the house my place in our system changed, which is consciously felt by me and unconsciously by some, especially if they are not open to it. But that is also fine, not everyone is busy with conscious feeling. The great thing about healing and really listening to your heart is that all sorts of things can happen. For example, we started a family business with our family, hence the new office outside the home, and because of that I was fully active again with work that I had given up when I left for Morocco as an expat. And how happy that made me, especially to feel my ambition again and that it could be there in full in our family. I had no idea that my heart had missed this so much. Your mind can tell you all sorts of things, but your heart can also hide all sorts of things very well.

You may have heard of the term family system; a network of relationships and interactions within a family, in which each member exerts influence on the others. This can be felt from 7 generations back. It is based on the idea that behaviors, emotions and dynamics within a family influence each other. These systems are often unconscious, and patterns such as roles, loyalties and unresolved conflicts can influence how family members behave and develop.

When you show unconscious behavior that comes from a family system, you show behavior patterns that you may have adopted from those previous generations, without being aware of it. This behavior can come from unconscious loyalties to your family, where you carry with you the burdens, fears or expectations of your parents, grandparents or other family members. This is often seen in family constellations and systemic work.

Behavior that is not yours can arise when you are unconsciously trying to restore or maintain balance in your family system. For example, if there is an unresolved dynamic in your family, such as guilt, loss, or trauma, you may exhibit behavior that is not in line with your nature or goals, but that fits an old family role. For example, you may take on too much responsibility, avoid conflict, or show patterns of self-sacrifice. This can cause feelings of inner conflict, because you are living a life that is not really yours, but rather the life that fits the expectations or unresolved emotions in your family. Recognizing these patterns and breaking through them can help you to become more aligned with who you really are, separate from your family system. Like in my case literally taking space for what the heart has to say and listening to it. The language of the heart, feelings and emotions, had no place in my system of origin and my husband's system.

My question for you is what is your theme that you are too much occupied with from your head, influenced by your family system, and how can you give it a different twist from your heart. Maybe the step to do something with it is still too big or too far, start by writing down what you feel when you think about things. When you look in the mirror, when you look around your house, at someone sitting opposite you, or when you leaf through a magazine. It is about looking beyond the noise, the everyday chatter or mindlessly scrolling through your phone.

I created a page on my Pinterest account called Happy, because it reminds me of how happy I feel since I started listening to my heart and taking different steps.