PART I: Being Coached.

In the first half of the year, I had the opportunity to work with an inspiring Co-Active Coach. While it initially felt like I had to 'get fixed', it eventually triggered an overdue shift from an "outside-in" way of living to an inward-oriented exploration. This helped me to clarify what matters most to me, to articulate what I truly want even though it seemed impossible to achieve, to identify my personal life transformation plan, and to have the discipline, courage and drive to pursue specific small and big actions to get there.

PART II: Becoming a Certified Coach.

Realizing that anything is possible when you have a champion by your side who sees strengths and potential more than failures and weaknesses, I decided that I want to be that champion for others. I completed the CTI Co-Active Coaching and Positive Psychology curricula to further learn about my Self and to acquire techniques to help others experience the same.

I have come to appreciate coaching as an invaluable skill for every leader who truly puts their people, human connection and (mental) health first. Applying coaching practices is tremendously empowering, energizing and possibly healing. While being busy transforming my own life I thus continued my coaching education.

I focused on how our upbringing and life experiences may impact our ability to live free from fears and limiting beliefs, which prevents us from feeling joy, being playful and consistently kind and considerate of ALL stakeholders. It also holds us back from pursuing our life-affirming dreams and wishes for ourselves, our loved ones, or the world as a whole. I started engaging in trauma-informed leadership practices, firmly believing in the benefits that individual trauma awareness can bring to the corporate world. I also explored body work (chiropractic, shiatsu, ayurveda) as a way to maintain holistic balance and wellbeing.

2022 was an important year for me. An unexpected curveball gave me the opportunity to learn to engage with my feelings at a deeper level and to truly "grow through what we go through", and also heal past wounds. My default coping mechanisms used to be fight or flight responses, which were useful in the moment but did not help me build capacity for more resilience, growth, and self-agency. These responses also left me feeling lonely and alienated from one of the things I care about the most: deep connection to others.

Throughout the year, my mind learned to be more self-compassionate, my heart communicated its feelings more clearly, my body understood that being with difficult emotions can be safe and result in more aliveness, and my spirit began to appreciate the space it was finally given in my life.

I understood that being all of me authentically, coureagously, gracefully in this world starts with being connected to and loving my Self but also includes engaging with others and allowing them to see me holistically. This meant I had to make all of me visible and vulnerable. Choosing attend-and-befriend over fight, flight or freeze opened up the possibility for disrupting old patterns and replacing them with ones that serve me today and for the future.

In 2022 I decided, after almost 20 vegetarian years, to become fully vegan, and to further move toward, and actively promote, a plant-based, cruelty-free, wildlife-friendly lifestyle. I also decided to take a bit of a break to enable a healthy transition to what's next - personally and professionally. To make time to process past, stuck emotions and to make room for energy that feeds the courage to be and do what serves me. To declutter my life, mind and soul and create space for something different - a lighter, peaceful, more purposeful, joyful presence every day.

The ability to enjoy the Now and to experience aliveness requires living a life in accordance with ones values and full acceptance of all we are - every day, all day. Authenticity means not only knowing and being true to yourself but also being genuine, real and visible to the outside world with consistency, vulnerability and integrity. In that state, mindful, attuned living through healthy, balanced daily choices regarding for instance one's diet, activities or connection with nature and people becomes a natural source of energy and grounding rather than something that needs to be managed or handled.

Living with less, sharing with people and animals in need, doing work that plays to one's uniqueness, feeding one's body, mind and soul with food that is nurturing, and living in a place that gives you the space to be.

We landed in Berlin, in one of the centers of plant-based outdoor adventure living. And a place full of contrasts, polarizations and triggers. A place to be and grow.