Safety, and the power of small choices
Suddenly, I’m reading  how important it is to give children freedom in every magazine or paper I open.
But you know what? Too much freedom can make your child insecure.

I get it though, you want to give your children all the space they need to discover what they want.

But do you realize that you can overwhelm your children by doing so? Your child can feel like he/she is swimming without a life-vest.

A friend was completely down. She thought she wasn’t good enough. Completely self-effacing. Depressed, even. At some point, she sought help. Very cool because she was Dutch, lived abroad, and was far away from ‘familiar help’. It was long before online sessions.

I was able to support her as a friend, but I was too close as a therapist. Luckily, she found a great therapist who taught her brilliant things, mainly about herself. She learned to look differently at things happening around her. What she could and couldn't control.
I was quite curious how this therapist approached the process and asked my friend what kind of assignments she was given to do.
One assignment has stayed with me to this day and I now use it regularly myself. For myself and for my own clients.
It's a bit like keeping a ‘gratitude’ book, in which you daily write down 3 to 5 things that made you happy, what made you grateful, what went well that day, what made you smile.

It's Saturday afternoon. No wind. All (adult) children are at home. It’s time for a walk on the beach.

We walk, whilst talking, laughing and also running on the crowded beach. Looking at the sea, the people and all the dogs.

When we are almost at 'our' beach mark, the one where we always decide to turn back,  we spot a bunch of keys . Practically in the sea. What to do? What should I do?

No one seems to be searching for them as far as we can see. We decide to go to the boulevard and look out for a Mitsubishi, because the keyholder shows this brand. We walk past the first cars, but unfortunately we don’t find the right car. We stroll on, meanwhile decide to buy some fish.

We stroll past the next block of cars and spot a Mitsubishi! A foreign car at that.

For me, last week was a bit of a contemplative week.
When a lot is going on our lives - like now - I tend to walk a lot.

It’s my way to deal with everything – to have my meditation moments.

And this may lead to an “Aha” moment, a moment of insight.

When you suddenly see matters in a different and clear light. Without the filter of your normally carefully built defense and protective layer. So bizarre.

Although you can think, analyze, rethink, and understand so much and while you may know and understand that everything is fine… suddenly... you feel it… deep inside... you have another insight… a different kind of knowing.