A hicking trip within the maze of my mind

What if…
you woke up one day with a severe headache?
As if an army of builders was relentless reconstructing the attic of your brain...and the sound of their smashing hammers was felt on each sides of your head, in a frustrating perfect rhythm.
Would you –just like me- try to get rid of it?

And what if…
you wholeheartedly believed that ‘surrendering’ was the ultimate answer to all of your questions?
If you madly, firmly and deeply believed that all of your -tiny and giant- sufferings, including that headache,  would be instantaneously healed by the magic balsam of your own surrender?
Would you then –just like me- choose the path of surrendering?

And  what would be your approach to this?
Would you try to fight your way into it, making the thoughts you didn’t like,  your worst enemy? 
Would you do everything you possibly could to avoid them ?
Would you yell at them to “just shut up”?
would you eat them away? Drink them away? Smoke them away? Curse them away?
Would you try to bury them underneath layers and layers of ‘better-feeling- thoughts-frosting’?
Would you throw spiritual lighting balls at them, and even hire other people to join you in the fire fight?
Or would you try all of those things... preferably at the same time... like I did/do?

But what if…
you came to the realization that no matter how hard you’ve tried,
how loudly you’ve yelled  and how far you’ve travelled…
you hadn’t progressed one little bit?
Allow me to fill you in on my feeling response to that question; frustration!
 Like ‘out-of-my-mind-frustration'!
I was so extremely frustrated that I gathered my last strength, that tiny bit of energy that was left… and screamed out loud:
“Fucking hell… I don’t know how to surrender to this! Teach me, God damned! Teach me!!”


Unfortunately, I'll have to end this blog entry with some very dissepointing and maybe heartbreaking news;
the teacher has never showed up.
There came no brilliant answer on how to surrender.
All they sent me was one deep, long silence.

But boy... was it delicious! :-)

I welcome you, beautiful fall.

May the magical colors of your falling leaves
reveal a beauty that has seldom being witnessed…
and may your colorful carpet be the dancefloor
for  many human beings.

May the delicious smell of your pouring rains
find its way into many nostrils,
leaving behind the perfume of love…
and may it be recognized by many.

May the chanting wind
blow away all sadness and worries,
only to leave a peaceful tranquility
within every human heart.

Beautiful fall,
remind us to lit the candles
and light the fire on the heart,
so that we can all remember who we really are
all day...every day.
May you remind us in a million ways
of how everything incessantly changes
and how we can be the seer
of all magical ways
in which life expresses itself
through us...
one experience at the time.

I welcome you, beautiful fall.

Remembering how easy it is to feel good.

It’s easy to feel good.
All it takes is one thought…  one single thought.

It’s getting out of bed and remembering
that you’re walking on a mayor globe that’s floating in the air.
No strings attached…literally!
How amazing is that?

It’s watching a bee fly by and remembering the old saying;
'The bumble bee is too heavy to fly, but no-one told the bee'.
How spot on is that?

It’s opening the tab and watching water pouring out of it.
Hot or cold? Pick a choice.
Just like that…

It’s sitting in the sun and feeling how every cell of your being enjoys receiving the warmth.
It’s remembering to breathe and realizing that there’s an unlimited amount of air that you can breathe in, every day, over and over again.
It’s listening to a song and feeling your heart opening so wide that it almost makes you cry.
It’s feeling your own heartbeat and realizing it's not even on your to-do-list!
It’s that one memory that you can’t stop thinking about because it makes you feel soooo alive.
It’s remembering that you’ve made it so far,
though there were times you didn’t see it working out.
You did it anyway…and you always will.
It’s enjoying a beautiful ride in your car and remembering that there was the time it looked so hard to do that!
It’s smiling at a stranger and receiving the most genuine smile back.
It’s seeing an old friend again after what looks like a long time and feeling that same, delicious connection again.

It’s easy to feel good.
All it takes is one thought, one single thought.
And yet the irony is…
that it’s so easy to forget that! :-)

Thank God there’s millions of us,
so that we can remind each other
in all colors of the rainbow.

Red: You’re beautiful!
Orange: No one sees the world through your eyes!
Yellow: No one loves the way you do!
Green: No one feels sadness the way you do!
Blue: No one dreams the dreams you dream!
Indigo:  'All that is' would not be complete without your unique presence!
Violet: You're love incarnate, playing a game of amnesia!

Full Moon - Full Heart

Full moon…
one of my favorite moments every month.

There’s something magical about this beautiful ball of light
that no one needed to turn on
when darkness sneaked in.
It’s one of the gazillion things life  allows us to enjoy freely.
How lucky are we?
I love sitting on my balcony and just gazing at the moon,
watching some planes fly by…
like big, amazing birds of steal.

A few months from now,
I’ll be in the belly of one of those metallic birds,
literally flying into a whole new adventure…
It’s just as exciting as it is scary sometimes.
And sad… when I allow myself to ponder on what I’m leaving behind.

I have a beautiful family who has loved me unconditionally
and supported me every step of my way.
There’s angels in my family
who look after little babies that need special care night and day
or devote their life to taking care of animals that have no home.
There’s heroes in my family,
who are always there when things get messy.
No need for an extra superman when you got a family like mine.
 
There’s a handful of soul friends I would wish for everyone to have.
We’ve shared our souls with each other
and we’d swim through oceans to be with one another…
My friends give hugs that almost make your bones crack
and they all cry out gigantic “Woohoooo’s” when you show up at their doorstep.
They  give you the key to their house so that you can come over any time you want to.
There’s no chance to be lonely when you have friends like mine.

There’s a big amount of friends here who I love to connect with.
We don’t see each other that often…
but when we do…
it looks like no time has passed.
No time at all.
There’s no expectations, there’s just love that binds us.
I feel blessed with friends like these.

There’s a million other things that make my Belgian life so precious.
And yet… I still feel like something else is waiting for me.
So I’ll jump… and I’ll fly away… not knowing when I’ll be back again.

The beauty of knowing that I’ll be gone one day soon…
is that I get to enjoy every piece of deliciousness to the fullest
while I’m still here.
And that makes all the difference between being sad
and being extremely happy and grateful.
It’s just a matter of perspective, of focus I guess…
and especially
of remembering that I am surrounded by human diamonds.

When life gets really busy
it’s easy to take everything for granted
and to assume we’ll wake up again tomorrow
having the same wonderful people in our lives.

Full moon…
one of my favorite moments every month.
In some magical way…
it reminds me to stand still,
to quiet my mind
and to remember the love I feel
for the people that make my life so extraordinary.

Belgian beauties, I love you all…

Vanvouver Angel five... For Kristien with love.

Today was just “one of those days”.  Sigh.
You know…
a foggy day, a confusing day, a sad day, a tiring day…
All at once and at full speed!
I call those days my A.P.-days;
Automatic Pilot-days.

No inspiration on what to do or where to go.
No bubbly feelings from within.
No euphoric laughter.
No ecstatic joy.
Only a vague sense of being lost
and craving something
that can’t seem to be found.

I used to have quite a lot of these days
but even though I feel experienced in having them,
I never really learned how to deal with them.
I guess I never realized
there was a valuable lesson to be learned.
But I realized it today…
and because I didn’t want to spend
the rest of my life trying to avoid these heavier days…
this Student felt ready to learn from the Master.

It was a “teach-me-how-to-love-something-day”…
Because if I can’t love something (anything!)
I simply feel incomplete.

I tried to love the day,
but that looked like too much of a challenge.
I tried to love the environment,
but I got too distracted by my own thought trains.
I tried to love the people I met,
but caught myself staring at the ground most of the time.

I tried and I tried.
I failed just as many times.

I guess that’s  the thing about love;
love doesn’t try…
love simply loves.
So was there anything –anything at all- that I could love effortlessly today?

Yes. There was.

There was simply me… loving me,
no matter who this “me” turned out to be today.
I was being my own best friend,
by loving whatever arose from deep within myself.
Without judging or labeling it.
Without trying to change it,
ignore it
or push it away.

Instead embracing everything  unconditionally
like little children who were begging
for me to love them.

And so I did.
I loved my sadness as only I could love it.
I loved my confusion as I have never loved it before.
I cried  my tears as only I could cry them
and loved myself while doing it.

It was a big day.
I found the next angel in line for me to love…
and it turned out to be me today.

Today was not a P.A. -day.
Today was an A.P. -day:
A Personal Angel -day.

How. I. Loved. This. Day.

Vancouver Angel Four... For Oliver with love.

I don't know much about Oliver.
Somehow, it doesn't seem to matter.
I do know that I loved him
from the second I laid my eyes on him.
It was this ‘instant love'
that happens when you meet a ‘Vancouver Angel’.

He was playing basketball by himself
and he was totally ‘in the zone’.
There was something about him that glued my feet to the ground.
My mind couldn’t figure it out
but I was totally Ok with that.

I stared at him for a while…
until my presence pulled him ‘out of the zone’,
back into the so called ‘reality’ of life.
By the first words he spoke,
I knew I’d write about him someday.

Oliver says he has more questions than answers.
He calls himself a ‘Seeker of Truth’.
I so relate to that…

Oliver doesn’t look away when you talk to him,
not even for a few seconds.
It feels as if he can read your whole identity
within the irises of your eyes.
Above all that…
he seems to be fearless about what he might discover there.
That’s powerful.
I used to be intimidated by that.

Oliver doesn’t get lost within his own stories
and thus he can be fully present
with whomever sits in front of him.
You get his full attention
and his unspoken invitation,
to step out of time with him.

He understood my love for life, because he experiences it too.

When I shared with him
how confusing it is
to feel ‘at home’
in two different countries…
he simply listened and held space for me.

He’s not the type of guy that gives you free advice;
you need to ask for it.
Wise people seem to have that in common.
At least from my perspective.

But I felt like a kid
that wanted to know the answer to a riddle.
And so I asked.

His answer was so simple
that it had to be true;
“Why don’t you take it one step at the time?”
I smiled…
because I knew he was right.
I was living the ‘future’ in the ‘now’…
confusion was but
the logical result.

And so we stepped ‘out of time’ again
and enjoyed the rest of our conversation.

I don’t know much about Oliver.
But I do know one thing:
He seems to embody the life giving Truth
that love doesn’t wait for feedback.

Love simply Loves.

Vancouver Angel Three... For Sofia with love.

Angels come in all different shapes and forms.
Some wear glasses, others wear hats.
Some are rather chubby and others are really skinny.
They do have one thing in common though:
they’re all disguised as humans.
Some just pull off a better acting job than others.

My new friend sucks at pretending to be human…
Anyone (and I mean ANYONE) can see
that she’s a living, breathing, walking, little angel.
Yeah…she’s probably the worst actress in this whole wide Universe.

She’s only been on the Planet for three and a half years,
I guess she hasn’t had enough time yet
to polish her acting skills.
I love that about her.
And I am honored
to call this little angel
my very precious friend.

She can be quite a pain in the ass, little Sofia.
She talks and talks,
but never finishes her sentences.
She pokes me when I’m reading a very good book
and she never seems to listen when I speak.
She also turns her back on me
when something interesting catches her eye.
And by ‘something’, I mean ‘anything’…
Damn… she can be a pain in the ass!

But boy, do I love her.

She showed me all the butterflies,
that I would have missed out on otherwise.
She brought a spider web to my attention
and summed up all the colors that were reflected by the sun.
She kissed my hand when I got stung by a bee
and told me to put some cream on it.
She  found a stone in the water
and danced because of that…
whilst yelling how beautiful it was.
I’d never seen a stone as shiny as this one.
She laughed as if the world depended on it
and the both of us together,
waved joyfully at the sun.

Today was a good day. A very good day!

Vancouver Angel Two... For Shae with love.

“A little Piece of Heaven”, that’s how I call the house next door.
It simply is a magical place to be.
The people who live in that house, are like angels on Earth to me.
I’ve met a bunch of them… but I haven’t found a single exception yet.
And I won’t… because that’s what “A Little Piece of Heaven” is all about;
“Love” is the rule.

It’s pretty addictive, their ‘love-energy’,
that’s why I’ve knocked on their door
every single day so far.
I called it secretly “my daily shower of love”.
I guess it’s not so secret any more now. J

The boys treat me like a princess when I’m  there. I love feeling like a princess.
It’s not that they roll out the red carpet for me
or overwhelm me with super polished compliments.
It’s not at all like that.
The thing is… they simply treat me like ‘one of the guys’…
When I’m there, I’m one of them… one part of a big, shiny heart.

Shae is one of those guys. He’s turning twenty-seven in eleven days.
I loved him from the second we met.
He didn’t inquire me about where I came from, nor did he ask me what I did for a living.
He literally told me, with the most genuine smile…
he wasn’t really that interested in all of that.

“I do want to know who you are, Kristien. Who YOU are”, he said.

I love it when people dig a little deeper. I love it when all the masks fall off. Time to stop acting and start getting real. Oh boy, do I love that!

The story of Shae was never hidden,
but it did take me three visits before I could notice
that Shae was missing a few fingers.
I was curious about that, and so I asked.
He then told me his story, the naked story.
A story with drama… and with a happy ending.
Once again… my heart was touched by an angel.

Shae lost three and a half fingers at work when his colleague made a simple mistake.
Shae paid for that mistake with a few fingers…
In one second of his time, his life had changed forever.

The drama unfolded and Shae felt what ‘hell’ would look like.
There’s been deep pain and sadness,
profound grief and feelings of being utterly lost.
There was wishing he could make it all undone
and rage for not being able to do that.

And still…
after barely a couple of weeks…
Shae realized a few important things
that would turn his misery into bliss…
almost overnight.

I was stunned.

“In one instance I had a change of heart and realized that everything happens for a reason.”
Those were literally his words.
“I was too young to waste the rest of my life being pissed off.”
That was not the life he had signed up for. And he remembered that.

He didn’t call himself ‘grateful’.
“That was too strong of a word,” he said.
He did call it ‘bliss’.
Because it turned him into this pure, loving being.
A being I call… an angel.

Shae doesn’t spend his time blaming others,
or judging them for who they seem to be.
He’s an open book and
will never tell you a lie.
He simply doesn’t see the point of that.
You can be who you want to be around Shae,
‘cause he will love you no matter what.

He had to grow up way faster than most of us need to.
And it has cost him three and a half fingers…
but Shae remembers how to love…
and that impacted my life today.

I could write a whole book on the guys who live next door. And maybe I will someday.
Or maybe not.
But for now I simply swirl in the delicious thought
that the neighbors next door
are actually angels… pretending to be humans.
How blessed am I?

Vancouver Angel One... For Jim with love.

I made a new friend today. His name is Jim.
Jim is homeless.


At a moment in which I felt a little lonely
I met him in front of a supermarket.

Jim was sitting on the sidewalk
where I parked my bike.
He wore smelly clothes
and his hair looked very messy.
I looked at him and  wondered;
could he be my friend for now?
I told myself to -at least- give it a try.

I asked Jim if I could sit next to him for a couple of minutes.
His answer was; “Of course!”
So we started talking.
About life. And about people.
About how good life was and how it sometimes just sucks.
About how nice people are and how rude they can sometimes be.
He almost made me cry.

While smiling at me,
he took my hand and assured me
that life was still good for him.

Jim talked and I listened. That’s what we silently agreed upon.
He told me how he can solely drink his food,
since he has only two teeth left.
Jim bragged about his two teeth.
So I bragged about my two ears.
And then we laughed together.

When I asked Jim what he needed…
his answer was; “a jug of milk.”
“What else, Jim?” I asked.
He thought about it. For almost ten seconds.
I appreciated that.
He then shook his head and said:
“No…just a jug of milk.”

While smiling at him,
I took his hand and assured him
that I’d buy him anything he needed.
He looked at me as if I hadn’t understood his request.
I almost felt ashamed.

And so I nodded and turned around.
I promised him I’d be back with his milk.
He made a joke about how he hadn’t planned on going anywhere.
“Make it 2 percent milk!” he added seriously.
I smiled as I entered the supermarket.


I made a new friend today. His name is Jim.
Jim teaches so called 'strangers' what “home” feels like.

Wie speelt er mee? :-)

Als ex-leerkracht vind ik het heerlijk om leerkrachten te inspireren op een pedagogische studiedag. Vandaag was het weer zover. Zuiver genieten is dat voor mij.
Bij het begin van zo’n workshop, stel ik me altijd eventjes kort voor. Ik hoor mezelf dan met enige ernst vertellen wat mijn naam is en wat ik zoal doe in het dagelijks leven. Meteen daarna voel ik dan een innerlijke glimlach verschijnen…  omdat ik op dat moment slechts enkele facetjes van mezelf voorstel. De 'ernstige facetjes'.
Wie ik écht ben is een heel andere zaak. Wie ik ben verandert trouwens alle dagen. Er is slechts één constante in wie ik kies te zijn;
een kind in een grote-mensen-pak. J

Het is precies dat kind dat er geen moeite mee heeft om gelukkig te zijn. En om die reden kruip ik er vaak volledig in.
Zo kleven er bijvoorbeeld lichtgevende sterren aan het plafond van mijn slaapkamer en hangt er een klamboe rond mijn bed. Ik blaas ballonnen op zonder reden, behalve dan dat ik ze leuk vind om naar te kijken en ik schrijf geregeld een leuke boodschap aan mezelf in lippenstift op de spiegel.J
Ik neem wel eens enkele plastieken eendjes mee in bad en durf dat zelfs schaamteloos neerpennen in een blog.  J

Soort zoekt soort zegt men…en dus heb ik ook een aantal vrienden van dezelfde slag. Er zijn er met wie ik sneeuwballengevechten kan houden en er zijn er anderen met wie ik eindeloos kan fantaseren over een nachtelijk ritje in een ruimteschip. Er zijn er met wie ik urenlang gezelschapsspelletjes kan spelen en anderen die hilarische brieven in mijn brievenbus deponeren.

En alsof dat nog niet voldoende is, kan ik mijn (kinder)ei helemaal kwijt tijdens het coachen van mijn kleine cliëntjes. Ik mag rollenspelen met hen spelen, fantasierijke tekeningen maken, met handpoppen werken, de playmobil bovenhalen, verhalen verzinnen, zeepbellen blazen… en dat allemaal binnen het kader ‘persoonlijke ontwikkeling’. Er valt dus zélfs nog iets te leren uit al deze ‘spielerei’! J

En af en toe, héél af en toe… lijkt zo’n spelletje een beetje uit de hand te lopen. J Zoals vanavond, toen ik zwaar geladen thuiskwam en struikelde over één van mijn zelf opgeblazen ballonnen. Ik beken: op het moment dat mijn knieën de harde ondergrond raakten, weerklonk een duidelijke vloek!
Tot ik plots…vanop de grond… een oorbel onder de kast zag liggen.
Dé oorbel die ik enkele weken geleden was verloren en ten dode had opgeschreven. En dat allemaal dankzij dé ballonnen waarover ik vandaag nog gesproken had tijdens de pedagogische studiedag. J

Dus zelfs met twee lichtblauwe knieën ben ik een dankbare vrouw! 
Of beter gezegd; een dankbaar kind dat de rol van volwassene speelt.J