To Be or to Wannabe, that’s the question

Last week I attended a 3 day seminar with Neale Donald Walsch, author of the bestselling Conversation with God books. An insight that stuck with me, was his question;

What are you trying to BE, while you do what you do? All of our actions, big or small, are an effort in BEing something. So why do you wear the clothes you wear, why are you doing the work you do, why are you having the friends you have. What does this say about who you are trying to BE? So why am I writing this blogpost? I am trying to BE of value, sharing my insights, trying to BE inspirational, trying to sound full of wisdom 🙂

Most of us are living our lives from the paradigm of HAVE – DO – BE

What do I want/need to have? For instance a diploma of some sort, to be able to DO a job that matches this diploma, in order to BE succesful or happy or rich or worthy, etc. Instead, life works the other way around. We got the paradigm backwards.

Life works from the paradigm of BE – DO – HAVE. After all, we are not Human Doings, but Human Beings.

Be the change. We have freedom of choice to express and experience whatever states of BEing we like. Choose one or two states of BEING that you wish to experience and start expressing them. From there you will get inspiration for DOing things that are in alignment with this state of BEing and this will result in HAVE’s that match.

How to find your desired states of BEing? First ask yourself this question often. What am I trying to BE now, and now, and now? Secondly, finish the question; I’m feeling most joyful, energized and fulfilled, when I am BEING…Thirdly, look at the contrast in your life. Take the opposite of what you don’t want to experience (anymore).

What about not believing that you ARE this BEing already, even without DOing anything. Start your days with the intention of BEing in this state of BEing and see what happens from there. Good Luck!

Lots of Love,

Annemarie

 

Falling Forward

Today I had to admit to myself that I am suffering from a relapse in old pain, thoughts and behaviour. I recognized the signals for a while, and was kind of hoping they would dissapear by themselves…NOT. When you ignore or try to suppress something, it only gets bigger. I know that really accepting (and feeling) the situation as it is (“SHIT! I’m in a damn! relapse”), is the only first step on my way through this. Relapse is often associated with addiction and the use of drugs or alcohol to get a relief from the underlying pain. But in my case, when I refer to the term Relapse, it’s about falling back into old patterns of thought.

Just as I thought I had mastered this thing called LIFE and LOVE,  feeling totally happy and in flow just six weeks ago, it bit me in my tail again. My thoughts were taking me in a downward spiral, feeling like a failure and that something is seriously wrong with me, that I had been fooling myself into believing this huge personal growth that I had made. It felt like falling all the way BACK.

After a big cry I got this insight. In the law of life, there is no such thing as falling back. Everything is constantly in forward or expanding/outward motion. So this idea of falling BACK does not exist. Reframing my state into falling FORWARD helped to see that I’m still in a miserable state, but one that I can fall forward in. Another opportunity for growth, to explore yet another layer or aspect of my same old patterns.

And a good opportunity to bring my selfwedding vows (LIEFDE) into practice, because I’m sure they will be helpful to get through this.

Listen to my body

Invest time in myself & my relationships

Emotions (all of them) are welcome

Focus positive, unless something negative calls for attention. Focus on the NOW.

Dare to be myself and show myself.

Energy is everything.

Lots of Love,

Annemarie

Selfmarriage – awakening to wholeness

Do you know these wheels on playgrounds? For me they represent how I experienced life. The wheel is life and I can give it a swing and hop on, enjoying the flow of life. And I have a choice to hop off to watch others having fun taking a spin. Sometimes life goes too fast and you either fall off or you can’t get on. Or it is so full of other people (having fun, or making noise) that you have to wait for your turn. So in essence, I always experienced life as something outside of myself. Of something that I was IN or OUT. And being out, as the observer, I could feel very lonely, even with having great friends and family around me. Existential loneliness.

On a mental level I understood this vision on life was false. But I couldn’t get to the core feeling of it. Knowing (mentally) and Knowing (gut feeling) are two different things.

Then I went (ofcourse) on a walk. Four days after I finished my walk from my hometown to my birthplace. During this trip I truly had fallen in love with life itself. Now it was February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Maybe it was because this highly commercialized day of love at least makes people focus on love a little more deliberate than usual. Maybe it was my imagination, but I felt a huge vibration of love in the air. I believe that when enough people focus on positive feeling energy, that the energy on a global level will rise.

And then it finally hit me. I felt this huge love for life and an insight came to me: I AM LIFE, so YES ofcourse I love myself. But also I AM the wheel, and I AM the observer, and I  AM the trees, and I AM the air, and I AM Donald Trump (Whahahahahaha).

Then I finally popped the question: Do I really want to marry ME? And the answer came very casual: “Ofcourse, why not, let’s celebrate!” So since Valentine’s Day I’m officially engaged to myself…to life…and that feels great!

Lots of Love,

Annemarie

“Life doesn’t happen to us, it happens through us”

just a little early morning inspiration

Sometimes life feels tough or challenging, as something that happens to us and there’s nothing we can do. When we are in this state, we separate ourselves from life itself (which is an illusion because we are life). And feel very lonely, sad or angry.

When we stop resisting life’s experiences and let life (and these emotions) just move through us, like a wave in the ocean, it will move on and make space for another experience and another and another…

Life loves experiential learning (as I), so it will keep delivering experiences. And the fun part is that because in essence we are life, we are able to create the experiences that give us the greatest joy.

What do you want to experience next? What monster will you turn into a friend?

Lots of love,

Annemarie

Selfmarriage – Walking in love

I like going for a morningwalk on a regular basis (usually around 45min), so it seemed like a nice idea to walk from the house I currently live in, in Veldhoven, to the house that I was born in (where my parents still live) in Soest, Netherlands. So I put on my walking shoes, packed a little bagpack and just started walking on a Mondaymorning. I thought it would be possible to walk the distance of 125km in 5 days. This meant that I was walking 5/6 hours a day. The temperature was around zero. I navigated with google maps and sometimes a compass when I wanted to take a nice route through fields or a forest without roads. It’s funny how food becomes important when you are walking. So I navigated myself to stops for a coffee- or hot chocolate break in the morning, a nice lunch in the afternoon, a late afternoon tea or beer and a place to eat and sleep for the night. I used friends, Airbnb, booking.com and bedandbreakfast.eu for my sleeps.

I expected the trip to be about going back to my roots. It turned out differently in  a very nice way. I totally loved the experience of walking by myself for such a long time. It was about being present in the moment with all my senses being tickled; seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, touching. I totally fell in love with LIFE!

It also felt great that I could shamelessly burb, fart, talk to myself, sing and sometimes make funny dancemoves to motivate myself when I got tired or bored. A good friend recently told me that if his daughter (who’s now 6 years old) ever wants his parental advice on her boyfriend, he has two questions for her. 1. Does he make you feel good about yourself? And 2. Does he make you laugh? I learned during this trip that I can make myself feel good about myself and that I can actually make myself laugh. I’m surprisingly funny when I get bored 😉 And because I was feeling good, I met nice people, had nice conversations and ended up in very nice places. (you receive what you radiate).

On Day 3 I started having pain in my left knee. My knee was obviously less happy than I was. At the end of day 4, it really hurt badly. I ended up in a nice cosy gardenhouse, with an old dutch ‘bedstee’ and a fireplace. I asked myself the question: “What would a person who really loves herself do?” (a question I often asked myself during this selfmarriage journey, inspired by spiritual teacher Teal Swan) and I answered myself that it was totally ok to quit the next morning if my knee wasn’t feeling better. This trip wasn’t about reaching the endgoal, it was about falling in love with LIFE. And I already did accomplish that. I called my mother who planned to walk the last day with me. We decided that my parents would come the next morning and that I would decide then to walk or to ride home with them.

The next morning, after a cosy nights rest in the ‘bedstee’ with a warm water bottle (‘kruik’) my knee felt much better. My mother had brought an elastic kneeband and a walking stick. My father took my backpack home. We decided to call him if it didn’t work out and off we went. My mother is 70 years old, but very active and sporty (rows 3 times a week). She has a new hip that works perfectly. And ofcourse we started catching up while we were walking. It was funny to notice the big difference in experience of walking by myself or with someone else. After 1,5 hours I suggested to stop talking and enjoy and appreciate the nature around us.

After 5 hours of walking (with a big lunchbreak) we arrived at my parental house in Soest, where I was born 45 years ago. I made it! Feeling happy and proud.

My main insights of this trip;

Love LIFE, talk less, stretch yourself but not too much (also take care), the Netherlands are beautiful, connect to nature, spend time alone, allow yourself to get bored, do things that make you feel good, happy people connect easily to others, appreciate little things.

Lots of Love,

Annemarie

 

Selfmarriage – ‘the coming out’

A few days ago I wrote a blogpost sharing the idea of Getting married to myself. The reactions so far from the people that know me, have been surprisingly enthusiastic. It’s exactly a week ago, that just after this idea popped up, I called my parents. I wanted to know whether they would come to a ‘wedding’ ceremony with myself. They had to laugh and thought it was a bit crazy, but told me that if this is important to me, they would support me. My father even joked about walking me down the aisle and giving me away. The second person I told was my current boyfriend. He reacted very open. That he doesn’t quite understand it, but that he feels this is clearly moving me, and if this is my way towards more love (how can you oppose to that) that he supports me. Ofcourse he also had the thought: “What about me?” and feeling left out of a very personal process that is mine. Yet, I feel that his openness and acceptance have brought us closer together already.

Then, on friday, I had a Christmas Dinner at THNK (where I work as a facilitator). A few colleagues that I know well, reacted so enthusiastically to this idea, that I decided to share the idea with the whole group of people there, making it something ‘out there’ and real. It moved from being just an idea to being a plan with a deadline. AAAAARHG! (that’s my fear of commitment kicking in). At dinner, I was sitting next to a girl I didn’t know and we had a very open and personal conversation. It seems the idea opens up people around me and I feel grateful for that. For instance, yesterday I called my father for his birthday and for the first time in my life we had a meaningful conversation on the phone (he hates phonecalls) that lasted more than 15 min.

Both of my long term ex-boyfriends have reacted in their own playful way’s. The first sending me a textmessage saying that I have to divorce him first, because we got kind of married in a fake weddingceremony by our friends in Spain in 2003. The second, by saying that he already bought a suit for my wedding, showing a picture of him in a flashy red suit.

I also asked my 7 year old daughter (who’s asking a Barbie Bride and Ken Groom for Christmas) what she thought of the idea of getting married to myself. She thought it is funny and a little bit weird and also sweet for yourself. On my question if she would ever consider getting married to herself her answer was very straightforward: “Ik hoef niet met mezelf te trouwen, want mijn lijf weet gewoon dat ik lief ben.” English: “I don’t need to get married to myself because my body already knows that I’m loveable.”

WOW! I’m feeling happy and proud that she can say this with such confidence, like it is the most normal thing on earth (and so it should be!). And I’m feeling sad that I can’t. At least not yet. And it makes me question my motives. What do I need to prove to myself and to the rest of the world with this idea…?

Time for a walk…

Lots of Love,

Annemarie

 

My favorite quotes…

The moment you start seeing life as non-serious, a playfulness, all the burden on your heart disappears. All the fear of death, of life, of love – everything disappears. One starts living with a very light weight or almost no weight. So weightless one becomes, one can fly in the open sky. (Osho)