I was born in Capelle aan den IJssel near Rotterdam. I studied Communication & Design. At first because I like the design process, but during the course I found that I really liked the psychology behind the marketing process. Why do people make certain decisions and how can you be manipulated (through marketing) to make other decisions?

In the meantime, I was going through therapy to deal with childhood traumas. Apart from the regular therapy, I was also looking at holistic ways to heal. I did the first level of Reiki, which I really loved, but what really impacted me was Louise Hay’s book "You Can Heal Your Life”. Herein she states that your thoughts are making you sick (mentally/physically) and, if you change these thoughts, you can change your state of wellbeing. Even though in the nineties the mind/body connection was even less accepted by mainstream medicine (my therapist included) than nowadays, I was intrigued. Thus started my search for wisdom.

I married my best friend in 1998 and we were blessed with 3 beautiful kids. They say that kids can be your greatest teachers, and mine certainly were/are. My oldest one cried 24/7 so that really challenged me. How could I help him? I went looking for alternative ways of physical healing. 

My husband’s work led us to Asia with all its wisdom potential. I met Vikas Malkani at a coffee morning for expats in 2008. I would never have thought that meditation was something I would be able to do. But when Vikas explained that we have 60.000 thoughts per day and that if we could bring that down to 1.000 and also make them positive, we would be masters. Somehow that seemed doable to me, so I signed up.

Wouldn't it be great to have a manual for your life?

After the first Meditation Course I felt the benefits big time. My GPs have always prescribed me valiums to deal with anxiety and stress-related migraines. But now I had tools to deal with my stress. Even in the heart of a panic attack I am able to calm myself down, and breath it away. It’s all about the wisdom of the mind. So after having used anxiety medication for 25 years, I threw them in the trash and I never looked back. I took every course Vikas had to offer. And because physical healing has always been my passion, I also studied acupressure with Dr. T.T. Ang and became a Reiki Master with Sally Forrest at Soulcentre, both in Singapore.

Having myself experienced all the benefits from meditation and wisdom that I acquired from Vikas, I wanted to share the benefits with others. So I became a certified meditation teacher and life coach with Vikas Malkani at Soulcentre Singapore.

Teaching mostly friends first in America and later on in Holland, my husband and I saw how many more people would benefit from learning about the mind. It has been our dream to start our own company in the Netherlands to help people ever since we became certified teachers in Singapore and now in 2020 we have made it real.

When we buy a new appliance, we read the manual before operating it, right? Wouldn’t it be great if you had a manual for your mind and your life? How does it work and how can you best operate it? When you are able to use your mind well, you will have so much more power over your life. Life is never predictable, sometimes shit happens. Having the tools to deal with it makes it so much easier and fun. It certainly does for me.

Meditation changed my life for the better, and it can change yours for the better too!