Blog 4 | Nicolien | Straight from the heart

I am a bit disappointed. Last year, I conducted a study where I found out that, due to all the innovations, changes, and pressure to perform, people’s true identities are changing. People behave according to the expectations of others instead of their ambitions. I think, momentarily escapes will help. In these momentarily escapes, we have time to breathe, and literally and figuratively escape reality and daily patterns. It helps to reflect to see if you still heading on going ‘your’ direction. In these momentarily escapes, creativity and playfulness help, because these help to clear your mind, get into a flow, and live fully in the now. This provides relaxation and reduces growth in mental health problems. It helps to travel to find the true YOU.

I am a bit disappointed, why? Because I find myself losing my true self a little bit. There is so much happening around me right now, and I feel the pressure more than ever. The pressure to finish everything for school in June, the pressure to pass my studies, the pressure to think about where I want to work and live. It makes me that I am not acknowledging my feelings. Also, I am a bit disappointed because I feel my past blogs are written from a negative angle. Blog 2, a society in which we do not dare to be ourselves, and about the struggle people experience when they want to change. Or blog 3, a blog that shows how I can change actions that I already do every day. It feels like I am just writing about how people should change, but that is not what I want.

I want to tell people that you have to be true to yourself. That you have to be your guiding light, instead of following the light of others. Why does something always have to change? And can’t it just stay like it is, in the here and now?

Back then

When I look at previous projects and experiences, I like to take on a positive perspective in situations, instead of looking at the negative angles in a situation, angles that should change to be good again. That is why blog 4 is not a blog with heavily loaded sources and theories, but a blog in which I share my experience and feelings with you.

As I said, I think positive thinking is important, even though I find it difficult sometimes. In my positive thinking, I often use creativity. I would like to take you along with some experiences from my past.

Final presentation

At the beginning of the school year 2019-2020, I did a minor in Powerful Coaching. My final presentation had to meet a lot and strict guidelines that had to be in the presentation. I was lost since this forced me into thinking in barriers. How can I stuff all those attention points into one PowerPoint with slides? I tried to think and used my creativity to still convey the points that should be in the presentation, but in a fun and inspiring way. I made colored A4s, on which I wrote short bullet points. During my presentation, I put it on the window and so I walked from paper to paper to tell my story.

Pizza night

In my second school year, I organized an experience week at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital. We organized a ‘bake and eat your own pizza’-evening. My commissioner indicated that we should only invite children who could leave their department. Children who were not allowed to leave their department were allowed to eat pizza but were not allowed to leave their room or department for hygiene reasons. Instead of accepting and just not involving those children, I started thinking and came up with an internal pizza delivery service. In this service we incorporated storytelling and co-create, to make the experience of the children complete. Via this way, all children could eat pizza. It was organized in such a way that the children who were allowed to leave the ward, started to make pizza for the children in the rooms.

Personal weight loss

Or that time when I was way too heavy myself and started a trajectory of trial and error in losing weight. I tried everything but nothing helped. Until I started a program, where I had a good structure and regularity. I also went to a diet coach once a week. During those visits, I had a weighting moment, and could I ask questions about the previous or coming week(s). This time it was a trial without an error because I tried to reframe my ‘situation’. I did not think “I have to lose weight so I cannot eat anything anymore”. I thought I would feel good in my fierce and I am kind-hearted to my body by not eating the unhealthy food.

Positive direction

The way you look at something is so important! Whether this also has to do with staying in a circle (blog 3), or with a transition that you have to make yourself (blog 2), or with living in a performance society with stress and burnout (blog 1), I do not know… What I do know, is that I can reframe situations. I can look at situations differently, making it an optimistic, positive, and solution-oriented direction. I focus on opportunities and possibilities and do this with a lot of enthusiasm and inspiration. Besides, I now see that I can take charge of my leading compass, without forgetting the world and people around me.

Straight from the heart

What is happening to me now is that I have lost control of myself and my guiding light. I lose myself in the stories of society in which everyone loses themselves. I am a victim of the effects of performance society and that is touching me. That is not the end of the world, but now, just like in the other situations, I have to use my creativity and positivity to look at my situation differently, to follow my own heart, and to go for it completely.