Being home inside & out.

By clearing the path to inner peace.

Photo Chantal Bruijsten

I am Chantal Bruijsten and this is my story; my search for being home, inside and out.

I’m 19 years old, I’ve been living in a room in Leeuwarden for over half a year, I’m very happy with the study I’m following, I’m a member of the student union and I am a part of a nice group of girls. And yet I feel different. Again. I’m part off all kinds of groups, but it feels like I don’t quite belong anywhere. It’s like I belong to a little bit of everything, but not quite, not in total. This was in elementary school, high school, in clubs, with friends and now again here in Leeuwarden. I followed my heart, my gut feelings, do what I want to do, even though not everybody understood this. But still, it gnaws at me. I don’t feel completely at home with the people around me. I do nice things, but I feel different. As if I’m pretending, as if no one is like me. As if I am a bit of everything, can get along with everyone, can fit in anywhere, but yet not quite. And then that insecurity. Not about my abilities. I do super well at school and in all the work groups of the student union I’m in. But about myself as a person. I’m probably not nice enough, not beautiful enough, not sharp enough. Because I am really different from the others. And even though I belong to all kinds of groups, it doesn’t feel like I belong there.

7 years later I move with my boyfriend to the Dominican Republic. I have successfully completed several studies and have a good job in marketing. But now I am 26 years old and I can and want to let go of this success. We manage to take out a loan to build a small hotel. A place for surfers and kitesurfers. The idea arises while we are working on it and we are confident that we will succeed. And it does. With setbacks, with learning to live again in a country where everything is different, in a language we don’t know yet. And here, in that strange country where everyone is different, and especially among the Dominicans, I do feel at home. In my being different, which is obvious, I do feel at home with the people around me. And especially with the people who are completely different from me anyway. I don’t have to belong, but am just completely myself. But I am not conscious of this yet. Inside there is still much uncertainty about myself as a person, about whether I am good enough. Because I’m not really happy with myself at this point. I am happy with what I have achieved. But with myself, no that not. And I’m not really aware of my inner world yet. After living more than four years in the Dominican Republic, I get homesick. I miss my family and friends. And there is a desire to have children. I don’t have a menstrual cycle and nobody knows why. I’ve been in the hospital in the Dominican Republic for a few years, but they can’t find anything there. Inside I feel empty I feel less and less at home.

Back in the Netherlands, I’m 30 by now, we go to the hospital. I go through treatments, but without success. And while I’ve always experienced that if I want something badly enough and work very hard, it will work out, it doesn’t seem to work that way with my desire to have children. Whatever I do, nothing happens. So we decide to go for a dream I already have for years, we will try to adopt a child. A process that will probably take many years, but it feels good to do so, with my heart I know that this is the right path for us.

At the same time, inside remains that emptiness. I do not feel at home in myself, I am not happy with who I am and I feel that it is not right that my body does not work. Purely by following my gut feeling, and surfing life the way it comes, I join a trial weekend of a study to become a Polyenergetic therapist. I have no idea what I want to do with this study, but it simply feels right to do it and I decide to follow the whole training which takes 3 years.  And here, during this training, I go inside. I start to feel who I really am, I tackle my insecurities about myself as a person, I look my fears in the eye, I learn to trust and I dare to let go of control more and more. I become happy with myself. And I start to feel more and more at home in myself.

During the years I follow this study, I cry, laugh, talk, learn and grow. I go deep inside and an enormous amount is healed. I start to feel more and more and I learn to combine this with my brain. And I learn to work with hypnosis, with regression, with energy, with NLP, with visualizations, with meditations, with EMDR, EFT, breathing, inner child work, constellations, and above all with my intuition. I find out that my intuition is very strong. And that I can trust it. As a coach and therapist I turn out to be really good. I combine my intellect and analytical abilities, with everything I intuitively feel and know. I go for lasting results and combine practical and tangible with feeling and intangible. And as a human being I go through a wonderful development. I learn to feel that I am worthy, that as a person I am completely good the way I am.

And then, a few months before my graduation, we get the wonderful news that we get to be parents to little Sarah who is then only 4 months old. I feel at home inside and get to create a home for this little girl, our daughter. As soon as we see her, we feel that we have known her for much longer. What a recognition. Me and Ybo, my husband (we got married in the meanwhile) feel that we have been waiting for her. She had to come to us, that was the plan. No wonder whatever I did to get pregnant, it didn’t work. Sarah had to come first. After a month, she comes to live with us and we become Sarah’s mom and dad. The transition goes amazingly smooth, for Sarah and for us. And everything feels like it should be.

In the years we were in the process of adopting, I always continued to believe in that I would also get pregnant one day. Preferably after adopting. To help my body, which had no menstrual cycle, I followed a specific diet, I went to seek alternative help to get my body back in balance and also on a spiritual and energetic level I sought help. From never having a period I went to having light bleeding about once every 5 months. Something was happening, but theoretically there was little chance. And yet I remained confident. With the adoption process, it was no longer a necessity to get pregnant. It was not a goal, but a wish that was allowed to be there in addition to the desire to adopt a child.

And then, with the creation of this home for our daughter, another miracle happens. Sarah has only been with us for a few months when I find out I am pregnant. Nine months later, we become parents to our daughter Senna for the second time.

In addition to my role as a mother, which I fulfill with complete dedication, I continue to develop personally. I follow more courses, education and training and start my coaching and course company Gevoelenzo. I work a lot with pregnant women and young parents and teach them to trust their feelings. I give therapy, coach, give courses HypnoBirthing and teach people to go inside and follow their feelings.

Even though I am completely happy with our two daughters, I feel that there will be a third child one day. My menstrual cycle, through all the inner and physical work I have done, has now fully returned to me. Our son has been with us for years in the energy, when I appear to be pregnant for the second time. After 9 months, at the age of 38, he too is born easily and our family feels complete.

I feel at home, inside, in myself. I feel at home as a mother, in our family. I feel at home as a therapist, as a coach, and as a teacher giving my courses. But as a human being, as a woman, in my environment, do I feel at home there? Not quite yet. I am almost 42, but remain uncertain in new friendships and still do not feel completely at home in the world I live in. The tendency to control comes back regularly and so does my insecurity about myself as a person sometimes. Together with a coach I go deeper. Even deeper. Especially on a spiritual level I go very deep. There are more blockages to dissolve, there is more to heal, even more control to let go of and I discover that I can heal more and on a deaper level than I ever did. I discover more of myself, in myself, I get to know myself as lightbeing, I learn that I can create, that I have always done so, I learn that I can choose my reality, that I determine my own reality, and I learn to follow my plan, which I already made before I was born. This whole process coincides with our move to Spain. And there, in Spain, after I have healed and developed so much, a process I enjoyed immensely and still enjoy, I really feel at home in the environment where I am. With the people I am with. Although I am also finding out that this is all about me. I feel home inside and out. And I so much enjoy the path I walked to inner peace; the path I still walk, and perhaps will walk my whole life.

I love to help you discover your path, learn to move with your path and at the same time create your reality. With all the knowledge and experience I have gained, I know I can help you come home. In yourself, with yourself, with the world around you. And with that comes inner peace and the ability to achieve what you want to achieve.