Living with creativity is what makes my heart beat faster. Making something that wasn’t there before- something pretty or useful or fun or that sounds good-fills me with deep satisfaction.

Creating your wonderful life to me also includes arts and crafts and homemaking. Yes somebody is broody, allright.

Turns out we  just had our bathroom redone and from looking dirty and old it now looks white. Just white. No character. Just sterile and plain. But cleaner. Just bland. And did I mention sterile?

But I don’t need fancy tiles to get stylish. I got imagination!

For months I’d been day dreaming about mosaics. Because those little pretty tiles and the colours really do something for me. I get a lot of joy from pretty colours. Do you?

Now I’ve been told mosaics are a nightmare to clean and upkeep. I’m not a great fan of cleaning. I do like pretty and practical.

So why not have it all?

I took out one of my favourite crafty magic tubes…Kids love it, I love it, you may well love it to. It’s window colours.

They are  liquid colours in a tube you put on a plastic sheet. They dry into a plastic kind of slightly elastic texture. A bit like acrylic.

Take them off the sheet and they happily stick to windows or other smooth surfaces. Window colour is a genius invention. Because you don’t just get to do silly christmas decorations with it but…

I drew up lines and squares and filled them with colour. It took 3-4 hours. And the result is here: A mosaic with no upkeep!

In order not to leave one mirror colourful on its own I repeated the motif along the bathtub top/side. The stripes are easy to take off too, so I don’t have to worry about the landlord.

And this is how we went from Sterile to Style in a day! Wohoo.

Are you working at your optimum?

Do you want to be more effective, productive, using your time wisely?

Could it be that you have more than enough information of how to organize yourself, you’ve read the books about motivating yourself?

But you just aren’t really doing what you “should”.

Why is that?

I had a conversation with a young, brilliant entrepreneur this morning who despite better knowing just isn’t doing it all as well as he knows he could. He knows better but somehow he just isn’t doing it. But why not? What’s his problem? What’s wrong with him?

He’s brilliant. He’s healthy. He’s a sporty, happy guy who knows what he wants. So why on earth wouldn’t he just go for it?

Let’s be honest. This could be me. It could be you. We know there is so much more and yet…

So we can search for more information. Better information. A teacher. A therapist who can cure what’s wrong. Maybe it’s in your childhood or even better because of your parents. Maybe there is someone who can motivate you to do it. Maybe if we master the mind, we can do it. Maybe when we master ourselves, we do it.  If we become action ninjas we can do it.

How about a simple solution for a complex world?

I found the number 1 thing that holds us back from turning wonderful ideas into action.

The 1 thing that as we recognize and change it has a dramatically powerful and quality enhancing impact on our life.

Are you ready?

Stop “shoulding” all over yourself.  It smells.

Let me explain.

If I offered you more fun and more money in less time. No dodgy deal, I promise. Would you go for it?

I know, that was easy.

But if I said: you really should implement more structure in your business if you want to ever produce proper results. Why haven’t you done what you read about last week? Seriously you should take a lot of action now!

How likely are you to take the action? Suddenly we’re not quite “feeling it”.

Even though it may be the same idea, it just doesn’t have the same ring anymore. It feels different. Smells of hard work almost. And like we’re in trouble if we don’t…

How likely are you now to procrastinate and get a snack? I’m peckish just thinking about it. A bit tired. I need a break.

Whenever someone tells me what to do, it’s highly unlikely I do it.  Generally I go for what I want. Certainly not what I “should”. It’s too boring. It’s not fun. It’s work. I should work. Geee, can I go now? Don’t get me wrong. I can do what I ‘should’ but given a chance, I will avoid it. When I do it, it’s not exactly inspiring. It’s just what you gotta do I guess. Oh well. Save having fun for later.

When someone tells me what I should do, I just don’t like it.

So why would it be different when I speak to myself? Well, the secret is: it’s not. If we speak to ourselves like our least favourite figure of authority, there is no wonder we’d rebel or at least feel a bit turned off.

So you really should not speak to yourself like that!

How about using the language of someone who loves you?

My best friend and greatest fan would say things like: wow what a great idea, do you want to play with that?

My best friend is up for fun and my best friend is always on my side. (if you don’t have a real friend like this, don’t worry. That’s what invisible friends are for J )

So supportive and always cheering me on. That’s how I like to be treated, for sure!

When we change the voice of should, supposed to, ought to, need, have to, must!

To  the voice of our best friend (want to, like to, choose, let’s!) you will see that action transforms from drudgery to delight. From boring to blissful.

That’s how we rock and roll!

Happy action taking!

Since “the Secret” came out everyone is talking about it: The Law of Attraction.

Hundreds of thousand of People spend hundreds of thousands of $ to learn to attract a better life.

Cosmic Ordering is the tool to get stuff we don’t know how to afford.

They learn to focus on the positive instead of the negative because “like attracts like”. Girlfriends cry that they keep attracting the wrong kind of guys. But what can you say: “opposites attract”.

“Have you noticed how hard it is to even attract a Pizza?” Asked Michael Neill blatantly. If that’s so hard try attracting everything that really matters.

So why waste your time trying to master attraction when you could go out there and get it?

Well, but a pizza isn’t the same success. Say you want a prosperous practice. You

So why waste your time trying to master attraction when you could go out there and get it?

Well, but a pizza isn’t the same success. Say you want a prosperous practice. You don’t want to just get any clients. You want to attract the “right” kind of client. The ones that are fun to work with and who can actually pay for your service or products. The ones who love and acknowledge you.  Fair play. How is the attraction thing going for you?

I am way to impatient to sit there and attract all day long.

I want to play. I want to have fun! I am creative. I am willing to create my clients. Are you?

Creating is the opposite of attracting. It’s active, it’s conscious.

Attracting is passive. It’s from the unconscious. The problem with the unconscious is that we don’t have that much influence on it. So giving the important things in life over to that makes me more helpless. It’s disempowering.

I have to rely on the side of me that I have hardly any access to…good luck! Send me a prayer. Think positive. I’ll need that.

Why not work with the conscious? And expand that? Rather than giving myself over to some kind of force outside of me that determines my fate, and that I somehow have to please or live in accordance with, why not take care of things myself?

God helps those who help themselves. Luck favours the brave.

The more you do, the more  you tend to attract. Funny, that. I love when my actor client said she attracted a new agent. Well, did you by any chance talk and meet with agents lately? Oh yes, turns she has. And she’s been in a play. And she’s been networking. That’s pretty active for attraction. It’s not just looking at your visionboard.

Vision boards are a great tool to focus the mind. And they are pretty.

Attraction is a humble way of describing our success. It’s the neat idea of taking me out of the picture so that you don’t think about me as selfish and bad. So that you don’t get jealous. I really didn’t do it myself, I attracted it. I have no idea how it happened, it just did! Don’t think of me as strong, I was lucky. I attracted this, it was given, I was blessed. I am so sweet and humble and wonderful to be around. I am not boastful.

No wonder plenty of women love the law of attraction. Culturally, we come from powerlessness. The best that could happen to us was a good husband. And he was either attracted or not. There was nothing we could do about him liking us or in fact there was nothing we could do about our life than be a good wife and hope to be fruitful for him.

It’s not like that anymore, but some of it is still in our memory. Unconscious or not. So the idea to learn to attract even better is great! Finally! It almost feels like I can do something about my life!

And even better: without having to “do” anything. I just get good at attracting. It sounds so much easier.

Going out there to get things has a feeling of fighting for it. Because a lot of it used to be layed out that way. Nowadays we understand that cooperating and creating win-win situations works even better but that’s the new stuff…

Fighting and defending the fort are these “masculine” principles that do get tiring. No doubt. Attracting sounds so much more relaxing. Give it over to the Universe, let go of the ego. Sorted.

The “let go of the ego” part is where the wisdom sits.  Its true, we don’t need to “get stuff” and “fight for it” all the time. It’s not all about me, me, me. Gimme more! In fact growing beyond little me into serving the world, is a beautiful relief of a life stuck up our own ego.

Yet only when I put “me” back in that picture, it becomes complete

The law of attraction relys on the deep inner workings. If you haven’t got what you want in your life, you obviously did things wrong somewhere deep inside you. You really need to change your whole energy. Fast. Before you attract the next problem into your life.

I am not saying it’s wrong to want to attract or to see that you attract certain things. In fact, it can be really helpful to recognize what’s going on in your world by looking at it. I just think it’s not overly effective.

And it’s fast to miss the point. People start changing their energy to attract things they want. So I become more loving because I believe that will give me more love. I become more smiley and friendly in order to get more nice things. It’s missing the point. Life isn’t all about getting nice things. There is no freedom in changing myself in order to get. Freedom is where I choose.

Steve Chandler put it very bluntly: There is no Universe. There is no such thing as a department of Universe that decides weather you can have the man you want or the clients you want or the things you want or the life you want.

Ah, no sorry you weren’t meant to have this dream vacation, so I let it mess up.

There is noone sitting there keeping the books on what you ought to have and what you ought not.

But the law of attraction talks about energy and resonance. Yes, some things gel and others don’t. When I play a C on the piano and a Csharp at the same time, I can feel a dissonance. You hear it and you feel it. It’s not that pleasant. They just doesn’t go together. Even though they are both called C. But if I play a C and an E, they sound nice next to each other. We call this harmony.

Likewise you will find that some jobs really resonate and harmonize with your likes and others really don’t. If you put me in a data processing centre, I won’t be there for long. It just feels horrid to me. I am way too loud, I’ll sing the place down! I want people and freedom and words and free thinking.

You will find that some people do it for you and others don’t. I noticed that I have attracted wonderful men into my life. But have I? I’ve met so many! I have observed that men with highly destructive patterns, say for simplicity’s sake, men who love to drink, smoke, use drugs- they don’t hang around me much. I repell them. I don’t think that’s the law of attraction. It’s simply destruction-repellent. I am way to happy and independent for such men. They start feeling uncomfortable and insecure around me. So they go. Not even my incredible looks will keep them for long. And the same happens vice versa. I don’t stick around. Cute doesn’t keep my heart happy. We might very well be attracted in a physical sense. But the deep “oooh yes he’s great” goes quickly when I get to know a person and they are not a fit.

Let’s talk about attracting money. What do you do to attract money? Do you wave at the universe dressed in a short skirt?

Have you noticed that the rich people of this world actually worked for it? They got creative.

I doubt Oprah stuck a check written to herself on her refridgerator door. Richard Branson doesn’t need to think about attracting money; he is busy setting up companies.

Now you may have had experiences where money came in “out of the blue” just in time for something you really wanted it for. A course, a car, a dress, a holiday. I hear stories like that and they are fun. Basically we don’t really know how it worked that you got it in time. You really wanted it, your focus was on, you asked for it. You can call these instances attraction. They may feel like a passive act of grace. Maybe they even are.

I just think that making your life about trying to manipulate the universe to give you more is a waste of energy.

Lets talk about God for a minute- I like talking about God sometimes. He turns up in some spiritual/self-help stuff and is barred from others. By now he’s probably confused as to which parties he’s invited.

“And God created man in his image.” So man could walk around and attract shiny new things by thinking about them in the right fashion.

Weather you believe in God or not- the idea behind the story is the idea of creation. That our world was created. Not attracted. And God attracted the sea and the land. Then he attracted light and then animals. Just doesn’t sit right, does it? If we got anything from “God” it was the power to create.

We are conscious beings. We can think and reflect. We can give meaning to things, we can dream, we can make things up. We invent, we try new things, we create. We mess up up, we try again. We practice. We do that on purpose. We don’t have to accept all that is given to us, we can change things. We grow.

We have that amazing power.

That, to me is the secret.

There is more to a great life than upkeep says Evelyne Brink.

“I should maintain my level of fitness!” says my friend who wants to run a marathon. “ I need to work myself to confidence and maintain that level so I can really stand out in the interview” says a colleague.

Maintenance sounds like a reasonable idea but it comes with a big problem.

It presumes we can keep something running as it is. And for a static asset like railway tracks it sounds like a great idea. Maintaining them is part of preserving the original structure. If we don’t, the grass will grow over them and eventually the train goes off track.

So the myth goes that we can compare ourselves to a fixed structure and act accordingly. Well we can but is it really useful?

As a human whose nature it is to evolve and grow, why would I spend my energy to preserve an original structure? Being an organism that constantly rebuilds itself, doesn’t that go against every sense of logic and continuation?

So if I don’t maintain, I would. go “off the tracks”? But we are not a railway! There are no real tracks in life. At least not in front of us. We only leave them behind…

As children we have a strong sense of growing and changing all the time, which seems to fade as we are adults. Being in my thirties at present, I feel “not as much changes” as it used to.

But does that mean that we’re not constantly changing and growing? Not at all!

It is considered that 98% of the atoms in our body are replaced once a year.
– The skin renews itself once a month.

Let’s have a look at what happens when we believe we need to “maintain” ourselves.

Let’s look at the modern day phenomenon of women trying to maintain their youth- a healthy move?

Operations, injections, addictions to the idea of how a woman “should” look like. Fear of ageing.

Note the distinction between maintaining youth and taking care of yourself. There is a lot to be said for caring for your skin and body, which is also a part of our development. And the more we are able to deeply care, the better! It’s an expression of love.

Maintaining an image is the idea that there is a fixed way we want to be seen and we try to keep that up in the world. It takes a lot of work and energy to promote the idea of that image and in order to “keep that going” more energy is needed. Is it really worth it?

A) there is no such thing as a fixed image. It’s an idea but it’s not congruent with the flow of life.

b) The idea of ‘fixed’ is neither realistic nor does it flow.

Maintaining therefore seems like a limitation on our continuing growth. That certainly doesn’t sit well within optimal human development and creating an amazing life…

Where there could be flow, there is a restriction on growth giving into the idea that preserving the familiar is better than exploring what is.

Maintenance of our health falls into this trap of seeing “health” as a fixed state of balance. But it is not. There is no such a “thing” as “health”.  You can’t buy it; you can’t fill it up in bottles. Rather “health” describes the idea of the absence of pain and dis-ease. It describes our full functioning and wellbeing.

There is continuous flow in our body, blood and oxygen getting pumped around 24/7. Our body never stands still until we die. The system adapts to the level to which it is used. When we work out, there is muscle growth and stretched lung capacities, when we don’t move, muscle tissues die off.

The idea of maintenance, to keep running a system is in a way neat but in another confusing as it suggests there is a system to upkeep. When all you need is to “go with the flow” and “grow as you go”.  Expand and integrate the learning.

Especially when it comes to our future, relationships and development; a growth model cannot be emphasized enough to support us in cultivating healthy, flourishing lives.

By Evelyne Brink

• Do you ever experience feeling hazy and vague?
• Just not quite switched-on?
• Unproductive yet trying to keep busy?

Just like our globe has different states with their own governance, our mind also features different states. Each state has its purpose and ways of influencing your life.

To live more effectively, we want to get to know our inner landscape and create choice points. There is no choice in unconscious behaviour.

There is no point in telling ourselves how we should be (i.e productive, motivated, happy) when don’t understand what’s in the way of our natural flow.

Motivation, Productivity and Happiness are results or us being in flow and working optimally. But sometimes all that sounds easier than it is because we may be experiencing “The Haze”.

Can you remember a time when you just didn’t get much done, you kept thinking you should but it’s not happening.

When you’re in the Haze, you’re too tired, feel lazy, just don’t feel engaged in anything.

You are happy to be entertained but everything else feels like a real effort. It’s comfortable on the couch.

You keep thinking about what to do next but you’re not doing much. You meddle about. Do small things, keep busy. You may be trying to kick your own butt with “I really should be more active”, or “come on you can do better than this!”, Or “I can’t believe I haven’t got anything done. This really has to change”. Maybe an inspirational story would help. But it’s a little too much effort to act at this point. Bed sounds more appealing. Or coffee and then pushing on.

You may be fully awake in meetings and when called for but left to your own devices you sink back in the cloudy blues of non-specificity. If there was a woman’s magazine for it, it would be called “Vague”. It would feature plenty of absent minded beauties on stand-by mode.

When our inner dimmer is on and we only burn on half flame, we feel dis-engaged from life.

Thoughts and half finished thoughts weave in and out and in their multitude may perform a peculiar kind of mating dance at the front of your mind. Nothing comes to conclusion it’s just all going on.. and on..and on.

This is not the place of inspired creativity many of us long for. This is not the place of bold self-expression and courageous out-reach. This is not where we create results.

So most people would try to avoid the Haze. And ignore it as much as possible. Fight it, control it.

So most of us don’t recognize the benefits of the Haze.

Why would be enter this state of mind? What for?

I believe that everything we experience has a positive purpose. So what’s the purpose of the Haze?

Let’s first look at what the common trigger points are:

• -lack of sleep
• -busyness
• -events outside of your control that affect your life
• -overwhelm

The Haze enters my mind mostly when I’ve had a lot going on over a period of time and feel like I need to “catch up” with myself. A week of extensive networking and partying would easily trigger a slow hazy week to follow.

When events out of my control are about to affect my life (changes in tax rules, change of record label, house move) and I am not willing to be with the emotions this brings up, I go into hazy.

When I feel there is too much going on, overwhelm can trigger the Haze. Also when my daily routine or structure feels not only interrupted but neglected, the haze likes to set in and take over for the empty space.

What’s the purpose of the haze?

Here is what I found and see if that fits for you. If not, just find your own answers. The point is not what it is, it’s to understand that there is a well-meant purpose:

To find peace of mind. To reconnect to your inner world. To help you rest. Zone out to chill out.

Just like Jealousy at it’s core wants to communicate love, the Haze wants you to enjoy inner peace. It wants you to deeply relax and let go. It may be using a poor strategy but it’s got a noble cause.

Understanding that helps me forgiving myself for being in the Haze. And I relax. From this place, I can rest up and the energy returns. With deeper self-nurturing comes a higher energy, a stronger flame of livelihood.

And that in return breeds creativity, courage and results.

How important is Academia for Personal Development work?

Written by Evelyne Brink

Coaches sometimes have a stigma of being untrained people working from personal life experience telling others how to live their lives. On what ground do they think they can work with people? What makes them think their experience can really be useful for everyone else out there?

Positive Psychology is the science researching well-being. It was founded by Dr. Martin Seligman in 2000 conducting the first batch of experiments collecting data about happiness, wellbeing and what makes us flourish in life.

The field of traditional psychology is based on what isn’t working in the human behaviour and psyche, looks as dysfunction, traumas and how treat them. In simplistic terms how to get someone from minus 10 to 0. Positive Psychology is researching what makes us go to a plus 10.

As a coach, I work with what makes us go to plus infinite so getting direct access to and participating in the science behind what I do could be hugely beneficial to back up the validity of my work.

But why would I need to back up the validity?

I know it’s working because my client’s lives transform. Every session, the results speak for themselves.

It’s when I am seeing myself in a public context that my insecurities about not belonging to the “official” thought leaders (yet) creep up.

I have to be honest, I tend to respect authors, trainers and field leaders more when they also have academic accreditation. I suppose our cultural tradition seeks to measure up who’s for real and who isn’t. A University degree with all its challenges presents a unified way to evaluate how committed someone is, how much foundational work they have put into it, how “smart” they are in an academic sense of intelligence.

However it doesn’t measure interpersonal skills, emotional or spiritual intelligence.  All of which are potent for authentic leadership.

What really troubles me is to recognize that academic knowledge has little to do with the ability to implement ideas in our lives.

Professors, students, Title holders don’t necessarily live what they teach. They have invested their time understanding the concepts, to research and compile studies.

In Sonja Lyobomirski’s book “the how of happiness” she emphasizes the fact that her book is not a self-help book but based on scientific research which “holds multiple advantages over anecdotal or clinical observations….to disentangle cause and effect without biases or preconceptions”

This comment stirred my blood. Does that mean what I write about holds less value, is preconceived and biased? Possibly!

Though “value” is a very relative term and can only be determined by each reader’s needs. If you need a house, wouldn’t you value help to get one more than all the research in the world about what a house consists of? Sure, understanding the components is interesting and enriching but does it get you a house? Knowing all there is about a houses, becoming an expert at housing even, does that help you making the decisions based on your specific needs?

In fact research suggest that those looking for the best in everything, so called “maximisers” find it harder to experience happiness and satisfaction than “satisficers”- those who concentrate on eliciting their specific needs and choosing to satisfy them (not more, not less)

Many Psychologists, positive or traditional ones have displayed a lack of ability to live out what they say. And as Helen Keller is attributed to have said “ to know and not to do is not yet to know”

So “knowing” in the sense of understanding the facts and researching the objectivity as much as possible leads to more information but not to more wisdom. What are we really looking for?

Acknowledgment and respect for my work in the field for example. I would love to be known as someone who is “solid”, who really knows her stuff. Who is sound. Who is heard. I feel that accreditation would give me that status in society. It would establish my “deserved place” in society. I would be someone credible. Not just a “life coach”- a title I share with many middle-aged housewives and spiritual seekers, new age escapists. I also share this title with some amazing contributors to happiness and success.

Notice the judgment so easily placed on “housewives, new age escapists, and spiritual seekers”- pointing to the idea they may not be credible in what they have to offer. Who am I (are we) to judge?

The value my work provides is not really about ME and what I’ve done. It is really about my client at hand. It’s about his/her needs-

My business isn’t based on my valid or not so valid opinion but on the my clients shifts and empowerment. They become clear, more authentic, more courageous, happier, freer to express themselves and as a result much more successful.

I don’t achieve this with scientific information.

In fact, I often help clients to get out of their “head”, away from their strong need to analyze everything in the hope that “understanding” the details would lead to resolution. I work with the premise of Albert Einstein that “the solution of a problem can not be created with the same thinking that created it”

It’s not about who knows best. Personal development itself, learning happiness is growing our skills to enjoy, to be happy, to choose and such.

In my experience connecting to our innate wisdom leads us to more wellbeing than any study ever would.

Wisdom means taking us away from the stern “I know” and plunging deeply into the realms of “I really actually don’t know ”.

In other words it leads us back to research- i.e. finding out.

In conclusion:

Separating the intellectual skills from our ability to connect to our inner knowing is counterproductive to the initial quest of seeking wellbeing.

Providing wellbeing through experience can be powerful and benefits from the references and data, scientific research is able to provide.

Like 2 sides of a coin, science and personal practical experience blend together to provide an effective currency holding value.

March 2011

Welcome to this adventure update live from “the brink”.
A little warning:

this is a long and intense and very personal article.

You will never regret taking the 20mins it should take to read this and I certainly would love you to connect in that way.

Some of you already know the gist of it but here is the full story in Evelyne-style, and as you know I do like to share the story as well as the simple facts…

If you are just checking your emails quickly, you might want to just mark this and read it at another time. I love how some readers have said that the adventure updates have sucked them in…so I just want to be fair to you.

In this episode you will hear about Thomas and my real life ups and downs.

Feel free to send us a comment or email back. I love hearing from you.

One of the big reasons Thomas and I really wanted to go travelling last year was that the underlying wish of ours was to start a family together. I’ve been waiting for this moment a long time, having wished for children most of my adult life and counting the years to become mature enough and stable enough and financially secure enough and oh yes in a relationship enough to finally do so.

And there are lots of hurdles in the way these days until you realize that there is never a “right time” except when you declare the time to be right.

Anyway, we know that climbing the Andes mountains and hiking the rainforest wouldn’t be the most child friendly of holidays, so we wanted to get that done before focussing on a beloved troublemaker’s desires.

And looking back on our travel adventures I can confidently say we made the right choice! If you haven’t read about those and would like a dose of drama, fun and exotic images- you can catch up on the blog. www.evelynebrink.com/blog
(and go back a few articles until you find the travel stories)
So since our return, we found a flat, we found a room to reside in until we’d move into the flat and we got on with life.

And to our delight, my period was late in January. And one day Thomas lifted me up -as he does, which stretches my spine-I screamed in surprised pain. My boobs! Outch! 4 days overdue and hurting boobs…what could it be-OMG.
I couldn’t sleep all night. I knew my dream had come true.

I am 34 years old and have been longing for this moment for so long. And now- I could feel myself buzzing from the inside out. Something had happened and I knew it. The rational part of me thought to wait for the weekend before doing any tests. Let’s not get overexcited, shall we.

But by the afternoon I was bursting with curiosity. Thomas!! Get us a test!

I find it romantic if the man buys the test. And it relieves me of the question which one to buy. Do you buy a cheap pregnancy test? Does it work as well as an expensive one? Could I look my child in the eye later and say:I knew you were coming; I bought the cheapest test to confirm it…
Do I throw out money to buy a fancy test that confirms what I already know…
Thomas!! Buy me a test!

That’s the solution that takes care of it all. Thomas of course, the man of quality that he is, buys the most expensive test, no questions asked. That’s what a good man does. He makes sure he gets the “best”.

I know how you do a pregnancy test, I watch TV. It’s the longest 3 minute wait and then the answer and you’re supposed to go nuts. I didn’t expect it to come up in only 30seconds. Pregnant. OMG! I’m pregnant!

We are having a baby! Thomas was just as exited as me and seeing the joy in his eyes reflecting mine in my heart was just the most amazing moments. We just wouldn’t stop smiling at each other. Being sooo happy. Holding the test. There it is. Pegnant. We did it! So quickly! We wanted it. So badly! It’s happening. Wow!

That night I couldn’t sleep. I was so exited. Ecstatic. So happy. I am not alone lying here. There is someone new inside me. A little fertilized egg that is becoming a person. A new spirit had entered. I could feel a presence. Wow. Life is amazing. It’s happening inside of me right now! Everything is different!

And yes we told the most important people- my sister, who is pregnant herself (2 months ahead of me), my Mum, my Dad, Thomas’ family. It’s soo much fun sharing such good news because everyone is soo happy. My sister squeaked, My mum squealed , my Dad asked: isn’t anyone doing it just for fun anymore?

Thomas Mum’s voice got half a note higher in each sentence, that’s how we could tell how exited she was. Thomas’ Dad repeated “that’s such good news!” over and and over again- the cousin and aunty- everyone is happy and we were just blissed out. I was running around the house with the pregnancy test in my hand, taking pictures of it on my i-phone (see above) and noting the event down in my pregnancy tracker application. Yes, I have a pregnancy tracker application on my i-phone. I’ve had it for a month since we started “trying”.

I knew that the due date would be September 22^nd 2011. Just before my 35^th birthday (27^th). I hope it’s on time. I want my birthday to myself and the happy new birthday for the baby. Everyone should have their own special day.

One week later I went to the doctor, glowing and grinning and then waiting for the midwife appointments that happen in week 11. Gosh that’s ages away!

Although, because they count pregnancy from your last period I jumped from being 3 weeks to being 6 weeks pregnant in a day. That’s pretty cool.  I thought at that rate I’d be giving birth soon!

Apart from getting rejected am Yoga and Pilates studios, Osteopaths and what not, life is great. My cravings are for healthy food and berries. No bad symptoms, only big grins and a happy glow.

And from that day on, I took time out when I was tired instead of pushing through. I took time for walks and reaching out to friends. I started creating a much more high quality social life.

And I told people as and when I saw fit. I do think it’s way too good news not to share. Why are you not supposed to tell people? Because miscarriages can happen especially in the first 12 weeks. But they happen weather you told people about your pregnancy or not. So what’s the point of hiding the good news?

“Hey how are you what are you up to?”
“Ahh, good good, coaching, business as usual”

Usual=I got pregnant, life is changing, I’m sooo exited but I won’t share.

How silly is that. And how inauthentic. What’s the point of that?
Apparently so you don’t have to tell the bad news in case there are some. But that’s silly, too. How can you hide that kind of bad news?

“hey how are you, what have you been up to?”
“nothing”.  Nothing= got pregnant, changed my life and perspective, lost a baby, changed my life and perspective.

No way!

I highly recommend moving when pregnant. It was by far the easiest move ever. We moved house and I didn’t have to lift a finger. Plus I’m in such a nesting mode, I furnished the flat with ease and passion. There was nothing much I would have preferred to do than buying furniture for a new flat. It’s perfect. And Thomas was happy because there is little he would less rather do than buying furniture for a flat.

For him, the thing you need for a new flat is a new flat screen. So he got that and with that his duty was done. Needless to say he bought one 10inches bigger than agreed.
Men.

Even though I love to be open about my pregnancy, I didn’t publish it on Facebook.

Evelyne Brink is pregnant!!

Though some people started asking I preferred to answer privately. There is a distinction between being open and being public.
But boy sometimes I just wanted to shout it from the rooftop or as we do nowadays from the status update.

Evelyne Brink is pregnant!!!

It’s interesting how much you change so quickly. My business needs to be adapted to the situation. I thought I’d build a bigger online branch so that I don’t have to do the work actively when I got the baby but it turns out that building passive income is a whole lot more active than the marketing guys would tell you. Work your ass off for 2 years to grab a little revenue in 3- just doesn’t sell as much as “ Make $100,000 passive income without getting up from the couch!”
In fact that is the main problem, you are so busy on that stupid laptop of yours, you won’t make it off your stupid couch for 100,000 years. And after that you’re too old to.
So I am going to stick to what I love and do best. No big marketing campaigns. Just authentic transformation.

I don’t need passive income, I have active clients. And I can take a break and then pick up again. I’ll create something fun around the break for my clients so everybody wins.
Reinventing business, social life and social circles.
Who you hang out with and who will be willing to come to you…Soho nights and East London field trips will thin out as Clapham Cosiness sets in.
Life has become more intense, more fascinating. I watch more nature programs and lots of comedy- Michael McIntyre being at the forefront of  growing Belly laughs.

I chatted to the midwives before our appointment, and made sure the scan is arranged. I mean 12 weeks is soo long to wait anyway. Come on, let’s see it now. Week 8 the baby is as big as a blueberry. I call it blueberry. I love blueberries. I want to see blueberry with its heartbeat of 180 beats per minute. Blueberry is an active little beater. I’m in love with life.

I love my breasts are growing. Come on, knockers galore! Not long before I’ll get my tits out in public without hesitation. I’ve kept the jewels hidden for long enough in the name of honour- they are gorgeous and a bit of a shame to keep hidden. When I say hidden…there is a difference between being open and public…

I just can’t take women too seriously who unpack themselves in the name of freedom. I’m just not buying it. Freedom isn’t really getting a deal for a man’s magazine. Anyway not for me. But freedom is breastfeeding. And Freedom is feeling beautiful. Even with your clothes on. (PS: the photo is not of me…but nice set, ey?)

And this is how I’d like to write the story onwards:
Well, now I am sitting here with a beautiful baby in my arms, happy and content- we had a beautiful pregnancy and a quick and relatively easy birth. Life is wonderful, let’s make this public.

But that’s not how this story goes.

It’s Saturday, the 26^th, we’re off to a party soon although I’m really tired, at least I want to show up. And there is blood. Just a little. And I’ve read about it, that can happen. It’s normal. We’re fine. Strange though. I had nothing so far and I had pains all day. It’s the placenta growing.

Let’s go to the party. I’m not in the mood to talk. I’m tired and worried. I can’t eat the cheese platter because soft cheese is not recommended in pregnancy. I might as well have eaten a cheese platter. I get introduced to someone who asks me what I do. I work with creative people helping them be successful and happy. It can’t have been very convincing. Do you know the feeling  when your mouth says something and your mind is somewhere completely different?

And suddenly warm liquid is in my pants. I excuse myself and check in the bathroom. I’m bleeding.

We call NHS direct. But there is noone to talk to directly. It’s a machine for ages. The most direct thing we can do is to go home. A friend tries to enrol me in a conversation. I can’t concentrate. We make our excuses and leave. Nobody knows what we are thinking.
They think, Evelyne is a bit tired. She’s pregnant.

We are thinking: Evelyne is very worried. She may be loosing her baby!

The next day we spent 5 hours in hospital trying to find out that we’re just dramatizing. I mean of course we are, hello! We go through life and there are adventures and we deal with it and all is fine in the end.

Thomas nearly died in the Andes mountains, that was scary but he came through ok. We are blessed like that. The bloodtests and the waiting and the lying in a hospital with a capsule in my arm- all part of the fun. It will make a good story in the next newsletter. Geepers. But we are worried. And we have a little cry. Wouldn’t you?

I’m not the patient kind of girl. Last week I felt my breasts didn’t grow anymore. Or not fast enough at least and my tummy though I’ve started to round in the hips didn’t feel as alive, like something has wooshed out. I don’t know, I’m just making this up because when you think about being pregnant all the time- and to be fair it’s hard not to because I’m soo exited about it! But sometimes you make stuff up and worries want to creep into your mind. So I hear it and I let it go. That’s what I do. I did share it with Thomas. What we can’t change, we don’t give too much attention to because it doesn’t do much for us.

I did have a strange dream about having my period. But that’s also understandable given that I haven’t had one since December and I packed all my woman stuff away in the lowest drawer because- let’s face it- I won’t need it in the next 9 months!!

And period type pain is also normal because the placenta grows a lot. You can even bleed a bit when veins get affected. It’s called Spotting and it’s normal.

Because government prefers spending money on war than on welfare, there are no staff to operate scanners on weekends so we will not find out what’s going on. But rather than sending us home to watch a good movie and come back the next day they test and treat me and poke and monitor things all day. At night a doctor looks inside me which is painful and says “the cervix is closed so you’re probably fine But come back tomorrow and have a scan to confirm”. That’s what we needed to hear. We went home to snooze and pray.
The next morning we arrive not quite bright eyed and not that bushy tailed but very much on time for our appointment that turns out not to be a recognized appointment.

The Gynaecology ward next door cannot just book an appointment so how could we have an appointment?! Which of course makes no sense whatsoever unless you are working in the scanning reception. To them it all made sense. I just want to see my baby has a heart beat please.

This is the time I would say you can wet your pants and noone can blame you for it. It’s a scary weird place to be. It’s weird to sit in a room with 20 or so women, some with partners, most by themselves who all have some sort of female issue.

Are they all worried about loosing a baby? Or having one? The 14 year old with her mum- probably has one she doesn’t want.

The muslim girl on the phone to her boyfriend tells him how irresponsible he is and that she doesn’t want his lies. She’ll give him one more chance and that’s it she says. She says that for an hour.

So noone can blame me when I say I came back from the bathroom (I’m still bleeding a bit) and my pants are a bit wet. I don’t really need wet pants. And I know how to use a bathroom in general. I’ve done it before. I’ve wet my pants whilst using the bathroom. I feel a bit stupid and that’s a relief from the rest of my thoughts and feelings.

My tummy is tender when the nurse rolls the scanner over its surface. She says she’ll show us her screen because the monitor is broken. She never shows me the screen. She rolls. She rolls. She rolls.

“ I have bad news for you”.

This is not what we wanted to hear.
This is not how the story goes.
Does she know who she is speaking to?

This is Thomas and Evelyne, things are fine for us the end, that’s how the story goes, so we can be inspirational and brave to have gone through the fear and come out the other side. Surely, she is looking at the wrong womb. She keeps rolling over my sore tummy.

“ I can’t actually see a baby”.

She did see the yolk sack and the placenta and the tissue and everything. Just the baby had gone. Dissolved back into the tissue. No baby with no heartbeat. No more blueberry.
I cried and cried and cried as they wipe the jelly of me and guide us to a room we can keep crying. I had known it. I had picked it all up since it happened.

It was soo sad and underneath I could feel my intuition nurturing me. I wasn’t completely unprepared. Unlike Thomas. To him this came more as a shock. He hadn’t had the dreams and the sensation of being left and all the little clues I’d been getting. Wow. As much as I wanted to be wrong about my intuition, I felt a deep trust inside myself and with the sadness and tears came a feeling of depth.

I had no idea how common miscarriages are until now. One in 6 women miscarry and know about it. But there are a lot who don’t know they were pregnant in the first place so numbers are estimated to be much higher. 1 in 4, maybe more. And noone talks about this?!

Usually what happens is that they’ll take you in for an abortion type process. Full narcosis, 30mins procedure and you’re good to go and deal with your emotions.

They didn’t do that, they sent us home and said if the bleeding got heavier than a strong period and too clotty, then we could call back.
The worst was over so we went home, cuddled up and cried.

Before we did I used the bathroom and when I was done I found I peed my pants again.

Who needs a miscarriage and peeing their own underwear twice on the same day?

When I called my sister to break the sad news, she cried with me, when I told her about peeing my pants, she laughed with me-our emotions entangling and switching from tears to laughter to love- the intensity of feeling increases in these moment of suspended normality. She felt my pain and there she was in Germany and healthily pregnant, so far away, so contrasting and yet so closely connected.

Though updating my pregnancy tracker application may appear logical I am in no mood to do so. I am however not going to let my fish suffer. I have virtual fish, you see in my i-quarium.
It’s an iphone application.
Thomas calls it sad.
I like it, it’s relaxing and I like taking care of my fish. I feed my fish and every few days I get a new item to unlock such as a rock or a plant or a new background.

And as the God of i-fate has it, today is my lucky day. Congratulations! You have one new item to unlock. See, it pays off to feed your fish. So what do you think I got today? A rock? A new faun? A vase?

A baby fish- is what most guess. Yes indeed, that would be quite ironic. But the i-fate was not about to mock me like that. On this day of sadness and pain, it sent me for my i-quarium a skull.

Laughing is the best way to heal. This one was divine comedy to me. It’s just that touch too macabre, I got a good belly laugh off it. I hope you do too. I do believe that what we have over death is love and laughter. So let’s keep them alive.

Going home is strange. It’s London, it’s raining, we are 2 people walking hand in hand. We’re just 2 people in the street like everyone else. And yet our world has just fallen apart and the nice driver in the truck who let us cross the road would never know.

I looked at passing families. They look so effortlessly happy, they are just there with their kids. But what do I know which stories they’ve had to come through to be here walking past me today? What pains, what adventures, what joys have they experienced?

There is so much more to being alive than I’d ever realized. It suddenly seems a miracle we are even here. So much involved to get a human to even come to this planet, to survive, to grow up to multiply. It looks easy because we only see the successes….

We cried and talk to upset family. Families pull together in times like these. We’re all in this together. The density of my family network is palpable.

We’re in 3 different countries but all in the same small boat of our little family tragedy.

I’m ready to watch some comedy to take my mind into lighter pastures. I like Robert Downey Junior I think he’s hot. Thomas doesn’t mind I like him and suggests we watch his new movie. It’s meant to be funny. It’s an American road movie-sounds silly enough for us- by the title of Due Date. We didn’t get the clue.

It’s about a man trying to get home for his wife to have a baby. Ah yes. Due Date. It was in the title if you think about it. Tom suggests to watch another movie. I find this funny. It’s so wrong, it’s just right.

Next day we rest. I keep bleeding. It’s all part of it. Healing time. Grieving. Emotionally we go up and down. I feel like I’m getting over it. After all, it’s not like the baby was born or even fully formed. I hear of stories that put mine into perspective. I am consoled by the “normality” of it all-. Then next minute, I’ll cry for the loss of our blueberry baby.

In the evening I decide to book the holiday with my mum I’d been talking about. We said now we need it even more. Let’s hang out together in the sun. I’m online conferencing with Jessi and my mother when the cramps set in. Wooooh!

I excuse myself to retrieve to the bathroom. I hear later that my perplexed mother and sister are online still hearing my screams. After 1.5 hours it’s clear the bleeding and pain are more than what can be considered normal, the doctor is called, the ambulance picks me up soon after.

I’m on the gas, I’m loosing a lot of blood rapidly. Back to the ward, my body calms down after a healthy dose of drugs. They need to monitor me and to decide on the operation.

Nobody explained to me just how much tissue has to pass after a miscarriage.

Probably like most people I thought a miscarriage is an event. It happens, it’s sad and then we all get on with life. It’s not just an event. It’s a process…

It sounded like I was done when they told me to go home but it hadn’t even really started yet. The worst was yet to come! The next day was the most painful day of my life so far as I gave birth to the placenta (which in week 11 would have grown to the size of an orange) in 4 painful episodes that I will spare you from describing in detail.

Suffice it to say I had all the drugs the house had to offer. From Paracetamol to Hydrochlorine, to liquid Morphine to the bottle of (laughing) gas (which doesn’t make you laugh but you won’t mind..) topped by a good shot of Morhpine into my arm. That took my mind off the pain and onto a trip of pleasure and music. Thomas saw my abdomen cramping and asked me: Babe are you still in pain? My eyes closed and dozy I’d say” In theory yes. But I don’t care!”

We had a good practice run at giving birth except with no baby at the end. Yes that is really shit but also had it’s funny moments.
I learned a lot. For example how to open my bowels correctly. I found it so profound I photographed the instruction plate and insert it here for your education and personal growth. Only in Britain…

(In Peru we didn’t even have hand soap, here they show you how to wash you hands and teach you how to take a dump. I love England!)

Thomas was amazing and always at my side as I was screaming in labour pains for all the wrong reasons.

In a way I think there is something very healthy about this process as immensely painful as it was I felt proud to have done it on my own.

I could express my pain through my body- I do think this might help in processing the loss. To me this experience wasn’t just conceptual. It was physical, a deep transformative experience that has left Thomas and me feeling closer and deeper in love yet again with a renewed appreciation for the miracle of life.

The view from my room was exceptional. Big Ben’s bang consoled me every quarter of an hour and I cherished the amazing view. Yes it does help.
The staff in hospital was great except that they forgot about me for 2 or 3 hours when I was going through it all and lying covered in blood. Thanks to morphin, I didn’t mind at all.
I’m now back home, resting and recovering.

It’s now exactly 1 week since the bleeding began and I am looking forward to packing away the pads and the baby wipes.  Baby wipes… no comment.

Next week we’re going to have a ritual to mark this event. We will go into our new garden and plant blueberries.

with Love, light and appreciation for the life we have, I wish you a wonderful week. Feel free to leave a comment on the website blog or send me an email. Hearing from you means a lot to me.

Let’s make life the best we can,
Evelyne

–

Some songs I kept a little secret. Some…. a lot.

I have tons of music written that I haven’t shared with the world. There is probably many reasons.

this one here is called Lisa. It’s longer than a usual pop song and it is rather emotional -at least for me. I played it to a music producer once who said “yeah nice voice but not mainstream ”

This is a story song, not a sing-along pop ballad. It’s not a mainstream radio thing, it’s a very personal ballad.

“Lisa” is a therapeutic song for me because I wrote it when I was in therapy 2005 (I think) and I was going over my past and the deep sadness I was still carrying with me.

I had a wonderful therapist who never had me talk loads about my problems woeing myself more than I did anyway- but she allowed me a safe space in which I could explore what had led me to come to certain conclusions about life that no longer served me.

That in return enabled me to become much more flexible around my beliefs and kinder to myself because understanding “where i come from” did actually grow my compassion.

Anyway, one morning I woke up and wrote “Lisa”. It’s a song about growth.

It’s the story of Lisa and how she grows up experiencing deep pain that seems so  unnecessary-and yet still is created. It highlights how the silent blocks of unspoken needs and desires destroy perfectly wonderful relationships and how the patterns are passed on from one generation to the other..It woudln’t be satisfying for me to lay out the pain without taking things further- so in this song you’ll hear that the pain is really just a part of it all, an invitation for growth and healing.

I think Lisa is really part of everyone of us, regardless of our individual stories because she represents the innocent child that takes on and tries to make the best out of the given. The part that when guided through our love, intuition and wisdom can heal and blossom into a beautiful life force and joy.

So, here is, for the first time ever:

LISA

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

My friend, Power Up Coach Jayne Morris and me chatted about the difference of our work. We are both successful coaches but where she targets the “ busy, successful women” or in other words “stressed-out corporate types seeking change”, my client base consists of creative and talented people who are looking to create success and happiness in their lives (or in other words Artistic souls who are tired of the insane struggle-culture of their industry.

So she has the dominantly left brainers and I do right brains. Maybe the right brainers need more logical thinking and the left brainers some creative outbursts.

Isn’t it all about the balance?

Have you found that you swim between two extremes in your life (be it the 2 sides of your brains or something completely different) and wished you could just “balance it out”?

Have you found it to work? Cause I sure haven’t. I remember in acting school when they said I needed to find my middle, the balance, the still point. And I set the world in motion to do so.

I even came to explain my extremes (in mood, characteristics, opinion) by explaining that balance means I needed to know both ends of the scale intimately well. After all, how can you settle for a middle of something you don’t know? It makes no sense!

And therein lies the inherent problem with “balance”. Balance means to live in the middle, in a null-point between 2 opposing sides.

But therefore it reinforces the extremes. The idea is to stay away from the extremes that balance requires to exist.
To really find the peace we are looking for, the “balance point”, I suggest a transformative approach. Transformation incorporates the 2 opposites to form a higher truth.

We are looking for a truth that integrates both opponents into a meaningful whole.

And that to me is best described in the concept of dance.

Not only does dance have a pleasant and joyful connotation (Yes! Fun!-unless you think you suck at it in which case : get over it! It’s really fun when you allow yourself to move-Dancing the way I am talking about here is not about the look, the choreography and technique but about deep self-expression.

It allows you to go where the body moves you, which is where the spirit takes you which is where our heart breathes.

Dancing is not about avoiding any extremes but about enjoying all possibilities and the potential they hold.

So rather than seeking a work-life balance, why not go for a dance of work and play? Where we move meaningfully through our work bringing in the quality of joy and motion and on the other hand allow our life the room for work. Because Let’s face it, life requires some work…

What if rather than looking to balance out the 2 parts of our brains, which to be fair has always struck me as an odd concept given that especially our brain is highly interconnected, we would simply seek to play with different ideas, ways of thinking, ways of coming up with ideas, ways of executing ideas? If we were dancing with our brain. Doing a Brain-jive! The Grey Cell Tango.

So put on your dancing shoes, people, we got work to do.

Actors Making It
-In my unstoppable efforts to stop struggling from Artists or should I say Artists from struggeling, I am setting off on a mission and as the online marketing world would suggest- I have niched. almost sounds like a mixture of “hatched” and “nested”.

I’m not just nesting in my private life, I am niching- which to me is basically online nesting. It means making one nest to put your eggs in. Being the Variety Diva that has been really challenging for me to choose which basket to lay into…until I got that yes I can have it all- especially if I take things one at a time. So I am going to start my online work targeting actors. And later will work my way through other creative fields. for personal coaching, my field is still Creative souls. So you don’t have to be an actor to benefit from the fun going on here but if you know one, would you kindly pass this on?