My Journey from OCD to Personal Power

Welcome!

I am Lisa – multi-passionate empath, Scorpio sun, Pisces moon, Virgo ascendant, ecstatic dancer, yogini, moon lover, old soul, seeker of wisdom and truth… and I am – like you – here to embody my deepest truth as much as I can, to use my unique gifts to express what wants to be expressed through me and to encourage you to do the same.

If you bring forth, what is within you, it will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you.
Gospel of Thomas

But how do you do that? How do you find out what your deepest truth is, your desires and passions, what you really want from life (underneath all the ideas of what you should want) and then give it expression? Well, today I’d say, start by holding space for yourself and listen deep within. But up until my early 30s I didn’t have any idea about all of this.

Looking at it from the outside I suppose life in my late 20s looked like I had it all – I had already travelled around half the world, worked for a company with a family-like atmosphere, had a great circle of supportive friends, were soon to be married to my beloved, pursuing my interests of books and yoga. But on the inside things looked dramatically different.

Although I had freedom (of choice) on the outside, it didn’t feel that way to me. I had so many, often contradictory, rules inside of me (of what to do/eat/say/be – or not), made up of snippets of information I had gathered over the years as well as internalised reprimands and (limiting) beliefs I had heard spoken over and over again, that it was hard for me to make decisions that didn’t go against one or more of those rules (and would leave me feeling bad for breaking them).

I had lost all connection to Spirit or the Divine, as this “stuff” had been deemed esoteric and woo-woo, and with it went the connection to and trust in myself, my intuition, my unique gifts. There were moments I recognised it, like when I danced as if nobody could see me or sang or painted, but I didn’t know how to tap into this connection when I needed it.

I was desperately trying to show everyone how I had it all together, how I could take on all those responsibilities and how I had a clue of how to live my life “right” – while I had none at all (and I believe few of us have, we are mostly just trying to do our best).

I hid my true feelings of confusion, overwhelm, frustration and fear, because I had learned they weren’t welcome and I didn’t feel safe with them. I often felt either “too much” (too loud, too sensitive, too intense, too trusting) or “not enough” (not productive enough, not responsible enough, not nice enough (“Be nice!”), not compliant enough (“What shall others think?”) and definitely not good enough), but didn’t know what to do about it. And I didn’t know I was an empath, bound to feel other people’s feelings, too, making it extra hard for me to discern theirs from my own. So with no clue of how to express any of this and to regulate my system, I simply disconnected from my body and preferred to not feel so much. My body became just a “thing” I had no control over.

I tried to “read” other people, to guess what they expected of me, how they wanted me to be and behave in order to be deemed “okay” and welcome. So without realising it, I handed my power over to them, believing I had to look somewhere outside for the authority on what is “right” or “wrong” for me and, again, felt out of control.

Out of that powerlessness, in a desperate attempt to feel at least some measure of control over my life, I developed an obsession with eating healthily and doing lots of (supposedly healthy) sports, ending in anorexic behaviour, as well as different compulsions around cleanliness and how things had to be done in the household or in life in general. I felt such a freak, so unworthy and unlovable, so afraid of all the horrors of my true being that I literally tried to outrun them (with sports), becoming less and less of myself in body, mind and spirit.

I experienced first-hand what it means to feel depressed, burned out, to feel like a prisoner in your own life, powerless, always hiding the person you know, deep down, you actually and truly are.

And then one day this question popped into my head: “Is this it?” Did I really want to spend the rest of my life living like this until I died? Another 40-50 years at this pace, in this endless litany of duties and tasks and responsibilities, a downward spiral without fulfillment and joy? Would that be a life well spend and worth living? The answer was a definite No!

And when I looked at my life like that, I realised that there was something profound missing from it: ME!

If our minds are crowded with words and thoughts,
there is no space for us!
Thich Nhat Hanh

It was time to finally reconnect with my deepest self again – after decades of trying to be someone else and failing at that, because I can only ever be good at being myself! Time to find out what makes me happy, what lights me up, what nourishes and inspires me and gives my life meaning –  and taking that as the North Star for positive change.

So for the first time in my life I ventured out into the unknown territories within. Being a Scorpio, I did what a Scorpio likes doing: dig deep! Looking at all the ugly truths within (that weren’t so ugly after all, but more a case for deep compassion), peeling away the layers I had taken on over the years, shedding my old skin and slowly learning to embrace and integrate all of me.

I found a wonderful therapist who helped me slowly begin to accept myself and clear out a lot of the clutter in my mind that actually belonged to other people. I stayed in a psychotherapeutic clinic for three months where I got deeply in touch with my emotions again, not numbing myself by starving, straining my body or following my obsessive-compulsive rules, but feeling what came up and letting it flow through (and girl, these feelings were intense!). I did a yoga teacher training combining yogic philosophy, meditation and Buddhist psychology where I experienced that all answers are found within myself and how healing the power of sisterhood is. I participated in classes and circles of different spiritual traditions where I learned to create the conditions for healing to happen. I began following the moon, the ebb and flow of her light and energy as well as that of my body, connecting to my body and her rhythms on a deeper level. And I ultimately found back to the Goddess, the Great Mother-Father, Universe, Source, whatever you call this loving presence that is all around us and within us, and to my own spirituality, infusing my daily life with ritual, ceremony and sacredness and trying my best to keep the connection to myself not only in those quiet moments of meditation or nature walks, but also in the hustle and bustle of everyday life (a practise that will continue for as long as I live).

And as I slowly rediscovered what felt right to me, I finally started following my passions in my professional life, too. The stay in the clinic had shown me how deeply I enjoy working with people, helping them go deep and access their inner knowing and being of service to their higher selves. Cheesy as it sounds, deciding to start training in soul-based coaching was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life! :-)

The teachings and techniques of soul-based coaching I was blessed to receive, helped me take all I had learned so far on my journey one step further and deeply integrate and embed it into my life.

Problems cannot be solved with the same mind-set
that created them.
Albert Einstein

Soul-based coaching helped me deeply reconnect with and trust my intuition, my inner authority, my soul wisdom. Its healing powers lie in being acknowledged as I am, not having to hide, but being completely free to express all that is within without fear of judgment, rejection or ridicule.

Soul-based coaching also taught me how to navigate and trust the unknown, the not-knowing that we are often afraid of, and how to relax into it. I stopped struggling against the current of my life all the time, instead I am learning to flow with it, to trust it’s taking me wherever I need to be for the next step in my evolution.

Last, but most important, I learned the skill of being with what is, in the present moment, experiencing my feelings, also the less welcome, and expressing them in a safe way, letting them flow through instead of creating a story around them, so their energy doesn’t get stuck anymore.

And as much as this sounds like a “happy ever after”, I can reassure you this is not the case ;-)! Just as life is a perpetual flow of ups and downs, my own journey isn’t straight either. I still have many moments when I fall back into old patterns, when I just want to hide under my blanket all day not feeling able to face the world, when I cry out all the pain that’s inside of me, when my emotions take over and I don’t speak or behave as clear-headed and thoughtful as I’d like or when I feel like a fraud, a silly little girl playing coach to help people embody their desired changes, yet not having her own life under control (which is an illusion anyway). But I’m also more of myself than I’ve ever been, fully human in all its messiness and fully divine, becoming, healing, listening to what comes from within and expressing it – in the form of writing, speaking, singing, dancing, drawing.

And I want you to experience that as well, the freedom and relief of becoming and being fully yourself.

Currently, you may feel that something in your life is off, that you have lost touch with who you are or are overwhelmed by the fast paced, productivity-driven nature of society that keeps you rushing and struggling through your life day after day.

But I am here to remind you that the radiant light of the Divine is shining within you, too. You deserve to feel happy, fulfilled and in touch with your creative feminine flow. And if you would like some support on your journey to align with your deepest truth, you can fin out more HERE or schedule a free exploration session with me.