Sarah

Living in the Netherlands as a British-immigrant, I have enjoyed all the delights and nuances that North-Holland has to offer and more. I have adapted well to Dutch culture and have embraced as much as I can. However, the expat lifestyle is one that is unstable and transient and when one is not firing on all cylinders, it can be unsettling and exhausting.

My lovely Dutch Bubble came crashing down in October 2018. My husband, of whom we followed to the Netherlands to be together more, was travelling more and more. We had recently bought and moved in to a beautiful old town house and I was starting to look to go back to work, after a year’s hiatus adjusting us and our children to our new world. My doctor, took bloods and discovered my thyroid was not performing as it should be and suggested this was due to stress and that her best advice was to refer me to a Psychologist. She believed me to be depressed and suggested this was due to being a “buitenlander”. Simultaneously, issues from my childhood were arising after many years of nothing. In a nutshell, I couldn’t cope much with life any more and felt mentally and physically fatigued.

I chatted with Anja, I disbelieved I was depressed and I didn’t feel stressed or sad. I was just struggling to move forward and was locked in a form of grief. Anja, was the first professional I have met that suggested we work on the roots of potential traumas in my life in a bid to heal and remove the chaos and noise that was affecting my day-to-day output and relationships. That by going back to these roots, we could heal me and get me back to my self. She didn’t write me a prescription for pharmaceutical pills and tell me to be on my way, or label me in a category of depression or expat-spouse boredom. She understands the human disposition, as a whole being and not a list of symptoms.

We began communication work in January 2019 and she coached me alongside this work to adopt more self-care and allow myself time to disconnect from stressors. We had sessions for approximately 3.5 months and although digging out experiences was initially very hard. Each week, I could feel my strength and emotional and mental clarity return.

I believe her work to be priceless and absolutely pivotal in adult mental and physical well-being. I feel like I have been on a personal journey of discovery and self-healing and now feel empowered to support and help other people using the tools she has given me. There will be times in my life that I need to go back to Anja, to help work through things that are too big for me alone. But right now, the work we have done has been golden.

I now have Anja work with my children once a week on their big emotions. Growing up as an immigrant in a foreign country is a wonderful experience, but it is not without its struggles at times for children. She has great insight and understanding of these wonderful little adults in the making.

I would highly recommend Anja for her Coaching Services to anyone that I meet that may be struggling with past or present issues and traumas of all levels.

Expat Wife (38 Years), Haarlem