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I love imperfect people. The ones that admit to themselves or sometimes me how imperfect they feel, sometimes all the time. I like how they are able to objectively look at certain aspects of life and admit that there is room for growth. It's not the striving for perfection that I like (because none of us will ever reach it), but it's the way they always keep trying, keep reaching, keep improving and keep believing. They don't take advice but instead follow that inner drive that keeps pushing them forward. And even if they fail, stumble or fall, they just seem to have this habit of brushing it off and casually keep going. We might not really notice or witness (most of) it, but the truth is that many of us are currently on this road. Falling and failing, but also learning and growing. Relentlessly being dedicated to improving themselves. If this is you, know that you are loved and not alone and accepted not despite, but because of your imperfections ❤ No one is you, and I think that's what makes you perfect. Love, Zoë van Mourik | Equine Trauma & Behavior Specialist www.zoevanmourik.com & www.houseofhorsemanship.nl 
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Being Higly Sensitive: The feeling of belonging Growing up a sensitive child has never been easy for me. I was told to “grow up faster” and “be tougher” by -mostly- my parents, every day for as long as I can remember. My authentic self was being bound and beaten into submission, because they expected me to fulfill my role within the family, community, even the world as they saw fit. I myself however was never interested in any role; I did not want to pretend to be someone else. In an environment where authenticity and sensitivity wasn’t celebrated but feared, my Inner Child was crumbling. I went through various stages of falling apart, very often I was physically ill, with doctors labeling me with all kinds of differents diagnosis which never turned out to be correct. I felt like I was going crazier by the year and as a result, my Inner Child did not want to show herself any longer. So she withdrew. She did not speak, but played by herself with sand and dirt, fell into ponds filled with frogs and chased butterflies through the fields of cows and horses. If she fell, the soft grass would catch her. When she tumbled down a steep hill -either on purpose or by accident- a soft brush or a warm body of water would always be waiting to welcome the wild, lost child. Nature did not critize the girl. She welcomed her with arms wide open, recognizing her presence and belonging on Earth. I’ve always felt connected to Nature, to the bees and birds and colors and shapes and sounds. They provided me with much more peace and wisdom than any human being, often during very difficult and lonely times. Although my connection with Nature is -and always will be- very strong, my sense of belonging has been growing. It feels like it’s gravitating towards something bigger, like my mind and body are deeply rooted in the same essence as all other living beings here on Earth. But my Soul, my Soul belongs to the Universe. The place that exists outside of time and maybe -possibly- even beyond comprehension. I find comfort in that. Even if we can’t seem to -completely- find our place in this World, I have to believe and have faith in that the Universe will ultimately help us create and provide something better. It is with deep understanding that we realise we are all the same, coming from the same place and going places for the same or understandable reasons. Living in peace on Planet Earth is a group effort, so it’s important to surround yourself with people that hold the same beliefs, standards and values as you yourself do. The more you come to practice and realise this, the bigger sense of belonging (through self-acceptance) you will receive. Earth has become deeply dependent on the goodness of the few, and she has suffered by the hands of humans since the day we were given consciousness. To think that one nation, or one country alone can change the world and it’s people is just morally wrong. Earth is a group project and Mother Nature needs her children -all of them- to work together. The sensitive and the less sensitive, the animals and humans, thinkers and doers, smart and intelligent. We can all contribute in different but helpful ways. The natural order is not to be disrupted. Find your rightful and authentic place and humbly take pride in how far you’ve come. Staying true to yourself and acknowledging you are not better than anyone else will enhance your feelings of gratitude and humility; a perfect anchor for the Highly Sensitive Person.  Love, Zoë van Mourik | Equine Trauma & Behavior Specialist www.zoevanmourik.com & www.houseofhorsemanship.nl It amazes me how something that is so fundamentally good and healing for us, has been perceived as something truly bad and terrible by many -different- people. It’s true that to our previous generation, therapy wasn’t as easily accessible as it is today, but even now there is this stigma about going to therapy or even talking about it. How dare we talk about how we truly feel? How dare we open ourselves up to another person? How dare we feel our feelings? My question is “How can you ask yourself these questions and still be surprised by how shitty you feel or crappy your life is when you’re an adult and can’t figure out how to get your life together? Do you always feel the need to be busy? Do you smoke? Do you drink more often than you should? Do you (think about) self-harm? Do you purposefully avoid certain people or situations because they make you feel like sh*t? Do you have all kinds of physical ailments that no doctor can find an explanation for? Do you catch yourself endlessly scrolling through social media without a true purpose? Do you find it difficult to find or maintain authentic friendships? Go to therapy. We tend to believe that we only need therapy when something bad has happened. When we’re in the middle of trauma, like grief, and don’t know how to cope and build our lives around that. But it’s not about “going back to normal”, or learning how to move on, but affectively learning how to deal with the Right Here, Right Now. And yes that’s a heartwrenching thing to do, another thing that makes therapy (seem) so scary. If it were easy, everyone would do it, right? But feeling our feelings and expressing and communicating them in a healthy way is -luckily!- something that tends to come natural to us. As babies we of course know only one way of communicating, which is crying. Crying when we’re hungry, or sleepy, or need a diaper change or a comforting hug and loving words spoken to us. Unfortunately a lot of us never had those needs properly met when we were babies ourselves. Parents that implement the CIO (Crying It Out) method are the perfect example, by letting their children cry themselves to sleep at night to try and reduce their cries for help. We might not be able to consciously remember those events (if you went through this trauma) but our ‘being’ remembers. Something inside of us remembers how it felt to be helpless, powerless, and to not be heard, seen or understood. So as adults, lots of things can happen as a result of this. We can become very loud and expressive to make sure we are always seen and heard. We can become healers to try and make sure others don’t have to feel this way. Or by then we’ve started to believe that we have no voice, so we live an obliterated and sheltered life. Too scared of again having to come to the realization that no matter how hard you try, no one will ever hear you. These are just examples of the daily struggles many of us actually go through, today. For a lot of days. And maybe you do too. But we’ve somehow forgot that that’s what we are doing when we are not making conscious and healthy decisions everyday. We permit and tolerate a lot of stuff we are not supposed to. I believe that emotions and communicating them are two important elements of our Earthly Experience. It’s like when in every story, movie or book when someone is granted a wish or Godlike powers, the common catch is that the one thing we cannot force or manipulate, is Love. Love carries the highest vibration and allows us to expand, learn and grow to make Life a unique and personal experience. It is the one thing we can’t cheat our way through and therefore carries lots of lifelessons, as long as we stay brave enough to give and receive love. And all of that starts with – as usual- ourselves. Self-Love, Self Compassion, Self-Reflection, Self-Care. You can’t pour from an empty cup. So even if you’re convinced that there is no trauma in your life, no matter how small, or you can’t think of any areas in your life where you might need improvement: Go to therapy anyway. There’s always something new to learn about yourself, or your surroundings. To be able to glimpse at your life through someone else’s glasses and be surprised by what you see. It literally can only do you good, so why not try it? Why not become your best self, whatever that might look like? Why not learn something about yourself today, that your future self will be grateful for? Therapy is not the end; it is the beginning. Love, Zoë van Mourik | Equine Trauma & Behavior Specialist www.zoevanmourik.com & www.houseofhorsemanship.nl  P.S. Don't forgot to treat yourself after every session or important steps! |
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