Trauma calls for attention and attunement
Trauma does not ask for quick solutions, but for attention, slowing down, and careful attunement between body, nervous system, and awareness.
When you find yourself stuck on a psychological, emotional, or physical level, and notice that thinking alone no longer helps. When emotions have a strong impact, yet the connection with yourself has been disrupted by profound or long-term traumatic experiences. When you long for guidance that does not reduce you to symptoms or diagnoses, but meets you as a whole human being. And when you sense that within you there is a self-healing capacity that seeks to be reawakened through safety, attunement, and trauma-sensitive work.
Guidance and deepening through the Heart & Brain healing process
As the author of Wisdom of Trauma and the developer of the Heart & Brain healing process, I connect psychological knowledge with embodied experience, neuroscientific research, and relational depth—grounded, with clear attention to what is truly present.
My approach is intended both for people seeking guidance and for professionals who wish to deepen their work. Through the Heart & Brain healing process, I work directly with clients. Within the New Mind Institute, I offer training programmes for professionals who want to learn how to apply the Heart & Brain healing process in their work with clients: trauma-sensitive, careful, and human-centred.
Restore connection and reclaim agency
Trauma is een wond. Een onderbreking van verbinding, met jezelf, met je lichaam en met het leven. Ook in mijn eigen leven speelden verlies, chronische stress en diepe emotionele wonden een grote rol. Ik weet van binnenuit hoe ontwrichtend dat kan zijn, en hoe het lichaam uiteindelijk de rekening presenteert wanneer overleven te lang nodig is.
Mijn weg bracht mij niet naar snelle oplossingen, maar naar een dieper begrijpen van heling. Via psychologie en neurowetenschap, lichaamsbewustzijn en zelfregulatie, meditatie en innerlijke afstemming leerde ik hoe het zelfhelend vermogen opnieuw aangesproken kan worden, stap voor stap, met veiligheid en compassie.
Die ervaring vormt de basis van mijn werk. Ik begeleid mensen in het herstellen van regie, het opnieuw leren voelen en reguleren, en het helen van de wond en de symptomen die trauma achterlaten. Niet door iets te forceren, maar door ruimte te maken voor wat gezien en geïntegreerd wil worden, zodat het leven van binnenuit weer vorm kan krijgen.
Download the ‘Heart & Brain 30-day meditation journal’ for free
To make sustainable change possible, it is essential to gain insight into the cycle of thinking and feeling that keeps trauma in place. Conditioned thoughts, emotions, and bodily responses reinforce one another, holding the nervous system captive in old patterns. By consciously working with intention and meditation, space is created to interrupt this cycle and allow new experiences to emerge.
In this way, emotional and physical blockages can gradually soften, giving rise to greater self-regulation and inner freedom. The 30-day meditation journal supports this process through daily reflection and practice, helping ensure that healing does not remain temporary, but can deepen and become integrated into everyday life.
What step can you take now?
The Heart & Brain healing process is a practical and careful approach to trauma recovery, working with self-regulation, body awareness, breathwork, meaning-making, and the restoration of inner coherence. There are various ways to become acquainted with this work and to deepen into it, depending on where you are at this moment.
In my book Wisdom of Trauma, I describe how trauma functions as a wound, how the cycle of thinking and feeling can obstruct recovery, and what is needed to reawaken the self-healing capacity. The exercises in the book, along with the meditations and the meditation journal, offer a direct and accessible way to work with this yourself, in a safe and supportive manner.
In workshops and retreats, the Heart & Brain healing process is explored more deeply, both individually and in group settings. Central to this work is the regulation of the nervous system, together with practices of attention, attunement, and embodied experience. In some retreats, within the legal framework in the Netherlands, work is done with psilocybin-containing truffles. This is approached with great care, including clear preparation and integration, and in collaboration with a psychiatrist and an experienced professional team. Within this context, working with truffles is legal in the Netherlands and is increasingly being researched as a supportive approach to trauma processing, when applied safely and responsibly.
In addition to group work, individual guidance is also possible, although waiting times for this are longer. For professionals who wish to be trained in applying the Heart & Brain healing process in their work with clients, the New Mind Institute offers educational programmes that integrate theory, experiential learning, and clinical care.
Begin with meditation as support for recovery
The guided meditations are designed to calm the nervous system, gently turn attention inward, and restore the connection with body and feeling. They support the interruption of the thinking–feeling cycle and help cultivate greater self-regulation and inner stability. There are meditations for different moments of the day, attuned to what you need.
When you purchase the meditation bundle, you receive five meditations for the price of four.
