Whole Body Coaching | A Mind-Body solution to Stress & Burnout

Why I Now Teach Only IFS-Informed Yoga, Breathwork, and Coaching

Mon, 18 May 2026 06:42:58 -0700

Why I Now Teach Only IFS-Informed Yoga, Breathwork, and Coaching

About a year ago, when I was just starting my Internal Family Systems (IFS) training, I went into the mountains in Chamonix with my partner and our then two-year-old daughter. We had hiked up to a mountain hut somewhere around 2,500 meters altitude and had just arrived when I noticed a woman lying on the floor near the bathrooms.

A small group of people had gathered around her. They were speaking loudly, giving instructions, clearly trying to help, but the situation felt chaotic and dysregulated. There was also a hiking guide present, though it didn’t seem like anyone really had control over what was happening.

At that point in my life, my main area of expertise was breathwork. I had spent years studying the science of breathing and had written a long audio course on the science and practice of breathwork. I taught large breathwork classes online and offline, worked extensively with stress physiology, and knew what hyperventilation looked like almost immediately. So I stepped in.

I asked if it was okay if I helped, sat down in front of her, held her hands, looked her in the eyes, and started slowing down my own breathing so she could co-regulate with me.

“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Inge. I’m going to breathe with you. You’re safe. Stay with me.”

And slowly, her breathing started regulating. Her heart rate came down. Her body softened.

But then something interesting happened. Every single time her physiology started calming down, a voice would suddenly take over again:

“But my asthma…”

“It’s my blood pressure…”

“If it gets too high it’s...Read More

Can Gratitude Signal Safety?

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 03:09:28 -0700

I have been grappling with gratitude for a while. Last month I wrote a blog about it. Only to realise, shortly afterwards, that I probably wasn’t seeing the whole picture (yet). Because while I was practicing gratitude myself, internally reflecting on what I appreciate and what is going well, I was overlooking something fairly obvious: like any human being, I also need gratitude from the system around me.

At first glance, this almost feels like committing a small philosophical heresy. In many yoga and Buddhist traditions, the ideal practitioner acts for the sake of the action itself, not for the fruits of reward. A true yogi expresses gratitude but remains unattached to whether it is reciprocated, because the practice lies in the act of doing good itself, not in the response it receives.

And in many ways, that idea makes total sense. It is probably wise not to make your inner state completely dependent on other people’s approval. To focus on what you can control - your own behaviour and intentions - and let go of what you cannot control: other people’s behaviour and responses. But the more I looked into it, the more I realised that this idea is actually more nuanced, or at least, incomplete. Because neither yoga philosophy nor Buddhist ethics is purely individualistic.

Both traditions repeatedly emphasize the importance of kindness, reciprocity, and appreciation within relationships. In early Buddhist teachings, recognizing and repaying kindness is considered a rare and valuable human quality. And in yoga philosophy, practices like ahimsa (non-harming) and santosha (contentment) are not merely inward states but ways of relating to the world with care, humility, and appreciation. In other words, these traditions do not ignore the relational dimension of gratitude. They recognize that human life is deeply interdependent.

Psychological science points in the same direction. Humans are deeply wired to care about the appreciation of others,...Read More

The Happiness Gap: Why Getting What You Want Won't Fix Your Stress

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 13:00:00 -0800

Why Uncertainty Triggers Stress and Anxiety

We, as humans, have an issue with uncertainty. Our brain is a prediction machine: it constantly tries to predict the future. Paradoxically, in the Western world, our lives have become so safe and predictable that we have become even less tolerant of uncertainty, because even the tiniest short-term risks are relentlessly eliminated, and we expect our lives to go completely according to plan.

We live under the illusion that we have much more control over our lives than we actually have. This illusion of control is a huge anxiety and stress trigger, because while we think we should be able to control everything, we obsess over the tiniest imperfections. We feel that if we aren’t exceptionally successful, we have somehow failed at life. After all, if everything is in our control and we fail, it must be our fault, right?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because I live a life of uncertainty much more than most people do. In doing so, I am constantly confronted with the stress that comes from not knowing what the future will look like in terms of work. And because I deal with a fair level of uncertainty on a daily basis, it feels worthwhile to share the practices that I personally find most useful in dealing with that feeling.

Living With Uncertainty as a Self-Employed Parent

The past few years have been intense in a particular way. I’m a mom, I work for myself, and my work lives at the intersection of yoga, coaching, IFS therapy, and online content creation, which means things are always shifting. Yoga is out, Pilates is in, coaching depends on economic changes, platforms change their rules and algorithms, and there is a constant sense of needing to adapt, stay visible, and think ahead.

Freelance life never really settles. Uncertainty is at the heart of it. Income goes up and down,...Read More

Removing Stressors: Why Burnout Recovery Starts with Reducing Load

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 05:12:23 -0800

January is always that month of promise. Motivation surges, goals multiply, and before we know it, we’ve loaded our to-do list with new habits, ambitions, responsibilities, and dreams. And then, almost predictably, by the end of the month many of those resolutions don’t stick, feeding the mental loop of why can’t I ever keep this up?

There is nothing wrong with a little inspiration and motivation, but the problem with being over inspired and over motivated, is that we overreach our bodies capacity to actually stick to our goals. And as a results, we learn not to trust ourselves. We set the same goals every year, only to feed back into the loop of: I just can't stick to my goals.

So for several years now, I’ve been proposing a different January frame. Instead of asking what we want to add, I first ask what we want to remove. How can we do less, on purpose, to create space for the one or two things that truly matter?

This month’s blog is about exactly that: removing unnecessary stressors, responsibilities, and inputs. It’s deeply personal to me too. Every January, especially working in the health space, I’m bombarded with new tools, new methods, new trainings I’m supposedly still missing. And my challenge is always the same: not getting pulled by novelty or social media into doing more, but staying grounded in what I already know and practice. Yoga, breathwork, Internal Family Systems, behavioral design. Trusting that integration is more valuable than accumulation. So this January, I’m choosing fewer goals, clearer priorities, and more space. And I’m inviting you to do the same.

Removing Stressors: Why Doing Less Is Often the Missing Step

One of the most important distinctions I keep coming back to when I talk about burnout and chronic stress is the difference between stress and stressors.

Stress is...Read More

When Setting Boundaries Leads to Rejection

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 23:30:10 -0800

Today's blog is about forced transitions, that will inevitably happen when you start listening to your body, speak your mind, set healthy boundaries, and live a more authentic life that is true to your own values. Apart from the setbacks, the exhaustion, and the anxiety, one of the great benefits of going through burnout, is that it is an opportunity to redesign your life, to live it more fully and embrace yourself wholeheartedly. Transforming into a version of you that is much closer to who you really are or aspire to be. Transformations like that, will always affect your social environment. Dealing with that: how your social environment responds to the new you, is what this story is about.

In all honesty, I have always been that one person in the group who would speak up even others didn’t. But one of the bigger changes after my burnout, and moving into motherhood, was learning to set boundaries that actually protect me. I became less flexible in the places where I used to overgive because I wanted to be perfect, and more open about what I feel, what I need, and what I can’t carry. Those changes have kept me healthier and more grounded than I’ve ever been, but they’ve also brought more friction with people who expect flexibility and adaptation to their style of leadership. Motherhood on top of that added the last layer. As my good friend Dr. Renske van Geffen once said to me: "Being a mom makes you incapable of tolerating bullshit", and that really is the case.

Today’s blog is a rewritten version of a talk I gave to my yoga community in the past few weeks, as I was teaching my last classes there. About a month ago, the studio owners told me that they did not want to work with me any longer because they felt I was "too difficult". Where other people would flexibly say yes and adjust to their requests, I would set boundaries and ask them to take into consideration how their...Read More

Internal Family Systems (IFS): A Whole-Body Approach to Stress & Healing

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 07:01:49 -0800

Introduction: A Training That Feels Like Coming Home

I just finished six days of intensive IFS training here in the Netherlands, with about 300 hours still ahead of me. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy is a form of therapy that treats the human psyche as a system of sub-personalities, or parts, that take over the system depending on what the context requires. As a Social Psychologist, seeing humans as changing and shifting processes that move with their (social) environment, this really is what was missing in conventional forms of therapy, and if you are interested, I will take my time telling you why.

The training I am fortunate enough to receive (IFS Nederland), is the kind of deep, rigorous training that asks you to look not only at theory, but at yourself, your internal world, your patterns of protection: the parts of you that show up when life gets complicated. In training, we constantly practice on each other.

Amongst other things, I recently processed being fired from a yoga studio for speaking up about unethical leadership, and the sadness and anger that came with that. Parts that came up for me where: The perfectionist that went over and over into all the interactions trying to find out where I could have done better to avoid being fired. A deeply sad and lonely part that felt misunderstood, judged, and shamed. A profoundly angry part that felt injustice and wanted to stand up for me and defend my integrity fiercely, and then there was a part that wanted to take me away from the whole mess, dance away the feelings, empower myself through movement and connection, and shamelessly flirt my confidence back into existence.

And even though I’m...Read More

How Grounding Helps You Break The Stress Cycle

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 03:05:48 -0700

September has started again. And one of those things I always aim for when I come back from my holidays (which are always in nature, preferably mountains), is to keep my connection to that feeling of presence, aliveness, and calm that comes from being aware of my feet walking the ground. When I enter back into modern society and the demands and stressors that come with that, I need a practice to ground myself in order not to enter a state of permanent jitteryness. So. This blog, is about grounding.

Grounding: Finding Your Foundations in Burnout Recovery

I have to admit: grounding was always one of those words that made me cringe. It landed in the same category as spirituality: vague, airy, something non-rational people would say. I can imagine the 10 years younger version of me rolling my eyes thinking “grounding? Right, sounds like everything is energy.”

But when you strip the word of the mystical wrapping (and perhaps any judgemental ideas you have around that), grounding is very simple and quite a rational thing to do (and for the record, so is feeling your feelings). Grounding is the practice of paying attention to your foundations, physically, mentally, emotionally, and, if you dare to spiritually.

Imagine being an architect. Before you design a building, you first have to make sure the foundations are stable. Otherwise, the structure won’t hold. The same is true for your life, your body, your emotional balance, and your mental health. If your foundations are shaky, everything else is shaky too. And moreover, the more complex you wish the upper structure to be, the more steady your foundation should be. You can build a habit plan for the healthiest habits, but if you do that from an ungrounded place, you might end up with a bunch of habits that make you stressed out and completely overloaded.

So grounding is not some airy idea. It’s the practical act of reconnecting with your...Read More

Is Yoga the Answer to Burnout?

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 01:00:23 -0700

If you’re looking for balance or are recovering from burnout, chances are someone’s has told you to try yoga. I’ve been there too. I came to yoga because I wanted to be fit, increase my productivity, and avoid burnout. That was before my burnout, and it still happened. So. Going to yoga classes will not prevent your burnout. It can even add to it if you put it onto your neverending to do list.

It was only when I truly began to understand the meaning of yoga, that I could use it as a tool to come home to my body… and actually stay well. So is yoga relaxing? Is it movement? Is it athletic, and stretchy? Yes. It can be all of those things. But none of that is the point.

We think of yoga as a physical practice. But really, it’s the experience of becoming whole, in a practice that is physical, emotional, mental—and yes, dare I say it—spiritual. And no, spirituality is not about candles and spirits. Spirituality is first and formost, about connection.

Spirituality

For a long time during my science career, I found that word... icky. Loaded. Awkward. Non scientific. And therefore not me. And yet I was drawn to it, and it has become a profoundly important part of my own practice and healing. So it needs to be discussed, not just for me, but because I see this struggle in others too. I often come accross people...Read More

The Thing That is Keeping You From Taking Rest:

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 07:10:55 -0700

Why We Don’t Rest (Even When We Know We Should)

Most of us know that our bodies need rest. We know we need sleep. We don’r really need Matt Walker to tell us this. And if you don’t personally know all your stats, your Whoop band or smartwatch might flash warnings: “You need recovery.”

We know what’s good for us: a walk in nature, a breathwork session, a yoga class, some stillness. And yet, after a long day, we find ourselves curled up on the couch, eyes fixed on Netflix, numbing out rather than truly relaxing.

The truth is, we’re not lazy. We’re overwhelmed. And part of that overwhelm is that rest itself has become another item on our to-do list.

Let’s pause here. Let it sink in. Rest now is a to-do. We mind-over-matter our bodies into chilling out. And then we wonder why our bodies find it hard to fall asleep.

The first question isn’t whether or not you need rest (everyone needs rest), or what kind of rest you need, or how to schedule it in. The real question is: have you given yourself permission to rest? Or are your pressuring yourself into rest?

Step 1: Permission to Pause

Here’s a little secret. I teach breathwork. I guide clients through deep nervous system regulation techniques. And with all my training, knowledge, and tools, I still catch myself skipping my own breathwork sessions when the day gets hectic.

Why?

Because there’s always something else that feels more urgent. Something that needs to be done before I can relax. An invisible rulebook that says, “You can rest… once everything is finished.” Which, of course, it never is.

Many of us...Read More

All we can do, is surrender

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 03:48:51 -0700

I have been ‘away’ from a while. From blogging, from social media, from creating new courses and meditations. The reason being: I had a huge project to focus on: understanding marketing, ‘rebranding’ myself (I know, ‘ugh’), and creating a new website. The point was, I needed to get clearer about what I do exactly: helping people deal with stress in a whole-body, science-based way.

Now of course, anyone can create a website in a week nowadays. But to do it well, to think it through, make it authentic, and future proof, that requires creative energy. Which is, as I have learned, much harder to harvest when you are also parenting a young child and you have to manage on 70% of your prior sleep.

I recently had a conversation with yoga anatomy and nervous system expert Adam Divine, who was my primary editor on The Science and Practice of Breathwork. We were chatting about breathwork, and then he said:

“Your photos and posts are rather uplifting, you look the epitome of health and peace”.

To which I replied:

“Haha, I can tell you, I AM NOT the epitome of health and peace, Running my business and being a mum is a challenge. But I try my best with what I know. Peace is a state I move in and out of depending on a variety of things. I feel healthy and strong on some days, and tired and confused on others. I guess that comes with this life phase and all we can do is surrender and listen to what the body has to say”

The reason I am sharing this, is because just because I have ways to calm myself down, that does not mean I...Read More