I don’t remember exactly when, but since over a year ago I am trying to navigate my life based on my feelings and my intuition. That’s how I ended up in Ibiza, how I managed to get from living on a campsite to living in a 5-star villa within 6 months and the reason why I am back in Holland again now. But how to navigate when you don’t feel anything? When it’s quiet inside, empty, hollow…? How do you make a decision when your feelings just seemed to have gone completely blank? When you feel sad for no particular reason and you don’t know what to do about it?

As always there are many different things you can do, but I’ll tell you what I did about it, because this is exactly how I felt the past days. From being happy to be back, enjoying time with friends I didn’t see for a long time, all of the sudden I felt empty. I didn’t know why and I didn’t see how to change it. All I knew was that everything I thought about was making it worse. From empty I started feeling sad, because nothing I thought about gave me the joy, the sparkle, the energy I had felt so strong while I was in Ibiza. I even started doubting if I needed to go back to Ibiza asap, but I knew I came back here for a reason.

I decided to plan 3 days for myself in which I would switch off my phone, remove Facebook from my iPad, wouldn’t watch any TV or movies and in which I would go walk outside at least two times a day for an hour or longer, do some yoga and prepare myself some good, healthy food. All of this on top of my daily routine with a meditation in the morning and writing down 5 things to be grateful for before going to sleep. No contact with anyone, because I felt I needed to work it out for myself.

I am used to live by myself and there are days that I don’t talk to anyone, but knowing that I would have 3 days to myself felt different. Switching of my phone immediately gave some relief, because I didn’t got distracted every time I wanted to do something, but later I also missed the distraction… I’ve been writing a lot in my diary and really had to force myself to go out on my planned walks. The past days it was cold, grey, rainy weather here, so going outside wasn’t appealing at all. I didn’t do yoga on the first day, but I did yesterday and today. The food I’m eating is not as healthy as I first planned (as I am snacking things with sugar as well), but I am preparing nice, different dishes each meal.

The first day only made me realise even more how low I was feeling, without the regular distractions I realised that I was really feeling down. I tried to reason with myself why I decided to come back to Holland and what I wanted to do, where I wanted to live, etc. Everything still felt empty and I missed the spark that normally would help to see/feel in which direction I needed to go. I decided I would give myself some Reiki, because Reiki once helped me to get out of a situation like this. That time I received Reiki from someone else and I’m not really used to give myself Reiki, so I wasn’t sure if it would make any difference. Luckily it did! During the session I could sense that feeling of being connected again, that warm feeling of being in sync with all-that-is. After the session I felt a little bit better, I now knew I didn’t totally lose my connection, quite a relief! That night I wrote down a few things that make me happy and I even had some new inspiration for my business.

Yesterday during my second walk of that day all of the sudden things became more clear to me. Without trying to ‘get’ it, things just started to make sense. Out of nothing, or so it seemed, I just got an insight about why I was feeling like this! I was feeling like this because of fear. Fear that things wouldn’t work out, fear that I would fail in my business, fear that I wouldn’t be able to live a ‘normal life’, ever! And because of these fears everything just went blank… If I didn’t feel anything, I wouldn’t be able to make a decision, to do anything, so nothing could go wrong! If I didn’t try, I couldn’t fail. If I just stayed in this ‘empty space’, I wouldn’t get hurt.

All my life, in school and at work, I was always able to do what was expected of me, because my brains luckily function pretty good. I always understood what I needed to learn or I would find a way around it so it wouldn’t show I didn’t understand. Not being able to succeed in something or not understanding something would make me feel lost, but I would always find a way ‘out’. Now, not navigating on my brains, but on my heart, my feelings, things are very different! There might be “danger”, I could get “hurt”, so all my defense mechanisms tell me to stop, to protect myself. Not feeling anything at all is simply the best way to make me stop, because then I’m not able to navigate! Seeing this, realising this, I was able to break through it. I made a very conscious decision that I wasn’t gonna let myself be stopped by any fear and that I let go of anything that’s holding me back from living the life of my dreams.

So that was the first big insight of these days and knowing now why I felt like this, it makes it easier to handle. This morning when I looked in the mirror, I liked my own reflection again. Instead of this pale looking girl with empty eyes, I saw a girl with color on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. Yes! I’m finding myself back again :)

There is more I realised in these days, which I might write down in another blog some day. For now, I’m happy to have found back my inspiration, my energy and that spark that helps me navigate! I have lots of new ideas for my business, so keep an eye out for new posts and offers!

Love & Light, Sandra

PS: sometimes instead of taking time alone, it is good to talk to someone about how you feel. I knew, subconsciously, that in this case I needed to work it out alone, others would only have fed my fears. Tonight I decided to switch on my phone again (earlier than planned), so I could discuss my new ideas with some other people, I knew I was ready for that! If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m available for a talk, online or at a place of your choice.