Introduction

I'm writing a book. For you, dear mother! I'd like to share the Introduction with you. I hope you'll get inspired to take good care of yourself, at every level. I'm curious if you'll buy the book. And if you have any wishes you'd like to read about, let me know!

Rock bottom

I'm sitting on a terrace in Cape Town with my daughter. A week ago, I took her to a clinic for a follow-up treatment, and today she has the afternoon off so we can say goodbye. We don't know how long we'll be apart. I've had a rough week. I'd imagined having a week to myself between the drop-off and the goodbye. I could see myself taking long walks, reading, writing, watching movies, absorbing the culture, recharging. But unfortunately, it was none of that. I felt rushed, couldn't find peace, even though I walked, got massages, and found Cape Town beautiful. After three days, I had a migraine that lasted four days—horror—and that was my week.

Wait, I forgot something. On the plane, I met a young woman, I'd guess her early thirties, and I'd been chatting with her in the restroom. She was originally from Belgium but had been living in Cape Town for a while. She thought it would be fun to show me around, so we exchanged numbers. We kept in touch via WhatsApp, but because of that migraine, we didn't manage to meet up until my last evening.

We went out for dinner together, and it soon became clear we'd found each other for a reason. She, like my daughter, had also been in a clinic for an eating disorder and drug addiction. She told me that the turning point for her had come when her sister had set a firm boundary: if you don't commit to treatment, I don't want to see you anymore.

I remember thinking that would never work for my daughter. She would end her life. That was my greatest fear. And it wasn't unfounded; three months before Cape Town, I found her after a suicide attempt, and she spent a day in a coma in intensive care, unsure if she'd make it. So no, a beautiful and inspiring story, but not for us.

Apparently a seed had been planted after all.

From the moment my daughter and I arrived on that terrace, she began: the clinic was terrible, the people weren't nice, the shower was small, it was cold, they didn't understand her, the food wasn't good, she didn't want this at all, what was she even doing here, her complaints were endless. And then came the moment; I broke down completely. I couldn't take it anymore; I didn't want to hear anything more. The words tumbled out of my mouth, a deeply felt truth, but one I had been so afraid of:

I can't do it for you!

I've tried everything, supported you unconditionally, for years my life has revolved around how you're doing, and what has it achieved? You want to die. You've already been through months, years, of treatment, and you haven't even really started yet!

I felt down to my toes that I couldn't save her.

That I had to let go of her process and leave it with her. It wasn't her fault that she had an eating disorder. Disruptive events in her childhood, unresolved pain from me, from her father, possibly even pain from previous generations, all converged in the development of the eating disorder. Not her fault, but her responsibility. A responsibility I had longed to bear for her for years. And had. But it didn't achieve anything. Perhaps it even perpetuated everything; the eating disorder, but also my own patterns. I had to deal with the wreckage within myself, the deferred maintenance of myself. I had to accept my loss. I was her mother, but I couldn't save her; that was the bitter truth. And the strange thing was, that realization also brought me relief. Now we could move on. She on her path of recovery, not alone, but by herself. And I on mine.

I didn't spare her there on the terrace. I was completely honest. Everything came out. Tears, screams, and when I was done, she was silent. We were both silent. And then she said, "You're right, it's true. I actually thought you could do it for me, too. I haven't really started yet either." The rest of the afternoon was so real, so pure, so magical. We both felt something had broken through. Something big and important. I felt peace and space when we said goodbye. We had both moved on.

The following week, I spoke with her therapist via Zoom. She said, "Your intervention on that terrace has been more effective than all the interventions of the past three months. She's committed, she's cooperating, she's in recovery!"

However, I want to qualify this immediately. This book isn't a hallelujah story with an easy-going happy ending. No, it certainly wasn't my intervention that helped my daughter recover. The ground was fertile thanks to the previous treatments, and apparently, she had reached the point where she truly wanted to recover. Because she did all the hard work herself; that credit goes to no one else. Recovery was so difficult that for that reason alone, she never wants to relapse, she never wants to have to walk that path again. And she hasn't relapsed; she's been recovered for years, 100%.

It took me a long time to recover from those agonizing years. My daughter suffered from anorexia from age twelve to eighteen. And I suffered with her all that time. In my own way. Of course, I suffered as a mother, but I perhaps suffered even more from my own patterns of coping with the fear, sadness, and anger.

Fear, sadness, anger. These are perfectly normal emotions when your child is so ill. What made it even more intense was that these emotions also touched upon old wounds, my own pain that was separate from the eating disorder. This caused me to fall back on the same coping strategies I'd used all my life to keep my head above water. Breaking those patterns was what my journey was all about.

It's been a long road for both of us, in our own ways. Perhaps that's the essence of this book. That you and your child have a different path to follow, a separate one. We can't do it for her [1] . That was a huge revelation.

When I discovered my daughter wasn't eating, I initially thought I could fix it if I just tried hard enough. I was completely blown away! From my background as a psychologist, I knew a fair amount about eating disorders. I'd also had an eating disorder myself, and from that experience, I knew it wasn't a matter of eating or not eating, but rather dealing with feelings, dealing with life. About self-esteem. About having a grip. With this knowledge, my own experience, and the right support, I thought I could help my daughter get over it.

And that is a normal response to stress, that we initially fight (fix).

In the case of an eating disorder, however, it's not a sustainable response. An eating disorder often lasts too long for that. It becomes a chronic source of stress. When it comes to dealing with chronic stressors, we need something else to stay healthy. We have to get back to ourselves, often forced by physical and/or mental health issues. And we have to take responsibility for our own process. A process that is essentially about healing our own wounds and learning new, healthy coping strategies and loving self-care.

Because, very importantly, we can't do it for her, but she can't do it for us either.

It's incredibly difficult; our child is trapped in an eating disorder, and we're trapped in our preoccupation with our child, both literally and figuratively. It's called codependency. Our child is dependent on the eating disorder, and we've become dependent on our preoccupation with our child. Our child is ill, and we start thinking, feeling, and acting ill too. We lose our clarity, our own space, and our strength. We lose our connection with ourselves.

If we're not careful, we'll put our mental, emotional, and physical health in the hands of our child. If she's better, then I'll be better, we think. But our child cannot and should not be the source of our well-being. So, just as our child faces the difficult task of breaking free from the eating disorder, we face the difficult task of breaking free from fixing and controlling our child. Just like our child, we must make the journey within to feel better and achieve lasting recovery.

I wrote this book as a guide in that process, as a guide on the inner journey. A guide has experience in the area, knows the obstacles, the steep slopes, but also the resting places, bright spots, and highlights. A guide can point the way, show possibilities, but we must walk it ourselves. It is our path, and we choose, moment by moment, which turn we take. It helps to view your inner journey as an adventure. And to realize that a difficult or exciting journey can also be a beautiful and valuable one.

What can you expect?

In this book, I share with you both scientifically based knowledge and my personal, intimate experience as a mother and a human being. I've gained my knowledge over the past 33 years during my psychology studies and the many courses, workshops, and training programs I've taken to continue developing myself as a professional and as a person. Driven by a deep urge to understand what it means to be human, a drive I've had from a young age, I've eagerly absorbed all the knowledge I've learned about our psyche, our thoughts and feelings, about desire, about the power of beliefs and worldviews, about our mindset, our personal values, and spirituality. I also explore the impact of life events on our health, our nervous system, and our physical well-being. I've also delved deeply into trauma, which, in reality, happens to all of us. Trauma with a little "t" refers to situations or periods (often in childhood) that weren't necessarily life-threatening, but that did leave (deep) scars because they affected us emotionally, while we didn't receive the emotional availability and care we needed at the time. These are wounds that haven't yet healed and can continue to reverberate in the present, especially when we face new emotional challenges, as we do now. I had the privilege of studying with a great teacher in this field, Gabor Maté, and I feel incredibly grateful for that. I'm passionate about passing on what I've learned.

Besides all the Western science, I was also a student at Saswitha Yoga and Philosophy Training for fifteen years. The oldest yoga training program in the Netherlands, which unfortunately had to close its doors in 2024 due to the pandemic. During those fifteen years, I have been deeply nourished and inspired by all the wisdom from the yoga tradition. What a treasure! Perhaps you already know, but yoga isn't just about the postures or the yoga classes as we know them here. It's a philosophy about being human and how we can live more lightly and freely. Body, relationships, performance, thinking, feeling, our heart and soul—everything has a place in yoga. Moreover, yoga offers very specific guidelines for dealing with (emotional) pain. Yoga, in that broad sense of the word, has laid a fundamental foundation for all the work I do. While in the West we learn to analyze and understand well, the yoga tradition teaches us to feel and experience, to be present in the here and now, to know and acknowledge all the layers within ourselves, and to be in the world with our heart. As Westerners, that's a challenge; we're usually immersed in the world. And that gets us far, but it doesn't get us everywhere. Aside from my work, it has given me a solid foundation as a person; for me, there's no life without yoga.

In this book, I use everything I've learned—the most useful for you, in your situation, from both East and West. At the back of the book, you'll find my sources of inspiration. Throughout this book, I stay close to my own experience, and hopefully yours as well. Therefore, I don't claim to have a monopoly on the truth. Everything I've learned has become so much a part of me that I often don't know exactly where I got it from. If I do, I will, of course, explicitly mention the source.

Contents

In Chapter One, I lay the foundation for the rest of the book, introducing you to the function and functioning of your autonomic nervous system and its implications during stressful times. I then describe the human stress response in six concrete and recognizable phases, along with six tools you can use to influence your own stress response in a positive and beneficial way. In the six chapters that follow, we'll delve deeper into these six tools, forming the compass on your path to recovery.

In Chapter Two, I'll introduce you to the first important tool: checking in with yourself. You'll learn to connect with yourself at a very fundamental level and understand the language your nervous system communicates to you about your well-being through your body, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. What has been the impact of this stressful period with your child's illness? And what was your resilience like before the eating disorder began? You'll take stock and gain deeper insight into your unique signals, complaints, and symptoms.

Chapter three is about the second tool: taking charge. This chapter is about doing what you can. Taking charge is fundamentally different from controlling and fixing. Taking charge feels powerful. It's rooted in trust and your strengths. Control always stems from fear and ultimately drains you. It's unsatisfying in the long run. Taking charge, however, is all the more so. I'll discuss each area of life in which you can take charge and teach you how to prioritize. This allows you to decide for yourself what you will do during this period, what you want to do more of, and what you stop doing. This will give you much more space and peace. This tool will give you a sense of control; you'll be back in control.

In Chapter Four, I discuss the third tool and key factor for recovery: our mindset. How we think and what we think has a significant impact on our health, how we feel in our bodies, and in our lives. Using a crystal-clear metaphor, you'll examine your own mindset and learn to make peace and befriend the greatest source of power we have: our thinking. Our thinking can make or break us, literally. It's so powerful that it's the foundation of the placebo effect—in other words, healing. We can learn to make our thinking work for us. Not as a quick fix, but by transforming our thinking into a powerful assistant instead of the dominant master it can be.

Chapter five covers the fourth tool for your recovery: slowing down. It's a crucial tool because slowing down gives us the inner peace and regulation we need to consciously choose how we respond to situations. If we react from a stressed state, we often regret it later. Automatic reactions, the opposite of conscious choices, are usually not the most helpful or the ones that give us a good and satisfied feeling in the long run. Automatic reactions are often emotionally charged, while conscious behavior stems more from the heart, from wisdom, or from a significant inner value. Learning to slow down increases your ability to consciously respond to a difficult situation or emotional pain. You'll learn how to slow down in this chapter.

Chapter six is about a tool that's close to my heart, both literally and figuratively. It's about our deepest, authentic values and how we can use them as a compass in our lives. So that those values don't just remain a dormant desire, but become a deeply rooted experience. We can choose which values we want to experience and cultivate in our lives. This is empowering and ensures that we don't have to be at the mercy of our circumstances, but that our lives are always valuable despite the circumstances. In this chapter, you'll learn how to consciously choose valuable behavior, instead of being trapped by your automatic patterns.

In chapter seven, you'll learn about the final tool: recharging and restoring. I can imagine your battery isn't as full as you'd like right now. You might even be running on backup power. I know all about it. Been there, believe me. Most people don't recharge enough anyway. And if your circumstances are challenging, as in your case, you need even more to prevent developing symptoms, or even getting sick yourself.

The six tools are intimately connected and mutually reinforcing. Even if you ultimately only stick with one of the six tools, you'll still positively influence your stress response, and you'll notice it in every way.

Invitation

What you'll find in this book isn't a ready-made solution, but an invitation. An invitation to take yourself seriously again, to learn to understand your inner world, and to feel what you need. I don't offer ready-made answers; I ask you questions and share my experience, knowledge, insights, and practical tools that can help you approach the situation and yourself differently. With greater self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-compassion. And hopefully, as a result, with more self-love and self-care.

This book is for you.

So that you, as a mother, don't disappear in the struggle, but can take your place. Gentle and powerful at the same time. A safe haven for yourself and your loved ones.

Make sure you're well prepared. This journey isn't about big steps, about getting home quickly. Slowing down begins here. Give yourself time to reflect on what's moving and alive within you as you read this book. Give your full attention and energy to the process, as if you were watering a fragile seed. Take a moment each day to connect with yourself. This isn't a path you're walking for someone else. This is your process, your healing. 100% yours. Allow yourself to be fully present. Then you'll be giving yourself a great gift!

Well, dear woman, I wish you a wonderful journey. A journey back to yourself. To your authenticity, the place that opens the door to a loving and meaningful life, no matter what.

Monique

[1] Where I write her, I also mean his and them . This is to increase readability.