My I is not selfish and likes to share!

'I have a thousand questions and then again I have none,' I answer my horse coach Ruud when he asks why I come. We sit in a cozy but icy shed on St. Nicholas Day on two vintage chairs in front of the humming electric blower stove, our hands around a hot coffee mug. I participated in his group training for team coaching, but we don't really know each other. Ruud searches for themes before we go to his herd together, I for the right words. In the middle of my sentence, his hand makes a firm stop sign. 

'I hear you saying a lot of I,' he says and lowers his hand. I remain silent abruptly as my internal critic goes loose unrestrained 'you see, you are so wrong, too much me, selfish that you are, this is not how it should be.' I try to save myself from this and mutter something about 'without we no I,' but then I see the gentle, nonjudgmental look in Ruud's eyes. 

'What word does your I have for you when you connect with it?" he asks.

Wow, that one is coming in. Everything in me falls silent, deep inside something warm affectionately pulls me to a place that feels like everything and at the same time nothing. In a moment of pure happiness, everything around me fades away and yet I feel closer to everything than ever. It reminds me of a lava cake from which the warm liquid chocolate glossily finds its way. 

'Stillness,' I stumble after a while having a lump in my throat. Ruud sees it happening and we share the tenderness of this special moment. I realize that this is what it's all about, I know this trustful place within myself and have missed it, that's where my restlessness came from. I have been neglecting my inner self with the bullshit excuse of a too-full schedule, but am now experiencing that it takes almost no time at all to get there, and how much peace, balance and energy this brings immediately.

'Wow, this is it, we don't need the horses anymore,' I gratefully joke to Ruud. Because I do feel curious about what the herd is going to show me, a little later we are standing together among his four horses in the cold, windless pasture. I enjoy the contact with each horse, the movements in which I alternately follow or lead and the freedom to each go their independent way. With my hands in my warm pockets, I stand among the peacefully grazing horses with no need to change anything. It is good the way it is, I am perfectly happy with who I am. 

In the two-hour drive home, the warmth of the I in me still glows and images and matching feelings of the horses float by. I let my thoughts run wild and in the following days I search the warm silence inside myself a few more times to check if this was real and I did not dream it. As from the helicopter in which I floated above South Africa's Table Mountain with our daughter Roos in November, I also survey the peaks and valleys of the past few weeks. Extravagant enjoyment in Cape Town, trying in my own way to do something about the unfortunately ubiquitous inequality. The shock when my sweetheart called me from the hospital that he had suffered a brain attack. The powerlessness that I was on the other side of the world and couldn't hold him firmly. The happiness that our son lovingly cared for him for the three days until I returned. The relief of favorable recovery prognosis.

Ruud compared the harmony he saw in me and the herd to ripple-free water, something we continually strive for but which is rare. That peaceful experience feels to me like an affirmation that I am always welcome to my inner I to regain that wrinkle-free harmony within myself and share it with others. Once, colleagues full of drama stories attacked me for not believing I had no issues. Then I started to doubt myself, now I know that contact with my inner I keeps me firmly grounded in intense moments. It gives me the inner strength to deal with what is in the moment, whether it is nice or not. 

It isn’t selfish to contact your pure I, but it is the way to stay yourself and to be able to be optimally there for others in stressful times. How you do that? That varies, meditating and going into nature for example works for many, but if you are aware of your inner I you can seek it anywhere and at any time. 

Do you also want to suffer less from your issues by getting closer to your I? I love to share, so be welcome to experience the wisdom of my I or the horses. Feel free to contact me as a good start for yourself in the new year.