Summary:
Cathleen talks to Eveline about:
- Eveline’s mission to take self-care of the soul
- Eveline’s background and journey towards her mission
- How doing something with her hands – something creative – helped her to overcome physical symptoms
- How Eveline started helping other people to discover this approach to heal and how this developed into the first steps of her method later on
- How taking a step back can help you to move forward
- The practical approach you can take in difficult tough times, like divorce, job loss, burn out, etc
- The importance of coming close to yourself again and taking responsibility for yourself
- The importance of a winning team around you
- Eveline’s books “Happy again – the art of positive separation” and “The Family Soul”
Inspiring Quote:
Transcript
Cathleen (00:19):
Hello. We’d like to welcome all of you today. We have a very special guest, also a friend of mine.
Eveline Jurry (00:26):
Yes, hello Cathleen.
Cathleen (00:27):
Yeah. So happy. Eveline Jurry and she is an author of at least two, now three books. She’s also a concept maker and she’s here to share with us her knowledge and background about relationships. Hi, Eveline. Welcome.
Eveline Jurry (00:45):
Hi, Cathleen. Thank you for having me.
Cathleen (00:47):
Oh, so nice. It’s lovely.
Eveline Jurry (00:49):
Yes.
Cathleen (00:49):
I just start out by asking you a little bit about your background and what brings you here to what you’re doing and what your mission is.
Eveline Jurry (00:59):
Okay. Let me tell you a little bit about it. My mission, or actually what I’m working at is, is really to take self-care of the soul. That’s the big umbrella of all the work and all the concepts I make. I’ll tell you a little bit how my journey was towards that.
Cathleen (01:21):
Wonderful.
Eveline Jurry (01:23):
I was brought up in the Dutch polders, so I’m very Dutch. Away from some bigger cities. My parents, they met here and they went to California, they married in California, so that was already in the ’60s. That was actually the basis of my existence. I was born here in the Netherlands and my parents were very free spirited but also very clear, very clear on the structure we had in our family. As a child in the polders you don’t… There are not a lot of friends. You have farmers, you have nature, you have cows, you have dogs, and all those things.
Cathleen (02:07):
Those were your friends.
Eveline Jurry (02:07):
Those were my friends. Of course I went to school, that’s where I had my friends, but usually in other hours I would be playing around either with my brother, my sister. Also, I realized that if I didn’t have the friends and I could find other things to enjoy myself with, I became very happy. Actually, when you look at my younger age times I just made myself happy by finding things, what could comfort me or give me lots of joy.
When I was seven we moved, for a year, to Geneva. That was quite a tough time for me as I didn’t have my friends around because, of course, I did have friends at school and I didn’t have the home or the house I loved and my own sleeping room. And at international school I found it quite hard to balance myself. The moments when I wasn’t at school I was back at home, I would, again, find in nature my friends. The little birds, the little whatever.
Cathleen (03:10):
Of course.
Eveline Jurry (03:10):
As a child, thus with their fantasy and my books and things like that. Actually, that period in Geneva ended in two ways because my parents decided to divorce. So we went back to the Netherlands. Of course, when your parents divorce it’s a tough time.
Cathleen (03:28):
Very.
Eveline Jurry (03:29):
I did go back to my original house and home, so actually I found comfort again. What I saw, in a young age, that sometimes when something tough would happen or when I was out of balance, if I could find certain things which bring me joy again I would kind of know how to kind of survive, you know, as a young kid.
Cathleen (03:53):
Yeah, I understand.
Eveline Jurry (03:55):
When I was a bit older in the teenage years, I think you have been also as a good teenager, it’s more inside you when you’re hormones and everything is playing up. You get insecure, you really don’t know how to balance yourself, and you think that everything outside will make you happy on the inside. Also, of course, I had the same kind of things but sometimes I would just go back to either to my room or to, at that time I was at boarding school in England, and I would just find those things what brought me most joy.
That also brought me into a later stage of life when I started law in the Netherlands, again. Always, when I felt a little bit out of balance I would go back into myself and thought, “What makes me happy?” That either would be nature or it would be books or it would be study, it would be music. Whatever. I was quite aware of the interaction of the outside life and what life asked from me and how I felt.
After I studied my law… Sorry, I’m a bit long but-
Cathleen (05:05):
No, it doesn’t matter. It’s a good story.
Eveline Jurry (05:08):
I need to tell you a little bit about… Everyone has all those details about their first years in their life.
So then I finished, I did my master, I didn’t know what to do. I knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer or a judge or anything-
Cathleen (05:27):
And that’s what you had studied, I remember. Yes.
Eveline Jurry (05:28):
And that’s what I studied, yeah. So I went traveling for a year because I love traveling, too. And from my boarding school time I had loved all the cultures all over the world. So when I came back I decided to go into advertising because I had been a trainee in Chicago at an advertising agency and I thought this was the life. The free spirit. You know? It was energetic, it was colorful, and all those things I really loved. It was really opposite from a study law. But, of course, this advertising life is very hectic. We’re here in Amsterdam, all those young professionals, heavy, busy work schedule, busy social life.
Then was the next step of my life, which really is also a little bit the base of the work, what I started to do later on. I got a burn out and at that time we didn’t call it a burn out yet. It was not really very well known. This was really, again… This was a big step in my life or a cross point. I decided then, because I stopped working… I had lots of headaches and all the symptoms people do have as burn outs these days. Very stressed. So I went to do… I was reading a magazine, Country Living so it’s all about country life, again, and it was about ceramics, about a course from Hinchcliff & Barber in Normandy. I thought, “I’d love to do something with my hands.” So off I went to Normandy.
Eveline Jurry (07:07):
They teach me a lot about how to paint dinner plates, pottery, all different kind of things. It was really something very joyful for me to study, to learn something new. Not too difficult. Something with my hands and something quite free because you are quite free in doing it.
Cathleen (07:25):
Yeah, it’s creative, right?
Eveline Jurry (07:26):
Very creative. When I returned home I really started to learn more about ceramics because I really still had a lot of physical… I wasn’t 100% at all. Every day… I took it day-by-day and I thought, “How is my future’s going to look like? It’s different. You studied, you were in a hectic advertising life.” I decided, actually, with other people my age, we were very motivated to work very hard, also very motivated to enjoy life in a very hard way, too. But I decided that I wanted to help people, which is already the helping thing, to nurture their soul more, so they would never make that mistake. I mean, that’s to…
Cathleen (08:22):
To go down the wrong road.
Eveline Jurry (08:23):
To go down… Of course, when you’re young you still kind of have these big ambitions that you can help everyone. But actually, I did, and I started… I bought a kiln and I started to teach ceramics, especially because lots of people who were working in the high field of banking and marketing they thought, actually, they couldn’t create something themselves. It was a way how to get their self-esteem going, how to nurture themselves, how to get lots of energy out of doing things with their hands. That’s what I started doing which I really, really, really loved.
Cathleen (09:01):
So nice.
Eveline Jurry (09:01):
It really streamed and… That really made me happy. It was really something out of joy and also in a certain kind of abundance. Very free. And in the meantime I got three children so I could combine it and I could, at night, pour different in my molds with… I could pour the different ceramic objects, I could do whatever I wanted, but it was kind of working with my hands but also I started to work again with my mind.
That’s how the first steps of my method, which I developed later on, started to…
Cathleen (09:44):
Okay. And can you connect that to me, this background to your work now to help people understand their relationship but the most important one, of course, is the relationship with yourself. So how would you connect that background to how you’ve helped people to connect to themselves?
Eveline Jurry (10:05):
In the beginning it was, of course, the ceramic and later on, where I tell you later about, it’s more diverse when I’m really coaching people. But in the beginning what I saw when people work with their hands it was a bit out of their way or out of their box, out of their thinking. They were doing things they were not used to it. The moment they started doing that and got acquainted with it, they started to feel connected with themselves. An important lesson is can you control or influence certain things? Yes, you can, yourself because when you open up yourself to new things, and sometimes it might be practical things, not only things with your mind but just with your hands. When you open yourself to new things you can embrace it and bring it towards your inner self, to nurture your soul.
That is something what I learned at that moment. I was still very young. I was around 33. That’s what I learned at that time, how to help people, how to inspire them, and also to have lots of fun. And I think, also, to have lots of fun and to realize that everyone has such wealth, abundance, and joy in them. Instead of being, like how I’m sitting now, in a square, you start to open up and embrace the things what are new to you and it comes to you.
Cathleen (11:35):
And I can say that as I’m listening to you I’m thinking about them all making these new creations and finding sort of the beauty of life as they were creating all these designs on the plates.
Eveline Jurry (11:49):
Yeah, and it was not difficult. It wasn’t difficult. Everyone-
Cathleen (11:53):
It’s like a meditation almost.
Eveline Jurry (11:55):
It’s as a meditation because they would sit three, four hours on a busy weekdays night and they took time for themselves. It also has a lot to do, nurturing your soul and the self-care of your soul is to take care of you and only you can take care of you. Nobody else.
Cathleen (12:14):
And that’s a big misconception because so many people think, and they’re waiting for someone to love them or nurture them-
Eveline Jurry (12:20):
Or rescue them.
Cathleen (12:21):
Or rescue them or save them from their terrible life, but that doesn’t happen actually.
Eveline Jurry (12:27):
No, no. And I think if you look at the parallel, even if people who came to me, they were really not… I wouldn’t say not creative, but sometimes not handy or creative. Even if they tried… I said, “You can do it. Just trust yourself.” And they were surprised that even if you think you can’t take care of yourself or you can’t create, you can. I think that is the beautiful thing because you unlock your well inside yourself. Energy and-
Cathleen (13:00):
That’s so amazing. I know that we teach about neuroscience and, actually, if you want to create a new neuro pathway you actually have to do something differently.
Eveline Jurry (13:09):
Yeah.
Cathleen (13:10):
Otherwise you’re not going to create a new neuro pathway. If that neuroscience is actually showing, now, what you helped people do back then by just getting them to think about something different, to do something different.
Eveline Jurry (13:26):
What I think is a nice thing, what helped me and what I see helped a lot of people, because it is practical, something they can see with their eyes, it’s easier to follow. It’s not all about talking, it’s really about creating something but still be open to it. There’s nothing not beautiful. Everything is okay because you are okay.
Cathleen (13:51):
That’s also interesting, that concept. That we are creators and we create something. We are not always happy with what we create but that we learn to accept what we have created, right? That’s also interesting.
Eveline Jurry (14:02):
Very interesting.
Cathleen (14:03):
Not just that it’s always beautiful, but sometimes we’ve created a situation that doesn’t feel good and we’re like, “Oh my gosh, I have to deal with that now.”
Eveline Jurry (14:12):
Not only that, it’s always that little voice in yourself like, “This is no good. This is not good. This is not beautiful.” But just enjoy it. It’s like putting flowers into a vase in a beautiful way. If you like it, it’s nice.
Cathleen (14:27):
It brings joy.
Eveline Jurry (14:28):
That’s all. It’s all about joy. Not about this little voice saying, “mmm.” No.
Cathleen (14:34):
A lot of people are like, “I remember being a little girl,” and then you made the sand castle and then you were, “Oh my gosh, someone came and they hit your sandcastle.” That’s also interesting because as you’re creating you are co-creating with your environment. That is not only your relationship with yourself but your relationship with others. How they can influence your creations.
Eveline Jurry (14:54):
Yeah. And I know you well enough that if you had that castle and someone would step on it you would look at it and think, “How can I make a new part of the castle?” And then you would make this little room for this little girl who you can rescue and then… So, often when things happen which you don’t like it’s the basis, again, of something beautiful which you can create.
Cathleen (15:21):
That’s beautiful.
Eveline Jurry (15:21):
Because it’s a different dimension again.
Cathleen (15:23):
So this is very beautiful, how you have described this. I want to go a little further into this.
Eveline Jurry (15:29):
Sure.
Cathleen (15:29):
Let’s look at that sandcastle on that little injury there, and let’s call it that it actually disturbed you, okay?
Eveline Jurry (15:37):
Yeah.
Cathleen (15:37):
You weren’t happy with what happened with that relationship, okay?
Eveline Jurry (15:41):
Yeah.
Cathleen (15:42):
And it causes sort of a blockage for you to trust again to go create another sandcastle. You’re a little bit like, “Well, I’m not sure I want to do this again.” Some of us say, “Okay, we’ll heal that little castle,” but others are not so courageous. Can you help us to understand that with your method?
Eveline Jurry (16:02):
Yeah, so with my method it’s like you say, “You’re not so courageous. This was about a sandcastle.” But sometimes things happen that you become, maybe, very stressed because of your boss or you become very stressed because of your partner relationship or you feel chaos due to other people or you feel just not very happy because someone comes to you… Anything what happens, you have this beautiful little thing. It might be your inside or something you built and someone kind of hits it or hurts it a little bit. I think the best is always, and that’s really my work also, is to step back. Look at your castle, look at yourself when you’re stressed, and say, “Okay, what are we going to do? Let’s make a plan.” Be practical, again. Don’t get too much in the emotion, which I know it’s very easy to say, but always take a few steps back and look at what is created or what is, actually, gone wrong in your eyes.
Because when you take yourself back you can make new steps, like what I said before. Knowing you, you would make a new little addition to that sandcastle. Like in any normal circumstances when things are tough or don’t go well, I always advise a piece of paper. Anything to do with your hands, or you can create something. Write down what are your feelings? How do you feel now? Who do you think can help you? First, always, yourself. You can always help yourself, but who else can help you or what circumstances could help you?
For example, when I’m very upset I know that if I do something with my hands, so I go and buy flowers or I’m very good when it’s the time, like now, I pick flowers, wildflowers, then I make big bunches and I enjoy what I’m doing. Sometimes you like to just make a beautiful piece of bread for lunch for yourself. For me it’s always do something with the hands. I would advise people to write down how they are feeling at that moment, then take a step again and say, “How do I get out of this situation for myself?” Just ask a lot of reflection. I think that is the best. Usually people start asking other people straight away for help.
Cathleen (18:38):
Yeah, they do.
Eveline Jurry (18:39):
Yeah. But first take a step back because then you can look what has happened and what you can create which feels more in balance with your soul and with your heart.
Cathleen (18:54):
Nice. I think that’s so well said. I think we often don’t take the time to look and take a deep breath and pause and feel the emotion and ask our questions about why we’re having this feeling that is blocking us. Many of us just keep pushing through the blockage but we can’t. That’s the whole point. We almost have to go back and do exactly what you just explained.
Eveline Jurry (19:22):
And I think what you do find, always, is when you take that step back, when you are blocked, and you dare, because you need to dare in life, that’s the hard part, not feel ashamed and just say, “Okay, what can I create from this point?” And I think many of us have experienced that in tough times they suddenly decided to look at things differently and then it smooths out again and then you say, “Whoa, because I went through that tough time my life is so much better now.” I tell you, at every blockage if you take your step to the back and you take a little detour you will end up with very positive outcome or steps forward again.
Cathleen (20:13):
I think what I hear you saying also is that you’re sort of… Later on you see the gratitude of that experience.
Eveline Jurry (20:21):
Yeah.
Cathleen (20:21):
So when you’re having it, it doesn’t necessarily feel good but later you can appreciate how much you learned from it.
Eveline Jurry (20:29):
Yeah.
Cathleen (20:29):
You can really say, “Wow, that was a moment in my life, terrible, but I’m really glad I had it.”
Eveline Jurry (20:36):
And anything what we have to learn, you and me, most of us learn to bicycle or to swim. I tell you, I remember me crying while they teach me swimming, but now I’m pretty… I was born at the lake so I was pretty happy that I could swim, you know? The rest of my youth I could really play and bicycling and everything.
Cathleen (20:58):
I think we all have that memory of learning to swim. Oh my goodness. Or bike riding.
Eveline Jurry (21:02):
And no one likes it, but you can swim…
Cathleen (21:05):
And then you’re proud of course.
Eveline Jurry (21:07):
You’re proud, of course. Yeah, yeah.
Cathleen (21:07):
Wonderful. Now, when people are in these moments of feeling stuck, I always say psychologically, emotionally, and physically go together and there are actual disconnections. You can actually develop an illness, which is a disconnection in the cell level. You can maybe have a disconnection in your thoughts or you can have a kind of disconnect in your emotions. Can you share a little bit about that?
Eveline Jurry (21:34):
Yes. With the disconnection, what you said, is also very much a base of my work and that really was developed after I had a big disconnection. When my husband… We had three children, young children at that time, when we divorced. We really, really had a big disconnection and also for me because we had to move to different houses and you start a whole new life. Then you really have to disconnect from your former life and connect to a new life which is a big thing because then you really don’t know how your future’s going to be.
Anyway, this is a big disconnection everyone knows about. But then you have many disconnections or things you don’t connect to yourself anymore, yeah? And every time, we know, with a disconnection we have to answer already because we have to connect again. This, we disconnected, then we’re going to connect again, but where are we going to connect to? That is something what makes us… We panic about or we are anxious about. What we can always connect to is hope and a spark of light because hope is that it will be okay again. I said before-
Cathleen (22:56):
There’s another path.
Eveline Jurry (22:57):
There is another path.
Cathleen (22:59):
Even this one’s difficult.
Eveline Jurry (23:00):
Yeah, this is a difficult one, but there’s always this little spark of light where we can go to. Even if you don’t see it, know there is on this path a spark of light. I think for me then, again, is make a plan. Which steps can you take?
Cathleen (23:17):
That’s your practical side.
Eveline Jurry (23:18):
That’s my practical side.
Cathleen (23:20):
Yes.
Eveline Jurry (23:20):
Every time, if you disconnect from yourself, or you have to disconnect in a situation or something happens to you which is really, really hard, connect to the future, to a spark of light, and make a plan of action. We’ll probably talk about that later on again.
Cathleen (23:39):
Yes.
Eveline Jurry (23:42):
It’s that simple. Then you connect to the things you can influence, not to the things you cannot influence anymore or you can’t control.
Cathleen (23:51):
So in the situation where you get a divorce, for instance, you cannot influence how your partner will handle it, you can only influence how you can handle it.
Eveline Jurry (23:58):
Yes.
Cathleen (23:59):
In a situation where you leave a job, same thing. In a situation where your children leave, you have no influence, actually, at a certain point on your children, right? They just go on and you’ve done what you can to guide them, but at a certain point it’s their life.
Eveline Jurry (24:13):
You have to let go.
Cathleen (24:13):
Exactly.
Eveline Jurry (24:14):
The same is when you are, for example, when I had the burnout. I had to let go that I had a healthy body at that moment. I said, “Okay, now I’m-
Cathleen (24:28):
Feeling badly.
Eveline Jurry (24:29):
Yeah, feeling badly. So I connect to the vision that I will be healthy again.
Cathleen (24:35):
Beautiful.
Eveline Jurry (24:36):
But I have to make a plan and steps and I cannot control what has happened because I just didn’t do it right before, but I can control today’s steps, tomorrow’s steps, and my future steps and embrace it.
Cathleen (24:52):
Beautiful. It’s beautiful. Now, you wrote this book. (Happy Again – the art of positive separation)
Eveline Jurry (24:53):
Yes.
Cathleen (24:54):
And it is a kind of beautiful, practical book for anyone who actually has had this kind of disconnection with another person or they’ve had a divorce or they’ve had a separation.
Eveline Jurry (25:07):
Separation, yeah. A break-up.
Cathleen (25:09):
Actually what I love so much about the book, I really do, is that it’s focused on creating that new self and it really points out one of the problems we have on the planet, where people and relationships feel victim to the relationship instead of actually saying, “Okay, that relationship served me.” Because some relationships are not for a lifetime, they’re for a season, reason, or lifetime. So if you look at it like that, can you share with me a little bit about that book and your motivation for it?
Eveline Jurry (25:45):
The motivation of my book is… And actually, that’s my Dutch book.
Cathleen (25:48):
Yeah, sure.
Eveline Jurry (25:49):
This is my first one, which is called “Je wordt weer gelukkig” (You will be happy again), Positive Separation. It says, it is an underline (subtitle), like put your life back on track. My motivation was, once I was divorced I realized there is not a thousand but millions of people around me who have been in divorce or separation or break-up or anything when you and your partner break up. But everyone had to reinvent the wheel every time. Then I thought, “Why is there not something more practical,” again, practical, for daily life? How do you really get back on your feet? Because I tell you, it’s a tough time. It’s a tough time. Especially when you have children and for people who don’t have money or don’t have a roof above their… There are so many different scenarios which is really difficult. It’s very difficult when your new partner has a new relationship. You get very angry about it or you feel-
Cathleen (26:54):
Sort of abandoned I’d think.
Eveline Jurry (26:55):
You feel abandoned. The people with lots of panics. You start to feel ill. This,..
Cathleen (27:01):
Yeah, so instead of… When you’re in that situation, instead of saying, “Oh, that relationship is just… We came to the end of it and I’m going to go a new way.” Many people get stuck and going, “Oh my goodness-
Eveline Jurry (27:15):
Oh that cross point.
Cathleen (27:16):
Yeah.
Eveline Jurry (27:16):
On that cross point.
Cathleen (27:17):
They don’t go forward.
Eveline Jurry (27:18):
Which I understand and which we all understand, because there’s so much pain, so much emotions. Your hope for the future, your future life. Everything has been disintegrated. Because you were building up something with a relation or in a family to something more beautiful, that future, and then suddenly it’s all over. But then again, you have to take care of your own soul and you have to start to nurture your own soul although you want to fight. But instead of fighting come close to yourself again. The way how I describe it in my method is, again, is to put yourself number one, which is very difficult because people keep on looking at their ex-partners or other people or their ex-boss or whatever, yeah?
First, look at yourself, know there is a little spark of hope, and then you have to make five commitments to yourself. There are very clear commitments in my method and in my book and in my work. First take responsibility of yourself. Which you not only say but you really have to do.
Cathleen (28:30):
Do.
Eveline Jurry (28:31):
The second commitment is that you say to yourself, “I am not a victim.” And that is very hard because when you say you’re not a victim you can’t blame others. You can’t blame the situation. You can’t blame your family. You can’t blame your past. You can’t blame anyone or anything. You just say, “This is me, or make it into this difficult situation, I embrace it, and no one is going to help me except me.” No victim hood. The third one is that you say and you realize you have a big well of resilience, everyone. You, me, everyone who’s listening. Everyone has this huge well of resilience next to this huge well of abundance. We enjoy, we all have inside us. Knowing that, that you have this resilience, you’re strong enough to cope anything even if you’re weak sitting on the bench and going, “Oh, no, no, life is terrible,” you can do it. You know you can do it, so you have to do nothing for it because you have it already inside you.
And then the fourth commitment… So, the third commitment is to know, to commit to that well which you have, and the fourth commitment is to take care of the situation and yourself. That is a quite interesting one, I think. In the past 15 years when I first started my work it was less obvious and now, for example, your whole beautiful wellness revolution where you really do take care of the mind and the body and everything, the whole aura…
Cathleen (30:09):
Spirit, yeah.
Eveline Jurry (30:09):
Yeah. It’s that you start the day that you are in disconnection to connect to a new world. You connect to taking care of yourself and I think your whole wellness revolution is really all about that. How to, different tools, and different ways, and different ways of understanding. Because your body and mind are going to carry you on your new road.
Cathleen (30:38):
Yes, yes.
Eveline Jurry (30:40):
There are so many simple ways to take care. You take care of, for example, your agenda. Make sure you see those people or do those things which bring you at least a little happiness, even when you’re in a tough time and try to avoid or just avoid all the tough appointments or when you have a tough appointment build a nice appointment around it. If you have a tough time, go and think, “Oh, where’s my favorite bagel place?” Or, “Where’s my favorite park? That’s what I’m going to do after that appointment.” But also to take care of the body. There’s so many beautiful ways how to take care of the body. At least eat three times a day, a healthy meal.
Cathleen (31:25):
Something you like, too.
Eveline Jurry (31:26):
Or a healthy meal. Eat, maybe, one time a day something… Like, I eat licorice. Which is maybe not so good for you, but what makes you happy.
Cathleen (31:35):
What makes you happy, yeah.
Eveline Jurry (31:36):
Eat with the people that make you happy and if you don’t have anyone then just join up with the books you like best or the music you like best. Anyway, to take that caring a step further, which I think in your program you explain and many of your coaches work with that. So the fourth commitment is take care of the situation even if it’s a difficult situation and yourself. The fifth commitment is take positive action every day. That positive action, in a time when things are tough, either when there’s a break-up, when you feel ill, when you lost your job, maybe when the situation in the world is very tough, just do one thing what makes you happy.
This is a little flower maybe, I have here in front of me, and it’s a combination of a little flower which I picked outside in the field and one which I bought. When I’m very unhappy I just make a little bunch of flowers and it’s a little positive action-
Cathleen (32:39):
And it’s just one and it’s still beautiful.
Eveline Jurry (32:42):
Yeah, and it makes me happy. So make one positive. Make one positive phone call. Maybe send one card to someone. Maybe read just one beautiful poem you like, but do one thing which is positive which can nurture your soul. And then we have big steps, of course, but now just focus on the small steps.
Cathleen (33:00):
Yeah, I think that’s so interesting, as you’re explaining it because so many people, when they’re in a crisis, when they’re in a moment where everything seems too much and they are feeling sad about themselves, actually. Perhaps they’re feeling they failed in that relationship or what could they have done differently and suddenly to take themselves out of that emotion that’s so heavy and just focus on a couple things, like you said. I love that because that helps you. Let’s say the fourth one, where you’re going to actually do something to deal with the relationship that didn’t go well and you have to still be in that relationship. I know, my parents also divorced, until the day, until my mother left the Earth, they were still in a relationship. That wasn’t over, they just weren’t married anymore, but they had six kids together.
We were still together on her death bed. I think looking at that, how that goes, you have to have… And you say that spark of hope, but perhaps with that situation you get help. You also say, “Today, I’m going to get a coach or somebody to help me deal with the difficult things in this divorce,” or in this separation. Is that something you would-
Eveline Jurry (34:14):
Yeah, that is something also which is part of the work I work with, because I always say make a winning team or a winning spirit around you. So when you have a tough time, whatever crisis it is, and even if it’s not a big crisis but a small personal crisis, make a winning team of people around you who really can support you, you can really trust. That can go from private help, so personal friends, or someone who you really know, like a motivation friend, a happy friend, or someone who can be very strict with you so you can make a different kind of …
Cathleen (34:53):
Like an accountability friend.
Eveline Jurry (34:54):
Accountability friend or a day friend, someone who just sends you one line on WhatsApp every day. And on the other side your professional friends on the team. That’s nice when you sit down, look back and say, “What kind of help do I need?” Because there’s such beautiful help and support out there.
Cathleen (35:13):
Totally.
Eveline Jurry (35:14):
That is really, in this time of age, I think we’re very lucky with coaches, with people who can inspire you, with people who really kind of don’t take your hand but gives you a little push in your back. They can inspire you. They can explain you things. They can help you look at your emotions. They can look at your body, how you feel. Especially on the professional side, the mind is different people, again, than maybe the body or a combination.
I think, when you’re in a small or big crisis, or you just feel like going on a different little side track, get a beautiful team. That might be even two people, but it might be four people, it might be six people, to support you on your new path.
Cathleen (36:02):
That’s beautiful. That’s so nice. I really love that concept and I think… We’ve had quite a year with COVID, let’s be honest.
Eveline Jurry (36:10):
It has been a tough year. Yeah.
Cathleen (36:12):
We’ve been asked to be at home in relationship with ourselves and with whoever we live with, more than we ever have. I know, I’m married, so I have a husband and we’re together. In a way that was very helpful because we had moments that we never had time for. So there can be really good moments that have occurred this year, but it can also bring out this kind of moment we’ve had where you realize, “This relationship’s not serving me, I actually need a new path.” If you’re out there and you’re listening in the audience and this is your story, definitely I would encourage you to read this book and to use the words that you have and the advice you have shared so generously. It’s beautiful, Eve.
Eveline Jurry (36:59):
And next book, I would really advise to make a support team or a winning team, as I call it, and get someone on your team to join you and to support you. I think that’s extremely important. Also, to find back all this joy and abundance which is in you and where you can go to.
Cathleen (37:19):
So Eveline, people are in these relationship issues. So often it comes down to their communication and how things will go forward. Not only with the past relationship but with future relationships because if people don’t heal things they just end up repeating things, right?
Eveline Jurry (37:36):
Yeah, sure.
Cathleen (37:36):
So can you tell us a little… Do you have an example of how someone maybe was very blocked and then they made different choices?
Eveline Jurry (37:45):
There was a young girl, she was about 27 at the time… Yeah, I think she was 27. I met up with her one day and she had just broken up with her boyfriend. She had been living together with him for two years in a house. She said, “I feel terrible. I feel desperate. I feel ugly. I feel weak. Actually, what am I doing here?” I also asked, of course, are there other things to make you happy. Your work or anything? She was really, really, really desperate and she was also… She had a lot of pain and I could see it also on her face and she was very, very stuck into herself because when I started talking to her, with anything I said she said, “Oh no, this doesn’t work for me. This doesn’t work for me. No way. No, no, no, you don’t know how terrible my situation is. No, it was even more terrible.”
That’s what happens with many people who have any crisis. They think their crisis is the worst. Which is, because it’s your personal crisis so your life is the worst for yourself and in the eyes of yourself. And that is the interesting thing either from the method I developed or the coaching many coaches you have at the Wellness Revolution, is that there are certain things which are always the same and helpful.
I said to this girl, I said, “Come outside.” We had a meeting and I wanted to sit outside on the bench. It was also spring time. Then there was this little, little bird. And I love, of course, birds. Or little, it was a merel, I don’t know, the blackbird I think it is in English, who came tipping around us a little bit and I said, “Do you see the bird?” And she said, “Sure, I see the bird.” And I said, “Okay, the bird is telling you something.” Of course, that was a little bit, you know, funny of me. I said, “I think the bird wants to say that you have to read my book,” and then she started laughing because I think it was so ridiculous. She expected something very professionally from me and I said just, “The bird wants you to read book.”
Anyway, so I broke the ice a little bit. I said, “Listen, next week, again, at this same time, I will make a cup of coffee and what is your most… What do you really like to eat?” She really loves donuts. So I said, “Okay, next week, this time, I get you donuts but I give you my book and you read only one chapter.” And then she read the chapter about what can you influence and what you can’t. So that was what I told her, or asked her, to do. Then the week later she came and I said, “So, how are you doing?” She said, “Oh, I have to tell you.” I said, “What’s up?”
She said, “I read, already, half of the book.”
Cathleen (40:46):
Oh, wow.
Eveline Jurry (40:47):
What had happened, there was this little same bird, it wasn’t the same bird, and she lived with a little balcony and the bird came and every time she saw little blackbirds telling her. She said to me, “Because I read your book I read that I have to make a winning team. I read that I have to take care of my body.” She was already lighted up. So then this goes on a little bit. I coach her, but not too much, and half a year later, because she did… I told her, it takes time. And half a year later I was at my house and she knew where I was living, so one day she was knocking on my window and I was there and there she was with this gorgeous man next to her-
Cathleen (41:39):
Wow.
Eveline Jurry (41:39):
I said, “Take your time, take your time.” There was this gorgeous young boy with a beautiful beard. You know? Nice. She said… So I opened the door and she told me her little story. She was doing very well and she said, “I’m so grateful. I made this winning team. I had this spark of hope which I didn’t have and so …
Cathleen (42:03):
It was like the bird, right?
Eveline Jurry (42:04):
Like the bird. She really took everything seriously from that moment onwards. Then, about four months after we met at first when she start… Young souls are easy to-
Cathleen (42:18):
Yeah, they can change more easily.
Eveline Jurry (42:19):
They can change easily. She became, actually, very happy because now they have two little children and she’s working hard, he’s working hard. I just spoke to them last week. They’re doing wonderful. What I think, especially, she always said, “Now, I know how to take care of myself and when I take care of my soul I can better hear my partner,” of course also the children, but they make a lot of noise, but, “I can hear him better and we decided that we are really open to listen to each other’s souls.” It works for them.
Cathleen (43:00):
Lovely.
Eveline Jurry (43:00):
That’s just a cute, nice little story.
Cathleen (43:04):
Oh, it was so nice. And I think what is so cool is how she found hope in the bird and she could get out of her story so that she was able to create a new story, which is so wonderful. Tell me a little bit about what a soul needs.
Eveline Jurry (43:17):
What does a soul need? I think that’s very, very personal and, in a way, again, I say sit down and not plan but just organize it in a way. In my method I talk about the positive inner drive. These are really values and really things what really is close, what you really need as a soul. That can be very diverse because some people need nature. Some people need to do good things for the world. Sometimes it’s as simple as just very healthy food. It can be gymnastics or sports. It can be dancing. It can be other people. There’s this whole thing of 500 or 1,000 things people can choose what your soul needs because your soul doesn’t need one thing. Usually your soul needs a whole pattern. It’s like a kaleidoscope, you know? You have different, like beads what your soul needs, and every day or every moment nearly you turn it and your soul needs something different.
For example, I don’t know how that’s with you, my soul needs other people but I also need a lot of quiet time, I need to butterfly. I need to go, sometimes, outside, talk to people, and go inside again. I need to study, I need my books, I need my children of course, my partner, I need my family. There are many, many things, but I need to balance it. I think that’s all about balance. I don’t know what does your soul need?
Cathleen (44:54):
That’s a good question. It needs something different, perhaps, at all moments. I think my soul has found my greatest joy by people.
Eveline Jurry (45:03):
Yeah.
Cathleen (45:03):
I am definitely a people person.
Eveline Jurry (45:05):
Yeah.
Cathleen (45:05):
And I love to just investigate and find out about people and help people and also just to share life with people.
Eveline Jurry (45:13):
Yeah, and laugh.
Cathleen (45:14):
Yeah, it’s wonderful. That’s my thing, but everyone-
Eveline Jurry (45:18):
I think it’s a discovery. It’s like a… You’re a treasure box inside and you have to see what are your treasures because you need to be in contact with all those different treasures from that treasure box in a certain amount of time.
Cathleen (45:36):
So therefore, if you are not connected to your soul needs you can get chaotic and your life can go in a direction, perhaps, that you weren’t really ready for. So, really, it’s important to connect to your soul needs and also to be able to communicate them, not only with yourself but with others.
Let’s go to the next book, because you’re about to put out a beautiful book. I’m so excited to read it.
Eveline Jurry (46:00):
Yeah.
Cathleen (46:01):
It’s called The Family Soul.
Eveline Jurry (46:02):
Yes.
Cathleen (46:02):
Tell us about that book and…
Eveline Jurry (46:05):
My big love is my family but not my family, of course, with my partner and children but also my family soul. I call it my family soul of origin. Family always really makes me happy. I’ve written this book, which I’m busy with, and this is about a recipe for a happy family life. Of course, it’s never a recipe, but I mean it’s ingredients and you have to cook it yourself. So, here again I have analyzed many families, I have been speaking to many professionals, I have been doing… For the past 15 years I’ve been working with families of course, and I kind of also made a kind of a path how we… When you have a family or a relationship, even you have a family when it’s only the two of you. If you’re here, where do you go to? You start connecting together and what is your path?
There’s many tools and many ideas how you can go along. Especially with the family soul, it’s very important that the grown-ups in the relationship also develop at the same time so it’s not only when you bond together and you have this kind of energy in between you, which I call the family soul, but so you both need to develop and while you’re holding, kind of, the family soul and you carry it and you infuse it with your knowledge, your love, your experiences, and all that. It’s kind of a… Yeah, it’s a kind of a cookbook or adventure book but it really has a lot of general knowledge, also, about family life. It is preventive.
What we have learned, or what I have learned, from the work, when it goes wrong what can you do right afterwards? We say, “What can we do right before it goes wrong?” It’s a lot about celebrating each other. Lots about celebrating each other’s soul, see the other one. Your comrades, your friends. Why not put the best of your energy into each other? And in full trust and also to really to talk about and communicate and open up about your pains, your worries, and just also have a lot of fun and joy. I mean, that is one of the commitments with family soul is make fun, even if you want to do all the dishes say, “Come on, get into pajamas in the car and we just have a little joy ride and have an ice cream afterwards back home.”
Not getting to our straight… What we sometimes do. We do. But just develop, also, the laughing, the joy, and just to enjoy family life. It’s beautiful.
Cathleen (49:06):
You’re making me think of something funny because we had six children, as I just said, and my father used to say… We had to do the dishes and it became an issue every night. Who’s going to do the dishes. They were like, “It’s your turn again,” we’re all fighting over it. Then one day my dad said, “Okay, now, everyone takes turns and everyone, if you can’t do it joyfully then you don’t have to do it.” Now, that sounds really interesting, isn’t it? Because you would think, then, nobody wanted to do it. But then a few of us said, “Okay, we’ll do it joyfully,” and we made it really fun. Then the others started saying, “Okay, I want to do it. I want to do it.” Because it became joyful to do it with your dad and having that quality time or your mom. Anyway, I had to share that. That’s funny.
Eveline Jurry (49:50):
But it is that easy, because we have this joy and abundance in everything. We have it in us.
Cathleen (49:56):
Yeah, that’s how we look at it, right.
Eveline Jurry (49:58):
It’s our big well. Resilience, abundance, embrace it.
Cathleen (50:02):
What does abundance mean to you, Eve?
Eveline Jurry (50:05):
What is abundance to me? I think abundance is something… Some people might say abundance is something what they don’t have.
Cathleen (50:18):
Oh yeah, that’s true.
Eveline Jurry (50:20):
It’s a bit of difficult because for me everything is abundance because…
Cathleen (50:25):
Even not having is abundant.
Eveline Jurry (50:28):
No, because when you think you don’t have it, you just have to look differently and then you have it. So for me-
Cathleen (50:34):
So, instead of looking at these flowers that this is not abundant and this is abundant. Looking at this is perfectly abundant.
Eveline Jurry (50:42):
Perfectly.
Cathleen (50:43):
Yeah. That’s interesting.
Eveline Jurry (50:44):
I mean, and even if it might even be when there’s no flowers it’s abundance because then you have to search for something else-
Cathleen (50:51):
Other than a flower. Yeah.
Eveline Jurry (50:54):
Other than a flower. But abundance is just the way how you can look at things and even if there’s nothing you create something that there is abundance…
Cathleen (51:07):
It brings meaning or it brings joy or it brings…
Eveline Jurry (51:10):
Yeah, you just bring joy. Whatever brings joy to you. For me, in music. I was born in this province, south of Holland, and there is this radio channel which is really like ’70s, you know? So every time, when I do have to drive, and it sounds a bit silly, I discovered that this year, I put on that radio canal and oh my gosh I get all my music from the ’70s and ’80s and these little talks about what are you going to eat tonight? There are people on the radio that tell each other about their Dutch dishes and I feel abundant and I feel abundance comes through the radio. Abundance has nothing to do with material abundance. If I buy some apples and some pears or fruits, I look at it and I say, “Whoa.” That’s abundance for me. Abundance is in everything.
Cathleen (52:14):
Yeah. It’s just is how you’re going to appreciate and be grateful for it and bring value and meaning to yourself, right? It’s so special.
Eveline Jurry (52:22):
I mean, when I make my bed, when I have a fresh bed being made myself, yeah?
Cathleen (52:26):
Yeah.
Eveline Jurry (52:27):
I look at it and I think, “Whoa. That looks clean. That looks beautiful.” That’s abundance.
Cathleen (52:31):
Makes you happy. Yeah. Beautiful.
Eveline Jurry (52:33):
And I don’t think anymore of the ironing what I did before.
Cathleen (52:36):
No.
Eveline Jurry (52:36):
Even when I’m ironing…
Cathleen (52:38):
You think of the bed you’re going to make.
Eveline Jurry (52:40):
No, and then I think when I’m ironing I can’t think about problems. I think abundance is in everything.
Cathleen (52:48):
Wonderful.
Eveline Jurry (52:49):
Just open the well and your eyes for it.
Cathleen (52:53):
I want to thank you, Eve.
Eveline Jurry (52:54):
Thank you.
Cathleen (52:54):
This has been so wonderful today and you’ve shared so many beautiful aspects that we really all can think about. I know-
Eveline Jurry (53:01):
It’s daily life. It’s nothing special, it’s more about daily living, yeah.
Cathleen (53:05):
Lovely. And we’re going to now go around and you’re going to show us… I’m so excited for this part. You’re going to show us things that have brought you abundance in your life. That’s exciting. I’m looking forward.
Eveline Jurry (53:16):
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Cathleen (53:16):
Thank you.
Eveline Jurry (53:17):
Okay.
One of the examples of abundance for me is my chestnuts trees, which you can see here. When I was in Paris, about 20 years ago, I just picked up some chestnuts which I’ve been doing since I was a child, and I put them in the ground and the same is opposite there, we have another one. So I just grew them. Here I have some babies, already, which are the babies from last year, from my chestnuts. For me, it’s nature is abundance and creating your own little paradise. I think we go up also, to see the blue wisteria. That’s another big thing of abundance for me.
Now I would like to show you, it’s my treasure room. I think, everyone, it’s a really important to have a treasure room or a treasure shelf. I’ve been collecting here things from, I think 57 years, because I’m 57. So it’s either stones or it’s maybe sand. I have a whole area of sand, just wherever I go I take a little bit of sand and I make it to my big treasure. What I have, too, here is a lot of minerals in which I got from my uncle. One is very special, for me. It’s a little opal in the form of a shell. I got it, actually in Coober Pedy. I found it when I was out in the mines with men. This was already 30 years ago, which was possible. Also, look, this is also natural. I think it’s beautiful. It’s just also one of the rocks. I’m just amazed what we can just find in nature.
For me, it’s a room where I really relax. It’s like my women’s cave. I have old travel books here. I have my cards, like the angel cards here. I just have anything. I mean, for some people it’s a bit of a mess, but for me it’s just fun. Sometimes I have like… I do my little singing with the music. I think everyone, even if you have this little shelf, if you make it your treasure shelf then you just will get happy.
When you’re really having a hard time, this window is really symbolic for it actually, just open the window and you look at the new possibilities out there and you see there’s always beauty outside when you look at things in a new light.
Cathleen (56:26):
Thank you for watching, thank you for subscribing, and we’ll see you next month.
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