Forged in Ice and Fire

An update on Into the wild within & a memoir of the past four years following my heart <3

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December 2017 marked the end of my life as I knew it and the beginning of a completely new one. And yes, it also felt as dramatic as it sounds. It was, and it still is, the most exciting and scary thing I’ve ever done.

After seven years living in London, and twelve in total in the UK, I gave my notice to my once dream job at Google, packed what was worth moving from my beloved little studio apartment in Finsbury Park, and moved to Amsterdam, as an initial step at least. 

Other than ‘to start again’, there was no plan. 

The only rule - that I would follow my heart, and see where that would lead me. 

First stop was Iceland. 

Just before the new year, Joren and I flew over there to scout some locations for his, then, first-ever independently organised expedition as a guide and coach. 

I was thrilled to help him out with setting up his event. I knew what an incredible guide he was, I had experienced that first hand when I met him one year prior to that in Poland during an expedition he was leading for Wim Hof where I was participating. Yes I fell in love with the teacher..it’s a good story for another post ;) 

I remember touching down on this island for the first time. It felt like we had arrived in an alien land, on another planet. I had never experienced being in a place where there were so few living beings in such a vast, moon-like landscape covered in thick ice and swept by ghastly winds as we were driving into the night to reach our cabin. 

The mornings were pitch black until almost noon when the most beautiful, faint sunlight would cover the horizon for a mere four to five hours. 

The most exquisite colours appeared as the sun rays would touch the glacial water lakes and icy mountain peaks..a feast for the eyes, a crystal clear frozen scent in the air, and a chilling, quickly-turning-painful contact with any exposed skin that missed gloves, hats or earmuffs!

March 2018 was our first week-long event. We had a group of 23 people and it was a huge success. After that, another two came in November that year, and then again two more the year after. 

Every time, every expedition was so much more special than before. I found myself gradually moving from a mainly organisational role to guiding and teaching alongside Joren as I deepened into my own path and where my heart was leading me to evolve and unravel. 

It was such a challenging time for me. I didn’t know who I was, or what I was doing for the most part. It was as if some force was guiding me, and pushing me out of my comfort zone to do more, offer more, share more.

Thinking back, it was quite remarkable that I did that. I only had a yoga teacher training under my belt and I knew I didn’t want to ‘just teach yoga’. I didn’t know anything about what kind of work I wanted to do. I just completely dove into whatever was in front of me. 

I was so insecure, so shy, so terrified of not being good enough. There were great moments, and there were not so good moments. Times that I felt so proud of myself for being able to offer something valuable to the group, and times that I wished I wasn’t there altogether.

Time after time, I grew into my role, I learned to carry myself in front of the group, to share my story, so vulnerably, before it had even sunk in to make sense to me first, I was there, sharing. 

As time passed by, I would bring in everything that I was learning in my own personal growth journey into these expeditions.

From teaching my first yoga class in March 2018, to then giving sound baths, supporting the group during breathwork, cold exposure, to finally facilitating sharing circles, helping people go deeper into their process talking about trauma, emotions, boundaries, healing, and transformation.

From a health-focused type of experience, our nature experiences became about so much more.

To my amazement, even the times that I thought that I had fucked up, someone would tell me how I helped them, how much I contributed to their process, how much they loved my practice or coaching in the moment. 

Slowly, about a year in, our brand started to emerge - Into the wild within.

I knew that what we were doing was so much more than just dipping in the cold water and doing a few rounds of breathwork to boost the immune system. I knew there was so much more to why I was there, why I had decided to leave my whole life as I knew it and had ended up doing these expeditions with Joren. 

Part of my own journey at the time was to understand what the heck I was here on the planet for! After seven years of climbing the corporate ladder and achieving all the things I was supposed to, and still not ‘being there’, there had to be another way. I just had no idea what. 

And so I went searching. My first solo trip after we came back from Iceland that first time and just after I handed in my Google badge in London in Jan 2018 was a 10-day primitive survival expedition in the north of Sweden. There I lived in a cabin with no electricity or running water with fifteen others learning how to live with the earth.

I went to the wild, literally, to find something. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I had to make myself ‘suffer’, I had to put my body and mind into difficult situations so that I could break open, to be able to clear out the way so that I could finally see.

Now I know that I was clearing out a lifetime of trauma stuck in my nervous system. By reconnecting to the wild, I was able to allow for my body’s natural healing ability to kick in. The wild within me.

The wild within me was activated, unleashed, alive once again. 

I brought this exploration into these expeditions with Joren in Iceland, and eventually in 2019 in Sweden with Into the wild within, combining our healing practices with earth living skills and primitive survival methods.

Without really being conscious of it at the time, we also brought something that was such an integral part of connecting with that wildness inside that was screaming to be free. 

We brought the element of community. 

Coming together with our groups to live for a week, prepare meals, eat, sing and laugh and even cry together in these glorious, heart-opening, at times excruciating, freezing moments in the cold lakes and rivers, or burning lava-hot sweat lodge ceremonies. During these rites of death and rebirth, supporting one another as we all went into the deep, together, to face ourselves, and let go, of whatever was ready to fall off and give space for who we really are...to emerge, to shine through. 

Some of the moments I experienced as a guide in these expeditions have been the most heart-expanding moments of my life. Supporting fellow humans in opening up to become more of themselves, to be able to see more of their soul in their eyes, it’s one of the biggest honours I’ve received in my life thus far. 

March 2020 was our last Iceland expedition together with Joren, and it was the most spectacular, mind-blowing and deepening experience of all up until that moment. It was a tough week, with the most challenging weather we’d had in Iceland ever. So many things happened, so many bumps in the road, and yet, it was the most magical time of all. 

Right after we came home from that week, the world changed as we know it, and we went into lockdown. 

The pandemic meant that we couldn’t continue to do our nature expeditions anymore. An indefinite pause started, and life pushed me once again to dig deeper. Truth be told, I didn’t have to dig that deep, as I already knew what was calling me. 

All the while we were doing Into the wild within, several times a year, I was increasingly getting tired of the traveling, the tough winter conditions, and the exhausting pre and post phases, as really, we didn’t have the best setup for help and assistance. 

I was learning and challenging myself with every expedition, but I was also not having the time and space to develop into my own path. I was cut off from my creative mode. Something was calling me to deepen into myself, to explore more before I could continue to share with the world. 

Between the beginning of 2018 and until just before the pandemic hit in March 2020, in these mere two years, I had gone from ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life’ to having started three business projects (Into the wild within, my sound healing business which didn't continue, and my personal blog Living on Source which eventually would turn into my current website for my coaching business.) 

I had been traveling pretty much constantly for two years - we were joking that we never spent more than two weeks in a row once back in Amsterdam, but that was actually so true. In between expeditions and all kinds of other workshops and events we were doing all throughout Europe, to my own explorations in kundalini yoga across the US and finally spending time in Peru communing with medicinal plants in the Amazon in Sep-19. 

I did so fucking much! And to think I used to give myself so much grief for ‘not having figured it out yet’!

Not being able to do these expeditions throughout the pandemic felt like a curse, and a total blessing at the same time. In the absence of these live events, I was forced into really taking my own path now, away from ‘the comfort’ of what we had created together with Joren. 

I started to listen again. When the constant doing of traveling and setting up events gave way to lockdown at home for pretty much more than a year, my new me started to form.

I knew I wanted to help people change their lives, but I didn’t know in what form. I had seen people change so much in just one week when being in nature, in community, engaging in mind and body practices. But then they would go home, and back into their lives. Some may have ended up making some changes, but for most, it was an amazing experience that they would remember fondly.

I wanted to help people, really change their lives. Just like I had with mine. 

I knew how possible it is, to become someone new. To experience no limits in the kind of new life you can create.

That’s when it became clear to me that I wanted to be a coach. I wanted to work with people for extended periods of time, when it is really possible to make everlasting changes.

And so I delved into my new work as a coach, and for the last year, I’ve been working 1-1 with women, helping them grow into their next level, in leadership and business. It’s been exhilarating, mind-blowing, heart-expanding, incredibly fulfilling work.

This shift wouldn’t have been possible, so quickly, if it hadn’t been for the pandemic. 

A few months ago, when we had to make a decision about whether we would do Iceland again this winter, I felt called to step away from Into the Wild within, and let Joren lead on his own this time. I knew in my heart that I had to focus on my own path, to deepen into my own art, and let him do the same. 

This week I’ve been watching from afar as Joren is preparing for our 7th Iceland expedition which started today. I couldn’t be more proud of him as he has put in so much work to make this week happen. Part of me wishes I was there, to feel the crispy air on my skin, to see those northern lights again dancing in the night sky, alongside a group of brave souls...and another part knows that this is the way it’s meant to be, for now. 

My exploration of the past year into my personal process has revealed to me more threads coming together on the journey I’ve been on so far. All those wild places that I delved into looking for answers, all those experiences sleeping in igloos in the arctic winter, dipping in ice lakes, shedding parts of myself in the sweat lodge, fasting and journeying on medicinal plants in the amazon

...they were all portals for a far greater journey into my wild within. 

For now, I know more than ever before that the wild and free place that I was looking for all along, is the one that exists in the core of who I am. The more I make contact with it, the more I befriend it, the more I l i v e as the human I wish to be in this lifetime. The part animal, the part instinct, the part earth and mother, the part of me that is one with the soil and water. The part of me that knows what to do, even before I think a thought or say a word. 

The part of me that wants to live free, unbound and untamed, and forever riding the flow of life that is.this.very.moment. 

This winter Joren will be leading Into the wild within Iceland and Sweden as I will be focusing on my current work as a coach and women’s leader. I feel certain that our work will come together again one day soon, deeper and more alive and fiery as ever before. I’m already envisioning Into the wild within summer expedition..stay tuned for that as I will unveil more in the coming months. 

For now, I want to send all my love to my beloved Joren for offering himself once again in full service this week to his group in Iceland. My heart and spirit will be with you in the lakes, the rivers, the mountains, the fired-up lava rocks, the dancing lights in the night sky. 

With all my love

E x