Sjaak saw that Janny was looking around from the couch. "It is still bare, Janny, the furnishing is not ready yet. I was still alone when I moved in, that's also the reason why I didn't want a floor. And things on the wall and such ... I just didn't feel like it. And that’s fine now, for once the renovation is done, we can do it together."

Lisa suggested an idea that suddenly bubbled up in her mind: "Sjaak, wouldn't it be nice to ask Margreet for that wall over there," she nodded her head towards the wall she meant, "if she could embroider a tapestry?"

Sjaak responded in surprise, "That seems great, you should definitely suggest that to her!"

He turned to Marcel and Janny, and told them about the creativity of Huib, Margreet and Elly. "If you get to know Huib and Margreet, ask them about it. Good chance they'd love to show you the nursery. There you can admire work by Huib and Elly. And Huib's woodwork... this coffee table is his work. And you can find it in the guesthouse, by the way."

Janny immediately responded to his last words, "A couple of things caught my eye in the guesthouse: the umbrella stands and the bookcase. Did he make those?"

"How funny that you picked those out," Lisa laughed, "those are indeed Huib's. And so are the kitchen cabinets over there, but I guess you haven't been in the kitchen yet. Margreet has started a tapestry for the first time, for herself, and she's really taken to it, in a good way, it's really her thing! And Elly, our wall artist, is the wife of Martin, that policeman. Elly has been friends with Annerieke for years. She has rediscovered her heart's desire to paint murals. That wall she painted in the children's room turned out so beautiful! All kinds of birds and butterflies and flowers, so nice, like it's alive!"

Sjaak added: "And Huib has been busy setting up a website, one website with three pages in it: for Elly, for Margreet and for himself, so they can receive assignments through the website and can sell their work. Super convenient, pretty empty right now, but when more pictures come in, it will be a beautiful website!"

"Lisa, you mentioned that tapestry, that that was totally her thing. How exactly do you mean that? Maybe a silly question, but I have a feeling there's more to that than just that she likes it," Janny considered.

"Oh yes, that's right, you sensed that very well. Margreet had started knitting. She loves handicrafts. She told me today, that because of her pregnancy, she also wants to start sewing overlap skirts, by hand. She likes to do all that. But a while ago the idea came to her to make a tapestry, by attaching threads to a linen cloth with small sewing stitches. Just for their wall. I think she just started it yesterday, but she felt the difference immediately. Handicrafts in general she loves to do, but making those tapestries...that just jumps out at her. She had always hated abstract art, but now she makes it herself. She knows deep down that it can be abstract, that it doesn't have to represent anything, just colors, thick and thinner threads. She even considers attaching patches of fabric to it. How that work suits her, is like she and Huib, and also Sjaak and I, felt a deep connection with each other, even before we knew each other. I mean, Sjaak and I had seen each other here on the estate once, but not otherwise. And our coming together, that was just slap boom! Like strong magnets inside us that pulled us towards each other and clicked together. So like that, so it is with the things we do. For me, it's playing the violin and the cello, and also that click with a shelter for women who have gone through the same kind of misery as I have. Although I think the latter has mainly to do with my general desire to help people heal emotionally, combined with my past. For Sjaak, it's the garden and the piano that are really his heart's desires..."

"... and just like you supporting process work, for you, for whoever comes my way, soon for those women when that shelter comes," Sjaak added. "I have no idea yet what my task there will be, but it has my heart."

"Maybe also just the things that are needed in the moment," thought Janny, "and how about a nice garden around it? I'm sure you'll find your way in it!"

Lisa nodded to Sjaak: "I think that's right, what Janny says. I think we are going to become a kind of manager couple, but then not by the rules of how you should carry out such a profession, but from our hearts, so that we can offer whatever comes to mind, what those women need."

Marcel had been listening quietly, but now came forward, "You mentioned something like that in my direction the other day, that in my work I can't fully do what my desire is: to help people, really help them. It was true what you said, that I am limited in that by the rules of the police. I really long to find out, what my possibilities are to do what I deeply want, really help people."

"Me too," said Janny in surprise, "actually I have the same longing. I help people too, behind the counter of a nice store, but my longing goes much further. It's remarkable, by the way, that we both have that. It would be nice if we could find something together..."

"I think," Sjaak surmised, "that those ideas will come naturally. Don't go looking for them frenetically. Rather, take the time to learn to listen to the voice of your heart, of your soul, and try to feel what really suits you. Not just about your desire to help people, but about anything, anything that comes your way. Your own feelings and ideas, beliefs. Also things in your relationship, how you live together. Whatever passes, try to listen to your inner voice and feel if the impressions you get really belong to you. And follow those impressions, those feelings, even if it means breaking with things that are not good for you. Things that don't fit you, things that push you down or hold you back from becoming who you are."

Marcel looked at him with a thought wrinkle in his forehead, "Wait a minute, I don't quite understand that. Impressions that come up, they are ours by default, right?"

"In a sense, yes, but unfortunately, more often than we would like, they are impressions that come from our emotional wounds. Because of what we've been through, because of what we've been trapped in, beliefs and so on, ideas come up that, if we feel very good, we'll regularly find out that they don't feel good, that we don't really feel like doing at all. Take something like birthdays: you buy the birthday person a present and you go and visit him. That's the way it should be, that's what we're used to. Isn't it?"

Marcel and Janny nodded, and Janny reacted vehemently: "You don't want to know how often I have despised that! Indeed, to me it feels like something that has to be done, that is the way it should be done. But I'd rather buy a present for someone if it's on my heart. And I'd rather visit someone because I have a longing for it, because that idea suddenly occurs to me."

"That's exactly what I mean!" Sjaak replied enthusiastically. "Celebrating birthdays is an imposed thing, we're stuck in that, it's the way it should be. If you don't take part in it, then... shame on you!" Sjaak waved his index finger supposedly punishingly. "And actually that should already be a sign on the wall, a sign that something is not right, that it is something you are morally obliged to do and which is condemned if you don't do it. And that doesn't feel well!"

"No, it really doesn't feel well. And I feel terrible knowing that people will condemn us if we don't do as they do." Janny felt quite agitated. "Hell, it's already evoking tension even as we talk about it. How can that be? All we do is talk about it!"

Sjaak recognized what she felt: "You mentioned it yourself, that you hate it when people judge you. There is a fear behind that, a fear of being judged. Most people are so dependent on what the people around them think. And now we’re talking about those birthdays, that fear is what makes you feel like there's a pulling of the strings, the beliefs that are attached. That causes that tension."

Tears sprang to Janny's eyes, "Yes, that fear of condemnation, that's exactly what I'm afraid of. It’s fear, you have sensed that well. I don't understand why I can't just be who I am, why I always have to be like other people. And when I think about that, then I wonder how that should be, to be like other people. Because let's face it, all the people around me are different. So how can I be like them? If I live like one person, I am not living like another, and then the other person is going to judge me. And that's exactly what I've always struggled with, that I want to please everyone, but I never really succeed, and that by living like that I pass myself by. I have felt that often enough, that it was not right how things were put together. I knew it wasn't right how I dealt with it, but I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't get it to change."

Sjaak thought for a moment, wondering what Janny needed. "I think, you need two things, Janny. And those two things are intertwined, they belong together. In fact, they can't even be separated from each other.

One is, you need healing from your wounds, among other things, from that fear of other people's reactions. The more you are wounded, the less you dare to be yourself. That's not a failure of yourself, it's just not possible, it really doesn't work. And worse, you have lost a part of yourself in it. You have become accustomed to doing things the way you do them, the way you are supposed to do them. But you feel that they do not belong to you, that you want things to be different. That it does not work out is annoying, sad and painful. But it doesn't matter, you don't have to feel guilty about it, it's just the way it came about, and it's going to be all right when you heal inside.

The other thing is that you may learn to listen to your inner voice, the voice of your soul. And to find out if it is really your inner voice chattering to you or the voice of a wounded part of you, you may learn to feel how each new impression feels deep inside. If you doubt that it feels right, don't do it. If it does feel right, I would even say "feels like it's intimately yours," then do it. Then you have a good chance that you have really heard your inner voice. Good chance, I say, because unfortunately in the beginning it is not standard that it is really good. The wounded parts can speak so convincingly within us that what they say seems all jofel, but it's not. If you fall into that trap, it can feel bad afterwards, but in fact there's not much you can do about it. You are not to blame or anything. But try to make your choices anyway based on what you hear and feel from the inside."

Janny and Marcel both listened intently. "This clicks with me tremendously," Janny said to her husband, "with you too?"

"Definitely! I only suspect it's far from simple."

"You bet," Sjaak said smiling, "it's certainly not simple. You will regularly run up against yourself, against your own pain, against your fixed habits and your beliefs. But every time you do, a piece of healing takes place. Erik, Annerieke's first husband, has helped me enormously with that. I am not one hundred percent healed yet, but I have already received a lot of pieces of healing. He has taught me to take what I feel seriously. If something feels painful, if I feel an emotional ball in my belly, for example, I always try to accept it. If I have the opportunity, I take a break, to go right through it. And yes, that feels super rotten, sometimes really intense, but every time that unpleasant feeling goes away, I know that I have lost some shit again. Often I feel a lot freer afterwards, I feel better about myself.

And as for making the choices that suit you... That will not always be appreciated by people around. If they judge you, react ugly, remember that you have not made that choice against the other, but that it is a choice that you have made for yourself. That is a beautiful form of taking care of yourself. And if you have the ability to avoid people, possibly break contacts that feel bad for you, that will help you. It will be difficult in the beginning, you will feel it start to pull in your head. Really literally, as if your brain is being pulled apart. But it's not your brain, it's your convictions that are being pulled apart.

A well-known belief is that we should be friendly to everyone. So breaking contact with someone, that feels very contradictory. Not doing what is expected of you, and what you had always gone along with, always feels contradictory. Good chance all kinds of little voices in your head will start protesting. I can recommend for such moments, if it gets too intense, to go do something you like, something that gives you some distraction. But if you can handle it, you can also go through it in silence and peace. Well, silence and peace... it won't feel like that with all those thoughts flashing through your head, but I mean that you isolate yourself for a moment or so, take the time to listen and feel what is happening inside you. But if that's too hard, just find some distraction. No problem!"

"I can already feel it pulling in me, it gives me such a huge tension, it gives me a headache. And I hear so much protest. Just by listening to you, it seems like there are puppets in my head who want to continue in the old way and are arguing about it."

Janny put her hands against her head above her ears, where she felt the pain. Sjaak got up and walked over to her. He put his hand on her head, just for a moment, and sat back down in his chair.

"What have you done?" asked Janny in surprise. "That tension headache is gone!"

Sjaak looked at her, confused. He himself was perplexed by what he had done, and even more by the result. "I don't know... let's think about it... All I know is that it came to me, and I just did it. It wasn't until I sat back down that I also thought 'what have I done?'"

He stared ahead, frowning, thinking about what was going on here.

Lisa voiced her thoughts: "Sjaak, doesn't that have to do with the power and light in our souls? My understanding is that when your soul is further healed, that power and light then radiate out from your soul by default to support other people in their healing. But now you got this distinct impression... wasn't that specific power from your soul that was released for a moment then as an extra to give Janny relief?"

"I think you're right, it must be something like that. Erik and Huib also talked about it sometimes, that sometimes you can suddenly feel a stab of pain, and that then it is more than the normal radiating of your power and light, that it is indeed an extra for someone else. Sometimes you don't even know for whom, it just happens. And just now it was slightly different, but I think the principle is the same. I have often put my hand on a sore spot and experienced that the pain was less or even gone completely. At first it didn't work, then I asked Erik if he would touch me on the sore spot, and it usually helped. But then I decided that I wanted to do that too, somewhere I sensed that this power would be released more when I would heal further. And now it almost always helps. I'm glad for you that you got rid of that headache. And I can recommend you to make a habit of touching your painful places. Just feel what your soul is telling you.

It is slowly getting stronger and stronger. Sometimes I even manage to just think about it, to let my focus go to the pain. Then it seems as if my hand is only an aid, perhaps a temporary aid to learn to focus or something. I'm suddenly reminded of those movies that Thor is in, you know the one, the guy with the big hammer? That hammer is just a tool to sort of regulate his strength. Only later is he able to recognize and use his own power. It would not surprise me if I am now at that turning point, that I will no longer need my hand, but can just let my focus go to the point of pain. Anyway, that aside. Just try it out on yourself, and on each other."

"Do you remember, Lisa," began Marcel, who had only half listened to the last part because his mind was occupied with something else, "do you remember, when I asked you if this would also help my relationship with Janny? Now I understand that this is the most important thing needed for our relationship. If I am emotionally wounded, I am not able to focus on Janny from within, to do what is good for her. It's like that, isn't it?"

"Yes, it certainly is!" replied Lisa, glad he had understood. "The more wounding there is, the less you are able to sense what Janny needs, what is good for her. Then you tend to follow your habits and your wounds, the things that are taught in society, and the things you feel like doing yourself. Sjaak is already much further along in this than I am. He has chosen not to just do what he feels like, but to ask himself what is good for me. I want the same for him, but I notice that I am not really able to do that yet. I'm still pretty stuck in emotional wounds and what I think is right, what should be. Yes, what is supposed to be, what is generally accepted and recommended. Like..." Lisa hesitated for a moment, "like that as a woman you're supposed to give yourself to your husband, that's what people think. But when you have a past like mine..."

Sjaak put his hand on her arm and complemented: "When you have a past like Lisa, as a man I can't just jump on her. Sorry, I'll say this flatly, but that's what a lot of men think is very normal to do. As if that's the reason you have a wife. Thanks to Lisa, thanks to the deep love we have for each other, I realized, I don't want to see her as a utensil to get my fill, to satisfy myself, to enrich myself, a means to make myself happier. No, I long to be there for her, to protect her where necessary, to serve her, to give her what suits her and what is good for her. I refuse to have sex with her if her wounds causes her body to block. I want her to enjoy, and only when she enjoys, I enjoy myself."

Sjaak had never been so open about himself before, but he knew with certainty that he had to tell this. He had noticed as he spoke that his head became blushing red, and saw that Marcel was experiencing the same phenomenon.

Marcel bowed his head and muttered, "That’s exactly what it is Sjaak, you are absolutely right, but I want to confess honestly that I have never lived that way towards Janny." He looked at Janny, with tears in his eyes, "I have never treated you like that, and I am more sorry for that than I can tell you. I want to learn to listen to my heart, to feel what you need, what I can make you happy and joyful with. I really want to be there for you from now on." He took her face between his hands and gave her a soft kiss, as if his lips were caressing her lips.

"Wow... that's a good start to our process, you've never kissed me like that before. I've never felt it like that before. Wow, really wow!" Janny was totally impressed by this.

"And I think, this is a good time to go to the boarding house. It's so much all around." Janny looked from Marcel to Sjaak and Lisa, "If we have questions, or need help, can we come to you?"

"Of course," smiled Sjaak. "Or if it's more convenient, you can also go to Huib and Margreet, or to Annerieke. How far Simon is, I don't know, but I do know that they all have the same desire as we do: to heal together!"

Grateful and happy, Marcel and Janny said goodbye and walked into the with atmospheric lights illuminated garden.

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Thor doesn’t need his hammer anymore, it was just a tool to focus his inner power

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9X3YhUWsDc

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