My Story
Ever since I was young, I had the feeling that I was different, that I saw the world differently. I felt like I couldn't truly be myself, but instead had to step into certain roles and become certain things. To belong. To be accepted. To be loved. To receive attention. I learned to wear a mask and constantly adapt myself. To push everything down and put a smile on my face. To get good grades and focus on the future. I was going to become a medical doctor and help people, truly care for them. I would have a meaningful career, people would respect me, and by pursuing my dream I believed I would finally become the person I was meant to be.
That was the plan… Until I simply couldn't do it anymore.
I experienced a burnout and fell into a depression, feeling deeply disconnected from myself. I knew it was time to start taking off the mask, to process the experiences I had been carrying, and to meet the person underneath it all.
That is where my healing journey truly began.
From Medical Doctor to Soul Healer
My Healing Journey
Looking back now, I can honestly say it has been one of the most challenging and rewarding journeys of my life. The years that followed were a true rollercoaster. Full of ups and downs, love and rejection, clarity and confusion, breakthroughs and setbacks. From dreaming of becoming a neurologist to completely questioning the path I thought I was supposed to follow. From trying to fit into environments that never truly felt like home, to slowly creating a life that felt aligned with who I really was. Step by step, I moved further outside my comfort zone. Every time life invited me into the unknown, I chose to lean in, rather than pull away. Often scared. Often uncertain. But somewhere deep inside I knew that if I wanted my life to change, I had to be willing to change too. To feel the fear, and do it anyway. My now known definition of courage. To keep trying different forms of therapy, healing experiences, personal development workshops, trauma work, transformational retreats and consciousness exploration.
And what I discovered was that healing is about so much more than understanding our stories intellectually.
The deepest shifts happened when I felt safe enough to experience what had been living beneath the surface for years.
The grief.
The fear.
The protective patterns.
The emotions I had learned to suppress in order to keep moving forward.
For the first time, I began to understand that many of the struggles we carry are not signs that something is wrong with us. They are often intelligent adaptations, created by a nervous system that once did exactly what it needed to do in order to survive.
Along the way, psychedelics entered my life. What started as curiosity became one of the most transformative parts of my own healing journey. The experiences I had not only changed the way I saw myself, but fundamentally changed the way I viewed healing. Again and again, I witnessed how altered states of consciousness could help access emotions, memories and insights that felt difficult to reach through thinking or talking alone. Not as an escape from reality, but as an invitation to meet it more fully. They invited me to look beyond the stories I had always believed about myself. Beyond the protective patterns I had spent years identifying with. Beyond the limits of what I thought was possible. And somewhere along the way, a question emerged:
What if the breakthrough you've been searching for lies beyond the limits of your current perspective?
For me, it did. At the same time, I learned something equally important. The medicine itself was never the whole story. The most meaningful transformation did not come from the psychedelic experience alone. It came from the preparation beforehand. The safety of the therapeutic relationship. The willingness to stay present with what emerged. And the integration that followed afterwards.
The experience may last a day. The healing can last a lifetime.
As my understanding deepened, I began to see that there was an entire world beyond the limits of conventional healthcare. A world where science, therapy, trauma-informed care and psychedelic experiences do not oppose one another, but can work together in powerful ways.
And so, even before graduating from medical school, I already knew that I would never spend a single day working in a hospital. Not because I stopped believing in medicine. Quite the opposite. My medical education remains an important foundation of who I am and how I work today. But I knew my path was leading me somewhere else. I chose to follow it. What followed was not a carefully mapped-out plan, but a series of choices that brought me closer and closer to the life I truly wanted to live. A life with more freedom. More alignment. More space to listen to what felt right, rather than what was expected of me.
Along the way, my healing journey led me to Portugal. What started as a place to retreat, reflect and reconnect gradually became a second home. A place that mirrors so much of what I was searching for within myself: space, simplicity, nature and a different way of living.
Today, I divide my time between the Netherlands and Portugal, offering retreats, therapy sessions and transformational experiences in both countries. Being able to live and work in these two worlds has become a beautiful reflection of my own journey, bridging different perspectives, different approaches and different ways of healing. The same journey also led me deeper into therapy, trauma work, regression therapy, body-based approaches, emotional healing, and eventually Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy. With every step, I came closer to myself. Closer to the way I truly wanted to work. And closer to the vision that guides my work today.
My medical background allows me to understand the body and health through a scientific lens. My therapeutic training helps me guide people through the complexity of trauma and healing. And my experience with psychedelic therapies has shown me what becomes possible when profound experiences are supported by a safe and intentional therapeutic framework.
Because I believe trauma healing deserves a different approach.
One that goes beyond symptom management. One that honours the wisdom of the body, the nervous system and the unconscious mind. One that recognizes that people do not need to be fixed, but supported in reconnecting with the parts of themselves they have lost along the way. Psychedelics may open the door, but transformation happens through the therapeutic process that surrounds the experience. And my role is to create a safe and supportive space in which that transformation can unfold naturally. Whether we meet in the Netherlands, in Portugal, or online, my intention remains the same: to offer a space where you can safely explore, heal, and reconnect with who you truly are.
Because ultimately, healing is not about fixing what is broken. It is about reconnecting with the essence of who you are beneath the layers of pain, protection and survival. And that, to me, is the true meaning of being a Soul Healer.
I am a Soul Healer
Throughout my healing journey I was always looking for my authentic self. A desire to understand who I was beneath the layers of conditioning, old wounds and expectations, and to discover what life could look like beyond them.
That search took me through many worlds. I got trained as a Medical Doctor (M.D. | Msc.), became a Regression and Past Life Therapist, and specialized as a Psychedelic-Assisted Therapist. Each path offered a different perspective on healing, yet all of them were guiding me towards the same destination: me.
From the moment I entered this world, I was a creative, energetic and endlessly talkative child. I was cheerful, full of imagination, and could often be found daydreaming about being on stage.
As I grew older, my curiosity became more focused. I became fascinated by the brain: how it works and how it shapes our experience of life. This fascination led me to study Psychobiology in Amsterdam.
I still remember my first day of school. I had been counting down the days for months, excited to finally join the "big school." Curiosity and a love of learning were part of me from an early age. I devoured books, and visits to the library soon became just as exciting as spending time with my friends.
1993
2011
1997
Continue
My Soul Journey
During my studies in Psychobiology, I realized I wanted to work more directly with people and care for them in a meaningful way. This led me to pursue a medical degree through the SUMMA program (M.D. | Msc.) in Utrecht, with the goal of becoming a neurologist.
During medical school, I met a lecturer who also facilitated personal growth workshops (Be the Change) inspired by the TV program "Over de Streep" (Cross the Line). I had always been curious about this kind of work, so I decided to join. What I didn't know at the time was that this workshop would mark the beginning of my own healing journey and a deeper search for who I truly was.
After attending several Be the Change workshops, an incredible opportunity came my way: a three-month internship with Challenge Day, the sister organization of Be the Change in the United States. It was there that I learned how to facilitate transformational workshops and discovered what it truly means to stand in front of a group from a place of authenticity, vulnerability and connection.
2014
2017
2016
After several more trips to the United States and facilitating workshops in the Netherlands, I began collaborating with the founders of Challenge Day and Be the Change, taking on the role that had once inspired me as a student.
Soon after, I facilitated my first workshop for refugees in Greece and founded my first company: Awacon - Awakening Consciousness.
2018
What followed was a year of deep healing, transformation and self-discovery. Through 4-week breathwork training in Greece, profound plant medicine experiences, and studies in trauma release work and soul purpose coaching, I immersed myself in understanding what it truly means to heal.
During this time, my soul mission began to reveal itself more clearly, and I discovered the work that truly lights up my heart.
With years of personal healing, professional training and inner transformation behind me, I knew it was time for my business to evolve as well. A new chapter called for a new identity, and so The Soul Healer was born.
I officially graduated as a Medical Doctor, only to leave behind a career that had barely begun. My own healing journey had shown me that I was here to contribute in a different way.
Rather than following the path I had carefully planned, I chose to follow a deeper calling, one dedicated to healing, transformation and discovering my true purpose.
2022
2020
2022
During this time, I also began a two-year training in Regression and Past Life Therapy at the SRN, which I have since completed. This training deepened my understanding of the subconscious mind, unresolved experiences and the many layers through which healing can unfold.
Combined with my experience in psychedelic work, body-based approaches and emotional release techniques, it became an important piece of the integrative approach that defines my work today.
2023
2026
In recent years, many of the paths I had been exploring came together through Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy. My background in medicine, trauma-informed care, regression therapy and transformational work found a natural home within this emerging field.
To deepen my expertise, I pursued additional training and recently finished an advanced certification program in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy. Today, it forms the foundation of my work.
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