My professional background meanders from being trained as a sociologist, retrained as information analyst, becoming programmer, project leader, manager and director in IT to becoming enneagram teacher, personal coach and assessor. I started as a student in the Ridhwan School in 2006 and have been ordained as a teacher in the DA in 2023.
This path has opened totally unimaginable horizons of experience in such a safe way, that I can open to the most difficult and hidden parts of my personality that appear to limit my freedom. Coming from a place where the Super Ego constrained my life to a great extent, I now feel much freer to enjoy life and to relate to the people around me in a genuine and loving way. I am aware of being part of, and an expression of the universe; free to experience the abundance of every moment in this precious life.
Teacher hood in this path is not an end station, but a way of continuous learning from and with mentors, fellow teachers and students alike. As a teacher in this path, I am committed to supporting the unfoldment of the potential of my students the best way I can and by continuing my own learning and development.
As a teenager, I felt connected to several liberation movements, fighting suppression in different parts of the world in service of liberation. As time went by, my attention shifted from working with external to internal suppression. In this movement, I remember one pivotal moment: in 1994, I walked through the stunning Nepalese mountain woods. I was impressed by the fairy atmosphere, with every now and then a small altar with Buddhist offerings. I was not religious, but impressed by the devotional quality they expressed. In that moment, the wish arose to practice ‘devotion without religion’ as I called it shortly afterwards. Back home, I went to a Zen sangha and started daily meditation. A second pivotal moment was when accidently, the enneagram crossed my path when reading Helen Palmers’ little booklet about the enneatypes. I was struck by the accuracy with which I found myself being described on those few pages. It inspired me to follow the enneagram teacher training at the Trifold School of Enneagram Studies, which put me on a path of self-discovery and growth. The enneagram offers great insights, but it does not offer a continuous practice. The moment a fellow student pointed me to the Ridhwan School, I recognized that this was what I was looking for. I found the DA as a way of deepening my self-knowledge and as a support for ongoing practice. Every retreat was a festive revelation of new insights, experiences and encounters with fellow students, accompanied by challenging inquiries.
Working with my structure and the basic convictions and fears of my type still is a rich ground of exploration and learning. The challenges of teacher hood add to this process.
The Diamond Approach is a non-dogmatic, investigating way of entering into the mystery of life, where the personal and its issues appear to be the doorway to both the universal and to a fulfilling life of presence and continual learning and revelation. This path speaks equally to the (scientific) mind as it does to the heart, while fully including the body as a portal to enlarge one’s range of experience, insight and capacity for love and live in harmony with oneself and others. Here, personal development and spiritual practice coincide in a loving, non-judgmental space that allows us to experience Reality as it is by seeing through the veils of the personality.