About me
Hi! I’m Elisabeth
I’m one of the happiest persons I know. Hands down. And it was quite a journey to get there.
I took a long road with almost 2 decades of personal development work and courses, result of my never ending curiosity and the desire to make sense of a trauma-hit family situation. More often than not, after a peak high at a course, I’d soon fall back into old habits. I’d meditate in silence for 10 days in a row and then judge myself for not integrating the practice into my life.
Meanwhile I was living and traveling across the globe, and building out a successful corporate career, and truth be told, I enjoyed every single step of the way. I was also totally clueless about the deep subconscious mechanisms behind my lack of self care and the numbness and deep sadness or loneliness that would periodically overshadow me. My romantic relationships tended to end in poetic/dramatic break-ups, and I never understood why.
Two significant life events finally turned things around. First I ‘escaped’ a dysfunctional long relationship with someone who convinced me that pretty much everything about my sexuality was problematic. I had grown to believe that me and my body were a lost cause and I felt broken beyond repair. The second one was my brother passing away by suicide, spiraling my family once more into a dark crisis.
Talk therapy wasn’t gonna cut it. I could talk about everything with my close friends, but I experienced that talking has serious limits – it was a mental exercise to process and to make rational sense of what had happened. Until then, I was really denying the pain and grief and fear locked deeply inside of my system.
My mind was ‘OK’ with things because it ‘understood’ things rationally, but the rest of my body clearly wasn’t om board. It took somatic counselling and bodywork to let my broken soul express itself, and for me to finally crawl back up from the most painful depths of my grief.
Coming home to myself through the body changed everything.
.I finally understood that the body, not our mind, is the gateway to our sense of wholeness, aliveness and fulfillment!
Through bodywork, somatic therapy and my many studies in conscious sexuality and pelvic therapy, I managed to build a whole new relationship with my body, my pelvis, my pleasure and the trauma history in which I grew up.
Coming home to myself through the body changed everything. I am now actually one of the happiest persons I’ve ever met.
As the intense lover of life that I am, I’m convinced that we’re here on this planet to experience this magical ride with all of our senses, all of our emotions and through all of the relationships that we forge. I’ve grown into an avid admirer of the full rainbow, of all of its colors and the dark skies that are a needed for that rainbow to appear.
And I knew there was nothing that I wanted more than to share this with the world.. the mind blowing, jaw dropping work of diving deep into the bodymind to let our deepest passions and truths resurface. So I decided to get intense professional training to make that possible.
As a body-centered coach and therapeutic practitioner, I now bring together ancient teachings and modern science to the benefit of humans in the 21st century. Combining tools that work at physical, mental, emotional and energetic levels so that layers can be peeled off until reaching the core. Empowering humans just like me to embrace their power, their pleasure, their radiance!
I love to guide people to what is really going on inside them by connecting to the body, with calmness, with gentle focus, with lots of compassion. To help them discover who and what they are beyond their infinite stream of thoughts. To guide them to fully experience and embrace their strength, their pleasure and their aliveness. It doesn’t get any better than that =)
Want to know more?
Contact me for a free first call.
My qualifcations
My work is largely informed by the following professional trainings and programs:
Body-oriented trauma therapy
Somatic Experiencing® is a world renowned method for healing trauma, PTSD and chronic stress, founded by Dr. Peter A. Levine. I graduated from the full 3-year program at the Belgian branch of the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute in 2023. Somatic Experiencing is fused into all of my work, including the trauma sensitive body work I offer. Thanks to my mentor (and SE Faculty Member) Ariel Giarretto, I continue to deepen my expertise in (sexual) trauma and bodywork for trauma.
Pelvic Therapy
I became a pelvic therapist thanks to the deep training programs in Integral Pelvic Therapy® for men and women, and in Holistic Pelvic Care® levels 1, 2, and 3 of the world-renowned life’s work of Tami Lynn Kent (definitely check out her books!). Both are complementary therapies that gently help restore balance in the pelvic area. I also completed various trainings at the Flourish Institute, became a pelvic steam practitioner, and a scar therapist (ScarWork®) specializing in scars in the pelvic region.
Sex & intimacy coaching
I graduated from an intensive 2-year training in sexuality & intimacy coaching from the US-based Institute for Integrated Sexuality, founded by Layla Martin. I studied both women’s and men’s holistic sexuality, and in this same institute I also got trained and certified as a Yoni Egg facilitator. In addition, I have taken many courses with various teachers worldwide focused on tantra and conscious sexuality.
Shamanism, energy & breathwork
I’m trained in shamanic work with Roel Crabbe (Belgium) and Sandra Ingerman (United States) and I’m listed as a practitioner and instructor on ShamanicTeachers.com. I’m also a Reiki master and trained as a Breathwork Facilitator with Michaël Bijker. I love weaving in different approaches to come to a truly holistic approach for my clients.
Supervision, intervision & permanent education
I’m part of three professional supervision and intervision groups, where I collaborate with esteemed colleagues to ensure that my clients get the best possible service from me. I continuously educate myself further within my fields of expertise and interests and regularly join multidisciplinary consultations. Feel free to ask me about this!
And furthermore
I gained my diplomas in Foundations of Western Medicine and Psychology (in Dutch: HBO-level). I’m an passionate cook, diver and beekeeper. I have a BSc, MSc and a post master degree in International Development. I sometimes still spend time in this truly fascinating field as a consultant. Because I can be all of it. Heart & head. Intuitive & intellectual. Yin & yang. Like I said, I’m a happy person!