My playground
Everything I do is a combination of language & theatre & behaviour & communication. Theatre and language always were my great passions in life from childhood on, which later, with the great help of NVC, deepened in behaviour & communication. Never a dull moment! There's always more te explore and more to learn, every day, every moment. I'm very inspired by NVC and keep on experimenting and playing with the essence. I'm writing a book about the way I play with it: 'Connecting Communication, how?' It will be published in 2024.

My background
Originally I am educated as a theatre director, theatre teacher, and teacher in Dutch language. I have been a professional perfomer for more than a decade, worked in journalism for about a decade, got to know NVC in 2006, and instantly wanted to know as much as possible about this. In 2011 I started to give trainings and in 2016 I became a certified trainer.

My workfield
Since 2016 I have my own training studio, where I provide many trainings for everyone who wants to deepen themselves. I also give in-company trainings  for everyone who wants to learns something about creating a liveable world together: teams, and leaders of different organisations.
I feel very much at home in the world of education, care, and lower government.
Together with certified trainer Helmie Willems I offer a year-training for people to integrate NVC in their life.
With certified trainer Eva Maria Schneijderberg I offer a train-the-trainer program. And we also offer a NVC-summerfestival each year.
I translated the book from Liv Larsson, A Helping Hand, Mediation with Nonviolent Communication, into Dutch. I mediate in order to connect people, and I train professional mediators in adding NVC to their method of working. 
I was chairwoman of the Dutch trainers-circle for a couple of years.

My story
I'm grown up in an average town in the Netherlands, materially well endowed as a daughter of a general practitioner (medical docter), and also not priviliged as a daughter of a mother in a catholic culture, who was not allowed to work other than being a mother. Feminism became very important for me, and I gained full autonomy in life. I feel connected to all emancipations-movements.
I also experienced a troubled childhood because my brother lost track of his life at an early age and became a psychiatric patient for the rest of his life. I saw before my eyes, as a child, much powerlessness, hopelessness and suffering. NVC gives me strength, hope, power over my life and I want to contribute in diminishing the suffering in the world. People suffer from conflict, with eachother and within themselves. Peace is harder work than war. And many people are most at war with themselves. I see NVC as an art of living.

My specialities
- Playing with the model of observation, feelings, needs, request, to find out what works best;
- Connect NVC with other theories and models;
- Body-work to gain consciousness;
- Playing with feelings and needs to feel the enormous life energy, and have fun too; 
- Empathic listening (in mediation), using your 'high-sensitivity';
- Providing a safe space, and a clear process, in conflictsituations, such as medaitions, and conflicts in groups / teams;
- Insight in dynamics in groups / teams / companies and give tools to create equivalence where there is no equality;
- Special interest in upbringing and education, no more harm done, on the contrary;
- And more....