My Healing Journey + How I Came To Stand For Spiritual & Emotional Health

Inge Broer's Healing Journey | Reiki Montreal

What I stand for:

Before getting into my own journey, this is my stand today: I’m Inge Broer and I’m crazy passionate about spiritual and emotional health. When we’re spiritually healthy, we’re growing, we’re contributing beyond ourselves. When we’re emotionally healthy, we recognize our emotions are exactly what point us to what we need to do, who we need to be to be our best selves. And to me, there’s nothing more exciting than to help someone have more emotional and spiritual health in their life. The beauty and resources that are revealed are astonishing.

In sessions with me, I ask you to dig deep and feel deep and start owning parts of yourself and your story. I accompany you on your healing journey. To be able to do that, I have had to face my own healing challenges.

I’d like to tell you about a few of them here. I’m telling you so that you can sense my humanity and know that I will be supporting you with not only the book-smarts and conceptual knowledge I have (read about professional competencies here), but also with the compassion of someone who has learned through experience and is on their own journey. If you prefer not to know me in that way (I very much understand that) click to learn about my professional journey instead.

Have a seat, and let me tell you a few moments in my own healing journey, spiritual unfolding and discovering (and owning) my gifts.

(Parts of) My Story

Reiki Montreal Therapist Inge Broer's Healing JourneyAs a child, my family moved around quite a bit and I learned three languages before the age of 7 (Dutch, English, French : yay!). In the process, I also developed some social anxiety (i was beyond shy) and a desire for perfectionism that manifested as debilitating headaches. After every holiday, I had about two weeks worth of headaches. I never returned to school with the other children. I read books instead. Fleeing into books was (and still is!) one of my favorite escape mechanisms. (Note: This is a great escape mechanism. I’ve learned so much! but it also had some drawbacks). I developed my mind, but absolutely refused to develop my emotions.

As a teenager and young adult I think already I was fed up of this pattern. Somewhere subconsciously, I knew I couldn’t go on like that. Something needed to change. At 16, I made a serious decision that would impact my life forever. It turned out to be a deep commitment, something I never turned back on. I decided that I never wanted to be “fake”. I decided that I would always do my absolute best to stay true to who I am. This, in a way, is to me the definition of spirituality.

This led me to take some strange decisions. Some inexplicable and miserable decisions at the time, but that proved to be oh-so-perfect in retrospect.

One of those was that against everyone’s advice, I moved in with my boyfriend (no longer my boyfriend now) at the age of 18. Turns out everyone was “right” and it was awful.  I ended up crying day in day out and sleeping at the weirdest hours for the longest times. I, incredibly good student, almost failed my first semester at McGill.

In short: I was depressed. I couldn’t for the life of me feel, live or understand my emotions (Oh how I hated them!). I couldn’t express myself. I cut myself off from my support network. It was pretty miserable.

Now, looking back, that experience is maybe the biggest gift I’ve ever given myself. Intuitively I knew I needed something to jolt me into “feeling territory”. It was a big challenge for me. It required to show up for myself. It required to value my own happiness. It brought me face to face with my emotions. It taught me that emotions are actually problem solvers. It taught me that thoughts and sensations are related. It eventually even led me to EFT (a technique I still use to this day). Now? I love my emotions. I’m completely into emotional health and I absolutely love that I had this experience.

[I now have extra special Compassion for: Relationship troubles, breaking up troubles, depression, hating emotions, social anxiety, fleeing into your head]

Eventually I finished my Bachelors degree in Psychology at McGill, after having spent 6 months in the Netherlands. I wanted a “real job” before continuing my studies. Again, I intuitively was orchestrating coming face to face with something else I needed to heal. This time: Being hard on myself, being easily overwhelmed, and taking responsibility. I got even more than I bargained for ;).

My first job was at the Natural Health Consultants (NHC) Institute. Most challenging work environment ever. In the best possible way. People were loving, kind and saw incredible potential in me. They wouldn’t let me not reach it. This is where I did my energy medicine training and I was challenged – every single day – to trust myself, to follow my instincts, to take decisions, to be a leader.

Yet, I felt like a failure most of the time, I cried, I was overwhelmed to the max. I experienced a lot of headaches at the time, and something that in retrospect I’m pretty sure was a burn out.

It was a lot of responsibility at 23. And I grew. I learned to be kind with myself, I learned to set my limits, I learned to show up even when it’s hard. But to reap the benefits, I first had to relax (and quit the job). In the Energy Medicine Program my way of thinking completely changed as well, but that’s a story for another time :).

[I now have extra special compassion for: Stressful jobs, taking on more than you can chew, being hard on yourself, burn out, overwhelm]

There’s one last thing I want to share with you: My journey with meditation.

My “spiritual initiation” if you will, happened in 2008 when I felt lost and in a total funk after coming back from an exchange program in the Netherlands and finishing up my psychology degree.
Out of nowhere, for no particular reason that I knew of, I decided to go meditate. Yep. I decided to sit my butt on a cushion for 10 days, not talk to anyone, and apparently just watch my breath go in and out for days on end. I honestly don’t know what made me do it. But I did. It was the best decision of my life. It changed everything.

It’s with this experience that I found my job at NHC and the Energy Medicine certificate there. It’s something that motivated me to go do a Masters (I did research on mindfulness, visualization and intention at the Université de Montréal) and eventually start Reiki Montreal.

With meditation, I learned to be the master of my own mind. I don’t let myself get into those awful negative loops anymore. I can stop a headache before it becomes big (I can create one too, but that’s another thing). I have learned to harmonize my emotions and my mind. I have learned it is possible to decide to live happiness. I have learned to distinguish pain from suffering (and diminish the suffering component). I have peered into the nature of reality in a way I could never have done otherwise. I have become in touch with what it is I’m here to do on Earth. It’s something I need to practice daily. I am not perfect. Nor will I ever be. But these parts of my story, I can see as perfect. They have made me in who I am today, and I am incredibly grateful for that. Can you see that too? Can you transfer that to yourself?

What I stand for today:

This is my stand today: I’m Inge Broer and I’m crazy passionate about spiritual and emotional health. When we’re spiritually healthy, we’re growing, we’re contributing beyond ourselves. When we’re emotionally healthy, we recognize our emotions are exactly what point us to what we need to do, who we need to be to be our best selves. And to me, there’s nothing more exciting than to help someone have more spiritual and emotional health in their life. The beauty and resources that are revealed are astonishing.

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