My story of reconnecting more to a natural way of living started 10 years ago. I was living in Amsterdam, running a consulting firm, and climbing the ladder faster than I could keep up with. I aimed high: wanting to bring more Radical Honesty to the business world.
In doing so, this core value of mine initially worked mainly on me – dismantling a world of unhealthy patterns and stress I had created for myself. And revealing a deep longing, a call, to be closer to nature.
It was a hard decision – to say no to money, and yes to my health, to say goodbye to status, and hello to following my soul and heart path. I jumped. Became unimportant, a nobody. I found myself sitting under the guidance of excellent mentors, water fasting alone in a 3×3 meter circle, for 96 long hours in the Australian bush.
In those hours, some of my romantic fantasies about nature and myself were shattered – as leeches crept upon me in the night, and mosquitos kept landing on my nose. I was confronted by my own impulse to kill those nasty things – and then by a sadness and remorse when I realised how interconnected life is. What I had done. What humanity is doing.
My deep love, care, and connectedness to nature solidified in this experience. And for a moment, I did see my life path and mission forward. A seed was planted – to bring this important work of reconnecting back with me home.
My next steps brought me to Sweden, where I found great joy in training – first and foremost – in practical outdoor, wilderness, and primitive skills. They form, I realised, the base to be relaxed in nature, to feel at home in the wild. And eventually, people started asking me: Could you host and guide me in doing a vision quest?
In a call with my mentor in Australia, I got encouragement: The work chooses you. Surrender to it.
So here I am. Someone with practical outdoor and everyday leadership skills. A talent to improvise. A father of a daughter and living in a log-cabin in the Norwegian mountains. Living with and from nature, to some extend providing our own food, making firewood, stocking fish for the long winters (that are by the way absolutely magical here).
At the same time, I find myself standing at the edge of modernity – observing the rise of technology, even engaging with it, while wondering how to stay human, connected, awake.
I am here with a sensitivity to the unseen – the textures in places and the moods in silences, the presence of spirit in the land. I’m drawn to ancient, earth-rooted wisdom – not out of nostalgia, but because something in it rings real, enduring and deeply resonates inside me.
Let’s celebrate the simple life!
It’s a joy to feel something – at least something real. The wind. The cold. The heat. The smoke. The Mosquitoes. Let’s feel the super-luxury of being offline, unreachable, and not in reactive mode. Maybe you, too, feel the pull – a call from the wild, a discomfort with the pace, a longing to remember something older, simpler?
My invitation: To take a step outside – and by that, to take a step closer to yourself.
