Regina, 51

If your friends/family had to describe you in 3-4 words, what would they say?

sweet/ loving, caring, creative, chaotic

What would you say is your best emotional quality?

I always say to myself and others: 'Tomorrow is a new chance to do better', so maybe 'hopeful' is my quality I guess, or stay positive?

What is your occupation and how to you like to spend your free time?

I work at a textile workshop with people who have acquired brain damage, we work with substanable goods and sell them in a webshop and take personal orders.
I also teach art at schools to stimulate creativity with textile and learn skills, and I'm a NLP coach, I work for a NLP Institute.

What are you most proud of?
Helping my kids through primary school; keep on believing in them/ us and stay persistant. It was a true nightmare! When a child is not average, teachers have their opinion, are not willing to see your child in total and do not listen to parents, that's a recipe for disaster...

My oldest is higly gifted; made jigsaw of 100 pieces and could read & write when he was 4 by himself, not because we pushed him. My youngest truely hated school when she was 7 years old, screamed and cried every morning, she was diagnosed severe dyslectic when she was 11 so can you imagine every day at school you are confronted with somehing you can not and everyone else can... It's a kind of abuse, because even math is with words now, so if you can not get the calculation right out of the story you do not succeed at this school subject either. Luckily she is very creative and that became her main focus in school.

What is your favourite poem, quote or saying?

You always have a choice...
This is one of NLP basic principles and you can apply it to everything.

What advice would you give your 20-year old self looking back?

Be thankful for all that's there, do not focus on all you're missing or that's not perfect.
Things always can get worse, so be happy what's there, what you've got and what you look like!

When you entered your 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's or beyond, what did you find were the most significant or poignant changes?

Only 2 weeks after my 30th birthday I got in a car accident and that for a long time ruined my life as I knew it. It was a big challenge to be patient to recover and take it one step forward, two steps back. I had to put my dreams and my desire to have children on hold. My 40's were mainly about surving day by day stuggles and only round the age of 50 I found more inner peace and got rid of lots of old pain and believes that didn't serve me. So life really get's better and better.

Do you have a story about yourself that you would like to share?

The story above?
Or if you like another one...

Summer 2019 at the swimmingpool in Crete, I read my favorite magazine 'Flow' and get inspired by an article on the terrible effects of the clothing industries. How they ruin nature and people in the process of making them, cost a lot of CO2 by transporting them and get dumped so soon and easily in Africa and South America. This has to change... What if I can find a nice way to tell this to teenagers, our future generation, by learning them to see more value in clothing and teach them the skills to change and make their own unique clothes, bags etc. And how wonderful would it be to get older people and people with different backgrounds involved, because they still have the craftmanship skills, wich our children do not learn in school anymore and it brings some meaning into their life as well, because giving and sharing makes you feel alive.

I mailed some people and started to share my idea the months after and june 2020 I started teaching projects at schools and in august we started the workshop at a fixed location, for 2 days a week with 5 women. I'm working to get more people and publicity so we can grow. It gives so much positive energy to experience my idea really has come to life.

What are your thoughts on aging?

You either die or grow old, I prefer to live and grow, so I'll take the wrinkles and sagging skin for granted.

Do you still have a dream or big goal that you would love to accomplish?

I'd love to own a house at the beach, or spend more time at there, because the beach and sea give me an instant feeling of freedom, joy and peace.

I dream of a bigger reach of my ideals about substanability in combination with creativity, so we re-use what's allready there, instead of endless buying new and my ideals of how we should interact with one and another, I mean truely listen, react with empathy and more tolerance, look at the bigger picture instead of only me, me, me. I'd like to improve and evolve my coaching skills; if you do not grow, devellop, you stand still and you go backwards.
There are a lot of things I like to learn; I'd like to get more organised, draw and paint better portraits, play guitar and the piano, speak spanish because I love how it sounds.