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Lightness as an act of resistance

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 18:20:11 GMT

Lightness as an act of resistance

Carrying the traumas of childhood, the legacies of war, and the violence of the world often means moving forward with an invisible backpack filled with stones. In this context, lightness can feel like a provocation—perhaps even an impossibility. And yet, it is precisely here that it becomes essential: not as denial, but as a vital impulse. How do we breathe when the past weighs us down? How do we dance when the ground trembles beneath us?

Donald Winnicott, through his theory of transitional space, reminds us that play, art, and creativity open up areas where the weight of reality can be gently held. These are not escapes, but spaces of reparation and self-reinvention. Lightness as a movement—a dance between shadow and light—like the pencil strokes of Catherine Meurisse, sketching life after tragedy.

In my work with teams, I intentionally create moments of lightness: using drawing to explore difficult organizational dynamics, visualization to collectively imagine more hopeful futures, or even enacting worst-case scenarios in caricatured ways—inviting laughter to release tension. The aim is not to impose positivity, but to create a holding environment - a container secure enough for challenges to be faced without collapse. It is about cultivating a tolerance for ambivalence—accepting that lightness and gravity can coexist: laughing through tears, creating despite obstacles.

Lightness is not naïve carefreeness; it is a strength—the capacity to create, to play, to breathe in spite of everything. What if, today, we chose to cultivate it like a muscle?

Case study in systems psychodynamics

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:02:55 GMT

Case study in systems psychodynamics

“It was staggering how much of this stuff came out of me, and how quickly, and all because I’d gotten out of the way and allowed these other voices to speak through me” – Sting.

Yesterday, I sat in Theater Carré in Amsterdam, watching The Last Ship by Sting – the story of a shipbuilding community facing the end of its trade. This morning, I realised that what I witnessed was not only a fabulous musical, but also a case study in systems psychodynamics ( The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations ), told through art.

“I’d gotten out of the way” echoes the idea that if we step aside and de-center our ego then something else can emerge, we can become the carrier of a collective system; for Sting, this is not merely his voice in The Last Ship, but the voices of an entire community, an Industrial region in north-east England, that for generations lived by heavy industry on shipyards and steel. Sting thought he had run out of inspiration to write; once he stepped aside, something else took over – Tyneside’s history, labour, faith, courage finding form through him. In that sense, The Last Ship was not written by Sting so much as through him.

In my work, the challenge is rarely to add a voice of my own, but to discern whether I am speaking for myself or on behalf of the system. It is about containment, allowing a collective experience to pass through me without appropriating it, defending against it or silencing it. As Sting puts it so beautifully, the work begins when I “get out the way”, creating space for what the system needs to say to be heard.

Picture The last Ship – Koninklijk Theater Carré Amsterdam

Which miracle made you who you are?

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:24:39 GMT

Which miracle made you who you are?

This question is one of those distinctive questions posed by Augustin Trapenard, a French interviewer and literary critic; I have long been fascinated by the way Trapenard frames his questions as invitations – not interrogations. He opens spaces in which artists and writers can reveal themselves rather than be revealed. He knows the work of his guests intimately; he reads everything. Yet, he never uses knowledge to dominate. Instead, he deepens the exchange through his finely crafted questions where something genuine can surface and shared discovery can happen. In the heart of the work of an organizational consultant lies the same craft: asking questions to leaders and their teams that will create spaces where people feel safe, seen, and invited to discover something true about themselves and their system.

I am puzzled how we are now learning to ask “better” questions with AI – because AI forces us to be intentional and clear – while we have been neglecting the discipline of finely crafted questions in real life. When prompting AI, clarity brings better output and specificity faster result. Yet, when asking real humans, like Trapenard asking artists and writers, too much clarity can feel exposing, too much specificity can feel threatening. So maybe this is the combination of the two: AI can teach us to craft questions with precision, while Trapenard can teach us to craft questions with presence. The first will reveal clarity, the second will reveal complexity; a prompt question asks: “give me output”, a Trapenard question asks: “show me who you are”.

What Is Real – and What Is Not?

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:22:20 GMT

TWhat Is Real – and What Is Not?

I prepared carefully for a two-day working conference grounded in a systems-psychodynamic tradition ( The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations ), in which participants were invited to study group processes. The task was clear: to experience, analyse and explore group dynamics within clearly defined boundaries of time, task and territory.

I was fully aware that the setting was deliberately constructed and therefore not real life. Roles, tasks and interventions were framed as temporary and provisional. And yet, what unfolded was undeniably real: anxiety, struggles around auhority, longing, resistance and competition. Accuracy in preparing and framing did not prevent illusion, projection and emotional investment from happening. Although several of the exercises were explicitely simulations, the emotional and relational responses they evoked were not simulated.

On the journey home, I heard on the radio the remarkable story of a painting attributed to Modigliani that had been exhibited for decades as authentic at the Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy. La Femme Brune was long believed to be genuine, celebrated alongside La Femme Blonde. La Femme Brune later appeared to be a fake. The painting itself was not real. The emotions people felt in relation to it were neither mistaken nor unreal. They reflected the relationship people believed they were in with the object, not its material truth. The authenticity of a painting belongs to external reality. Its emotional and symbolic meaning belongs to psychic and social reality.

A working conference operates in a similar way. It is a constructed container, “not real life,” yet it becomes charged with unconscious meaning. What participants project into the setting—and what the setting evokes in return—is psychically real and consequential.

Like the working conference and the believed-to-be-real painting, my practice attends to what is taken as real in the system and not to what is factually true. My work is about creating the conditions and not about predicting content. The psychic reality that emerge can not be scripted.

Thank you Sofie Cornelissen for the inspiration.

What makes you feel that I can handle this?

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 18:27:23 GMT

What makes you feel that I can handle this?

There is a deep-seated tendency to believe that people are strong and resilient, that a careless word or an awkward gesture won’t really affect them. There’s a discourse that claims adults can defend themselves, that they should be able to handle bluntness, that filtering one’s words is unnecessary and hypocritical, that to protect them would take away their autonomy and undermine human agency. In business, it is reflected in a culture of “radical transparency”, “brutal honesty” or “hard truth”.

But to believe that people can handle being treated in all transparency, without much care, is an illusion. We all walk with invisible pain, childhood wounds, insecurities, fears. Most of the time, these wounds stay quiet, covered by our adult competence, the role we play at work and our daily routine. But they are still there waiting to awaken again, and then something small happens – a sharp comment, a tone of voice that feels dismissive – and we feel hurt and overwhelmed.

Speaking to others in a gentle manner, avoiding harsh tone and negative judgements, being aware that we don’t know what battles the other person is fighting, showing delicacy and respect for the invisible fragilities present in them is not hypocrite. It is a form of deep humanity. And it starts with ourselves when we feel treated in an abrupt manner, to pause and ask: what makes you feel that I can handle this?

How do we show up to familiar places?

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:24:50 GMT

How do we show up to familiar places?

“I want to tell you two things. I’m happy to sing for you tonight. And even though I’ve sung these songs a million times, I sing them as if it were the first time”. That line from Graham Nash during his concert in Amsterdam stayed with me. At home, at work, we often repeat the same tasks, the same conversations, over and over again. How do we show up in these familiar places? How do we show up to familiar work? Can we love what we do enough to give it new life each time?

Routine is helpful of course, it gives a sense of control and predictability, it offers patterns of efficiency. It helps contain anxiety, especially anxiety that arises from complex emotionally charged tasks like caring, leading or performing. Over time, however, the same routines can become rigid defenses, protecting from anxiety but also from learning, from emotional contact and passionate engagement.

The pull of routine is ever present, no one can sustain relentless intensity! The invitation from Graham Nash that evening was to notice the drift, to bring our attention to it and to reclaim presence. It is about choosing consciously these defining times to give ourselves fully, to inhabit the experience as uniquely our own, even in what feels familiar.

Do it in the name of love

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 16:56:44 GMT

Do it in the name of love

“And so I shout around the world, Do it in the name of love, To every boy and every girl, Do it in the name of love”. It was a moment of grace to be one of the 25,000 people singing out loud these words with Neil Young at the Groningen Summerstage.

Neil Young once said that he is a musician, not an entertainer. In his Love Earth Tour, his music confronts, calls out injustice, and carries the weight of a conscious unwilling to stay silent. He had paid a price and continues to take risks as an activist. It left me asking: can I be both a business consultant and a humanistic activist? Where does the line lie – or is the line in me? Can I advise the organization, be the architect of its systems, and question the soul of that same organization and the walls of its structure at the same time?

Maybe the tension I feel needs to be approached from a place of deep care, love and compassion, rather than through a cognitive lens seeking for practical answers. Doing things in the name of love becomes the answer that integrates the consultant in me and the activist in me– love for the organization as it already is, love for the people who work there just as they are, while holding the space for what they might become and being a guide in their transformation.

*I work as a Board Adviser, Team & Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. I like to explore the applications of art, music, philosophy and psychology in my practice*

Picture: Neil Young

You are enough

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 17:03:02 GMT

You are enough

It sounds cruel: we spend years searching for someone to say the words we needed to hear in childhood – “you are enough”. But no amount of praise in the present can fill the void left by the past.

I was recently sitting in a group where the echo of the past manifested itself. The intensity of my feelings was such that I quickly realized that they had little to do with the people in the group. I wasn’t hearing them; I was hearing the past.

The words of Boris Cyrulnik - a French neuropsychiatrist – help us make sense of this painful experience: what we are looking for in these moments is not a correction of the past, but a confirmation that our suffering mattered. And that is something the present cannot give us; however hard we try. If we have been missing the loving eye of a parent, we will unconsciously seek validation as adults. But we plea for others to fill a void they cannot reach.

So, there is no other choice than to sit with it and say to ourselves: I see myself. I mattered then. I matter now. Others can’t validate me. That’s mine to do.

*I work as a Board Adviser, Team & Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. I like to explore the applications of art, music, philosophy and psychology in my practice*

Gouache by Charlotte Salomon

Are you Matisse or Picasso?

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 17:10:58 GMT

Are you Matisse or Picasso?

When designing team journeys or leadership interventions, are you Matisse or Picasso?

Henri Matisse aspired to create an art of serenity, free from depressing subject matter. With his radiant palettes, he wanted to restore rather than provoke, to soothe rather than unsettle. He was searching for harmony and peace. Designing like Matisse is to look for lightness, to create movement and respiration, to celebrate success, to embed moments of connection. It involves designing a journey that brings participants into a space of clarity, harmony and emotional restoration.

Pablo Picasso, his friendly rival, had a different vision, one that works with chaos and struggle, fragmentation and confrontation. His color palette was more dramatic, conveying sadness and isolation, or depicting tragedy. Melancholic and intense, his art challenges, deconstructs and reinvents reality. Designing like Picasso is to challenge assumptions, embrace complexity, disrupt conventions, provoke reflection. It involves designing a journey that takes participants outside their comfort zone into a space of bold questioning and creative transformation.

Depending on the context of the team and the traits of the leader, the ask will be predominantly one or the other. The art is to design with both in mind: the calming grace of the first and the daring edge of the second.

*I work as a Board Adviser, Team & Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. I like to explore the applications of art, music, philosophy and psychology in my practice*

Illustration: Henri Matisse, La Musique, 1939 and Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians, 1921

How to restore soul to work?

Fri, 16 May 2025 17:45:32 GMT

How to restore soul to work?

How to restore soul to work? How to bring humanity back in dehumanizing systems, that put technology and processes above people? These questions are central to my work, to my studies and to my conversations with other consultants and clients.

It is striking how easy it is in the workplace to abandon attention to our colleagues. We rush. We optimize. We go to the point. We pursue targets. All in the name of performance and productivity.

Simon Weil wrote: “The afflicted need nothing else in this world but people capable of giving them attention”. To give attention, to attend to another person, is to see them fully, beyond labels or roles, and to acknowledge their intrinsic worth. It is a willingness to receive reality without imposing our own pre-conceived notions. It is a practice of stilling our mind, to experience the other one without feeling the need to act or react immediately. Instead, caring about their lived experiences, listening without judging. Attention, not as a means to an end, another productivity tool. Attention as an end in itself. Attending to people not because it helps us meet our goals, but because they are people. And that is reason enough.

*I work as a Board Adviser, Team and Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. I like to explore the applications of art, music, philosophy and psychology in my practice*

Painting by Frédéric Bazille (1841-1872), Bazille's Studio