How can I prevent myself from overstepping my boundaries?

How can I prevent myself from overstepping my boundaries. This is a frequently asked question that I sometimes hear from our guests or read online. But actually, from a spiritual perspective, this is not a helpful way of thinking. And when you start making decisions based on this mindset, such as “I must learn to say no”, you actually end up further away from home, or rather, in this case, “further away from yourself” than you would like. With this way of thinking you just limit yourself, this can have far reaching consequences.

But what is the right way? How can I feel better without thinking in terms of boundaries and without limiting myself? 

I will explore this theme further in this blog.

Let's first look at the approach of 'boundaries'

You must have read about it and may even already embraced the idea which is the foundation of all serieus spiritual traditions in one or another way:  We are Sharing in a wider Whole. We are of a Oneness we cannot know.

And this is not just a nice idea, everyone seriously exploring this can draw these conclusions, even science comes up with these conclusions these days.

Exploring and embracing this we can do by implementing it in our thinking and in our way of living.

So the first question relating to the theme is: "If all is One, how can there be boundaries?!"

It depends on perspective

Ofcourse there are different perspectives and in our daily lives we continuesly switch in perspectives.

Indeed if you try to open a door that is locked there is a boundary, if you bump yourself against a table you feel a boundary.  So indeed from one perspective only, you could say we have boundaries, and you may need to deal with that on a very practical basis which can include a no.

But I am talking here more psychologically and from spiritual perspectives. This level of everything sharing in Oneness is transcendental and shimmers through all other levels. This also means that with regard to for example a level of thinking this influences other levels and can be a cause of a consequence you cannot oversee.

Oké let's decide there are no boundaries

If we drop the idea of boundaries can you imagine a whole world opens up? Without boundaries suddenly limitation changes into potential! And now I hear you thinking 'but....what about this headache I get everything I cross my.....'

I get it, you have a headache, or a sense of stress, digestion problems, skin rash, difficult emotions or anything else that may appear whenever you cross....

You can't cheat life!

So let's reframe this in a more helpful way. If we want to look at this from the perspective that we share in a wider whole and we don't want to put that perspective aside, we don't want to make an exception like 'yes we share in a wider whole but only...', no we cannot do that, it's cheating and you can't cheat life!

Even though we cannot know it, we can relate to this wider whole

It is very helpful when we start relating to this unknowable wider whole in a sense. We don't need to know or understand in order to embrace and relate.

We can say; "Within this wider Whole, in which I share, I can witness Signs. And I always have the choice and responsibility to listen to them or to ignore them". These Signs can be inner Signs or Outer Signs, they give ongoing direction and Guidance in daily living.

So a headache becomes a Sign

So a headache becomes a Sign, a skin rashe, stomach pain, stress, emotion, attachments ....But also the angry neighbour, the annoying colleague, your partner behaving strange...

Do you see the slight difference in te way we put it? And can you see the keys that come with this different perspective?

A little change in thinking can be the cause of big life changing experience!

It may be subtle, but on very unconscious levels this resonance may have a big influence in your daily inner and outer life.

We will dive deep into the basics of this during the event 'Meaningful Living'.  Join in and explore how this can change your life and help you become the creator of your own life!

A closed 'No' changes in an open 'Yes'

Observing these Signs, listening to them, working with them keeps an open mind.

Instead of saying "no, I don't want to cross my bounderies" you say Yes to the Signs and you ask what is needed to do something with this, this is a change in attitude that opens doors. It invites reflection, contemplation and with that answers and solutions will come, you can dive as deep as you want.

It can be helpful to take some distance from your daily life sometimes by leaving things behind and visit a retreat centre.

We facilitate an environment that support this kind of reflection and contemplation. For example during the event 'The Essence of Meditation'. 

A compass for living

This different way of approaching life is not only practical, it generates much more meaning and potential, beyond your imagination! In a sense, by starting such a relation with living you start building an inner and outer compass, something many people these days have lost!

The very basic principal to this way of living is absolutely beyond understanding. You can't read yourselve into Wisdom as Yoginâm states. Therefor we facilitate the incredible powerful 6-day Nâm Retreat of Silence.

Don't forget, everything is resonance!

Because everything is resonance, including our thoughts, ways of thinking and believing, this influences the Whole, which is resonance as well.  Therefor it is just practical as well as wise to take this into consideration. Even to become more aware of how you think and what you believe.

It is this resonance that has a creating force and creates our everyday living, over and over again in very subtle and unconscious layers.

So if you can change the believe that you have boundaries which need to be protected and with which you limit yourself into an attitude of 'Listening to Signs' you start creating a different world for yourself.

You want to explore this in a supporting environment with like minded people? Book a Personal Meditation Retreat

By changing this perspective you start creating a different world for yourself

This is also because the energie of boundaries in a sense has a conclusion on the level of intent. It is a fixed thing based on earlier conclusions. This stops movement, you are convinced about it and that can be a closure of doors. This als is a closure to potential solutions and a potential different  course. A boundaries will not likely change unless you make an effort to widen the boundaries but again you just move the closed door a little bit further away, but you keep it closed.

Keeping the doors open

If you want to keep the door more open in a more exploring way using the idea of Listening to Signs can be a great help. You can also still draw conclusions but they are not fixed, you keep moving in openness.

For example: 'you got a headache because you crossed...oh no... you got a headache because you forget to sit down and drink a kop of thee, or you started shaking because your blood sugar level dropped because you forgot (or didn't give yourself time) to eat something.

You want to explore this topic through a body approach sign in to one of our Yoga Retreats!

You are always responsible

So you still may need to change behaviour which is nothing else than taking responsibility when a Signs is asking it of you. Looking at Signs in daily living is a way of approaching life in movement, it is always open for change and adaptations when necessary.

Visit our Retreat Centre Asharum Amonines as a regular visitor, work along with others in the house and the garden and explore in depth what this can do for you!

How to Deal with Loneliness

Recently, the theme of loneliness appeared repeatedly in my life. It came as a question—first from one person, then echoed by four others in close succession:
“How do I deal with loneliness?”

Each time, the question felt sincere and raw. It touched me. In some cases, it was heartbreaking to witness the struggle.

How do I deal with Loneliness

Confronted with these stories, I also realised something: I don’t really know this theme personally.
I have been blessed with a life in connection which is mirrored in my living in Asharum Amonines.  A sense of being accompanied—by something greater—has always been present.

But then, I asked myself:
Why is this question crossing my path now?
What can I offer when I haven’t lived that same pain?

Looking more closely, there have been moments in my life when I experienced exclusion—both as a child and again as an adult. The latter brought with it an incredibly intense pain, maybe the deepest I’ve ever felt.
And yet, curiously, I wouldn’t describe it as loneliness. Because it was in that pain that something beautiful happened:
I reached out, inwardly. And the help came.

It was painful—and profoundly blessed.
One of the most transformative experiences of my life, connecting me more deeply to what I can only call my God—the presence that has always accompanied me.

Listening to Someone Who's Been There: Loneliness

Still, I felt the need to understand loneliness more intimately. So I asked someone who had lived with it for quite some time:
What helped you through that time?

Her first answer was simple, but difficult and only possible when there is true acceptance:

“Wait patiently. Sit it out.”

Then she added something truly beautiful:

“I learned that giving opens something. If you feel lonely, don’t wait to receive—start giving, no matter how small.
A smile to a stranger is already something.
And if even that feels impossible, then begin by wanting to smile—life will meet you there.
If you feel like you have nothing to give, then begin by wanting to give. Opportunities will come.”

Such a powerful shift.
Giving—even a little—creates movement. And movement can invite connection.

From Loneliness to a Sense of Connection

Her words made me reflect again:
Why have I rarely felt lonely, even when I was alone much?

I think the answer lies in what I can only describe as a sense of connection.
Since early childhood, I’ve had a deep inner knowing—a God-sense, as I call it. A feeling that I was never really alone.

Even as a child, playing by myself in the woods or near the river, I wasn’t lonely. I was in good company—with myself, with the world around me, and with something unseen but always present.

It reminds me of something Yoginâm once shared:

“Loneliness cannot exist when you realise that you share in a wider whole.”

And when I faced deep emotional crisis in life, I turned to that presence once again. I cried out—not just with my mind, but with my whole being. And I was answered, in a way beyond words.

Not Just in the Mind

This connection is not an intellectual belief. It’s a lived, full-bodied experience—a longing and a response.
Many people have learned to pray to something external, an idea of a God far away.
I once did too.

But through Yoginâm’s words—and more powerfully, through his silence and presence—I discovered something deeper:
God is not out there. God, or however you want to name it, is within.
The source of all that is.
Beyond naming. Beyond believing.
A path of exploration, not of doctrine.

And this path—this exploration—can gently lead you into relationship with your own deepest essence.

Yoginâm’s Teachings

Reading Yoginâm’s books, I find language that doesn’t always follow convention. He sometimes invents new words or borrows from forgotten traditions—not to confuse, but to break open old thinking, to help us go beyond habitual understanding.

Words like God, ego, karma—they carry assumptions that limit us.
Yoginâm offers another view. He speaks of us for example not as an “I living in a world,” but as 'I-World'—in which both 'I' and 'World' are completely interwoven with each other.

When we forget this, we can fall into the illusion of separation.
That’s when loneliness can arise.

In The Book of Nâm (p.144), Yoginâm describes this as:

The Double Illusion of Separation:
The first illusion is the belief that ‘I’ and ‘World’ are separate.
The second is the belief that you - being Experience as 'I-World' - is separate from Awareness, which is your true Essence.

It is a profound teaching—more something you must allow to dawn upon than to grasp immediately.

Living Connected: A Metaphor That Resonates

To support this dawning upon, I want to share a powerful metaphor from (among others)  Fragments of Voice, a small poetic book that touched me deeply:

"In living you become from the ocean a drop

In living too you become from a drop an ocean

Ocean and drop

Drop and ocean

The sameness of water

The saint realises water

The wise one realises the ocean

The ignorant one realises

The drop"

Join Us in Exploration

If this reflection speaks to you, and you would like to explore more deeply in a safe and guided setting, I warmly invite you to the 5-day Intensive “Meaningful Living”, starting this summer on August 27.

It’s a beautiful and powerful opportunity to contemplate connection, attunement and the deeper meaning of being alive.

Whatever path you walk—whether alone or accompanied—may you remember that you are never truly separate.

You always share in a wider whole.

With warmth,
Irma

~ Translated from Dutch into English ~

Garden of Eden

The garden of Asharum Amonines may be compared to the Garden of Eden. All those flowers and plants, those scents, those colours! Insects buzz around sweetly, the water of the fountain sounds like a soft melody. A curious robin wonders from his hiding place in the bushes what those new, as yet unknown people are doing there. A languid cat stretches on the gravel path and understands it very well, he does exactly the same as those people who walk around there: catch your breath, breathe in beauty and love and gather strength for a possible next step.

The red thread

The statement ‘ Attunement in affirmation is the meaning of human living ’, is the guideline for the course. It sounds a bit ambitious, trying to understand the meaning of life in five days. At the same time, what is not possible in five days is probably also not possible in five lives. So you might as well try it. Irma is our guide these five days. Step by step, day by day, meditation to meditation, she takes us to an answer. She does this very patiently, with a quip and a lot of understanding, with room for everyone's personal account, which she effortlessly places in the great story that we form together.

How do we deal with today's events?

As different as the background of us as participants is, it becomes clear that we also struggle with the same questions, each in our own way: how can we live, maybe even survive, these days which are full of incomprehensible developments, terrifying ideas and hair-raising events? Should we accept quietly and endure everything? Democracy is not for fearful people, is a saying. But can we counterbalance, offer an alternative that goes further than stop watching news out of self-protection? How? How to offer an alternative without losing yourself in political disputes and above all: without making the opponent stronger by your resistance? While we bend over the meaning of attuning, of affirmation, of what it is like to be human and we ultimately also contemplate the meaning of meaning, these questions form a common thread throughout the days.

The insights and answers to the issues come, on stockinged feet. With every meditation something changes in us, something that cannot be captured in words. I see my own changes reflected in the other participants. Their faces become softer, their voices firmer, their gaze radiates more strength and conviction by the day.

The answers are within ourselves

Answers are already here waiting for us deep within ourselves. We take first steps to get in touch with what else is there. With All that Is. And try to face that unknown without fear and prejudice. Perhaps spirituality, like democracy, is not for fearful people either.

Our journey can begin by realising that we are more than an ‘ opinion ’, more than the experience we experience. We are introduced to new concepts such as ‘ I-World ’ and Irma explains the phenomenon of resonance on the basis of a simple mathematical figure.

Irma navigates us around the rocks of our convictions. 'Knowing you don't know is quite a lot," she says. It is already a step to accept that there is more and that you cannot understand it. And she radiates an unwavering confidence: ‘ although you are touched by the things around you, your wonder and your love resonate in All that Is. ’ Then the answer to the previous questions also looms, how to deal with today's challenges? She points out that it is not necessarily necessary to have some kind of  'numerical majority ’ to let Love conquer.

Meditation and visualisation

It is a lot and it is big what we are trying to learn. Our ideas and experiences as participants vary widely, but Irma always guides us to a middle with meditation exercises and visualisations, to the place in time and space where the inner and outer world become as one. Symbols also help to get past words. And of course music brings an answer. When we listen to the chant “ The Breath of Heart ’ by Alexander Gustave on Sunday morning, everything that still looked for a place falls into place. Thus, almost unnoticed, the certainty has grown in us that only love is the way, only love can disarm.

Come and experience it too!

Much more happened, the conversations were more comprehensive and the meditations deeper than words can represent. Actually you just have to experience it yourself. And then be quiet.

It is very pleasant to stay at this place in the Ardennes, if only because of that magical garden full of peace and quiet. The food is delicious, the rooms are sparkling clean, the atmosphere is silky soft. Irma, Annebeth, Katelijn and Louise lead the dance unobtrusively, each in their own rhythm and always at the right pace. The Asharum Amonines lives its own promise of love and devotion.

Participant of the course August 2024