My “secret hippy soul” is a term I started to use many years ago. It stood for a part of me that I only acted out when I was on holiday and that otherwise wasted away in secret. Now my hippy-soul is allowed to live more and more. And finally my life feels right. Which soul in you wants to be lived more?

I was born in 1966 – unfortunately too young to have consciously experienced the real, original hippy movement. And my parents may have looked like it, but unfortunately they did not belong to this culture. About 1980 I first watched the Woodstock movie on TV and at that time my deep longing for a hippy life was born. And when I say deep longing, I mean it. Whenever I felt overwhelmed or in the wrong place, I would fantasize about a big garden, wearing dungarees and rubber boots and growing vegetables. Fortunately for me, in recent years I have moved more and more towards the ideals of the movement, the ideals of a simpler, less consumerist, less established world in which everyone takes responsibility for everything. Only the part about drugs and free love I leave out. 

Next year I will take the next step. Our Finca in Mallorca with a self-sufficient garden, dogs combined with my work as a coach will enable me to finally live my “real” life. I am deeply convinced of this. 

But there is another reason why I am writing this. I believe that many people go through this. Conventions, expectations and economic constraints often mean that people do not live the life that really suits them. Years ago I met a management consultant at a seminar who had to completely ignore her emphatic, emotional side. Every time this side came out, her boss would “slap her face”.  She suffered incredibly from this discrepancy. But as a single mother, she saw no way out of her misery. I wonder today what kind of example she set for her daughter. I hope that at some point she found a way out of the dilemma. 

But how can it work? 

First of all, it goes without saying that you have to take an honest look at yourself. What makes you really happy? When do you blossom? How are you when you do not have to pretend at all? Here it is: the definition of your secret artist-, priest-, gardener- soul. What is your …-soul?

What was absolutely necessary for me was to work on myself. I had to dissolve my childhood wounds, obstructive beliefs and blockages in order to gain enough trust in myself and life. Too many misconceptions about what a life – my life – should be were in my way. Now that they have been largely eliminated, everything feels much easier. What beliefs are holding you back and slowing you down?

And finally it is important to check your financial expectations. Many people that are in such a dilemma are stuck in it because they built up a high economic status. Big house, big cars, big wardrobe. Is that really necessary? And above all: does it really make you happy? 

Many people experience this when they come back after a long holiday, where they got along with a suitcase or backpack, lived in simple accommodations and yet were much happier than they are at home. Maybe such a holiday would help you to change your perspective? You might also learn that a hot shower is a great thing to have and that it will have to be available in your new life. 

I know one thing anyway. I am very happy that I could manage to give my hippy soul space still being at a reasonable age. There is a bit of regret that I didn’t do it earlier. But I also know that I needed this time to get there mentally, emotionally and economically. 

Whatever your secret …soul is. I hope that it may live. And if not, start now to give it a place in your life.