Yesterday at 6:00 PM • Modified yesterday at 7:03 PM
Vera de Berk from Tilburg learned to work hard from an early age. School, pre-university education, university, career: she always took the next step because that was ‘just the way it should be’. Since a number of events, Vera has ignored the expectations of others. With her long-cherished tattoo wish, she shows the whole world that she no longer cares what anyone thinks.
After studying sociology, Vera ended up working at a municipality as a researcher. It was a job she really wanted and she went to work diligently. “I soon noticed that there were tensions in the organization, but I told myself that I would just have to get used to working life. It wasn’t going to last long,” she says.
“So this is what happens when you ignore your body’s signals.”
Vera got a lot of stress from the atmosphere in the workplace, but thought it was her fault. “I pushed that bad feeling away and had to endure it for at least a year.”
When the last day of work finally approached, she was exhausted. She had blood drawn for a check-up and on the day of her last working day the GP called and told her to come in immediately. “My blood was becoming acidic, which is more common if you have diabetes but don’t know it or don’t treat it.”
Vera had often noticed that she was tired quickly, but had ignored those signals in order to continue working. “I ended up going to the hospital that last day of work and had to be admitted for four days. I thought, gee, this is what happens when you ignore your body’s signals.”
“I don’t fit into jobs where you only focus on your head.”
Vera looked for another job, where she conducted research into various social issues, such as healthcare, safety and integration. Helping people gave her energy, but after a few years the same feeling of emptiness crept over her. “I discovered that in my working life, just like during school and study, I always do everything with my head and push away my feelings. I don’t fit into jobs where you only focus on your head, so I end up overtaking myself.”
She made a rigorous decision: “I quit my job and developed into a life coach. As a coach you also have to know what your own pitfalls are. I learned more and more to listen to my feelings and not to give a damn about the expectations of others.”
Letting go of the opinions of others was deeper in her system than she thought. For years she liked leopard print. She wanted a tattoo of that. “I already had two, but they were in a place that I could easily hide. I actually wanted one on my forearm, but I didn’t dare for a long time. I was afraid that people wouldn’t find it nice or tacky, or that it would be harder for me to get a job.”
“It’s a reminder that I followed my own feelings.”
During her development as a coach, her opinion changed. “This is also listening to my feelings! So I thought, I’m just going to do it. Why do I let others decide that tattoos in certain places should not be allowed, or that a picture would say something about my character?”
Every time she sees the tattoo now she thinks: I did a nice job. “It gives me strength and is a reminder that I have followed my own feelings: it helps me to do that more often in life.”
She is disappointed that she has rarely been taught to consult that feeling. “We are raised in a performance society, with a lot of pressure and stress. We learn little about emotion and you see many people getting stuck on it now.”
According to her, the profit can be achieved within yourself. “In small steps, listen more to what is right, and less to what should be done. And above all, less to what others think.”
Here you can read all the stories in the My tattoo section and its story.
