I was the one who handled everything.

In my twenties there was no pressure. A year in New York, a year in Bonn, running a student organisation, then Berlin. When a job didn't fit, the next one came. I listened to myself without calling it that.

With getting older came the pressure. The clock, common sense, the “you can't do that any more”. And I stopped listening.

Three things I've kept.

It listed the warning signs of burnout. I had laid it out for a workshop, stress management for emergency responders. I was a paramedic, crisis manager and emergency chaplain with the Red Cross, on the side, alongside 40 hours in a big corporation. One of the warning signs: you do more instead of less. I did more.

Two weeks before the workshop, in my mid-thirties, I lay on the sofa and couldn't get up. I had laid out the signs and not read them.

I was off for six weeks. In those six weeks I learned to crochet, bought a piano and ended the volunteering. I thought: now I'm listening to myself again.

I chose my engagement ring myself. After the breakdown I was sure what I wanted: a partner, a family, a child. I found the man, we moved in together, we tried. I quit the secure job and went self-employed, because I wanted to be the best version of myself for my child.

Everything in me rebelled. Constantly ill, angry, and for a long time I didn't understand why. Until I knew: the wish was real. The life around it was other people's life.

I ended the engagement. I still wear the ring. Not for him. For what I trust myself to do.

I packed my things and drove to Lithuania. In a house at the edge of the forest I breathed again for the first time in years.

»Three months and you'll be back, lonely.« That was the forecast. I didn't come back.

My dog Stella carries the name I had chosen for my daughter.

I regret none of it. I ran in the wrong direction for years, and those years made me the woman I am today. My mistake wasn't the path. My mistake was not turning back when I already knew.

I get up when I've slept enough. I work when I'm awake, and that's often at night. I stack my own firewood for the winter. In the evening the stove is lit, and the pack spreads out across the sofa.

My pattern was: I do what everyone does and call it my wish. For years I took that for my character. Nobody showed it to me. And nobody could take the courage to change it off my hands.

That's why this is exactly what I do today: look, show, stay. And leave the rest to you.

How that works in practice is on the Kompass page.

“I never feel under pressure, or as if everything were my fault. I can do everything at my own pace.”

A client, translated from Germanall reviews

Stefanie

Profiler · Lithuania