I am Ingeborg Braat (aka Pingel)…

…and this is my story.

Most of my life I was very stressed and anxious. I had tension-related bowel and back problems, food intolerances, and exhausted adrenal glands. I was often out of the running for months due to fatigue. It was a lonely journey to find my own light beyond my fear and pain. My body was a mirror for the way I tried to hold my own. She became my most trustworthy guide when I could see and feel in her pain and open my heart to the lost parts in me.

I was born in 1967 as the oldest of 4. In my younger years my parents often moved. As a child, I felt like a little plant being pulled out of the earth all the time, damaging its fragile roots. My roots were too small to give me the strength and confidence I needed.

When I was 9, my parents settled permanently in a small village in the middle of the Netherlands. There I went to a village school. Unfortunately I ended up in a class where I was bullied a lot. For years that had a big impact on feeling safe in my body. I hid from others for a long time to avoid the pain. A few years ago, I realized that by doing this, I myself excluded and unconsciously rejected many people.

I became excellent at scanning my surroundings and reading the people around me to know who I had to be and what was expected of me. I sought control and safety by starving my body and being boundless and invisible.I got stuck in shame, perfectionism and self-criticism.

In the regular care I felt neither met nor supported. I have been blessed with a few people in my life, who saw me behind the pain and stayed, even when I lost myself again. Through somatic education and experience, I learned what moved me and what movement I had to make.  Slowly I let my roots grow; a little further and thicker. I turned towards my own light, so that I could start to blossom. I learned to find ground in myself.

People often say you have to let go. I say: ‘wouldn’t it be great to start learning how to stop holding?’ – Pingel

And now I stand here, still a little insecure in my own light and I sparkle while I dance with an open-hearted laugh. I followed my heart and am now realizing my dream in Southern Spain. It’s not that I’m never scared, never ashamed or never feel unsafe again. I feel more at ease with this frightened, damaged girl inside of me. I know now how to help her feel safe in herself and relax, even when life is painful or challenging again.

People know me as someone with a lot of empathy, profound and driven. People also call me a pixie; playful, naughty, energetic, perspicacious. I am brutally honest. With these qualities I help women, who recognize themselves in my story, in the physical complaints, unsafety, anxiety and shame.

I bring together my sensitivity and my talent to look into someone’s soul, feel the undertow and read the body, to guide their journey through the dark, to that part of them that is always lovingly waiting for them. That part which is so eager to reconnect but sometimes so deeply hidden that it seems as if it is not there.

What I have to offer

Are you struggling with a lot of tension and stress in your body and maybe even fatigue and pain? Does it feel unsafe to be in your body and in the now, to be visible, to be heard? Or do you regularly have the feeling that a deep fear or a deep feeling of shame presses you on the chest and squeezes all the air out of you? I know how big the struggle can be and how naked and vulnerable it feels to be present in your body with these emotions and to be seen. I also know how intense the stress can be, that these emotions evoke in your body.

I love to help you understand the underlying mechanisms and tackle them. So that you too can relax, feel safe and comfortable in your body and connect with others from a good feeling about yourself.

Welcome to Move into Joy and our retreat center Jardin de Luz, born out of my dream and my journey inside.  Here I connect somatic and energetic body work, dance, movement, and being silent with what is and who you are, in the powerful nature and deep silence of the Alpujarra mountains in the Sierra Nevada. In addition, my husband and I also offer online sessions and programs.