Astrid van Pluuren

My professional background is in complex change processes. After studying HEAO Communication, I first worked as a copywriter and project manager. After that, I started my own business and worked for years as an interim consultant, strategist, project manager, and Product Owner for organizations including the Ministry of General Affairs, Rijkswaterstaat, the Judiciary, Rabobank, and the Tax and Customs Administration.

Usually I came in when a major change was needed. I investigated the existing situation, mapped out what was truly needed to realize the ambition, and translated that into a concrete approach. And it didn't stop at an advisory report: I led teams of up to about 25 people and was also responsible for the actual realization.

At the judiciary, for example, I was responsible for the development and management of online channels and public registers. At Rabobank, I worked on the global content strategy and the organization required for it. And at the Tax and Customs Administration, I analyzed and changed governance, processes, tools, and working methods surrounding internal online communication, among other things.

In doing so, I constantly moved between strategy and execution, executives and employees, technology and communication, and departments, each with their own interests.

Right there I learned how important it is not only to look at what is supposed to happen on paper, but at what actually happens and why.

For a long time, spirituality and energy were precisely things I wanted nothing to do with. I came into contact with them even as a child and saw how destructive it can become when people deal with energy and non-physical realities without knowledge or responsibility. I mainly just wanted to live a normal life.

Through Jarno, energetic work crossed my path again later. Initially, I was quite skeptical. But gradually I experienced how much influence energy has on your life and how much you can change when you work with it consciously.

I was also going to apply that knowledge in my professional work. For example, by consciously working with energy and intentions when I wanted to realize a change or get movement into a situation. I just didn't talk about it. For my clients, I was the advisor, strategist, or project manager who analyzed a complex issue and ensured that results were achieved. The energetic layer that I myself brought along in the process remained in the background.

Over the years, I have increasingly delved into energy and how it works. I have also been following astrology for years now. What started out of interest grew into a valuable addition with which I can, among other things, interpret a person's life plan and development, and also place broader collective movements and societal developments in context.

When Jarno and I started Lead a normal life, what I had previously applied mostly in the background also became a visible part of my work externally.

Together with Jarno, I have been building Lead a normal life since the end of 2020. In this, we each have our own role. Jarno mainly focuses on the healings. My strength lies in analyzing, structuring, and translating the intangible into concrete insights and practical tools for daily life, work, and entrepreneurship.

I developed the business model behind LANL and a large part of our products, training courses, automated systems, and communications. I also documented our shared knowledge in the books Je zijn, Je wil, Je last, and Je kracht. In addition, I guide individuals and entrepreneurs within our workshops and programs.

You are in the right place with me when you are willing to truly examine what is going on. Even when the answer turns out to be different than you expected. I see no hierarchy between the one who guides and the one who is being guided. You remain responsible for your own life and choices. My role is to help you see more of reality so that you can make more conscious choices.

I bring structure to complexity, make patterns and forces visible, and help you distinguish between what belongs to you, what influences you, and where you can actually make a difference. So that you can decide for yourself what to do with it next.

You shouldn't come to me when you are primarily looking for confirmation for what you were planning to do anyway. Nor when you see spirituality mainly as entertainment, want to make someone else responsible for your choices, or expect me to tell you what to do. I also don't apply methods just because they are popular or commercially attractive. If I don't stand behind it myself, I won't do it.

My own life hasn't exactly been a straight line. I had to take care of myself as a small child, and from the age of 15 I lived on my own. That freedom didn't turn out wisely at first. Until at some point I realized that I was becoming myself what I specifically did *not* want to be.

I went back to school, got my diploma, went to university and built my own life. It typifies how I look at life: at any moment of the day you can choose to do things differently and thereby change your own situation.

This is also reflected in the choices I have made in my work and as an entrepreneur. For me, what I do must fit who I am and what I stand for. For example, I turned down a partnership because the way of doing business did not align with my values. I deliberately chose assignments through which I could contribute to society, even though they paid less. And I turned down an attractive international assignment because the organization's culture did not match my outlook on life.

We continued along the same lines when Jarno and I started Lead a normal life. We didn't want to create a business that our lives would subsequently become subordinate to. That meant we consciously deviated from conventional commercial advice. For example, we published our books ourselves and only sell them through our own website. And even though customers asked for it, we deliberately chose not to introduce a subscription model for our online healings. That might provide more predictable income, but it would also obligate us to deliver something new every month, whereas we want to be able to keep putting quality first.

By now our starting point has become even sharper: our business must not only not come at the expense of our lives. It must contribute to the life we want to lead.

Our move to Spain was not planned. A major project came our way here, we went to take a look, and about 3 months later we had sold our house in the Netherlands and emigrated to the Catalan countryside.

Once here, we discovered that documents and permits were not valid and reality was fundamentally different from what we had been led to believe. With that, a significant part of the plan with which we had come to Spain collapsed in an instant.

And yet we never felt that our move to Spain was a mistake. On the contrary. We felt, and still feel very strongly, that we are supposed to be here. In hindsight, it seems as though this project was necessary to get us moving and take us to a place we probably never would have ended up otherwise. It has made me realize once again that the path to get there can be completely different from the reason why you ultimately need to be there.

That did mean, however, that from here on we had to find our way all over again. In a different country, with a different language and culture, different administrative and legal systems. It made me realize once more how strongly we are all programmed with beliefs about how life is supposed to work, and how little use your familiar frame of reference is in an environment where everything is different. At the same time, I experienced how much new space and opportunity arises when you (forcibly) let go of that familiar framework.

I have been together with Jarno for almost 26 years and I am the mother of Merijn and Marilou. We live with our family in the Catalan countryside in Spain.

Flowers and gardens make me very happy. For me, gardening is like a playground for adults: I see a garden as a living painting that you recreate every year. Sometimes it turns out more beautiful than expected, and in Spain, it especially turns out differently than expected on a regular basis. 😉

I sang in a pop choir for years and would do it again in a heartbeat if there was a good English-language choir nearby here. I love good food (preferably without having to make it myself), enjoy going to the sauna or Turkish steam bath, and like to occasionally do something very touristy as a counterpart to our quiet life here.

Our dog is often with me when I am in the garden or working, and we both love going for walks and cuddling together.