Bright Now | How did it start?

‘’Good to have you back at HR! It’s an interesting time. A new building, only flexible working spaces, everybody is working with just a laptop and a mobile phone, either at home or at the office, supported by state of the art IT-equipment and connections. So the timing of your return to HQ is perfect. Rather than doing another assignment abroad, it’s better to get used to this right away. You will be able to reinvent yourself!’.

These were the welcoming and, as they turned out to be, even prophetic words the HR-director of the organization I worked for, used in our first meeting after my 4-year stay abroad. I was starting a new assignment, as the head of the recruitment office. An interesting position and I had indicated that I’d rather return to the HR-department where I worked earlier in my career, than do another posting in the field of international relations.

I’m still an idealist, an optimist who wants to contribute to making this world a better place. But after about 10 years in different management positions, I realized that being able to coach and support people to grow and develop had become much more meaningful to me than working on the different aspects of international relations.

Thus, I really expected to enjoy the challenges of this new job: the responsibility of selecting new people for the organization, making it more diverse, developing ways to recruit in a more up to date way, working together with my own recruitment team.

However, pretty soon I found out that the timing of this assignment did not work out so well. Yes, the job was interesting and fun. But with a spouse working on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and a parent in a nursing home 3 hours (one-way) away from where I lived and worked, it all became too much of a challenge. There was no time to charge my battery. It was depleting.

On top of this: during the year in the recruitment office, I was surprised, even shocked, by the large number of colleagues having a hard time dealing with, stress, anxiety and burn-out symptoms. Many of them young and ambitious, often only recently recruited, in their first or second assignment.

Slowly but surely the next step to take became clear. This was not the way I wanted to live my life. And the motivation to support other people with issues of stress- and energy management was getting only stronger.
So after another lengthy discussion at home, I told my friend the HR-director that I was going to leave the organization altogether, move abroad, join my spouse and start up my own business. Not exactly what he had had in mind probably when telling me to reinvent myself…

Fast forward to today. 
Bright Now is active in the Washington DC area.

Bright Now offers coaching, e-coaching, and Reiki.
With these three instruments -used separately or combined, relaxation, building resilience and retrieving balance in your personal and professional life can be restored on all levels: body, mind, heart and soul.  

Bright Now will support you to become the brighter version of yourself again.