Healing Organizations: Unleashing the Power of Transformational Leadership with Marieke Van Voorn

Everybody see how good this company was. But he says no, I'm waiting for the right moment, then it will come to us at the right moment. How we express ourselves outside. So it's all about synchronicity, about feeling, about trusting the process. And I guess that is a characteristic of very successful leader of a healthy organization that you know the process, how it goes and where it is.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the Squad.

Hey Happiness Squad. It's great to have you with Ashish and I as continue to discuss with our guests who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations unlock their inner happiness and flourishing. Have you ever thought of your organization as a living organism that stagnates when struck by acute or chronic ailments? This is when we look to leaders who can heal the organization. Our next guest explains how. Marike Van Vorn is the author of Healing Organizations and a bridge builder between the Visible and Invisible worlds, focusing on energetic and systematic approaches to healing for individuals and organizations. With a background in sociology and change management, she's deeply interested in complex relationships and incongruence within organizations. With her broad awareness and clarity over 20 years she has helped leaders create harmonious and natural orders within stalled organizational processes. We discuss how healing leaders are grounded in their inner way of being. They are not looking to please. Rather, they love their people and are driven by humanity to do good. They are not driven out of fear, nor do they seek to control. Rather, they look to inspire with their team in order to unlock their flourishing and immunity. Stay tuned till the end as we discuss tips and practices that can unlock your organization's health and viability with what you have rather than what you lack. Please join Ashish and I as we welcome Marike to the Happiness Squad and rewire for Happiness together. Hey Ashish. Hey Marike. How are you both doing?

Very good, thank you Anil.

I'm doing amazing my friend. It's nice to be back home after two weeks of travel, but it's wonderful.

I was going to say, mate, has the jet lag affected you much? Are you getting good nights of rest and sleep?

I don't think I got jet lagged on my travel, so I think I'm surprisingly in the right time zone. I don't know how that happened, but somehow it did. So I'm grateful for that.

Awesome. No, I mean, I just think back to the chat we had in our last chat around investing in your well being and getting good nights of sleep, especially with all the travel you do as so one for our listeners to take a listen to. But Maryke, we're really excited to have you on. You're local with me here in the Netherlands. We're enjoying some amazing weather. And you know, with amazing weather, we notice everyone gets excited, everyone feels happy. But today, Marike, we want to start our cast chatting with you about what does happiness mean to you and how has it changed from your younger years until now?

That's a very big question. And I could talk to you for hours about that. But I guess for me it means that finding myself, remembering who I really are and re embodying my true self has made me more happy than before. I had a very happy childhood because I was unaware of what was going on in my life. But then from 27 years old, I guess I started bouncing into doors and people, you know, life became more difficult and there started my journey, my inner journey to finding myself. And now I'm 53 years old. Since a few weeks, I can really say that I have found myself and that makes me really happy and very grounded, but also very aligned with source. So that's in a nutshell, the answer to this question.

So Marike, you mentioned, right, having a very happy childhood, you know, at 27, recognizing this notion of doors, right, that you're bouncing into obstacles.

Yeah, bouncing into like. Yeah, yeah. Obstacles. Yes. Yeah.

So talk to our listeners a little bit about what were those couple of transformative experiences or events that allowed you to kind of wake up and discover your true self and really create joy from within?

When I was 27, I had my first job and within a few months I got a burnout. So I couldn't come out of bed anymore because I was walking on my toes, tiptoeing around my job, trying to do the best I could, like the examples I had from my colleagues. But it didn't feel right for myself. So I was totally burned out at that moment. And then I came home for half a year. And then in that time I started a course in feeling Intuitive development or intuitive coaching. And also reading a book about books about philosophy, religious books, psychology, philosophy, everything. And then all of a sudden, in that half a year, I thought, oh, but everybody has to find it within themselves. I was always contributing how it went with me outside of myself. And then from that moment on, I started finding the answers in myself. But I was very young at that time and still very unaware. And after, I guess five times, six times, having a difficult time at jobs in my life, I started my inner search with systemic work at 39. And then everything broke open. The first time I was encountered with my true self because some representative in a constellation showed me who I really was, I started crying and I was just overwhelmed by what I saw. And it was so much so far away from who I thought I was that I was inspired to do a course in systemic work, Family constellation, but immediately also organizational constellations. That was when I was 40, it was in 2010. And from that moment on, it went very quick. Because if you work with constellation work, like I do for 13 years already, every day you get to encounter yourself, but also the other one. And if you see the dynamics between you and your clients, with you and your customers, then you see the evolvement of yourself, but also of the others. And it goes in a synchronistic way. So at this moment, I can say that I'm a daily looking in the mirror, feeling where I am, being self aware sometimes, with a dark night of the soul once and again. But yeah, that's the process that I'm in.

So, Marike, that's wonderful. So tell us a little bit. So many of our listeners might not be familiar with what is constellation work. So in proper, like, simple, easy to understand language, could you explain what is constellation work and how it actually helped you discover your true self? And just point, like specifics. I thought I was this. After this work, I realized I was this, but. And this was the work that enabled it. Right? Just in very simple English.

Okay, let's try. The first time that I was doing it as a client, it was 2009. I was in a repetitive pattern of relationships that were not working out. So I thought I asked the question, what is going on? And then I saw the pattern within my father's line, because representatives, just people you don't know, they are representatives for the family members in your system. And then they showed me because they can tap into the energy field of my family. Then I saw what was really going on with my father, with my grandmother, my Grandfather, they had a bad marriage. So there was something going on. But it was a long list of long line of people not really being able to have a healthy relationship. So if you can, if you are aware of that pattern, then you can change it. But also systemic works not only in your consciousness, but also in the energy field. So the energy is also shifting. And in that constellation, I saw three representatives of me. One was my soul, one was my child, and one was my current person. And. And especially the. The inner child. The representative of the inner child was. Yeah, it. It made me really soft inside because it was such a sweet, soft energy. And by that time, when I was 39, was more. Not that I was a boy, but I was really. I had a lot of male energies. Like going forward, you know, maybe you can help me with the words, but, you know, I was driving energy.

What a. Getting things done, right? It's through energy.

It's very male energy. But now I'm totally different. I'm the same person, but I'm more myself. Balance the male and female qualities within me. So is that maybe clear enough to.

Yeah. So I think this notion that we always have, we talk about. We've talked about this in a couple of other episodes that we've had on awareness, right? This notion that we all have, it's not about male and female as, you know, we normally talk about it in terms of, you know, are we. Are we a man or a woman? But it's really. We all can carry two different types of energies, right? There is masculine energy, which is kind of a driving, a physical orientation. Energy was really important over the last 10, 15,000 years as the work was very physical. It needed things done outside. But all of us, men and women, also have the second kind of energy, which is more of a feminine energy, which is more of a nurturing, which is more of a loving, which is more of something that sees the connections and brings us together. And that's, you know, a really important element. Now, feminine energies tend to be more in women than men, but there are also a lot of men who have a lot of feminine energy. And it's important that it's not one that is more important than the other. But Mariki, where you went and we went with is. But this notion of balancing, so recognizing which one is present and. And how do we definitely leverage that as a strength. But more importantly, also work on cultivating the second energy to allow us to be balanced. In fact, in many of the Indian mythologies, the perfect human is depicted as a half woman. And a half man. So perfectly balanced because that allows us by choice to leverage what the situation demands, interact with that energy and bring that into the bay.

Yeah, yeah.

So really, really powerful. Anil, I'll have you take the next question around the healing leadership book that Marike so beautifully shared with us.

No, you're right. And I think, you know, on the back of this, just want to reference one of our earlier episodes, Ashish, because when you refer to self awareness being at the center of the nine hardwired for happiness practices and it's really important for our listeners to have a, have a take a look because you know, the whole, the oar, right. The observer, the action and the result. The observer being someone who's giving themselves space by looking at their body, their emotion, their language. I think again, it fits in really well to how you're able to balance, give yourself space and balance those energies that masculine, feminine. And I think, you know, on the back of that, this amazing experience that you had, as Ashish alluded to, has given you the opportunity to write your first book, Healing Organizations. And I just, you know, the premise of it for our listeners who've not heard of it, not read it, it's all about how organizations are like living organisms and that they stagnate when they're struck by an acute or chronic ailment. And so Marike, you know, by writing this and sharing this insight with your readers, what is the approach that you've taken in working with companies or leaders to become aware of these ailments?

I started working as a self employed professional in 2011, right after I finished that course in systemic work in organizations. And subconsciously I got clients like managers, directors, HR managers that had problems in their organization with stagnant co creation, with difficult manifestation of results, etc. So I was advertising what I could do for them and they came to me. So I was always working with organizations that were struggling, teams that were struggling. And then I started doing some projects with them and asked them about all kinds of questions about the past, about the current situation, about maybe traumatic events in the organization or in the team that was available. And I started talking to everybody in the teams. So I got a lot of information. And then after that I was having a constellation with the team with representatives again, but external representatives. So they were people who really wanted to be a representative in a constellation but didn't know anything about the organization, didn't know anything about the traumatic events or whatever. They were just totally blind and they were in the organization doing the constellation Like I was having in my family constellation what I told you before. And then all the information in the undercurrent, in the subconscious world came to the surface. And if something is coming to the surface, then it becomes clear to me, but also to the client, of course. So like the director or the team, or. So if you discuss afterwards what, what was really happening, what was going on then, and you do it 200 times or 500 times, then all of a sudden there becomes patterns. You see patterns, and. And I recognized a lot of patterns. And I was blogging for ages. I really liked to write since I was a student. I did sociology in the Netherlands and I was an editor in the magazine of the faculty already. But I did it also from the time that I was working for myself. So I had a lot of content. I guess it was 2018. And I thought, I have to do something with that content, because I have so much knowledge about patent at the moment. And then my neighbor, she has the same name as me, Marike as well, she said, why don't you go interview those. Those clients that, from five years ago, from 10 years ago, or from, from yesterday, what the effect is of your systemic work. So I started doing a few interviews and I guess with the first or maybe the second interview, I thought, oh, this is going to be a book. But because it was so profound, the effect of the systemic work in their personal life, but also in the dynamics in the organization. Because when you become aware of what is going on in the team, then you can change it if you're not aware, if you're still blind, for the system, for the structures, for maybe the narcissistic or the codependent dynamics in organization. If you don't know, then you keep going, fixing symptoms instead of going to the root cause. So maybe I did it for 400, 500 times, working with teams and find all those patterns. And then I wrote a book. And that cost me more than three years to really sit down and write it all down. And last year, January, the book was published. And because I really love writing, I was already writing my second book when it was published. And now I did 35 interviews with healing leaders in healthcare and welfare in the Netherlands and in Belgium. And in a few months, in November 2023, my second book will see the daylight, because now I'm interviewing healing leaders that. That work with their inner wisdom from within. That's not because I said that, because they are really wise and living the universal patterns, the healthy patterns. So maybe I'm maybe elaborating my answer, but I'm very enthusiastic about what I'm doing.

Are you enjoying the show so far? Let me ask you a few questions before going back. Have you ever wondered why so many of us struggle with stress, anxiety and burnout and feel stuck in life? Heck, maybe you're going through this right now. Well, the reason for this lies in the evolutionary biology of our brains, which are hardwired for fear. It's part of the reason why our team named this podcast Happiness Squad. It serves as a reminder that happiness is what really matters and that we are in this together. And that is why we are so excited to share with you a resource to help you on your journey. One of our hosts, Ashish Kattari, launched a book, Hardwired for Happiness and it is a 1Amazon bestseller. When you get access to this book, you will discover nine secular practices that can change your life and are backed by scientific evidence from psychology and neuroscience. Learn how you can integrate Hardwired for Happiness practices in every part of your life to unlock your best self, regardless of how busy you are. Shift from knowing to doing to being with a range of journaling, meditation and group coaching exercises and so much more. Go to www.happinesssquad.combook to get access Right now we also have bonuses on the page that you don't want to miss. Once again, www.happinessquad.com book and now back to the show.

So Marike, tell me a little bit about what have you found in your research on the qualities of healing leaders and you know, the patterns as you describe in which they actually engage with organizations and individuals.

Yeah, you see two different kinds of healing leaders. You have the healing leaders that have that came to the world and were very welcomed by their families. They were loved by their families. There were had values that were and boundaries and just good a good start in life. And they are also very intelligent. Every, every healing leader is very intelligent. They have a very broad view. But there are also healing leaders that really needed all these struggles in life to become aware of all the toxic energies that are also in our companies and in our society. So we have those two. So these are two characteristics and what brings them together is that they are very aware of their loving people. They really love society. They really love people and maybe they have their MBAs and their financial education or whatever, but they are driven by humanity and driven by doing good for the greater whole. And yeah, and they are very strong and they can be vulnerable as well. And there are a lot of characteristics more but in the end, they have found their. Their inner God. Maybe that's what I was finding out at 27, that everybody is their inner God and that there's. They have found it too, and they, they live by it. They live by example. They live by their principles, by their values. And normally they don't want to be on a podium, but they are being the holding space for their organization. Is it clear what I'm.

Yeah. So just to summarize, Right. So the quality of. Quality of healing leaders that you're articulating, I think number one, is really grounded and aware of who they are. Right. So it's, it's, it's grounded in their inner way of being.

Yes.

Not trying to please and comply with an external kind of view, but truly grounded in who they are. I think second is you highlighted this notion of truly seeing the place from a place of love and healing and with a deep care for humanity and for others who they lead.

Yeah.

Versus oftentimes where you would see we are driven out of fear versus love. We are driven to control versus inspire and we are driven towards. Not necessarily. Oftentimes you notice this pattern of like, we are so driven by financial results because we are afraid that if we don't meet them, we are not going to be in a role. We're not going to be as a leader in a job. So it's not that we don't care about humanity, but we might be overdriven by that. Again, that male energy of driving and achieving towards a financial metric that we are held to, that we often might not pay enough attention to the people element of how people are feeling. Are they growing? In effect, are we working with them or are we working through them? You know, what are we working kind of. And burning people out or are we kind of inspiring them to kind of collectively rise to the challenge?

Yeah.

You know, I, as I listen to you, Ashu say that I think about. I think that's the challenge with leaders. We've had conversations in the past about how there are leaders in organizations who get to a certain level and don't request the feedback in order to become aware of some of these shortcomings, how they are leading. Not, you know, they're leading through and not with. And I find what you mentioned about, and we had this conversation with Blake Bauer in a previous episode where if you are looking to please and you're not grounded in yourself, you're not going to give yourself the love and therefore you're not going to be in the position to give your team love. And I find that it goes back to that selfishness aspects. Right. So if you have a leader who's selfish and looking after their own agenda and their own neck and making sure that they're able to stay in control and stay in position, you're not going to find that healing leader, Marika, that you're kind of calling out, that you're saying in your book that they're really the ones that are meant to unlock flourishing and immunity within their teams. And I think, you know, Marika, just as we look at, you know, that type of healing leader, can you just maybe share, you know, what is the meaning then for you of how a healing leader can truly step up and be successful in unlocking flourishing from your experience?

There's a lot I can say about it. But this morning I had a really nice conversation with a director of a healthcare insurance company. And he's very successful, but the only thing he's doing is I'm not doing anything. He said, I'm only there, I'm being, being myself, and I'm listening and listening and seeing. And with that, he's acting on it. So he's bringing people together by just being. And yesterday I talked to another director of a housing company, and he was also just an elder, just not doing a lot of things. This community communication advisor was there as well, and he wanted this director to go outside and just let everybody see how good this company was. But he says, no, I'm waiting for the right moment. Then it will come to us at the right moment. What how we express ourselves outside. So it's all about synchronicity, about feeling, about trusting the process. And I guess that is a characteristic of very successful leader of a healthy organization that you know the process, how it goes and where it, where it is. Is it in the denial phase? Is it in the anger phase? Is it in the deep listening phase? Or is it just evolving? So I guess that's. That's my answer to that. And you really need to know from within, where are we? What is going on here? Is this trauma? Is this happiness? Is this whatever phase you can have in transformation? But you really need to see and listen.

And yeah, that resonates a lot, Mariki, because we have been covering this. This is our motto, one of our mottos at Happiness Court and my invitation to clients, which is, how do you achieve more? Not necessarily by doing more, but by being more. And that's what you're articulating is if we want to actually truly heal, nourish Nurture and create conditions for flourishing. It is not about doing. All of these leaders who you have, you know, you who are healing leaders are starting with cultivating a particular state of being that is allowing change to happen. Right. That is kind of igniting. So it's a very different way of igniting change. And the way we cultivate that sense of being one is just truly grounded. Right. Truly being grounded. So we are not showing up stressed and. And in the control of our sympathetic, but really bringing that calming energy. I think the second thing you highlighted exactly. Hold the space, right?

Yeah, hold the space.

Truly hold the space.

And secondly be the elder like the grandmother or the grandfather for the family to evolve.

Exactly. Really being able to hold the space. And then from that place listen, truly deeply listen and sense into where we are and what needs to emerge. Not necessarily move to take action and fix, but actually allow things to emerge through nudges. Right. And then you also mentioned one of the most powerful ways in which we can allow that is to create space to one give space for emotions to rise so they can actually pass through. Because like everything else, thoughts, emotions are temporary. But when we don't create space for them to flow, they get stuck. And that stuckness is what creates long term kind of trauma stress patterns, if you will. But if we can actually allow energy to flow and that's what you're highlighting is in your work that you're finding is it all starts if we want to change, change the system, we have to actually start by changing ourselves. If we want to heal the system, we have to heal ourselves.

Yeah. That's healing leader. Yeah. Then you are a healing leader. First heal your self healing ability and then you can give back to the others.

Yeah. Create the conditions for others to do the same. Right. Really it's about that. It's about creating that, that systemic work. Beautiful. So Mariki, as we bring this to a close, like I have loved this conversation. I want to take us to the practices around healing, around being at our best, unlocking our full potential. You know, you and I bonded over the Hardwired for Happiness book, the nine practices that I mentioned and how it resonated with you and also had lots of overlaps with your work. So I'm just curious share with our listeners what are those two to three hardwired for happiness practices that are your go to, that are your favorite, that allow you and then that have helped you in your journey to where you are now.

That must be gratitude. I'm really grateful every day for everything that's happening to me. And that can be the great encounters with people like you or with those people I have interviewed in the last weeks. But also the painful aspects of life. Every time that I really. I'm angry, not that much, but. Or sad also. Not that much. But whenever that happens, I really feel grateful because I know I'm. I'm. I'm going through a phase or something, through something that needs to clear up. So that's a way of life. So gratitude will be my favorite one. And the other ones I don't have in my head at moment, but maybe you can help me a little bit. But.

No, but gratitude is a beautiful one, Mariki. Like, I think it's the one that, you know, always is front and center that matters the most. Because when we are grateful for those listeners, I would invite you to go check out our episode on gratitude. It is one of the most powerful practices. It's one of the practices with the highest return, if you will, on investment that has the ability to truly rewire our brains, truly shift how we experience the world. Not because the world changes, but we bring and overcome a core attribute of our brain, which is the negative bias. We overcome that and build the capacity to notice all the positives that are in our life. And it's that act that actually shifts that experience. And Marieke, that's beautiful. And what you said, even in suffering, even when we are actually experiencing anger or anxiety or fear or one of those emotions, we can still, rather than numb it or shun it away as if it's a bad thing, be grateful for that. Because there is something emerging, there's something. There is a learning there that we can kind of tune into. So. No, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, for me, it's very important to give a meaning to things that happen to me and why it's happening in the mission that I have. So I can also read my own energy field and what's happening on a greater level. So that's why I'm so grateful for being able to live this life in.

This way, you know, I love that gratitude. I think, Ashish, if we ever polled people of the nine practices, which is their favorite, I'm gonna make that gratitude is always gonna be at the top. And, you know, I do wanna go back to self awareness for a moment as we wrap up, you know, my invitation to our listeners. You know, if you're a leader or an aspiring leader. I think it's beautiful to be a healing leader. To be a healing leader. It's a matter of giving space. And you know, I've been in a recent example from, from where I work, where I witnessed a leader in one moment give space to his team and allow the team to thrive. And I saw it, and I saw the same leader in a moment not give that space and saw his team look to survive. And we all want to thrive. We need to find a way. And so it's an opportunity for all of us to observe your peers, observe your leaders, and what do you see? What qualities do you see? Do you see them pleasing? Do you see them loving? Do you see them leading?

How?

What do you see? What do you learn as you observe what they're doing? And then observe yourself, what do you see in yourself that gives you an opportunity to develop those qualities or nurture those qualities that can enable you to be a leader that heals, a leader that unlocks flourishing within their teams? And so, Marienke, one of our favorite questions again as we wrap up, it's about the present. And we would love for you to share with our listeners one or two, maybe even three tips that today they can almost start using and practice to unlock flourishing either in others around them or within themselves that would be be.

Grateful for what's happening to your life. Maybe that's a bit boring, but try to look at the meaning of happenings in your life and things will change. And maybe search for a coach that can dig deeper into the subconsciousness of your family system, of the organizational system, that when you understand what's happening, then you can get a grip on it. Not that it becomes nicer or easier, but you can understand it. And if you understand who you are and what's happening to you that gives you so much happiness. I've seen it with myself, but also with all my clients, that they walk away much lighter and before they had years and years of suffering or heavy stuff, but then they can break out of it. So it's very important to understand what's happening, why it's happening, why you, and what does it say about your mission in life? Because if you make it something that's about suffering, then you will not be happy. But if you can make it about your mission as something you have to go through, then you can make that bridge for all the other people that are suffering in the same way or searching in the same way. So you can be a forerunner, a pioneer in this development and evolvement of mankind, humanity. So that would be my tips.

Love it. No, thank you, Marike. We really appreciate that. Well, you know, I just want to say thank you for taking the time. Looking forward to your next book which you mentioned is launching on on 231123 this year. So everyone keep an eye out for that and we look forward to having you back. Marike to talk more about healing organizations, healing leadership and your upcoming book. So from my side I'd like to say thank you. Marike, go ahead.

Yeah, I have one thing I shared with you. My ebook. It's for free and you can download it on my website. So that's maybe something nice for a for the audience and it's in English.

So wow, that is very great, very gracious, very grateful. We will for sure include that Mariki and thank you. It was such a pleasure to have you.

Yes, yes, it's such a pleasure to see you again. Ashish and I will come to Amsterdam Anil very soon to see you in person as well.

Yes indeed. All right, well hey, take care. Big hugs and lots of love. Thank you both.

Yes, thank you.

Bye bye bye.

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