Nicki van Heugten

When you say Nicki van Heugten, you say Love*. That is the essence with which you can sum up her life, work and philosophy. She made the journey from the outside inwards: through, among other things, systemic work and A Course in Miracles, she found her true self. We spoke about her journey of discovery, from being lost to finding herself, from telling stories to seeing the truth, from fear to – you guessed it – Love.

As Nicki sits opposite me, I see a woman full of calm, love and surrender. I have never known her to be otherwise, but she was not always this way. “My life lessons are often about surrender. That’s why I started Ja tegen Nu (Yes to Now), because apparently I found it very difficult to say yes to the present moment – truly yes to everything that is. I had so many ideas in my head about how things were supposed to be. And I increasingly realised that the world wasn’t the way I wanted it to be.”

“Out of frustration, I once even tore the curtains off the wall of a hotel room.” She laughs about it now. But in the past she could become completely overwhelmed with panic, for example if she felt disconnected from her partner. For several years now, she has been working with A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a spiritual teaching designed to help find inner peace. Now she knows that she cannot truly lose her partner – and that he cannot give her what she is really searching for: connection with the Source.


The Source
Following the teachings of ACIM, Nicki believes that we are souls having a temporary human experience. We all come from the same Source. We may appear to have become separated from that Source, but we still carry all of its qualities within us. To explain this, Nicki often uses the example of a tealight candle and its holder. The holder may take many forms, but the light itself is the same in everyone.

Here on earth, we search for the peace of the Source. Instead of remembering that in essence we are that tealight, we seek peace in substitutes, such as relationships, experiences and sensations. But those substitutes are always temporary. “And afterwards, you are left with exactly what you had before.” We do not find the peace of the Source outside ourselves, but within ourselves.


Getting lost less often
“We live on a horizontal axis and a vertical axis,” Nicki explains. The horizontal axis is the axis of the human experience, the personality (the ego thought system) – in other words, the tealight holder. Here we often lose ourselves in fear, pain and lack. The vertical axis is that of the Source, the tealight itself. “There is only one truth there, and that truth is Love.”

Through the inner work she has done, including vipassana, systemic work and A Course in Miracles, Nicki is increasingly able to remain on that vertical axis. “Of course, as long as I am here on earth, I also exist on the horizontal axis. The difference is that I get lost in it less often and don’t stay lost for as long. You become increasingly aware when you’ve lost your way.” At those moments, she remembers to see herself and others with the compassion of the Source.


A first glimpse
At a young age, Nicki already caught a glimpse of the Source. As a child, she met a friend who made a deep impression on her. “Every time I saw her, she lit up the whole room. Even back then, it was an opening to look beyond form, to catch something of her original energy.”

Her friend also played an important role during Nicki’s teenage years. At the time, she was searching, struggling with addiction and, in her own words, “completely lost”. Eventually, things at home became unmanageable and her father showed her the door. Her friend invited Nicki to stay with her for a while. And although she was not particularly keen on the idea, she felt it was the best decision. “That was a defining moment. Mainly because my ego thought system turned it into a story for years: that I was the victim.”


Beyond the story
That changed when Nicki took part in a constellation workshop led by Els Thissen. Nicki would later train with her in Family and Systemic Constellations, after which she founded Ja tegen Nu. “I was telling my entire story. Els looked at me and said to the group: ‘Look everyone, here is a woman who has a hobby – she keeps telling herself all sorts of stories.’” Nicki bursts out laughing. “And I thought: ‘Hang on, is she talking about me?’ But she saw beyond everything I had been telling myself and others for years.” From that moment on, Nicki gradually began to see herself for who she truly was.


Beyond form
During that same period, Nicki attended an eleven-day silent retreat to practise vipassana. She meditated for ten hours a day, learning that everything comes and goes. “At first, you build a fortress of cushions to ease the pain, and by the fourth day you throw it all away because you realise it passes. That was incredibly liberating.”

In vipassana, you learn to focus on the body. For days on end, you scan every millimetre of your body. “I simply noticed everything becoming lighter. I could see beyond fixed forms – even beyond my own form.”


Free from fear
During her Life Overview – a two-day inner journey in which participants reflect on their lives up to that point – with Willem Glaudemans, Nicki fully realised that she has only one Source. “It felt as though light was radiating from my body. Because I had spoken aloud everything I still carried guilt or shame about, the fear simply fell away from me. That felt so wonderful!”

She was no longer afraid of losing her partner and told him everything she had previously kept in the shadows for fear that he might leave her. “It was completely okay if he had decided to pack his bags afterwards. And of course I would still shed a tear, but the connection I was seeking in him is also a substitute. And to free yourself from that – and to free the other person from it too… well, you no longer need to tear the curtains off the wall either. That, too, brings relief!” she laughs.


The past as an illusion
When I ask how she looks back on her past, she takes a moment. “Since doing my own Life Overview, and since working with ACIM, I’ve realised that when I talk about how things were back then, I’m talking about something that no longer exists,” she says. “The past is gone; we only have the present. That’s why I see the past as an illusion, as a dream. And I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve woken up.”

Sometimes it can still affect her, and an illusion from the past may resurface. For example, she might think she was a bad mother. “And then I know: ah yes, I can look at this with compassion too. It’s over, it has passed, it is complete. And that is that.”

At the same time, the past has also shaped Nicki into who she is today. She feels grateful for it. What she has lived through helps her to look without judgement and from a place of love, including in her work. “Nothing shocks me anymore, because I know a story can look very ugly, and that within that story I may be the perpetrator. But it is not who we truly are. So that, too, will find its way back to peace.”


From trust to surrender
Nicki has always believed that things would turn out all right. “Even in the darkest periods – and there truly were some – there has always been a soft voice in me saying, ‘it will be fine’. I think everyone recognises that basic sense of trust.”

“Of course, in hindsight it’s easy to talk,” she adds. Once you’ve made it out of the maze, you quickly forget what it felt like. But each time you go through it and realise you come out the other side, it builds a trust that you will survive the next time as well.

By now, this basic trust has grown into surrender for Nicki, in which she experiences everything that comes her way as being for her, rather than against her. When we encounter something or someone that triggers judgement or discomfort, it is an invitation to look within. A person who irritates you, or who triggers something in you, reveals that there is still something in yourself that needs healing. “In this way we are each other’s ‘saviours’, as ACIM says. And I feel as though this is being orchestrated for us.”


A choice
Nicki is often asked how it is possible to keep seeing Love in the world, given everything that is happening. “The crux is that you cannot see Love in the world, because it is not to be found there. The world we see is a creation of the ego thought system. I only find Love in connection with my Source. From there, I say ‘yes’ to everything that unfolds in the world, and to the mistake we are making. When we realise who we truly are – that Love, that Light – we also begin to treat each other and the world more lovingly.”

Nicki experiences this as a choice in how to see. “Of course, I don’t know with 100% certainty whether it is true. But it feels much better to look at life in a loving way.” And that choice can be made again and again. Do you choose fear or love? Is your intention loving, or are you reinforcing separation from the Source? “Even in the most dire circumstances, there are people who choose to think: ‘Do what you like, but you cannot have my spirit.’”


Shining
When I ask Nicki if there is anything else she would like to share, she repeats the lesson she recorded that day for her podcast on ACIM: “‘Light, joy and peace live within me.’ Yes. We have been given only one function, and that is to shine our light.” She looks at me intently. “And you might think: ‘I’m too much, who am I to shine my light?’ But who are we not to? Who do you think you are?” she laughs. “You are really doing the greater whole a disservice if you don’t let your light shine. So yes: light, joy and peace live within me. And that is all.”