When I met An Jolling during a workshop, she invited me to join her for a channelling session one day. She did so with determination and intuition, yet at the same time with a touch of shyness. I see that combination reflected in her and her journey. From sensing that something is there and not knowing what’s going on, to discovering your own gifts and not having the words for them, to finding like-minded people and still not feeling fully understood – to becoming increasingly at peace with yourself and doing things your own way.


Keen intuitive
An has always been a keen intuitive. As a child, her parents thought she had an imaginary friend, because during dinner she would talk to someone standing in the doorway. In her teenage years, she could sense when her boyfriend was sending a text message to the family mobile. “I could feel it very clearly in my body. Then I’d say, ‘Ah yes, just pass the phone to me.’ And a moment later, beep-beep, the mobile would go off.’ She didn’t think much of it at the time; she thought everyone was like that. It was laughed off, and her mum and sister said, “An, stop that, don’t be creepy.” Looking back, there were already clear signs that An sensed more than the average person, but in her youth it simply wasn’t something people paid much attention to.


The experience that changed it all
In 2017, she found more space to explore these kinds of feelings. At first, she was able to express herself through card readings, but that was as far as it went. Facing the threat of burnout, An sought help from an osteopath. He recognised that An was energetically sensitive and incorporated this into the treatments. During one of the treatment sessions, An had an intense spiritual experience. Whilst she was talking to the osteopath, she saw a brick wall appear on his desk. Suddenly, that little wall exploded. “I thought: ‘O-o-okay, what’s going on here?’ I was completely puzzled.” In the treatment session that followed, it was as if control had been taken out of An’s and the osteopath’s hands, and An experienced a wave of love that was almost otherworldly.

“In the days that followed, I cried a lot, because the whole world view I’d always had no longer made sense.” It was a confusing time for An, as she was experiencing all sorts of feelings for which she had no framework at that moment. Because her experience began during the treatments, An linked everything she felt to the osteopath for a while. Her husband therefore thought she’d fallen in love. An herself felt very clearly that that wasn’t the case. But what was it, then? “I had no idea. I wanted to Google it, but what term should I type in? No idea!”


In search of a framework
An realised that these feelings went beyond her sessions with the osteopath, but she couldn’t put her experience into words. Six months later, An came across a video online that talked about soul connections that bring about a spiritual awakening. “Yes, and I think that was it – a soul activator. Gradually, it began to become clear that I respond to energies.” In the meantime, An had delved into the Schumann resonance, learnt about past lives and found some books that offered her guidance. “With so much of what I read, I thought, ‘Ooh, this resonates with me. And this resonates with me too!’”

In 2021, An, together with her sister Joke, began a course in Fundamental Kinesiological Communication (FKC), a method in which muscle testing is used to make contact with subconscious and spiritual information. She embarked on it with great enthusiasm. Had she finally found a language to describe what she had been experiencing all along?


A different path
It soon became clear that An was not your typical FKC student. She began practising diligently, but whenever she started with the opening phrase ‘May I make contact with the Guide from the Unity?’, the answer was and remained ‘no’. “Well, what on earth is going on here? It turned out that I was already in contact with a guide who was on a much higher level than the standard guides used in the course.”

During the course, An received several signs that her path was different from that of FKC. Her body would react with violent jolts to the teacher’s stories, and An thought: “Nobody does that, pull yourself together, pull yourself together!” Practical exercises, such as testing medicines on the body, simply did not work for An. She thought she was doing it wrong, because her classmates were able to do it. Meanwhile, however, An was receiving a whole host of other messages, making it impossible for her to concentrate on her homework. There were constantly other spiritual guides waiting to make themselves heard. She just didn’t know that yet. “Little did I know that the course would set a process of its own in motion.”


Learning to have faith
That process of its own quickly gathered pace. Not long after starting the course, An was able to channel: she began receiving messages from her spiritual guides. “Yes, and then they started giving me tasks that make you think: ‘That can’t possibly be real.’ Luckily, my sister was there to verify things.” The FKC course teacher also reassured An: she wasn’t going mad; her spiritual development was simply progressing at breakneck speed.

For An, the course was a huge trigger, bringing to the surface everything that was inside her and that she had pushed away over the years. And when she passed her course, she collapsed. Her mouth was covered in mouth ulcers, her gums had receded, she was suffering from oral thrush, she could only eat pudding and soup, and she was in an enormous amount of pain. “But, well, that was… I had suppressed my own truth all that time. And it all came pouring out.”

For several years now, An has been offering channeling sessions. I can tell you from personal experience that she is very good at it, but An herself can still have doubts. “Some people expect to receive a straightforward answer to a question, but that’s not how it works.” An cannot control the information she receives. “If they decide up there that we first need to bring something underlying to the surface, then you don’t get the information you were expecting.” Sometimes your question is part of a long healing process or a bigger picture. The pieces of the puzzle only fall into place later. “When that happens, I quickly get the feeling that the other person thinks I can’t do it, because it all seems so chaotic.”

These kinds of challenges can sometimes become too much for An. At those times, she would rather everyone – the people around her as well as the guides – simply leave her alone. Sometimes, she then finds herself speaking to a future version of herself, who tells her, ‘Have faith.’ “That’s the lesson I keep learning, every single time.”


Giving the next generation a framework
Now that An has a better understanding of her own experiences, she recognises herself in her children, who are also spiritually inclined. She watches her ten-year-old daughter go through a difficult period. According to An, she is unconsciously helping to process parts of collective trauma, bringing heavy emotions to the surface. “And I can’t exactly explain at school that my daughter is healing the Atlantis soul lineage while also working with the Egyptian gods.”

In her work as a primary school teacher, An also encounters many highly sensitive children who are struggling and, as a result, experiencing problems both at home and at school. They could, like An’s daughter, be New Age children: children who are dealing with something significant on an energetic level. “And who am I to say to a child like that: ‘You have to do your schoolwork’? Because I think: ‘Maybe you’re exactly like my daughter. Maybe you’re actually exhausted.’” But she has no choice, because she works within that school system.

For An, it therefore feels as though she is constantly having to balance the earthly and the energetic. “Because at the same time, I also feel that I need to bring parents of New Age children together.” While An can provide her daughter with a framework for understanding what she is experiencing, not all parents are necessarily able to do that. An believes that if New Age children are heard and seen on a soul level, something might shift, allowing them to experience greater peace. Perhaps this is where An has a role to play: becoming a voice for these children.


Both sides
The balancing act between the earthly and the energetic runs like a red thread through An’s life. It is about embracing both sides. One moment she prefers to be alone; the next, she feels the need to connect with other people. “I really enjoy being immersed in the energetic side of things, but I also really love simply being a teacher in everyday life.” One moment she wants a deep conversation; the next, she can thoroughly enjoy a simple chat about weekend plans. “It can be a bit of everything.”

According to An, spirituality means walking two parallel paths. At times, she follows the path that deals with the darker side of things, the traumatic experiences. When she gets stuck there, she jumps across to the other side, where she channels and works with higher energies. When she gets stuck there, there is often a trauma asking for her attention, and she jumps back to that side. In this way, she finds a balance between these two sides of herself and of life. 


Finding her way back to herself
Within that balance, she has come to see that there is no single right way to live your life. What she sometimes sees happening is that people who consider themselves spiritual place themselves above those who supposedly are not spiritual, or who are only just beginning to explore spirituality. “It’s like walking into an organic shop and seeing the staff look at you as if to say, ‘Oh, she’s finally seen the light. Well, bravo.’ It’s actually the same thing. You’re judging someone under the guise of spirituality.”

“You have to allow other people to go through their own process too. It may be that you know something that I won’t discover for another two years. But that’s okay!” For years, An searched for a point of reference outside herself that could tell her what was true. For a long time, that was FKC, followed by the guides and other people involved in spirituality. She has learned a great deal from all of it and takes something away from every experience. “And now I feel as though I’ve come back to myself: I am my own point of reference.”

That doesn’t mean she now moves through life with complete confidence all the time. “I still find it difficult to surrender to what is, especially with everything that’s going on in my life. But, hey, that’s simply part of my process.”


Author: Dionne Hendriks