The Return Plan: Reflections on honest living
Reflections on identity, truth, and the quiet work of returning to yourself.
I’ve discovered that there’s a moment in every honest life where clarity stops coming from strategy and starts arriving through stillness.
For me, that moment came when the noise of the life I built in the Netherlands
became louder than the whisper of what was true in my gut.
The reflections I will share were born from that threshold.
From the quiet seasons where I stopped performing “okay,” and slowed down enough to listen, to begin living in alignment with what’s actually real to me.
This is far from a BS success story. It’s simply a remembrance of what’s important.
Of how clarity actually comes. Of what happens when we stop outsourcing our truth and begin hearing our own voice again.
Each reflection holds a piece of that return - from double vision and stuck to clear and grounded. From inner conflict to aligned choice.
Lived moments, written from the same presence I now hold space from in ‘The Return Plan’ work I do with Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs, looking for a way back to what is true.
These words are an invitation to pause. To breathe. To come home to what’s honest.
– Dan
The day I stopped performing “okay” and told the truth
I remember the exact morning it happened.
Early. The kind of light that doesn’t announce itself - it just warms the room.
Ollie, our rescue pup, was snoring at my feet.
Outside, Sjoors the rooster was already waking up the valley, trying to out-sing Harry (the new rooster on the block) who hadn’t yet learned that my wife (Eves) garden isn’t a battlefield.
Eve was barefoot in the kitchen, feeding the fire, humming to herself while chopping vegetables she locally sourced. The smell of rosemary, soil, and woodsmoke filled the air.
And yet, inside me - I felt none of it.
I’d built a life that looked peaceful from the outside: the move from the Netherlands to Portugal, the work with clients, the wild freedom of raising three daughters in nature.
But on that morning, I realised I’d been performing “okay.”
The smile that says I’ve got this.... The stories that keep people comfortable....The well-worded posts that sound real but don’t actually don’t say what’s really going on.
I’d learned how to be convincing - even in my vulnerability.
It was survival. A learnt pattern. A fear of being too much again.
That day, I stopped mid-sentence while sending a message to a client, and decided to delete the words “It’s all good.”
Because it wasn’t.
I was tired of holding things in. Tired of leading from performance instead of presence.
Tired of coaching people to tell the truth while I quietly rehearsed mine.
So I closed my laptop. Walked outside barefoot. The earth was still cool from the night.
I looked at the mountains, and how they never rush to explain themselves.
And I finally said, out loud: “I’m not okay. And I don’t need to be.”
The moment I said it, something in my chest loosened.
It wasn’t like everything become clear - but I did feel a soothing relief.
The truth opened something within. And it shaped everything that came next: the way I work, the way I parent, the way I lead.
Now, when people come to me at a crossroads - exhausted from being the one who holds it all together - I recognise the look in their eyes.
The subtle holding. The quiet performance of “fine.”
Because I know that moment.
The one where you finally stop pretending everything is “okay” and start listening to the voice beneath it all.
If you’re there now - in that silent, in-between place - that’s exactly where The Return Plan begins too.
A short, potent space to say what’s true and remember how to trust it.
If you’re curious to know more about what this looks like, DM me ‘Return’ for more details.
– Dan