ABOUT CHINNAMASTA

Although I am a native from the Netherlands, 
I grew up with a French 'joie de vivre'  and a love for the rich and vibrant Eastern cultures. 

In my mid-twenties, at the peak of my pediatric intensive care nursing career,  I had a spiritual awakening. 
While guiding my terminally ill father I witnessed him leaving his body, and had 

a spontaneously arising sense of utter calm and peace

I knew then, I could not return to the life I was living. This extraordinary experience awakened within me a burning desire for answers. As I returned to my work, I was catapulted into a state of melancholy and solitude. I struggled to fit into societal expectations and noticed a growing personal resistance to the lack of heart I was experiencing within Western medicine. I felt a bit of an outsider and was aware that this way of living was no longer a good fit. I just couldn't do it anymore.

After having witnessed multiple deaths both professionally and personally, 
my father was the final push for change. 

My life felt dry, lacking depth and meaning.My partner and friends were all partying and heavy drinking, 
which only make me feel worse. 
I decided to leave my partner, my career, my home and started over.

Through the study and implementation of Eastern Yogic Philosophy and Āyurvedic Medicine I found answers and meaning. It truly was food for my body and soul. I started to understand myself, my relationships, what I needed and why I felt unhappy. 

It was a total reset and a homecoming

Over the years I met many highly elevated beings, vaidyas and wisdom teachers, famous and unknown. Whilst I am eternally grateful for their shared wisdom, they are all inside of me, and live through me.
The wisdom integration happened over many years, drop by drop, like a slow brew.

Just as my teacher Kiran Vyas from Tapovan, France asked me to come and live in Normandy permanently as a staff member of the āyurvedic yogic clinic, new love came into my life.

I immigrated with my love Mukunda Stiles to Colorado in 2009 and we moved to California in 2010.  Here I spent the next fourteen years expanding into an international teaching career and a new personal life. 

What started as a love quest, turned into a deep shedding, dealing with the unexpected health decline and death of my beloved. 
The four years of nursing and guiding Mukunda spiritually to his final destination
were the most difficult and yet profoundly transformative. 

It made me understand that there are only three things important in life: 

learning how to survive, thrive and let go

And after you let go, you get back on your feet and you start over. 

I could not have become the wisdom teacher and Vedic counselor I am today, without that life experience. 


In 2023 it was time to return home and realize a longtime dream vision.  
A home at the Southern French Coast - an artful and wisdom inspiring refuge. 
To nurture myself and my troubadour friends.

The Chinnamasta Devi Dharma House 
 I am most grateful to offer a safe place to people
to land within themselves and receive wisdom 
for a meaningful and well-lived life