From my letters · 13 January 2026

Hi dear friend,

Last week I told you that I love storytelling. The next newsletters, I would love to dig a bit deeper in what storytelling means to me, and why it matters so much for you, and me, and our world.

Personally, I love to read, hear and watch stories that have (what I call) an optimist ground tone. Many things might go wrong, in the end, there is at least hope. Love. Trust things will get better. 

We, as human kind, need these stories. Specially these days, with so much going on in our world. We only have to open the newspaper, television or social media to absorb stories that definitely don’t have an optimist ground tone. And I don’t know about you, but these stories can slowly start to eat away my wish to keep an optimist perspective.

You might now think: but Femke, there IS so much going on. Why would you want to keep an optimistic perspective? Isn’t that like putting your head in the sand, aren’t you too much of a Pollyanna? Don’t we need to face reality as it is?

And if this is you, I hear you. Part of me even agrees with you. But also not. Let me explain. I’m not a natural optimist. I sometimes call myself an optimist by survival. Meaning that at already a very young age, I started to use optimism as a coping strategy. Whatever was going wrong I managed to find a pearl in the mud, even if it was really small. My glass simply had to be half full. And if despair set in, I would consciously start looking for the bright side of things.

And it ‘saved’ me. It helped me to not give in to despair, to the need to escape by using drugs or alcohol. First not so consciously, later more deliberately: it helped me to help myself, all the way into what I now call selfgentleness. 

Because this is also true: if I give in to letting the troubles of the world (whether it be my own little world or the one at large) I get into that feeling that all is lost. That no one can be trusted. That bad things will happen. More and more. And then I feel so lost that the joy of being here, in this body, on this planet gets lost as well. 

And I wonder: what if more (and more and more) people would aim for a perspective that includes more trust, more compassion, more love? More of that selfgentleness that then will extent to others? Yes, we would see ‘reality’ differently, but wouldn’t that also help us to find a way back to more connection, more compassion? Which brings me to the question that I ask myself when I struggle with finding that perspective: what ‘good’ can I do for this world if I adapt that same framework of thinking and acting that the destroyers of this world are adopting? I think of what Mandela did. Gandhi. By all means, I do not in any way compare myself to them, but I do want to keep their message to human kind alive. That there is another way. A kinder way. A gentler way.

When I started writing this newsletter today, I didn’t know I would end up writing this. Apparently it’s very active i my consciousness. I care. And thus I care for reading, watching, hearing those stories that support me in this. There is enough misery to watch in the news, why not entice ourselves with stories of hope, or love, of connection? 

Feel free to hit reply and let me know your thoughts, I’ll personally read your message.

A story to watch

The other night, we watched Midnight in Paris. Another fairytale about nostalgia, about love, art, writing and about being honest but kind to yourself. You probably saw it when it came out, but if you didn’t: you can rent it via one of the streamers (or maybe find an old DVD in a secondhand shop!!) I highly recommend it. 

A story to read

One of the books I love to read from time to time (and I gifted it already three times!!) is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reed. I love how she positions the story in Hollywood from the 1950s onwards, while conveying the message that in the end, love is all that matters. I read it will also become a movie, probably I’ll like that one less because my fantasy has already shaped the story in my head (do you do that too?) If you don’t know it yet, highly recommended! 

Thank you for being here. I would love to have another chat next week! More storytelling on its way!!

Be selfgentle,

All love, Femke