On 26 August 2022, I was inviteted to meet Rikke Hertz and her daughter Emihlie. It was a huge dream come true for me. I have wanted to meet Rikke since I first heard her podcast "Spirituel with Rikke Hertz". From the very start I had a clear feeling of some kind of connection to Rikke and that I had to meet her, and all of a sudden I started to come across Rikke in several contexts. Call it coincidence. I believe it is the synchronicity that I know surrounds us.

In June this year, I wrote to Rikke and her daughter Emihlie and asked if I could come and have a talk with them about some of the big questions in life. I knew it was a long shot, but they said YES and I met them in their beautiful home on a sunny morning in August.
Everything is actually pure sunshine. Two women who look alike and yet not at all. They are happy, grateful, relaxed, fill the room with positive vibrations and, not least, a sense of humor and a "wild at heart" kind of attitude that makes this day very special and wonderful.

It became this story about choices and views on life that pave the way for an easier approach to life.

Seamless Basic: Emihlie, on your personal journey, how did you figure out what is fundamentally important in your life?

Emihlie: "It's gratitude and joy. These are two of my core values ​​that I have decided to be in every single day, and I do a lot to train and maintain the feeling of being happy and feeling gratitude."

"The most important thing for me is to appreciate what I have, can, get and experience. Everything that happens around me. It's about awareness and training that mindset.

You have to want it. A negative mindset can be hard to get out of, but I believe that when you work from gratitude, it paves the way for a positive attitude towards life and a life full of joy.
The upside of practicing gratitude on a daily basis is that you can't be grateful and be angry, frustrated or sad at the same time. We can choose which feeling we want to embrace and which will dominate our life and daily life. When you start to practice your focus on being grateful and begin to train in thinking in gratitude, you will soon find that you start to notice so many more small, beautiful and good things. It could be gratitude that the sun is shining or that the chicken in Netto is on sale today.

I practice that my focus always stays on what makes me happy, makes me strong and creates value for me. I can stay in that feeling when I am grateful.

My best advice for those who find it difficult to be grateful is to write a journal of gratitude. Every night before I go to bed, I take out my journal and write a whole page. I start all the sentences with, "I am so happy and grateful for…."
It varies each day what comes out, but it is something I am continuous with and prioritize incredibly high in my everyday life. There are days when it feels like a crap exercise, sometimes I'm too tired, but I know how good it is for me and how important it is to exercise my gratitude muscle, so I make sure to do it every single day regardless of the circumstances or my mood at the time.
I do it because it gives me energy and it strengthens me to appreciate life and everything that happens in a day."

Seamless Basic: What advice and values ​​did you take with you from your mother?

Emihlie: "That's a big question."

"I was brought up with a spiritual approach to life, and this has been a natural thing in my childhood, which I only really became aware of when my mother and I started working together. It's definitely one of the things I've taken with me - to live my life based on the spiritual values ​​of gratitude, generosity and trust. I especially admire my mother for her creativity and generosity. It was a core value in my upbringing and is one of the things I admire most. My mother is the most generous person I know.

We put a lot of thought into doing something for others. Giving something. We think about joy in life and on a positive outlook on life. There is nothing that is not good for something else. Of course there are times, episodes and periods when life hurts and I am bruised, but I have learned from my mother that there is always something good in everything and always something we can learn. My mom puts it so nicely: "Everything is a gift. Only sometimes, the wrapping isn't pretty at all"
I think that's a great approach, and I've also learned that it's actually true.

As a child, I especially remember that if my brother or I were having a hard time with something, my mother always said: "And what's the good in that?" At that moment It could be so provocative , but it has taught us to think positively and to focus on what we can learn from a specific situation and take with us in life. I believe, it has contributed a lot to our personal development and that we can always and very fast get back on track and be constantly evolving and moving.

Believing that EVERYTHING is a learning makes a huge difference to me in all my relations and it gives me greater courage in every way. I jump into new things if it feels right, because deep down I always know if something is really right for me.”

Seamless Basic: Rikke, we live in extraordinary times! How do we prepare ourselves as human beings - mentally and spiritually - for the future, and can we even do that?

Rikke: "Yes, there are many places in the world where things are chaotic. Very bad things are taking place, but you can also choose to say , that additionally, a lot of development is going on."

"When things hurt, like pandemics, natural disasters and war, it makes people move together and stand together - and think creatively. Lots of co-creations are popping up. We simply think more on how we can help, organize and create together. After all, natural disasters activate a huge amount of concern. Suddenly, we decide to be helpful, generous and to make a difference for other people in need. As opposed to when it's all a little too much "ham and Sausage"; then we're busy talking about the neighbor getting a new porch.  

Disasters wake us up. Make us more aware, make us act and feel our values ​​and rank them differently. Suddenly we value things that used to be a matter of course: "Thank you for coming to visit or how great it is that the light turns on when I press the power button." We are confronted with our abundance and the fact that our society has become super comfortable and convenient."

Rikke: "I believe that things happen for a reason, for us to wake up, to be more aware, more grateful, more supportive and more giving, and because we have to learn something."

"Yes, corona was bad in some ways, but nature continued to restore itself. So, maybe it's nature's way of waking us up by saying: "Hello, we need you to stop." That you reevaluate whether it should all go so fast, and whether it should really be that much faster, bigger, more, or whether it can be deeper, better, more peaceful and more harmonious. I arm myself by believing that there is something greater that wants to make things better for us. That what is no longer sustainable must be torn down.

It is NEVER nice when something is torn down and changes. It hurts, it's noisy, it's dirty, it's ugly and sometimes, sadly, someone dies, but it's a necessary part of our evolution. We make ourselves stronger by focusing on the fact that there is something sending us a message, and we can focus on which learning it gives, even if it is sad and terrible.

I have lost many close relations and I have a spiritual approach to losing. For when people die. We have to deal with life and death in a different way. I think that our soul has decided that I (the soul) comes in this incarnation and that I have to do this, and when I don't have to be here anymore, there is a new dimension for my soul and my body passes away. It feels pointless, but I believe there is a greater meaning. That we as souls decide for ourselves that there is something karmic that needs to be learned and unfolded. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.

These are heavy questions and views, but we can also break the big questions down to micro levels. Until now we have focused on a large social level, but what can we do, each one of us? It is wonderful and I am touched to the core listening to Emihlie's approach. She practices on a micro level to take a stand, deciding to be happy and grateful.
It may seem like Emihlie's life is super easy, but she also has crises, sorrows, pains and there are lots of things that she could have a crisis over, but she chooses joy and gratitude. We can each take leadership of our lives, joy, happiness, health. It is a choice, a realization, a responsibility, a decision and an action. A continuous action to make it a habit."

Seamless Basic: What have you done to create a balance in your life between career, children and family?

Rikke: "I was honest. And I was very brave to say that I was also a career woman. My identity remained intact, although I also became a mother. It wasn't like motherhood overruled what I also was and I that sacrificed myself."

"I was good at creating structure. I worked from when Emihlie was 3½ months old. Emihlie's father was at home with her two days a week, and that was fine, because he is her father. And he could easily. We also had a grandmother who helped, and Emihlie and her grandmother had a fantastic relationship in life. I had the baby food package with me, and that we resolved that I went to work with a Falck breast pump, which I used in the toilet several times a day, put it in the freezer, took it home and then Emihlie could get breast milk for a long time. She was actually breastfed for 1 ½ year with our own little Arla system.That way it all came together in a higher unity with me d bit the juggler with reduced working hours and the world's sweetest nanny - also when my son Oliver was born."

"It was a way of navigating in the fact that I wanted my work and that my husband was also a father. So we shared having children. It wasn't that difficult to find that balance between being a woman who worked, and being a mother.

I later decided what I wanted to be known for as a mother. Instead of comparing myself to other mothers and what they did, I wanted to be a mother who focused on learning the children something about themselves, about vulnerability, about talking about feelings, being good at expressing what you feel and want, and that you can always chase your dreams.

I didn't bake Barbie cakes for school. I bought a cake from the bakery. That's how it was. Of course, I had to make a decision, and in a perfect world there was probably something I would have changed, but looking back, I'm pretty happy. I mean, I've also been hit by a bad conscience if I did something that wasn't about the children, but I just didn't want my children to feel that I was a victim because I had de-prioritised myself and didn't go out with my girlfriends for 8 years because of the children. At least I haven't given them THAT.

Maybe I gave them dancing on the tables and living life. I think I did give them that. We have a span in the family between being super spiritual and meditating, and really maxing it out and living life. I have given them a focus on good values, being a good person, responsible, dedicated, loyal and loving."

Seamless Basic: It can sometimes be difficult to walk the line between being a "I know better" mom and "The rock in my children's lives" mom. How do you do it?”

"I know THAT very well and I can honestly say that it is very limited how well that is going!”

“I recently visited my children. It turned out that they had made a bet on how long I would be there before I started commenting on something in their home. I really just want to fix things for them but it's often perceived as criticism. It's kind of sad that I am unable communicate my true intentions properly. Emihlie doesn't agree with Rikke on that. In addition to correcting how they live, there is the other side of Rikke as a mother, which is much more important to Emihlie.

I guess that the true story is that we have a wide range as a family. I'm the one who gives life-changing guidance to them in a loving way. They always come to me and I'm the one they reach for when things are difficult. When things are smooth they don't seek my advice so much but when life really hurts and it's hard, only I will do. I have some really good angles and advice. Not so long ago my son said: "Mom, that was good advice, one would think you made a living from it."

I always tell the truth - to my children and my clients. People sometimes get very upset with me. There's smoke comes out of their ears because I say what they need to hear. And not what they like to hear. It's the same with my kids. It's ok for them to get mad at me once in a while, because I am filled with love for them.

I don't want to be a sugar coating and sweet talking mom, if what they need to hear is the truth. Otherwise, it's not true love. After all, I'm basically supportive and full of love for them, and they should be aware of that by now, whether they like what I say to them or not."

Seamless Basic: How do you keep yourself mentally and spiritually fit, and what do you do when something shakes you?

Emihlie: "I use breathing a lot. Deep breaths all the way to the stomach. I learned that through meditation."

"If I have clients who are having a very difficult time, I can have a hard time letting it go afterwards, and then I repeat a certain sentence to let go of what is not mine: "All the energy that is not mine, leave my body.” Otherwise I walk around with their energy for the rest of the day. I go for long walks every day with nothing in my ears. To ground. I write journal of gratitude and I reach out and talk. A lot. I really need to get things off my chest."
Rikke: "Emihlie is really good at articulating the difficult and perhaps shameful things - from all aspects. Saying everything exactly as it is."

Rikke: "I practice morning meditation. These days, I am in a state without too many internal fluctuations. My energy level and brainwave frequencies are stable. I dwell in nature. My dog ​​does a lot for me; it gives me a sense of calm when I check in with it. An exchange entirely without language. Of course, my husband and my family mean everything to me. I watch very little television, but I listen to a lot of audio books, and last but not least I'm creative. The creative process is important to me. The creative space is incredibly spiritually vibrating and incredibly spiritually calibrating. Every day, I am a channel for the purest, highest, best energy. Purely, in the service of another human beings. Every day. Sometimes 10 hours a day where I let go, open up and close. 

I surround myself with spirituality all the time. I am that."