Jolanda van den Berg is a mother, entrepreneur, and community-weaver who lives in life's creative flow and inspires others to do the same. Over the last 25 years, the organization she founded, Ninos Unidos Peruanos Foundation—has transformed the lives of thousands of street children in Peru. Its work is supported by a series of boutique hotels that Jolanda runs in Cusco, staffed by community members and former students from the foundation.

A traumatic experience in 2016 catalyzed a profound experience for Jolanda. She had a felt-sense of not being a “separate self,” in the world. The experience awakened in her an understanding that, "We are each other." Since then, while continuing to be engaged in her foundation and hotels, Jolanda has sat in hundreds of deep listening sessions with people, 1:1. During these sessions she tunes into their stories, and intuitively mirrors back to them places of stuckness, in ways that can facilitate access to greater possibility and freedom.

"She thought she knew the secret ... from the time she was a little girl she felt that every time she was swimming under water, she disappeared and became a mermaid without notice of time or space. When she came up it could have been hours or seconds, she couldn’t tell or remember. It was her secret for many, many years, through the difficult times at home. She felt she couldn’t share it with anyone-- because how could they believe that she disappeared with the water when she was under water?"

"Many, many moons later when she was an adult and didn’t believe anymore in mermaids, she found herself again on the beach. She looked at her feet, sand, people, sea, and suddenly all became clear... the images were there but she was gone...she and all became the same…The mermaid in the story, and the story in the mermaid…It’s that, looking at itself, through itself, as itself...without beginning, nor ending, no borders or words.. all in one as one… and so on and on and on and on…"