Claudia Goetzelmann: She didn't see it coming, but she lost it all. Her heart was boke open and she reinvented herself more than once

Claudia Gutzelmann is a spiritual coach helping women step into their full potential, so they live a more authentic and empowered life. Claudia is also an advertising photographer, a global citizen, she has lived in four continents and has recently launched permission to bloom coaching.

I was born in Germany but hasn’t lived there in many years; she’s always had this urge to explore and travel. Claudia has lived in four different continents around the world and settled in California.

Claudia is an end-of-life doula, yogi and coach and this is her story.

Claudia Gutzelmann: 

‘My current state of affairs, I can just start how I ended up there, how I get to this current state.

So I am an end of life doula, I’m also a photographer, I work in advertising and fashion. And about four years ago, I had a very life changing event. And through this life changing event that sort-of pushed me into this new direction where I realized that I'm just more than an advertising photographer, and I sort of gave myself permission to explore this new avenue. I was drawn to this end of life doula training, and I decided I'm going to do it. And it was a very spontaneous decision.

I was living in San Francisco at that time, and it came to me and I went to Boulder, Colorado, and did this training for six months. So yes, I am an end of life doula but then I thought ‘Well, I need more I need more structure. I don't know if I really want to work as an end of life doula.’ And I did a spiritual life coach training for a year. And it gave me a lot more insights, and sort of also clarity into my future and my path where I want to go with it. So I am now here fast forward with the skills and I started a website, business and it's called permission to bloom.

This is my personal story. But I trust that a lot of us women go through similar experiences, but don't really share them. And I feel what I've learned in this, in my burn down in my situation, I'm going to share more about it.

Well, my story related to having had a horrific divorce. Horrific because I didn't see it coming. And yes, one thinks she should see it coming. But I was really committed in this relationship. And my then husband had a midlife crisis. And he just checked out. He wasn't willing to re-calibrate or rebirth, the relationship and it just kept on getting uglier, and uglier and uglier.

I lost basically everything I believed in:  the future, the life setup, our dreams, the friends.  I lost a lot, I lost my community and I burned down. But it as painful as it was, I had months where I literally was sitting in the ashes and I was just burning, it showed me who I truly am. And through this, through this burn down, I got to also pick up who I needed to be where I wanted to be. I got this opportunity to reverse myself.

It's just this incredible experience to when you're on the ground and you lost basically everything and you get to question everything in your life. And to say ‘okay, this is truly this is my core, this is who I am.   Now I don't need this anymore.’ And as it was this heart opening, soul opening experience.

Of course it's a choice It was incredibly painful. It was felt incredibly lonely, It was incredibly filled with fear, that if we make this choice of looking, then we find there are ashes in this desert.  But there is so much nutrition in their ashes because this is like nature.  Like right now, I'm here in the winter. Nature puts beautiful scenario or show to let go of its leaves. And it all becomes just again nutrition for the next cycle to come forward and be reversed. And that's literally what happened to me. And maybe this metaphor of rebirthing gave me also so much energy and power to go there and be like, ‘Wow, now I am just a whole completely new person.’

My heart eventually cracked open when I surrendered. I think that's the best way to say it. I didn't fight it. I honestly had some weeks, probably some months, where I just surrendered to whatever was coming up. I was in my little apartment on the sofa and I cried, but then again, just crying was so healing. Just allow whatever I had to come up to, to wash me clean. And then through this washing through these tears, I gained so much clarity of who I am.  It was this incredible gift that I got to ask myself? Who am I? Who am I needing to be?

I always say I reverse my new old self. I let go of a lot of baggage. And then I just came back to who I truly maybe was years and years and years ago before we get lost. We all get lost in this life. We buy into these dreams. And as I look back, I wonder why did I actually bind to this dream and I see where I derailed myself.

And so I started reading some books and meditating.  It's a slow process, but it's about looking and being to look instead of walking away and not looking or walking away, but really be with the darkness.  In the darkness we realize that it's the mud but the mud we can turn this mud into gold.

There is no light without a shadow. Without a day, there is no sun. Without the moon or the darkness, it's just complete. So we really need to be with the darkness and there, the more we push it away.  The more we befriend the darkness, or our little demons, the more we know who we truly are in the darkness, then we can also control them.

It was controlling the little demons that helped.  I really stepped out of the photographer to become a hatmaker.  But then’ if I'm not a photographer, I failed.’ And so then I realized, ‘yeah, I, make hats. I sell hats, and I'm also a photographer.’ And so turning wrenches to the next thing. The next was that this end of life doula training came to me. It was really me knowing I could do it because I simply could. ‘I'm a photographer. I'm a homemaker, and maybe I also can be an end of life doula.’ So I decided this is what I pursued at that moment, and I did it, and it sounds so good.

I don't know how these things sometimes come about. It's just the magic of life.  You turn a corner and boom, there's something in front of your face. And, again, you could ignore it or not.

I just say, ‘to listen to your inner voice.’ There is a lot of chaos around us more than ever right now, because of COVID. All of this has forced us us to go inward. And just to even pause and not push the demons, the dragons away, but to befriend them, and see what they can teach us. That's the first step towards our true self. And even if it's hard. 

This entire experience has been a blessing because we can choose to look at it and think ’Oh my God, I'm heartbroken. I'm left alone, somebody left me or my, I'm down. I have nothing.’ Whatever the story, but you can also, again, reframe and say, ‘Wow, my heart is so alive. It knows how to love. I cry and grieve this person or this relationship because it meant so much to me. And so, it's a very beautiful thing.’

We're alive and that's what matters. It felt so alive. ‘