Frequently Asked Questions

+ What exactly is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a clinically proven method which will help you to reduce stress. The mindfulness principles are rooted in the 2,000-year-old Buddhist philosophy, teaching us that reality isn’t good or bad, but that it’s our thought process which labels reality as good or bad. The judgments that our brain likes to produce sometimes cause positive thoughts and a sense of contentment and happiness.

Much more often though, our judgments cause negative thoughts and feelings of stress, restlessness, frustration, anger, grief, anxiety, envy and despair. Getting dragged into negative thoughts drains your physical and mental energy, and makes you feel helpless. It’s important to get a firm grip on this subconscious but highly undermining process. And you’ll find that it’s not even that hard! The only thing you have to learn is becoming aware of all those thoughts which wander through your mind and feed you with senseless judgments.

Understanding and acknowledging that your brain produces perfectly useless and stressful thoughts loaded with ‘yeah but’, ‘if only this wouldn’t have happened’ and ‘if only the others don’t think this or that’ content… is the key to a more relaxed, more fulfilling life with far less worrying. You don’t even have to change these thoughts.

Seeing how these thoughts manipulate your reality and impact your mood is enough to refrain from getting involved and, ultimately, liberate yourself from this exhausting habit.

+ I suffer from stress caused by my work • my relation • insomnia • a physical disorder • a chronic lack of time • debts. Is Karma Kickstart going to help me reduce my stress?

My digital e-course Karma Kickstart offers 20 simple, but highly effective exercises to reduce stress and handle life’s challenges in a more relaxed way. No matter what type of stress you’re experiencing, mindfulness helps to reduce your stress. But… the secret to successfully complete a course doesn’t lie in the type of programme you’ve chosen. What actually causes the difference between disappointment and success, is your own attitude towards the learning process. When I started following the mindfulness training, I had followed many workshops, courses and had even been in psychotherapy for more than a year. Mindfulness, to me, was my last chance. I started it with the belief: this is it, this is going to make me calmer, centred and balanced. Just because of this belief, mindfulness worked for me. Mindfulness has totally and dramatically changed my life for the better. Not because mindfulness is so very special… but because I had resolved that this approach would work for me. If you can’t muster up the courage and discipline to practise regularly, no course or training or therapy will work for you. In that case I can honestly tell you that Karma Kickstart won’t work for you either. You have to let go of the belief that some course will help you reduce your stress or frustrations. This will never happen. Only you can help yourself, with the help of exercises and guidance. Mindfulness is your tool. But you’re the one who must take this tool and build something beautiful. So how can you help yourself? By taking yourself and your issues seriously; by deciding in your heart that enough is enough and that you really want to change; that you really want to improve your quality of life; and that you really want to enjoy life to the fullest. No matter the costs. No matter the efforts. You must have the willpower. Because, with willpower, you’ll have the discipline to practise and keep practising in order to change ineffective or damaging habits. I regularly receive emails from clients who bought Karma Kickstart and write me things like ‘Hi Marisa, I’m going to give it a try, I’m curious if your course is going to work!’ Don’t get me wrong, I love to hear from these clients. But ‘trying’ and ‘curious to see if this works’ is not the right attitude. You must want it to work for you. You must want to integrate mindfulness into your everyday life. And then you’ll see that it works.

• So don’t ask what mindfulness can do for you (passive attitude).
• But rather ask what you could do with mindfulness (active attitude).

Do you see the difference? That’s the reason why Karma Kickstart starts with writing down your personal goals – what you want to achieve with mindfulness. Mindfulness and Karma Kickstart will only work for you if you know what you’re doing it for, because that inner knowing will give you the power to persevere.

+ Karma Kickstart offers mindfulness-without-the-woo-woo. What exactly do you mean by that?

The regular mindfulness training insists on learning how to meditate (which is observing thoughts without getting overwhelmed by these) in order to reduce stress. After many years of practising mindfulness and meditating on a daily basis, on my own as well as in groups, I no longer see that we need to meditate to feel relaxed and centred. It’s because I’ve seen how many people who meditated for an hour a day, completely lost it when something unexpected happened. They simply weren’t able to bring their meditation-calm into the rest of the day… which to me is not a good result.

I don’t ask you to meditate, because the exercises of Karma Kickstart teach you to apply mindfulness exactly in those moments when you need it most: in stressful situations in your daily life. I completely understand that you already have a very busy schedule and my exercises help you to simply practise mindfulness in everything you do on a daily basis. You don’t have to set aside time for my approach. You practise being mindful within everything that naturally occurs in your life.

+ Will Karma Kickstart work on my computer / laptop / smart phone / tablet?

Yes it will, since Karma Kickstart is an online programme and you’ll be able to access it with your personal login as often as you like. The Karma Kickstart PDF is easy to use with a PDF reader programme. Free PDF reader programmes are available for every device to open and save Karma Kickstart.

On this page you'll find clear, step-by-step instructions with links for the apps your specific device needs, and how you can download and install these (if these are not already installed on your devices). You’ll also find easy-to-follow instructions to download and save Karma Kickstart.

Most devices already have the right PDF-readers, so chances are high that you’ll be able to start right away.

+ Can I order Karma Kickstart as a paperback course book?

Maybe in the future. For now I stick to digital programmes to keep the costs low. Printing, binding and then posting a physical book takes up a lot of time and money, and would make my programmes more expensive than I wish for.

+ When I purchase Karma Kickstart, does the workbook come as a different PDF?

Karma Kickstart’s workbook is fully integrated with the course book. When you order Karma Kickstart, you’ll receive Karma Kickstart as an online programme as well as a PDF in your inbox with everything you need: the exercises, homework assignments (workbook), inspiring quotes, encouragement and background articles.

+ How long will it take to complete Karma Kickstart?

I advise you to take three days for every exercise, then let go of the exercise and move on to the next one. Don’t stack the exercises, adding one to the other, but allow yourself to practise all the exercises on their own, without combining exercises. Do all exercises, don’t just pick the ones you like. Don’t overthink, don’t judge. Just go from exercise 1 to 2 to 3, etcetera. Once you’ve practised all 20 exercises, keep on practising with the ones which give you a good result and which you can easily integrate into your daily life. While getting to know the exercises, it’s best to stick to the order as it builds up from fairly easy exercises to more challenging ones.

+ How do I install the Karma Kickstart PDF on my device?

You’ll find a step-by-step guide to download and install the Karma Kickstart PDF on your device right here .

+ What is the refund policy of Growing Mindfulness?

You can read the conditions for a refund, Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy here.

Something else to consider Mindfulness is a very interesting philosophy as it works according to its own tempo. I’ll be honest with you: some people don’t notice any difference after having followed the regular mindfulness training or my Karma Kickstart programme. But after 1 to 3 months they become aware that their thinking has slowly been shifting and changing, and they are able to let go of stress and be open to the present rather than worrying about the past or the future. Stress has been such an intricate part of their lives, that it simply takes a while for that built-up stress to dissolve. From my years of experience working with clients I know that mindfulness always works for everyone, no exceptions. But people who suffer from chronic stress and struggle with letting go of tension and rigid beliefs, also struggle with allowing mindfulness and relaxation into their lives. For them it’s a foreign state-of-mind, they simply are not used to it, and so they need time to allow mindfulness into their minds and let it do its healing work. I always encourage my clients to be patient with themselves and allow the principles of mindfulness time to fully unfold. Just like a little child that learns how to walk, by standing up and falling and standing up again, you’ll learn to apply mindfulness with patience and regular practise. You have to be prepared to invest time and to allow yourself time to get used to this new way of living. But then, I promise you, it will work.

+ What is your background, Marisa?

I have run my own advertising agency in Amsterdam for 10 years. My advertising career made me some good money, but also drained me. I developed chronic stress, an autoimmune disorder, a serious eye disease which required surgery, muscle inflammation and depression. I was only in my early thirties but I didn’t get my period anymore and this went on for many more years.

Only in the final year of my career it started to dawn upon me that there should be a connection between the stress I experienced from running my business and my relentless tour along the surgeries of health specialists and psychologists.

Then, from one day to the other, I decided I had enough of it. I quit my company and with savings in the bank I was the happiest person on the planet – free at last! But my intense relief was short-lived. Within no-time I fell back into negative thoughts about me and my life. Now, without work, career or social status, I thoughts that everything was lost and my life would never be ‘right’ again. But my good fortune was that I actually realised that I was the one causing this stress, not my life’s circumstances.

And so I decided to follow an 8-week mindfulness training and clean up my messy mind for once and for all. Since this training course my life has changed beyond belief. I became an author and my mindfulness books are international bestsellers. I develop digital mindfulness programmes, I blog for magazines and websites great and small, and I offer clients individual coaching to help them change their lives in a responsible, mindful way. All my physical and emotional disorders have miraculously disappeared and oh, my period has also returned from its five-year sabbatical – not too sure if I like that, though :-)))

My approach is based on 15 years of experience and insights. Each year I help thousands of clients to profit from all the goodness that mindfulness has to offer.

So what exactly is my expertise?

+ Is it safe to follow your mindfulness e-course?

I rely on the trainings and the classes that I have followed on psychology, mindfulness and the Buddhist principles. But mostly I work from common sense and, despite official qualifications, I find common sense my most reliable partner.

Is it safe to put your trust in a psychologist? I'm not too sure, to be honest, and I speak from experience. We put a lot of trust in psychology as a science and psychologists as the 'people who can fix us', but psychology as we know it is only little over 100 years old and so it’s still a brand new and very experimental science.

Many treatments that have been approved and practised in those past 100 years, such as lobotomy, electroshocks and water treatments, are now banned as they were proven to be extremely damaging, causing horrendous suffering among patients. Due to the relatively young age of modern psychology, being treated by some person who has studied this science doesn’t guarantee safe and quality treatments since many treatments are not sufficiently researched to understand their impact in the long term. Treatments that are now labeled safe can in twenty years be deemed dangerous and damaging, as the science of psychology develops constantly.

You also have to take into account that psychologists are people like you and me who are prone to making mistakes. Are you aware of the fact that psychologists and psychiatrists as an occupational group are worldwide number 1 when it comes to addiction to prescription and illegal drugs, and that this group suffers the highest suicide rates? Everyone who works in a hospital could tell you that the hospital’s psychologists and psychiatrists are the biggest nut cases they’ve ever dealt with :-) I have been treated by several psychologists and mental health specialists, who were all very motivated to explore and analyse every little detail about my childhood, but weren’t able to address the fact that after many months of treatment I still felt stressed and anxious in my present life.

Have a look at the opinion of famous psychotherapist Alice Miller: When the emotional needs of young children are not being met by the parents, these children develop a special sensitivity to unconscious signals manifesting in others. No wonder they often choose to become psychotherapists later on. But the development and perfecting of this sensitivity (which once assisted the child in surviving, and now enables the adult to pursue his strange profession of trying to discovering what has happened in other people’s childhoods) also contains the roots of the therapist’s emotional disturbance. As long as the therapist is not aware of the repression he has experienced in his own childhood, it can compel him to use his patients, who depend on him, to meet his unmet needs with substitutes. (Taken from The Drama Of The Gifted Child by Alice Miller)

If you are being sent to a psychiatrist, you’ll certainly get a cocktail of antidepressants which will turn you into an addicted, anxious zombie as many people who took that route will be able to tell you.

So how exactly did people cope with emotional suffering before modern psychology? In the thousands and thousands of years before psychology as we know it now, people who were suffering emotionally turned to… each other. No-one called it psychology, but of course everyone experienced loss, pain, and grief, offering wise lessons with which they simply helped each other. Often this was the oldest man or woman of the tribe, a priest, a shaman or some other spiritual person. And this is exactly the natural principle I honour.

My experiences with autoimmune disorders, chronic stress, depression, failing psychological treatments and – later – the healing power of mindfulness, have given me important insights I simply share with others. Just like we were used to doing before the introduction of modern psychology.

Be honest: would you open up to a 25-year-old lad who has just stumbled from the college benches; who has no life experience yet; who clings to suffocating protocols as he’s terrified to make mistakes; and who spends far more time writing reports to legally cover his skinny behind than dedicating his attention to truly understand his clients’ issues?

Or would you rather have some good and honest conversations with a person who has 50 years of life experience under her belt; who has experienced the whole spectrum of human emotions such as rejection, loss, disappointment, pain and grief as well as love, appreciation and success; who has distilled each and every wise lesson by herself; who has trained extensively in mindfulness and Buddhism out of sheer interest; and who can help you let go of your stress by teaching you to employ common sense and think clearly rather than using you as a guinea pig to test trendy new therapies or medicines?

+ How do others review your no-nonsense approach?

Read reviews of my work by clients and colleagues.

+ Why would I follow your mindfulness e-programme rather than the 8-week group training?

The regular mindfulness training requires you to learn 5 different meditations which each lasts 30 to 45 minutes. You have to do at least one meditation every day. So it comes to planning your daily schedule around the practice of mindfulness in order to make it work. But how can you carve out 45 minutes to meditate on a daily basis when you combine a career with the care for your family and a healthy social life? Did I already mention it is 45 minutes of meditation every day, day in day out? I’ve followed traditional mindfulness-training myself on a variety of levels, but every fellow participant failed to keep up with the practice of meditation because it was simply too time-consuming.

No matter how honourable the goals of the mindfulness training are, unfortunately for many of us it is an unattainable practice. No-one who leads a normal, regular life, including work, children, partner, parents who demand more and more attention, friends who deserve time, and countless social obligations… has time to meditate for almost an hour a day and have their lives revolve around the practice of mindfulness. And so, after having followed the standard mindfulness training, 90% of the participants ditch the meditations and quickly find themselves falling back into their old, inefficient way of thinking. And that’s such a waste of your time as well as the $400 to 600 USD that you’ve paid for the training. You spent a lot of time and effort to get into the habit of mindfulness… only to fall back and feel just as stressed and unbalanced as you did before the training… simply because those challenging meditations are too hard to cope with.

This is why I have developed a totally different approach to mindfulness – no-nonsense mindfulness with ultra-practical exercises which you can easily apply and which prevent you from getting dragged into the panicky content of your thoughts. My mindfulness is a kind of home-made mindfulness. Not as ‘noble’ as the official training, but certainly a lot more effective.

The thousands of people who already followed my approach have turned mindfulness into a daily habit. It means that they do my easy exercises every day and profit from all the goodness mindfulness has to offer. It’s easy to stick to the routine, because my exercises adapt to your time schedule instead of the other way round. My easy mindfulness doesn’t need to be planned and scheduled… you simply practise with everything life throws at you in any given moment of the day, and that’s how you keep stress at bay and your mind clear and focussed.

+ Why is your e-course so much cheaper than the 8-week mindfulness training?

It took me almost a year to develop Karma Kickstart, but because it’s a digital course, the format enables me to offer it to countless people without having to put any more time or effort into it. This is why I can offer my work in a more cost-effective way than the average mindfulness trainer since they must spend hours of their time on teaching groups of people. I don’t have to spend time on teaching a live audience, and so I have time to spread the teachings of mindfulness among many more people in different formats – by writing large articles and blog posts for my website; by writing guest blogs for other websites with different audiences; by writing articles for magazines and newspapers; by writing books on mindfulness; by developing new e-courses; I have even written a novel in which mindfulness plays an important part. This way I can reach out to a worldwide audience and give them free as well as paid content which is always of the highest quality, helping them to incorporate mindfulness into their own lives.

+ I have tried so many courses and therapies without any long-lasting results… why would Karma Kickstart work for me as nothing seemed to have worked so far?

If you’re struggling with stress, depression, a negative self-image or a lack of self-confidence, then it’s only natural that you’ve been down all sorts of avenues to get your life back on track. You might have tried Neurolinguistic Programming, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, Reiki or maybe even reading Tarot cards. You might also have followed the traditional (and rather costly) mindfulness training. And of course, after having completed a course or therapy you’ve felt good and strong and you resolved to keep the practice up for the rest of your life! Until… real life started to creep back into your routines, forcing you to fall back in old beliefs and behaviour, and making you feel even more stressed and unfocussed than when you started that course or therapy.

The exercises of my digital course help you to remain calm and balanced right in the middle of life’s hectic events and dramas… right in the middle of stressful experiences. My exercises adapt to those situations which are specific to your life, enabling you to apply my exercises when you need these. My approach doesn’t demand that you schedule time for mindfulness in your busy days. With my approach you simply practise throughout the day, whenever you feel you need it. This is how you’ll develop the healthy habit of every-day-mindfulness, which naturally guarantees a long-lasting effect. It’s like brushing your teeth – you do it every day, it’s a habit, and so your teeth stay clean and healthy. As long as you keep brushing, you’ll profit from the goodness of your teeth-brushing habit.

But the main factor to turn your following a course into a success or a failure is your very own attitude. If you can’t muster up the discipline to practise, no course or training or therapy is going to help you solve your issues. You have to let go of the expectation that some course – any course for that matter, my course included – will make the change you’re looking for. This will never happen. It’s only you who is able to help yourself, with the help of exercises and directions. Mindfulness is nothing but a tool. You must take this tool in your hand and build something good that works for you. Helping yourself is attained by taking yourself and your issues seriously; by resolving – deep down inside – that you’ve had enough of your inefficient thoughts and behaviour and that you’re ready for some real change; that you want your improve yourself and your circumstances and make your life more relaxed, more balanced, more interesting. No matter the costs. No matter the efforts. You must have the willpower. Because, with willpower, you’ll have the discipline to practise and keep practising in order to change ineffective or damaging habits. I regularly receive emails from clients who just bought Karma Kickstart and write me things like ‘Hi Marisa, I’m going to give it a try, I’m curious if your course is going to work!’ It’s lovely to hear from these clients, of course, but ‘trying’ and ‘curious to see if this works’ is not the right attitude. You must want it to work for you. You must want to integrate mindfulness into your everyday life. And then you’ll see that it works.

• So don’t ask what mindfulness could do for you (passive attitude).
• But rather ask what you could do with mindfulness (active tude).

Do you see the difference?

That’s the reason why Karma Kickstart starts with writing down your personal goals – what you want to achieve with mindfulness. Mindfulness and Karma Kickstart will only work for you if you know why you’re doing it, because that knowledge will give you the power to persevere.

+How can I keep myself focussed and motivated while I follow Karma Kickstart?

To help you make mindfulness a healthy habit and use it in everyday situations, purchasing my e-programme will give you a series of motivational emails to help you gain the most from Karma Kickstart’s lessons for six weeks. This way you’ll remain in the practising mode while steadily integrating mindfulness into your daily life, so that you’ll profit from all its goodness on both the short and the long term.

+ When I Google ‘mindfulness’, there is so much free stuff out there. Why would I pay for a commercial product such as your Karma Kickstart e-course?

I know there is a lot out there for free. I offer free advice through my many blog posts and guest blog posts, so I know all about it :-) The thing is though, that mostly it are guided mindfulness meditations which are offered for free. And that’s wonderful… if you could carve out the time during your busy day. The same goes for free exercises… do you feel like spending hours and hours grazing the internet in order to find some good exercises which will work for you? My audience doesn’t have time nor energy for all that, since they’re mostly busy people and would rather spend their limited free time with their loved ones. And so they choose a professionally created e-course: a well-balanced programme which has been proven to be effective, so that they can trust in true quality and get the best results. They also choose to be taught and guided by me because I’m not only a mindfulness expert, but I have also suffered from chronic stress, depression, and physical disorders when I was still heavily dominated by my senseless thinking. I know exactly what my clients struggle with since I’ve been through what they are going through. So in purchasing Karma Kickstart you pay for my many years of life experience, for my insights and for my teaching skills, with which I have put together a programme that will actually work for you – on both the short and the long term.

+ Why would I pay for a simple PDF?

You don’t necessarily pay for the PDF, but for a mindfulness solution that is based on my experience and insights. I practise mindfulness for more than 15 years and each year I help thousands of clients to profit from all the goodness that mindfulness has to offer.

So what exactly is my expertise?

• I followed the 8-week mindfulness training and more in-depth programmes in Europe, Australia, and Asia
• I have written two internationally published books on mindfulness
• I’ve read (and I still read) all the books (yes, all) that are published on mindfulness
• I have read all standard works on Buddhism
• I have written a novel in which mindfulness plays an important part
• I follow training courses and workshops here and abroad
• I attend international conferences about mindfulness and mental health
• I give keynote presentations about the benefits of mindfulness
• I have been part of meditation groups in the Netherlands and New Zealand for many years
• I run two succesful websites on mindfulness
• I write articles and guest blog posts about mindfulness for my own website, as well as many other media in Europe and the US
• I develop my own highly-effective digital programmes
• I advise and guide individual clients who struggle with specific issues
• My work has been positively reviewed by many professionals and clients and mainstream media

+ Is Growing Mindfulness a commercial company which is just after my money?

No, Growing Mindfulness is a petite business which my husband Arjan and I run from our itty-bitty cottage in New Zealand. Though tiny, it’s still a highly professional company, but just very boutique :-) We don’t have a board of directors, we don’t have divisions, we don’t have a sales force, we don’t have a help-desk in Calcutta and you can’t call us 24 hours a day. Actually, you can’t call us at all because during your day we – on the other end of the world – are fast asleep :-)

Does this mean that you can’t contact us if you need help? No worries, mate! We’re true professionals and care for our clients. In this case small simply means beautiful since you can expect the highest form of personal, mindful attention from the two of us. When you email me, I’m the one who will get back to you. You get to speak not to some computer, not to some sales person, not to some manager… but you’ll have full access to us business owners directly. We’ll answer your questions, we’ll help you with downloading your PFD course, we’re happy to send you an invoice if that’s what your accountant requires.

Do stick to email because a message in a bottle might not make it through the Pacific in time :-)

Of course, we’d also love for you to get in touch if you just want to say you really like our e-programmes. Tiny is the new big, so… a big hello from New Zealand and looking forward to hearing from you!

+ How can your approach be so simple and effective at the same time?

The regular mindfulness training revolves around meditation. When we meditate, we don’t try to zone out or quiet our inner chatter (as many mistakingly believe), but we simply observe each and every thought which arises in our mind, without getting dragged into the mostly panicky content of those thoughts.

You learn to observe and view your thoughts (and the stories they tell you) from a healthy distance, without allowing yourself to be impacted by their disturbing content which only cause feelings like anger, anxiety or grief. The only thing you do while meditating is noticing. ‘Hello, here we have that negative thought about my childhood again!’ Without starting to chew on this thought like you used to do, and getting totally overwhelmed by its negative content, you now let it simply pass.

Despite the clinically proven fact (and my own positive experiences) that meditation allows your mind to calm down and become clear and focussed, I have found that I can get the very same results by being mindful in everything I do during the day… from mindfully doing the dishes to mindfully answering emails.

Even better: I have experienced that mindfulness is a lot more effective when practised this way, because you simply turn it into a habit which makes it easy to be mindful always.

When you’re always mindful, or as often as possible, you keep your stress levels down and your happy levels up, in all circumstances, no matter what life throws at you…

This way, using every-day-mindfulness, we integrate mindfulness into our lives and daily routines. This makes sure that we’ll enjoy long-lasting results.

In being mindful as often as possible, stress can’t rear its ugly head because we keep our so-called monkey mind (which naturally jumps from one negative thought to the other) under control at all times. And that’s why you’ll feel a lot better, happier, more balanced and more focussed when practising my no-nonsense mindfulness approach.

+ Marisa, you won't believe it but I have another question :-)

No probs! Simply send me your question and I’ll answer it personally.