Story: Welcome to Holland

This is a REFRAMING story – a brilliant example to emphasise it’s how you see it.

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holland

When you are going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy – after months of anticipation , the big day finally arrives. The plane lands and the flight attendant announces – “welcome to Holland”. You say – “what do you mean – Holland?

I signed up for Italy. I am supposed to be in Italy”

All my life I have dreamed of going to Italy! But there has been a change in the flight plan, the plane has landed in Holland, and there you must stay. The important thing is – they haven’t taken you to some horrible or disgusting place, its just a different place. So, you must go out and buy some new guide books, you must learn a whole new language, and you will meet a whole group of new people you would never have met. Its just a different place, its slower paced than Italy.

But after you have been there for a while, you catch your breath, you begin to notice Holland has windmills, has tulips and Holland even has Rembrandts!

But everyone you know is going and coming from Italy, and bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say ” yes, that’s where I supposed to go, that’s what I’d planned.” And the pain and disappointment will never go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, and very unique, and the very lovely things about Holland.


Emily Pearl Kingsley – a mother of a child with Down’s syndrome and who has campaigned vigorously to raise the profile and awareness.