I usually say: just look at what is already happening around us. Look up into the sky: we are so small, and we have no idea what else is out there. Certain plants open perception so deeply that people relive their own birth or catch glimpses of what lies ahead. People who were clinically dead for minutes come back with new abilities. Some autistic children seem to communicate telepathically. Animals leave the coast before a tsunami arrives, already sensing what is coming. There is the telepathic recognition that can happen when you meet a soulmate. The moon moves the sea. Plants respond to sound. So many illnesses and bodily responses still can't be fully explained by science (although I love science).

These aren't metaphors. They're real.

Once you see how much unexplained intelligence is already moving through life, the idea that a birth chart carries information feels a lot less strange.

I experienced this myself. In the middle of a burnout, after my second child was born, I didn't sleep for two weeks. I wasn't fully on earth anymore; I was moving through other layers. Information just arrived. In the supermarket I could feel the person next to me so strongly that I almost became her. I picked up all her information, and my body felt so ill that I thought she must have been very sick. I couldn't protect myself. I felt the other person so completely that I could no longer feel myself. Random messages came through too, like "his mother is depressed". That is when I truly understood: everything is energy, and we are all connected.

I also believe in karma and manifestation. That knowing brought me here. I experience life as a magical place where time can soften, and at the same time as simply being Charlotte, living with my husband and children in Bali and enjoying this life. Magic happens. It is up to you to believe in it.

I am deeply content in solitude, yet love being in the right company. I am drawn to the spotlight, and that is fine, I belong there. Still, because of my rising sign, it can make me very uncomfortable.

Pleasing others has often been the path of least resistance. This life calls for something else: living according to my own direction. What may look self-centred to some is often simply a different design. That is the beauty of astrology: you understand all the little things that shape a person.

I help people read their stars.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. Carl Jung

Over the past fifteen years I have worked with this so consistently that it has become one of the foundations of how I work as a coach, astrologer and medium. Because every chart is different, I rarely trust another coach or psychologist completely: most still project. I can usually see and feel when someone is doing it.

That is why feeling the other person clearly, and letting go of your own beliefs, matters so much in my work. As a Projector in human design, I can tap into someone else's energy quite easily, and I can steer it so my own beliefs move to the background. Still, I will ask you not to trust me completely either. Only you have your own answers.

When we built our dream home in the dunes of Zandvoort, I took a feng shui course and read widely about chi, and found out that what I felt was in line with feng shui. Friends and family loved our home. They felt so good in it that I began doing this for other people.

This is why interior architects can sometimes flatten the energy of a place. Someone once asked me for help with her interior, but I knew she already knew best. She is so creative and colourful that the most useful thing I could do was point her to good places to find what she needed: the choices had to come from her. What I can support is the chi: helping the energy flow, working with real materials, balancing the elements, and making sure the house fits its surroundings.

A house can be architecturally beautiful and still lack warmth or personality.

I love working with raw, real materials, spaces that belong to their surroundings, and homes that feel like the people who live in them. For me, a home, like clothing, is a way of expressing who you are. That is why I don't follow trends. I prefer to look at someone's chart, their life and their personality, and then create something together that flows and feels true to them.

I'm Charlotte Tempelaar Journee. I love travel, adventure and a deeper understanding of the world.

I began travelling young. I was only nineteen when I first went to Thailand without my parents, and a whole world opened up. Besides the eight months I spent travelling after my studies, I made sure to leave for a month every year. People who travel often see the world more clearly. Convictions soften, you begin to understand others better, and judgment falls away.

In working life I was ambitious, yet I never found my place in the corporate world. What I missed most was freedom, care, creativity and honesty.

I woke up after my burnout at 26. Before that I was living life to the max, a little too much to the max. I never learned how to step back. I worked to the max, was social to the max, travelled to the max, and burned out at a very young age. It wasn't only because of work. I was pleasing far too much and didn't know who I was at the core. I didn't know what to study, did a lot of things I didn't like, surrounded myself with people who didn't suit me, and never said no. I ended up in the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong house, and with the wrong people.

I had to search for years for answers. Who am I? What am I doing here? Who are my people? What is my purpose? First through books and studies, and then through feeling. How do I actually want to spend my days?

After that I studied almost continuously for fifteen years.

Of course a lot of my personality stayed. I'm optimistic, strong, a bit of a butterfly, fiery, and flowing through life. I can't sit at a desk all day, seven days a week, with other people telling me what to do. It took me years of self- and soul-searching before I found my true self. I need freedom, my own direction, my own time. I want to be there for my children and husband. I love my cosy home, but I also need to travel. I love beautiful cultures, fabrics, herbs, nature, shapes, colours, and bring a bit or all of them into my products. I've been an extreme animal lover since I was young. I'm always rescuing animals, raising them, or supporting animal organisations.

I've never been a planner. Freedom, for me, is being able to decide in the moment what I feel like doing. I live day by day and prefer not to have a social agenda. On my long travels this was the thing I loved most: having no plan.

The moment I stop planning, I become most creative and everything literally comes toward me.

Things grow and flourish when I don't have a plan. Social appointments are often difficult for me because I'd rather not plan. For a long time I thought this was something immature in me, but it isn't. For work I can plan just fine, still I need many open spots in my agenda to let ideas grow.

I feel others well, but now I let my own feeling come first. I can now clearly feel: is this something for me? Does it feel good? I play with energy. I set clear boundaries and choose a quieter social life nine times out of ten, even though I still love tuning into others now and then. I have a few very good friends with whom I share everything, but I'm not really one for groups. I choose my own direction, and that sometimes means stepping away from what's considered “normal.” As an astrologer I know that no one is the same, so normal doesn't exist.

I feel strong and happy, and I can't wait for all the beautiful things still to come. What I love most is helping people find who they are. My own search was beautiful, and I'm a very open-minded person. Nothing is crazy to me. I love bringing a bit of my freedom and positivity into the world, waking people up a little when they're open to it, and letting others enjoy the beauty that comes my way.

I wish everyone to shine. The most beautiful life, I wish it for all of them.

Those were intense years. I'm proud that I was with the children for so long, and they are amazing kids, but for me it had a price. I was still in the process of finding myself. Now that I know who I am, I would not do it the same way.

As a mom, your health and happiness should always come first.

When both kids went to school, calm finally returned, and then we moved to Bali. Now I give astrology readings, help people improve the energy in their homes and make all kinds of products. My life flows, I know what I want, I have amazing people around me, and life comes to me.