Last year I turned 50. It was then when this little voice inside me started to call out more loudly to become a full-time BodyTalk Practitioner. Whilst I concluded my work in the international art scene after 20 years, Karen Best trained me to become a BodyTalk Access Trainer. Through teaching Access, my passion to promote and share the Access program more widely grew. Having grown up with the belief-system that everything I really need is within reach or just around the corner, I was convinced that doing some promotional work for BodyTalk Access could be quite fun and easy.

In April, Hannie van der Bos--the only other BodyTalk Access Trainer in The Netherlands so far--and I presented BodyTalk Access at the Dutch Congress for Public Health. Thanks to Dr. Laura Stuvé and Dr. Janet Galipos's study on BodyTalk and Chronic Pain (Evaluation of BodyTalk, a novel mind-body medicine, for chronic pain treatment), which gave us the necessary scientific credibility, we were invited to present BodyTalk Access at the National Congress, which this year had a focus on "Prevention in Healthcare" (http://www.ncvgz.nl/).

The experience proved to be a great success. Despite some hesitation from public health professionals and researchers, we experienced quite some interest:

• The pediatrician Hanaâ Benjeddi invited us to share the Cortices Technique in her workshop reflecting on "Self-Care in Healthcare."
• Frans Kusse, a homeopathic doctor who founded the Academy of Integrative Medicine in Amsterdam (https://www.aim-edu.nl), invited me to write an article on BodyTalk in the Dutch Journal of Integrative Medicine.
• The director of a health and coaching institute phoned me in order to enroll in my next BodyTalk Access class.

Being German, I also have connections with several German colleagues. Barbara Henrichsmann, Ute Venhoven and I recently presented BodyTalk Access at a care fair in Nordrhein-Westfalen, the second largest German state. Elke Löwigt supported us with a wonderful banner and a couple hundred Access flyers. Barbara, Ute and I were tapping the cortices non-stop for visitors at the fair.

As Barbara was one of the organizers of this fair, she organized a personal meeting with the Minister of Health of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Mr. Karl-Josef Laumann, who had previously never heard about BodyTalk. He was interested in the Access routine and wanted to share the information with his scientific staff. We then invited him as well as several people from nursing schools to our next Access Training.

Pictured from left to right: Christine Wagner, Ute Venhoven, Minister of Health Nordrhein-Westfalen (Karl-Josef Laumann) and Barbara Henrichsmann. Copyright: private.

Last year, Barbara also had a personal meeting with the German Federal Minister of Health (Mr. Jens Spahn) and informed him about BodyTalk Access as a preventive and complementary heath care modality.

Promoting BodyTalk Access is continuing in Germany on different levels. Recently, I talked to my Access colleague, Gerda Deubzer, who is going to teach Access in 2020 at the Association of German Non-medical Practitioners and Naturopaths (BDHN). And this weekend another opportunity to promote BodyTalk Access arose whilst traveling on the early morning train to Amsterdam. I met a Red-Cross employee from Zambia, who was also interested in receiving some information on BodyTalk Access.

All we need to further promote BodyTalk Access is within our reach ... just share your passion with passion!

Christine has her clinic in Bloemendaal and Amsterdam and is a passionate surfer.