​AntiLoneliness welcomes Master interns for the first time!​ (13/03/2018)
13 years ago I was starting my internship for my 1st Master in Psychology in Athens.
13 years later I am opening the AntiLoneliness' doors for the first time for students to do their internship in Clinical Psychology from Leiden University and from Utrecht University. 
I cannot express how unbelievable and mind-blowing that feels for me. Thank you ladies for joining AntiLoneliness! I hope I will give you the most I can. #antiloneliness #myteamrocks (#im_getting_old)

We were so happy to spend a Christmas evening with the people that have supported each other throughout the year. Divorce is a hard time, but the members of the group know what it means to be grateful that somebody is here to listen to you and understand you. 2017 ended with some big smiles and hugs; that's promising for 2018, right? 

Today (21/11/17) was the last day of the "End Procrastination, Welcome Success" workshop. All participants set new goals, more concrete and more meaningful for their lives. And at the end of the workshop, they signed their own "I Will" manifesto to keep themselves motivated. 
​What a beautiful and inspiring journey we went together for 6 weeks! Until next time ;-) 

Participating for the 3rd time at the IamExpat Fair in the Hague and I think I am already addicted to it. The preparation, the anticipation, your own stand, the last details with the organisers, the thousands of visitors and the short (or long) talks with some of them, the exhibitors at the next stand, the positive vibe, the "borrel" after the fair is over. 
Until next year, AntiLoneliness has plenty of time to catch up with all the people we met and talked. 
Thank you all for such a wonderful event! 

In collaboration with BLOOM - House of Health in the Hague, we were invited to organise and facilitate a workshop in Relationships and help individuals to recognise and to replace toxic patterns with healthy communication within their relationships. 
Looking forward to the next one! 

Adjusting to the needs of the practice for more space due to all the workshops, supports groups and meetings we have, we moved to a bigger space. And we love it: the view, the colours, the space. 
You are more than welcome to visit us and ask your questions on our services! 

We were honoured to be invited by Puur 'n' Kuur in Bussum, and give a presentation on how to "Detox your Relationships". 
We enjoyed it so much and so were the participants who "bombarded" us with many interesting questions after the end of the presentation. Until next time! 

The Manifesto of "Loneliness". :-)
Thank you, Andy, for giving me this opportunity to talk about my Project and about Loneliness and how expat life puts extra weight on it. 
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(Andy, by the way, has recently initiated a Podcast website called "Here in Holland" and at the website you can listen to many many interviews from interesting people around Holland and also how expats experience Dutch life).

Enjoy the interview, and please share your thoughts on the comment area. 

It seems like a new, overwhelmingly obsessive trend; all we hear or read about is "How to be happy", "10 ways to be happy", "How to avoid people that are not happy", etc. But what is actually implied is "Try to be happy, because everyone else is happy, except you, and, actually: What's wrong with you?".
As an expat, you might struggle with things like loneliness and happiness. After all, you’re far away from your home country and family. Here are a few tips to help regain your inner peace!
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Read more HERE

While it may seem counter-intuitive due to the nice weather and being able to be outdoors, some people can suffer from an increased sense of loneliness during the summer, especially if you’re an expat far away from your home country and family.
Sometimes in the summer there is an unexpected wave of loneliness that can punch us in the face. It makes us feel awkward, a little bit embarrassed and maybe even a little bit scared of what will come next. 
Read more here

It was my honor to speak at the Women Economic Forum at 28th January in the Hague about Leadership and Empowerment. Specifically, I joined a panel together with three other professionals, Isabelle Goyon, Lisel Brunson and Theresa Randleman, and we discussed about how women can stop self-sabotaging their career, how they can stand up when life puts them down and how they can overcome feelings of loneliness when they are at leadership positions. Wonderful experience, amazing people to meet!
 

For me working with a drama-therapist is always something nice to expect since I know that at some point somebody will have to act/ play/ sing/ scream/ have fun, as part of the self-expression approach. 
Joana and me experimented for the first time with facilitating a workshop on Anger Management ("Explain your Anger, don't Express it").
The result was really rewarding (for us but also for the participants)! 4 hours of talking over the causes of Anger, the feelings that mostly relate to it, the cognitive background of it and how our behavior can shift to another approach, from aggressive or passive to assertive. Letting it out felt so relieving for our participants! 
It was nice to hear from them that they would like to have more workshop time to work on their Anger and they are looking forward to the advanced workshop on Anger in order to learn more about dealing with this so powerful emotion and transforming it into a constructive behavioral pattern. 

Till next time, 

Have a nice and peaceful day! 

Vassia Sarantopoulou
Counselor-Psychologist 
​The Anti-Loneliness Project 

My second time participating as an exhibitor at the IamExpat Fair was -again- an exciting and memorable experience. Not to mention that the whole coordination but also the communication with the organizers was reaching extremely high standards. 

Comparing with the first time that people heard about The Anti-Loneliness Project, this time visitors were more open and less "defensive" to the idea of Loneliness being discussed among them. 

"I'm so glad that this exists", said to me a woman after stopping for a few minutes and talking with me at my stand. 
Some time later, after discussing about Loneliness with a man, he turned to me and admitted that it's so nice when we are allowed to embrace loneliness, before we proceed to any other step in order to defeat it. 

Mondays are considered days when people are stronger to endure setbacks and mishaps comparing to Fridays ("Oh, not today, it's Friday, it's almost weekend, this cannot happen today!). The mental preparation we have done when Mondays come, is based on the fact that there is no more the weekend-enthusiasm, we know that from now on it's going to be all about work-work-work and, comparing to the weekend, we are sure that it is going to be one of these days that anything can go wrong. Yes, Mondays have the rumor of an awful day.  
On a Monday like this, (September 5th) I was invited by the Connecting Women in the Hague to talk about Failure and how we can see it as a gift, and not as a setback. 

They said that SPARK is not just a conference for female entrepreneurship. It's a movement.
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And for the first time participating and presenting at a break-out session (“Failure: A gift in Disguise”), I was curious to find out why.

So with my (big) observing eyes, this is what I saw:

It was my first time participating as The Anti-Loneliness Project in a big expat event like that. And the first time that I could really experience people's reactions about the Anti-Loneliness idea/project LIVE. 
And from one point onwards, I thought "Oh gosh, I should start keeping notes". The reactions were so many and so different, that you must see it to believe how much of a variety there is in people's perspectives, beliefs and views. 
​To start with...