Robin Ijsseldijk
Welcome everyone. My name is Robin, and I am here today with a very special guest: Miranda Salmans. Miranda is a psychosocial therapist and the owner of Balance Counseling & Coaching. On top of that, she trains healthcare professionals in the psychology of acceptance. I am incredibly excited for this interview, Miranda. Thank you for your time and energy. Before we dive in, for the people who might not know you yet, could you explain what a psychosocial therapist actually does and how you found your way into this field?
Miranda Salmans
It is nice to hear my story from your perspective already. I am indeed a psychosocial therapist. That role actually sits between a life coach and a psychologist. It goes a layer deeper than coaching, but my approach remains very practical. I have forgotten the second part of your question.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Just tell us how you found your way into this field.
Miranda Salmans
I worked as a project manager in IT for a very long time. Eventually, I reached a breaking point. I am eager to learn. I am ambitious. I want to learn new things. However, I did not want more projects with more misery. I acted as a troubleshooter, and I was completely done with that. A few friends of mine were training to become stress managers at Psychodidact in Waalwijk. They talked about their course after we played sports over a cup of coffee. I thought it sounded incredibly fun. I wanted to do it too. I took nine days for myself to completely immerse myself in the process. I asked myself what I truly wanted. I examined my personal boundaries. I looked at where I crossed my own limits. I studied signals and communication. I loved the experience so much that I decided to make it my profession. I wanted to guide other people through this process. That passion has remained ever since.
Robin Ijsseldijk
That is wonderful. You have been a psychosocial therapist for more than ten years now.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, indeed. I actually started in 2013. It has been about thirteen years now. Time flies.
Robin Ijsseldijk
How nice. If I understand correctly, you also worked as an account manager and project manager in IT.
Miranda Salmans
Yes.
Robin Ijsseldijk
You made quite a significant career transition.
Miranda Salmans
Yes.
Robin Ijsseldijk
You know better than anyone how tough the commercial corporate world really is.
Miranda Salmans
Certainly.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Now you primarily focus on young adults and adults. You handle everything from burnout to people-pleasing and perfectionism. How do you advise someone to break the cycle of perfectionism and people-pleasing? How does someone manage that in today's image-obsessed, successful world? With our performance-oriented society exerting so much pressure, how do you ensure that people can still find balance?
Miranda Salmans
Nothing is as difficult as changing your behavior. It is extremely difficult. Three factors lead to successful behavior change. I learned these principles, though I have briefly forgotten the author who wrote about them.
Robin Ijsseldijk
That will come back to you later.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, certainly. First, the pressure of your suffering must be high enough. You must experience enough pain from your current situation. For example, if you ask me if your problem can wait until tomorrow, and I agree, you will keep waiting. You only change when you say you are completely done with the pain. You must want a different outcome. Second, you must possess the discipline to decide every single day what you will do differently. Third, you must accept the idea that you are part of the cause of your own problem. Then you can do something about it with the right help. You cannot place all the blame on external factors. People enter a trajectory to change. It is not just one single step. I guide them slowly through six to eight sessions. We work step by step to move them out of their comfort zone.
The 3 Factors of Behavior Change
- 1. You must experience enough pain from your current situation. The suffering must be high enough.
- 2. You must possess the discipline to decide every single day what you will do differently.
- 3. You must accept the idea that you are part of the cause of your own problem.
Robin Ijsseldijk
I can imagine that many people lose their self-worth during that trajectory. Suppose someone comes to you after losing their self-worth. How can they rebuild that internally? External factors constantly pressure them to be better, faster, and more perfect. What would you say to that person?
Miranda Salmans
We primarily look at their ultimate goal. Is it self-appreciation? Is it self-recognition? Is it self-care? Is it self-acceptance? We find the word that fits them best. I always clarify one major misconception immediately. This is not a permanent state of being that you will suddenly achieve. You might feel that way if you reach enlightenment once in your life. Instead, we focus on taking actionable steps as if you already possess full self-confidence. You live the life you desire as if you are full of self-acceptance. We define the behavioral steps that belong to that mindset. Naturally, you must deal with the outside world. Social media plays a massive role. We examine how you can spend less continuous time on social media. We also figure out how you can surround yourself with supportive people. One of the most important steps is simply talking about your struggles. We discussed this briefly before the interview. You must talk and express yourself. Then you realize that you are not alone at all. We often think that we are the only ones struggling. We think we are the only ones with crazy thoughts or an inner critical voice. However, we are not that unique at all. We are all essentially in the same boat. That realization alone changes your perspective on the harsh outside world.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Yes, absolutely. You know just as well as I do that the smallest decisions and thoughts can sometimes trigger the biggest panic and stress. What is a key factor for the younger generation to break the cycle of destructive overthinking? How can they regain clarity, direction, and a feeling of control over their lives?
Miranda Salmans
It is not a simple fix. It sounds too easy if I say you just do one thing and then you are cured. One of the first steps I take with clients is examining their personal rules. I ask them what they demand of themselves. I ask what they forbid themselves from doing. We look at how strict they are on themselves. I let them write down their daily rules. For example, they might say they must always be nice to everyone. They might say they must always do things perfectly. We look at the specific situations and their resulting behavior. They bring this list back to me. Then we explore how they can implement the exact opposite behavior. We align this new behavior with self-acceptance and self-appreciation. You do not have to accommodate the whole world. You only need to consider yourself. We often start with very simple steps. We gradually expand these to push them further out of their comfort zone. This can involve anything. It might mean arriving late on purpose just once. It might mean showing up unprepared when you usually demand perfect preparation from yourself.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Those are great examples. I have noticed that many young people find professional help too heavy or too shameful. It can cost too much. Long waiting lists also create barriers. Not everyone can afford to wait. What would you say to someone who is currently stuck in a rut or a burnout? How can we lower the threshold for them to start talking and eventually seek professional help?
Miranda Salmans
I always compliment people the moment they send me an email. Reaching out to make an appointment is usually the hardest first step. It represents a piece of commitment you make to yourself. Once the appointment is in your calendar, people usually show up. Often, after taking that first step, they realize the conversation is not actually scary or tense at all. It is obviously very important to find a click with your therapist. The next step naturally follows from there. Talk about it with your friends. You will find that many more people are in coaching or therapy than you think. You can also visit your general practitioner or a practice nurse for a referral. While there are often long waiting lists, that is not always the case. Google your options, look in your local area, or ask your network for recommendations. You can still find quick help in some places.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Suppose someone is not quite ready to seek professional help or visit a practice yet. What could they do within their own circle of friends to take that very first step? How can they feel heard in a low-threshold way?
Miranda Salmans
I always ask people to imagine a scenario. Suppose your best friend told you they were having a really hard time. What would you think? What would you say to them?
Robin Ijsseldijk
I think I would desperately want to understand what they are going through. I would not immediately refer them to someone else just because I could not fix it. I know how difficult these struggles can be. In my position, I have been through things myself, so I know you have to approach it with care. However, not everyone has a friend group that allows for that vulnerability. Some friends do not talk about deep issues, or perhaps they do not want to or simply cannot. That makes it very difficult. What is your advice for creating a safer, friendlier support system without feeling like you are losing your current friends?
Miranda Salmans
I do not believe the first step is announcing your struggles to a large group. Can you pick just one person from your circle? Find someone you would dare to share your story with. Tell them what you struggle with or what dark thoughts you sometimes have. It is often very helpful to state your needs clearly. You can say that you just want them to listen. You can tell them you do not expect any advice. You just want them to be present, listen to your story, and perhaps ask a few gentle questions. It is incredibly effective to explicitly tell someone what you need in that exact moment. Only you can determine what that is.
Robin Ijsseldijk
You mentioned rules earlier. People often pre-judge the situation and assume others will react negatively.
Miranda Salmans
Yes. People do not realize that those fears are only playing out in their own heads.
Robin Ijsseldijk
If you give them clear instructions and say you just want support in a specific way, the threshold becomes much lower.
Miranda Salmans
Yes. The scenarios your head creates are never as bad as the actual reality. Your brain truly makes a mess of things. It throws up massive doomsday scenarios and tells you not to share your feelings because it will end in complete disaster.
Robin Ijsseldijk
They often say the threat of the attack is much worse than the attack itself.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, that is completely correct.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Let us turn the page to another subject. The future feels quite uncertain for young people right now, both professionally and personally. How can they accept their current state of being without becoming passive? How can they do this without feeling like they are losing control over their lives?
Miranda Salmans
The sheer volume of choices today is massive. Research shows it is much easier to choose between three types of jam than fifty types. The world has become seriously complex. I apologize, I just lost your question.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Do not worry. I asked how young people can accept their uncertain future and their current state of being without becoming passive or losing control.
Miranda Salmans
You do not have to passively accept everything that happens to you. I find the word "accepting" too heavy. Instead, I ask if people are willing to learn how to tolerate discomfort. Discomfort includes frustration and sadness. You must make room to feel that discomfort. You let the negative thoughts pass. At the same time, you take actionable steps that align with your personal values. That is the core philosophy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Exactly. Acceptance can sometimes feel overwhelming. It can feel a bit like giving up. I think there is a very thin line between true acceptance and just surrendering to the pain.
Miranda Salmans
Exactly. It can feel like passive surrender.
Robin Ijsseldijk
How can young professionals maintain their psychological flexibility? How can they ensure that acceptance actually acts as a form of forward progression for them?
Miranda Salmans
If you always do what you always did, you will get what you always got. Up until now, you probably have not taken the time to truly feel your emotions. You have not given space to your feelings or expressed them to others. Therefore, you must step out of your comfort zone. If you push all your unwanted feelings away, it is like pushing a beachball under water. The harder you push it down, the more aggressively it wants to jump back up. Are you prepared to try a different approach for once? I know what can help based on my professional experience. However, you must experience it for yourself. You can only form an opinion after you actually try the exercise. Then you can decide if you want to continue the practice or if it simply does not fit your style.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Emotions are often pushed away or drowned out. We unconsciously choose one of those two escape routes.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, we usually do it completely unconsciously.
Robin Ijsseldijk
I feel that people carry a lot of mental baggage at the end of the workday. When their head hits the pillow, their thoughts are still racing. They become paralyzed, panic, or lie awake for hours overthinking. What are the most common intrusive thoughts you see the younger generation dealing with at night? What stops them from experiencing peace in their minds?
Miranda Salmans
The most limiting thoughts are usually core identity beliefs. They think they are not good enough. They believe they do not matter. They feel too slow, too fat, too thin, or too unkind. We all recognize a piece of ourselves in those thoughts.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Certainly. It is not necessarily a simple top three list.
Miranda Salmans
It would actually be an interesting experiment to figure out the top three.
Robin Ijsseldijk
That is a great idea. I have noted that down.
Miranda Salmans
The core issue is that people do not take breaks during the day. They run around so much that they only begin to process their thoughts at night. It is not actually a sleep problem. It is a daytime problem. I always look at how someone fills their day first. If you run from pillar to post all day long and fill every second with pressure, your brain only gets its first chance to breathe when you finally lie in bed.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Exactly. It finally turns on. How do you bring people back to a state where they are not afraid to go to sleep? Sometimes people dread the evening because the racing thoughts return. What brings them back to the present moment so they are not overwhelmed by their own minds?
Miranda Salmans
First, I ask if they are willing to build mandatory breaks into their day. I tell them to literally set a kitchen timer or an alarm on their phone. Every 53 minutes, the alarm goes off. That is your signal to do a breathing exercise. You stare outside and watch the birds. You notice five things you see. You notice four things you hear. You notice three things you feel. You engage your physical senses. You check in with your posture and drop your shoulders. That is step one. Step two happens right before bed. You grab a piece of paper and write down every single thought for five or ten minutes. Then you look at the paper from a distance. You observe the absolute garbage your brain produces. You can even laugh about it. You realize you take all these fake scenarios very seriously. You see that the thoughts are safely trapped on the paper, not in your head.
The 53-Minute Rule & Brain Dump
Step 1: Daytime Check-In
Set an alarm for every 53 minutes. When it rings, stop. Notice 5 things you see, 4 you hear, and 3 you feel. Drop your shoulders.
Step 2: Nighttime Release
Write down every thought for 10 minutes before bed. Observe the scenarios objectively. Trap the thoughts on paper, so they do not race in your head.
Robin Ijsseldijk
If I realize that my brain can produce any random thought, it seems strange that we attach so much value to specific anxieties.
Miranda Salmans
Because it is just a thought. Nothing more.
Robin Ijsseldijk
What does a healthy relationship with your thoughts look like? How do you prevent the journaling exercise from feeling like a useless chore? What consistent action actually produces results so people can feel the peace they desire?
Miranda Salmans
You must intentionally make room for it. You build conscious breaks into your routine. You put your hand on your stomach and truly feel whatever is present. I offer guided exercises for this. You literally check in with your physical body. The emotion does not even have to be profound sadness or explosive anger. It can be mild discomfort, a physical tingling, or slight frustration. You just sit with it. If you find it too difficult to confront your biggest pain immediately, I suggest starting small. Put on some incredibly irritating carnival music or a highly annoying sound. Practice tolerating that minor discomfort first. If you train yourself in a controlled setting regularly, you build resilience. Then, when real sadness hits you, you can pull that tolerance skill out of your mental backpack.
Robin Ijsseldijk
You are saying we should actively move towards the discomfort instead of constantly running away from it.
It is exactly like sitting in a dark room with a massive construction spotlight. When the light suddenly turns on, you are blinded for the first few seconds. And you can instantly see. However, the moment the light is turned off, it is pitch black and it feels scary just like our emotions, but if you stay there long enough and keep your eyes open and stay in the room, your eyes will start to adjust to the room and you start to see again in the dark and fear fades. Eventually, you can see clearly again.
Miranda Salmans
What a brilliant metaphor.
Miranda Salmans
Your vision adjusts and you see your environment again. Emotions work the exact same way. You must be willing to stay in the room with them. An emotion spikes to a peak. If you stay present, you will experience the feeling hit a ceiling and eventually drop. If there is no immediate physical danger, a biological emotion rarely lasts longer than 90 seconds.
Robin Ijsseldijk
That is beautiful. We talked earlier about the constant noise of the world. We deal with social media, the news, and irritated colleagues. Those are plenty of reasons to view the future pessimistically. Why do you still remain optimistic about the mental health of this younger generation? Why do you believe we can handle this?
Miranda Salmans
I see their incredible resilience every single day. I see clients walk out the door with a positive outlook after just a few sessions. The moment they dare to ask a friend or a doctor for help, everything shifts. The simple act of talking about the pain does wonders. Of course, you must also manage your social media intake. You must set strict time limits for yourself. We cannot live without technology because it saves lives, but it certainly destroys lives as well.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Young professionals struggle immensely with phone addiction. Grabbing the phone, scrolling, and checking notifications has become a deeply ingrained habit. How can they break that compulsive bond? If they do not want to delete everything but want to regain clarity, what practical choices can they make right now to lower the volume of the noise?
Miranda Salmans
You make literal, physical choices. You agree on a specific time frame for usage. You physically place the phone in another room. You stop carrying it in your pocket constantly. You might delete the most addictive apps for just one week as an experiment. Instead of reaching for the screen, you choose to take a short walk outside. You connect with nature. You deliberately choose a different activity.
Robin Ijsseldijk
When you feel the habitual cue, you take a small pause and link a new, healthier habit to it.
Miranda Salmans
Exactly. The biological urge is to grab the device. We practice this specific exercise in our training sessions. We put the phones away so the participants can feel the physical urge to grab them. Then they must make a highly conscious choice. They ask themselves if they truly need to look at something. They ask if it is a valuable action or just mindless numbing.
Robin Ijsseldijk
The specific question you ask yourself in that micro-moment steers you in the right direction.
Miranda Salmans
The ultimate guiding question for all your choices is this: am I doing this out of self-acceptance and self-care? Is this a valuable action? Or is this driven by fear, limiting thoughts, numbing, or a desire to flee? Those two opposing sides serve as your ultimate compass.
The Ultimate Guiding Question
Before you engage in a destructive habit or pick up your phone, ask yourself:
"Am I doing this out of self-acceptance and self-care, or is this driven by fear, limiting thoughts, numbing, or a desire to flee?"
Robin Ijsseldijk
People often forget to pause and ask that question right before they engage in a destructive habit.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, they do. That is why you must treat yourself with immense compassion. If I slip up and do it again, I literally perform a physical gesture of self-compassion. It makes zero sense to mentally beat yourself up. If you do, you punish yourself twice. You fall into the addiction, and then you attack your own self-worth. Instead, you should ask how you can be more aware next time. You create physical distance from the phone or put a sticky note on the screen asking what you truly need.
Robin Ijsseldijk
You combine a small moment of awareness with a physical act of compassion.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, literally. You find a safe touch that feels soothing to you.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Like placing your hands on your heart.
Miranda Salmans
Yes, exactly.
Robin Ijsseldijk
If you build that habit consistently over time, you rewire your brain. However, it feels very awkward for many people because they rarely experience physical compassion outside of close friendships. How can they develop that compassionate relationship with themselves without feeling foolish in public?
Miranda Salmans
You start in complete privacy. You practice it while sitting on the toilet. You hold yourself with compassion for just a moment. You actively schedule time to practice self-compassion.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Yes.
Miranda Salmans
You show compassion for yourself in the present moment. You take a deep breath and figure out what you truly want.
Robin Ijsseldijk
That is incredibly powerful. I would love to conclude our conversation on that note. I have one final question for you. If you could give the younger generation one single piece of advice for the rest of their lives, what would make the biggest impact?
Miranda Salmans
It all comes down to choices. You have so many choices today. Listen to your heart. Your heart is always right. Deep down, you know exactly what is good and valuable for your life. Listen to that inner voice, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. Would you rather have your tombstone say that you always pleased other people, or that you took excellent care of yourself? If you take excellent care of yourself, you automatically become capable of taking wonderful care of your friends and loved ones.
The Final Advice
"It all comes down to choices. Listen to your heart. Your heart is always right. Deep down, you know exactly what is good and valuable for your life. Listen to that inner voice, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks."
Robin Ijsseldijk
That is incredible. Miranda, you have shared fantastic advice today. Thank you so much for everything. Thank you for this interview.
Miranda Salmans
Thank you, Robin. I am so glad you organized this. I found it incredibly fun to be invited. Thank you for having me.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Absolutely. Thank you for your honesty and your deep care for others. I know our audience will clearly see the empathy in the work you do. You are amazing. Thank you.
Miranda Salmans
Keep doing what you are doing.
Robin Ijsseldijk
To everyone watching, thank you so much for tuning in. Keep an eye on the channel. We have another incredible interview coming up with a former Microsoft CEO who now works as a mentor. I will see you next time!
© 2026 Robin Ijsseldijk. All rights reserved.