I had my plans for today. Overall, I’m a very structured person and I like to plan ahead (especially my working time). But life had different plans. I was just about to write my weekly newsletter about the 4-7-8 breathing technique (which you’ll receive next week now) as my partner in crime, Christoph, came into my office. “Nadja, a deer is hanging in our fence.” I thought it might have got stuck with its leg, but the picture I saw was quite different. We have a hillside property, and our fence stands at the edge of our lawn before the ground dives 2 meters deep. The poor thing was hanging there, head down with its hips still trapped between two struts of our fence.

I haven’t seen something like this before…

It was not a pretty picture. First, we need to get the deer out of the fence. Second, we need a vet to treat it. But for all that, we need help. I’m a big city girl, and we moved to the countryside nearly three years ago. It was my first time being confronted with a deer stuck in my fence, so I was rather clueless about how to help this poor deer.

Christoph and I simultaneously started to call everybody who could possibly help. But at 10.30am on a Monday morning, our chances of reaching friends and neighbors were small. 

We’re not a huge village—we have only 308 inhabitants—but we help each other. We were lucky that our friend (who’s also a member of the THW, the federal civil protection organization) answered my call. “I come over,” he said. He brought a friend and a ton of know-how. He looked at the deer. ” Get me an extension cable. We need to flex it out,” he said, running over to his house to get the flex. 

Another man joined us. He was visiting his son, who lives in the house below ours and is a hunter. He is familiar with deers and he was able to assess if this deer was heavily injured or not. Thank God the deer was okay. Our friend returned, putting the flex in the extension cable, saying, “Hold it tight and close your eyes when I flex!”. My heart was beating in my throat.

We now have a hole in our fence, a liberated deer that jumped away as soon as its legs were free (and that is – thank God! – not injured). I’m so glad our neighbor, the hunter, was here and able to assess whether we can leave the deer free or net to treat it to the vet.

The learnings

Why am I sharing all this with you? One thing: no matter how well you plan, life has its own way. Sometimes you align, other times life has different plans. Two, the community is important. There are many things I’m good at (teaching you to set efficient boundaries and feel good doing it), but freeing a deer and flexing fences isn’t one of them.

We need community. It’s essential. Life is not meant to be done in isolation. Although you might have had times in your life when you thought it would be easier alone (that’s where boundaries come into play, by the way), you were never meant to travel this life journey alone. 

If you’re longing for support in ending your people-pleaser era and connecting with women on a similar journey, I invite you to join the Self Love & Boundaries Mastery Group. It’s my free Facebook community where I regularly connect with you through Facebook Lives and share relevant tips and trips on how to set boundaries and prioritize your needs and well-being. It’s still a tiny community, which enables me to answer questions and teach some boundary-setting lessons for free while we’re growing (you can ask questions anonymously if you’d prefer to). Are you joining us?

​Join by clicking this link here.​

Are you thinking of a friend who’d love to be a part of this community? Invite her. I’d love to welcome her to this group, too. 

Until I see you inside the group or in your inbox next week (I’ll teach you a breathing technique to calm down your nervous system in under 60 seconds), don’t forget—no matter how well you plan, sometimes life has different plans, not only for you but for all of us. The only difference is how well we handle this need to be flexible.