Prenatal & birth
The first imprints can form before we are born. Stress during pregnancy, a difficult delivery, or early separation from the mother can leave patterns that the body and nervous system carry long after.
Dr. Nina Belei · Performance Consultant & Identity Architect
I spent twenty years researching why people do what they do. The answer was rarely in the head.
As a researcher exploring the intersection of marketing, psychology, and decision-making, I saw brilliant people act against their own best judgment, again and again – me included.
Today I work with what was steering them: imprints held in the body and nervous system, often older than the person carrying them.
For leaders, athletes and performers who sense there is more in them, and are ready to let go of what has been holding it back.
- PhD in MarketingConsumer behavior & decision-making
- International academic careerNijmegen · Chicago · Maastricht
- Intuition & PrecisionNEWNEI
- Founder & Co-ChairNEWNEI Institute
A quick check
Is this a pattern worth looking at?
Three signs to look for.
- i
It keeps coming back.
In different settings, with different people, sometimes years apart.
- ii
You understand it, and it still happens.
Insight hasn't changed it, and neither has willpower. Under pressure, the old reaction wins.
- iii
It costs more than it used to.
In energy, sleep, relationships or performance. Sometimes your body keeps sending signals, and nobody can quite tell you why.
If you recognized all three, it's probably not a lack of effort.More likely, it's an imprint.
And imprints can be resolved.
Something to sit with
Some of what you carry was never yours to carry.
A grandmother's fear. A father's rule about never showing weakness. A culture's idea of what success should cost. Patterns like these run quietly through high-performing lives. I help you recognize what isn't yours, and put it down.
What can change
Not a new version of you. More of who you truly are.
Where you might be nowWhere this can take you
Going round in the same emotional or behavioral loopsFree of the pattern, because what drove it is resolved
Understanding everything in your headFeeling the change in your body and your behavior
Constant inner pressure, tension, symptoms without explanationCalm, regulation and a clear head
Performing a role that has become too small or too heavyActing from a grounded, authentic sense of self
A little about me
Read my story
Beyond the research and the practice.
I'm a mother and a partner, a dog person of more than twenty years, a beach walker in every kind of weather, happiest on the water (just being on a boat is enough), a rereader of favorite books by the fire, and someone who thinks, dreams and occasionally argues in three languages (sometimes all within one sentence).
I'm still evolving. In this season of life, I'm learning to choose what feels true over what's expected, to let research and intuition sit at the same table, and to make room for the next chapter, with the Balearic Islands on the horizon.
Read my story
Understand
What imprints are, and where they show up
Six places they come from, four places they show up, and why insight alone isn't enough.
Read more ExperienceWorking with me
How change holds without force, NEWNEI Acupuncture, and the ways to work together.
Read more RecognizeWho comes to me
Leaders, athletes and performers, and people at a turning point.
Read more
Understanding imprints
Some experiences end. Their imprints don't.
An imprint is a pattern that keeps acting after the moment that created it has passed. It is the internal load you carry, often without knowing it, in how you feel, think, hold your body and see yourself.
Imprints in three minutes
Before you read on, a short film.
What imprints are, where they live, and how NEWNEI works with them. A short film with sound.
Two simple questions
Where does it come from, and where does it show up?
Every imprint has an origin and an expression. The origin is the moment, the relationship or the history it started in. The expression is what you live with today.
The two rarely look alike. A difficult birth can show up decades later as a restlessness nobody can explain. A family's unspoken loss can show up as a manager who simply cannot delegate. That is why talking about the expression so often goes in circles, and why reaching the origin changes things.
The outer ring
Where imprints come from.
Early relationships
The way we were held, seen, and responded to in our first years shapes our expectations of closeness and safety. Conclusions like “I have to earn love” or “closeness isn't safe” can quietly guide relationships for a lifetime.
Life events
Moments later in life that were too much, too fast, or too lonely to process at the time: loss, accidents, humiliation, illness, or chronic pressure.
Ancestral
Experiences of earlier generations that were never resolved: loss, war, displacement, exclusion, or what a family never spoke about. They are passed on through family systems, loyalties, and ways of coping, and can surface in descendants who never lived through the original events.
Epigenetic
Experiences such as severe stress or deprivation can change how genes are switched on or off, without changing the DNA itself. Some of these marks may be passed on. How far this reaches is still an open research question.
Collective
Imprints we share with a culture, a generation, or a group: the aftermath of war, migration, economic hardship, or a society's unspoken rules about what is allowed to be felt and said.
The inner ring
Where imprints show up.
You won't see the origin directly. You'll see it in one or more of these four places, and often in all of them at once.
Emotional
Feelings that arrive faster and stronger than the situation explains: tension before a big moment, irritation out of nowhere, a flatness you can't shake.
Why does this get to me so much?
Mental
Convictions that feel like facts. You can argue with them, and they still don't move.
If I let go, it all falls apart.
Somatic
The body keeps its own record: a tight chest, a jaw that never relaxes, sleep that doesn't restore, symptoms without a clear medical explanation.
Nobody can tell me why.
Identity
The role you play around an unresolved imprint: the strong one, the achiever, the one who keeps everyone happy. It may have served you well. It can also become a cage.
This is just who I am.
One imprint, four expressions
How one story can live on in four places.
A grandmother's loss that nobody ever spoke about (an ancestral origin) can show up two generations later like this. With the right approach, working with one layer often moves the others.
Mental
“It isn't safe to rely on anyone.”
Somatic
A tightness in the chest that never quite leaves
Emotional
Unease the moment someone gets close
Identity
The one who never needs help
Why understanding isn't enough
Four things worth knowing if you've already tried a lot.
It runs in the background
Think of a computer. Your behavior is what's on the screen. Imprints are programs running underneath, some pre-installed through your family line, some installed along the way. You can understand the screen perfectly and the program keeps running.
A part of you is protecting it
The part of you that keeps an old pattern in place usually does so because it has kept you safe until now. Push against it and it pushes back. That's why willpower so often fails exactly where it matters most.
Managing symptoms doesn't hold
Relief that works around an imprint wears off: the breathing exercise, the holiday, the new resolution. Lasting change comes from resolving the imprint itself, not from managing around it.
High performers hide it best
The more successful you are, the better you have learned to compensate. A high-performing exterior can mask a lot of inner misalignment, sometimes even from yourself.
What science is beginning to show
The body and the family line remember more than we thought.
1998
Early experience, lifelong health
The Adverse Childhood Experiences study of more than 17,000 adults linked difficult childhood experiences to physical illness decades later.
Felitti et al. ↗2008
Imprints before birth
People exposed to the Dutch Hunger Winter in the womb still carried different epigenetic marks some sixty years later.
Heijmans et al. ↗2016
Across generations
Holocaust survivors and their children showed related changes in a stress-regulating gene: an early lead on how experience may be passed on.
Yehuda et al. ↗Some origins, such as early relationships and life events, are well described in psychology and neuroscience. Research on epigenetic and intergenerational transmission is younger and still debated. These findings don't prove that any particular method works; they show why the questions are worth asking. Studying what actually helps is the task of the NEWNEI Institute, which I co-founded.
And how do we resolve them?Working with me
Working with me
Clearing the imprint. Strengthening what keeps you steady.
I work with NEWNEI, the method developed by Roy Martina, MD, and Trinity Aurora. It reaches what talking doesn't, and it leaves you more independent, not less.
How change actually holds
Nothing is forced. Everything is invited.
Anyone who has led an organization knows this: a change pushed through over people's heads rarely lasts. Your inner system works the same way.
The parts of you that keep an old pattern alive usually have a good reason. At some point, that pattern protected you. Override them and they dig in. So we don't. We test what your system is ready to address, and we invite the parts involved, together with your body's own capacity to regulate and repair, to take part in the session. When every stakeholder is at the table, the decision holds.
- We ask before we actTesting shows what your system is ready to work on today. We don't push beyond that.
- No part is the enemyThe fear, the control, the drive: each has been doing a job. We help it find a better one.
- Your system does the repairMy role is to clear what's in the way. The capacity to regulate and heal is already yours.
What matters along the way
You stay in charge.
Your sovereignty comes first
I work with you, never on you. You take an active part, feel the change yourself and stay in charge throughout. My goal is always to help activate your own self-healing capacity, so that you rely on your own system rather than on me.
A story that supports healing
Some beliefs work like the opposite of a placebo: they quietly expect things to stay difficult. We turn those into an identity that supports change.
Beyond your own story
Some of what you carry may not have started with you. So we look at the whole picture: body, emotions, beliefs, identity, your family line and the wider systems you are part of. That way you don't keep carrying what was never yours to hold.
Working together
One path, two ways to go deeper.
Every collaboration starts the same way, calmly and step by step, so you always know where you are and what comes next.
- 1A free conversation
We get to know each other and see whether this feels right. No obligation.
- 2Imprint Assessment
We test what your system is holding, and you receive your personal Imprint Map.
- 3Your way forward
Performance Clearing or Identity Architecture, with NEWNEI Acupuncture wherever your body needs it.
Step two
Imprint Assessment
Before we decide on anything, we look at what's really there. I test what your system is holding, specifically for you. No generic profile, no guesswork.
You receive your personal Imprint Map, a clear written overview of:
- what you carry, and where in your system it has settled
- how it shows up in your body, your emotions and your choices
- where it began, in your own story, your family line or beyond
- the hidden beliefs that quietly work against your change
- what an old pattern may still be doing for you
- the early wounds underneath it all
Your map is yours to keep. Continue with me, take it to your psychologist, coach or doctor, or simply use it to finally understand yourself.
It isn't a medical or psychological diagnosis, but it gives anyone you work with a precise place to start.
Step three
Two ways to go deeper
Fees for both paths are discussed personally.
Performance Clearing
For the pattern that keeps returning, at work, in sport or in life. We clear the layers behind it one by one, until it has nothing left to hold on to.
The loop you've worked on for years.
Identity Architecture
For a life with sustained, extreme demands. We rebuild what generates the patterns, so you can lead and perform from who you really are.
When the stakes stay high.
Woven into both paths
NEWNEI Acupuncture
Whenever your body wants its own way in, acupuncture becomes part of your path. Your own system shows the points, so the change settles physically.
How it worksNEWNEI Acupuncture · inside both paths
When the body wants its own way in.
In most acupuncture, the practitioner chooses the points based on their diagnosis. In NEWNEI Acupuncture, your own system shows the way.
That is what makes the combination unique. NEWNEI aims to find and resolve the imprint. The needles help your body let go of it physically and restore its natural flow, so the change doesn't only make sense to you, it settles in your system.
It works especially well for acute issues: pain, or anything else that is in an acute phase right now.
How a session flows
Ask how it fits your path
- 01Test
We first test what your body is holding, and where. No guesswork, no standard points.
- 02Place
A few very fine needles, exactly on the points your system indicates.
- 03Settle
You sit back and breathe, while your body does what it already knows how to do.
Wherever suits youIn Zeeland, at your place, or online. It works the same either way.
Three languagesEnglish, German, Dutch
Strictly confidentialWhat you share stays between us.
Good to know
NEWNEI and NEWNEI Acupuncture are complementary. They don't replace diagnosis or treatment by a physician or other licensed healthcare professional, so if you're under medical care, please keep it in place. Results differ from person to person. More
Does this sound like you?Who it's for
Who it's for
People who look fine from the outside.
Most people who find their way to me are doing well by any visible measure. That's often the difficulty. Nobody expects them to be struggling, including themselves.
Leaders & executivesYou carry a lot. You say very little.
You make decisions all day, and some of them are clouded by an old fear or an old loyalty you can't quite name. Your body keeps sending signals. Perhaps you're facing a transition and wondering who you are without the title.
- Decisions that feel heavier than they should
- Stress your body keeps signaling, even on holiday
- Exits, successions and life after a big role
Athletes & performersWhen talent isn't the question anymore.
At the top, everyone is trained and everyone is gifted. What makes the difference is what you carry into the moment that matters. Training can't reach every block, because some of them were never about technique.
Measurable progress
You'll feel the change, and you'll see it too. We measure where you start and track how things shift along the way, and you receive a personal progress report at the end and three months later, to share with your coach if you like.
- Tightening or freezing in decisive moments
- Finding your way back after injury or a setback
- Career transitions, and who you are after the stage
People at a turning pointWhen the next chapter asks for a different you.
A career that ended or needs to end, a company you sold, children who left home, a health scare that changed your priorities. Transitions bring old patterns to the surface, and what carried you this far may not carry you further.
- After an exit, a sale or a career change
- When success no longer feels like enough
- When life asks you to choose differently
Ready when you areStart with a conversation
About me
The long way round.
Born in Germany, shaped by life in the Netherlands and the U.S., and driven by one question for as long as I can remember: why do people do what they do?
My story
I've always been drawn to what really drives us. Not what people say they'll do. What they actually do, and why.
That fascination turned into my profession. I studied in Maastricht and stayed on for my PhD, trying to understand how people really make decisions, including a research stay at the Kellogg School of Management near Chicago. Then came thirteen years of research and teaching at the Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University. I still think like a researcher. But the answers I was really looking for never quite fit into a dataset.
What stayed with me most happened outside the lecture hall: walking alongside students and young leaders as they worked out who they wanted to be. Most leadership models work from the outside in. Very few look at the inner landscape that actually drives how someone leads and lives. I wanted to flip that.
The research pointed the same way. You can explain a bias to someone in detail and watch them fall right into it the next day. Something underneath was steering.
Life also gave me my own share. Things I wasn't prepared for. Heavy things. The kind you don't talk about at dinner. I functioned. I always do. For a long time, my biggest enemy was myself. Then I did what researchers do: I looked for what actually works, tested it on myself, and dropped what didn't hold up. Resilience, I learned, isn't about pushing harder. It's about being honest about what you feel and what drains you.
Then I found NEI, and later NEWNEI. For the first time, change didn't just make sense in my head. I felt it in my body, and it stayed. Not because I had added another tool, but because something that was in the way had finally been cleared.
Eventually I left academia to design a life that is truly mine, instead of the one that was expected of me. Today I give myself fully to two things. In my practice, I help people clear the deepest blocks that keep them caught in their loops, gently and at their own pace. And at the NEWNEI Institute, I help build a field that looks at imprints from every dimension, and that is inclusive and transparent about what it knows and what it doesn't.
Why I do this
When people are aligned with who they are, it ripples out.
Into their relationships, their work, their teams and their families. That's why I do this. Not to fix anyone, and not with ready-made answers, but by clearing what's in the way, so your own strength, voice and clarity can come through again.
Highlights from my path
Research, practice and building a field.
- Founder & Co-ChairNEWNEI Institute
A global platform connecting people, knowledge and research around imprints. Founded with Nils Gerlant Veenstra, co-chaired with Roy Martina, MD.
- FounderMekigai
My private practice, working with NEWNEI and NEWNEI Acupuncture for leaders, athletes, performers and people at a turning point.
- University educator & researcherNijmegen School of Management, Radboud University
Thirteen years of teaching and research on marketing, decision-making and human behavior, with a strong focus on intercultural understanding.
- Trainer & coach with dogs and horsescoachdogs® and horsesense®
For years I have trained and coached leaders with the help of dogs, as a certified coachdogs® coach and international license partner, and I am a certified horsesense® coach. Animals don't care about your title or your story. They respond to what is really going on inside you, and they show it instantly. That taught me what I still rely on every day: the body doesn't lie, and presence can't be faked.
- PhD & research stayMaastricht University and Kellogg School of Management
A PhD in Marketing on consumer behavior and decision-making, including a research stay at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
Which is exactly why it can still be changed.
Credentials
On paper.
- PhD in MarketingConsumer behavior and decision-making
- Outstanding Doctoral Research AwardEmerald/EFMD, European Journal of Marketing
- NEWNEITrained with Roy Martina, MD, and Trinity Aurora
- Certified coachdogs® coachDog-assisted leadership training and coaching
- Certified horsesense® coachHorse-assisted work on presence and self-awareness
- Systemic and energetic workInsight into subconscious patterns and the family system
What I believe
Off paper.
- Lasting change happens beneath the surface.Not through more insight or a better mindset, but where the pattern is actually stored.
- The body doesn't lie.A symptom is often not the problem, but the clearest signal you have.
- We're at our best when we stop performing.Real leadership and performance start when you act from who you are, not from the role you learned to play.
The NEWNEI Institute
The Institute studies and connects the field of imprints. My private practice runs separately, here at Mekigai.
Curious what we could do together?Start with a conversation
Start with a conversation, just the two of us.
You don't need the right words or a clear question. A few lines about what's going on are plenty. Every message is read and answered personally, and what you share stays between us.
Thank you
Your message is on its way.
It has arrived safely. I'll read it personally and get back to you within two working days.
- Strictly
confidential - English, German
& Dutch - Zeeland, your place
& online
Prefer to write directly? hello@mekigai.com
Privacy & legal notice
What you share stays with me.
Confidentiality is at the heart of my practice, and that includes this website. Here is, in plain words, what happens with your information.
This website uses no cookies, no analytics and no tracking of any kind. Fonts and images are served from this site itself, so your visit isn't shared with Google, social media or anyone else. Your information only reaches me when you decide to send it, and I use it only to reply to you and, if we work together, for our sessions.
Privacy statement
Who is responsible
Mekigai, the private practice of Dr. Nina Belei, is responsible for your personal data as described here (the "controller" under the GDPR). You'll find all contact details in the legal notice below.
When you visit this website
I don't collect anything about your visit. Like any website, the hosting provider's servers briefly register technical data such as your IP address and the pages requested, purely to keep the site secure and running. These logs are not combined with other information or used to identify you.
When you watch the film
The short film on the Imprints page is hosted on YouTube. Nothing is loaded from YouTube until you press play. When you do, the film plays in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, and YouTube (Google) receives technical data such as your IP address. You can read how Google handles this in its privacy policy.
When you get in touch
When you use the contact form, your message is sent securely through my hosting provider and forwarded to my inbox. When you write to me, I use your name, contact details and whatever you choose to tell me only to reply to you and to arrange a first conversation. The legal basis is your request to be contacted (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
When we work together
During our sessions you may tell me about your health, your body and your personal life. These are special categories of personal data, and I only process them with your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR), which I ask for before we start. My notes are kept confidential, stored securely, and never shared with anyone, not with your employer, club, agency or family, unless you explicitly ask me to.
- Session notes are deleted at the latest two years after our last session, or sooner if you ask.
- Invoices and booking details are kept for seven years, because Dutch tax law requires it.
- Your data is never sold, and never used for marketing without your consent.
Who else sees it
Only the services I need to run my practice: my email and calendar provider, my accounting software and my hosting provider. They process data on my behalf, under data processing agreements, and preferably within the European Union.
Your rights
You can always ask to see, correct or delete your data, to restrict or object to its use, or to receive a copy of it. You can also withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting anything that happened before. Just send me an email at hello@mekigai.com and I'll respond within a month, usually much sooner. If you feel I've handled your data incorrectly, please tell me first. You also have the right to file a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
A word about health
NEWNEI and NEWNEI Acupuncture are complementary approaches that support your wellbeing and personal development. They don't replace diagnosis or treatment by a physician, psychologist or other licensed healthcare professional. If you're under medical care, please keep it in place, and let me know so we can take it into account. Results differ from person to person, and I don't promise any specific outcome.
Legal notice
PracticeMekigai
Owner
Dr. Nina Belei, responsible for the content of this website
AddressBrouwershaven, the Netherlands
Emailhello@mekigai.com
Chamber of CommerceKvK 94274452
The title "Dr." refers to a PhD in Marketing and is not a medical degree.
I take great care with the content of this website, but I can't guarantee that everything is always complete and up to date. Links to other websites, including the NEWNEI Institute, are provided as a service; I'm not responsible for their content. All texts and images on this site are protected by copyright. NEWNEI® is a registered trademark.
Last updated: October 2026
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