December '25: Het Warmste Licht

Het Warmste Licht: Online of in de app wanneer het past op Play!

This photo is not about running. Yet I am moving.

It is about continuing when the air itself seems to push back.

What looks light from the outside carries weight.

What looks soft, pushes hard.

I took part in 'Het warmste Licht' for De Warmste Week not because my story is more important or more special than others— it isn’t — but because there are countless people living with illnesses, syndromes, symptoms, thoughts, and struggles that remain invisible, yet shape every step they take.

Lives that appear “fine” from the outside, while inside there is constant resistance. Constant wind.

I once moved through life at full speed.

A runner.

A body that listened.

A future that followed a plan.

Then came a diagnosis that changed everything — chronic leukemia — and suddenly movement was no longer at full speed. Since then, most steps feel as if they are taken straight into the wind.

I can wake up with a plan, a clear direction, quiet determination, full of intention and hope — and one single gust can scatter it all. Side effects. Fatigue. Invisible limitations. The kind you don’t see, but feel every second.

Still, I move.

Not to prove strength,

but because movement is how I stay present in my life.

How I choose life, again and again.

This program followed five stories for one day.

But it stands for so much more than five lives.

It stands for everyone who keeps going while carrying what cannot be seen.

If there is one thing I hope these images reveal, it is this:

Be gentle with what you cannot see.

Soften your judgement.

Slow your assumptions.

We don’t need to see the wind to believe it is there.

We don’t always need to understand someone’s battle to make a difference.

Don’t become extra headwind.

And when the wind grows strong, be the quiet push at someone’s back —the gentle force that helps them to keep moving.

Five stories. One light.

And the hope that even a small glow can shift the darkness.

Thank you, Elodie Ouedrago and Daphne Agten, and the entire team behind this reportage and photoshoot — for the care, the gentleness, and the respect. For holding space, for seeing beyond the visible, for listening between the lines, and for helping unseen stories find their light, and helping warmth reach further.

May we all learn to be light, not wind.

Photographer: @vincentvandendries

Styling: @evelinebriand

Hair & Make-up: @emmacatry

Production: Woestijnvis N.V. Play4

Bekijk de aflevering op Play online of via de app

Liefs,

Lindsey

https://www.play.tv/.../het-warmste-licht-s1-aflevering-3