About Project Pure
Reconnect with your true self, sleep deeply, and live in harmony with nature.
From a very young age we’ve had to (unconsciously) create survival adaptations to be able to grow up in a society that is no longer connected to a way of life that nature intended. Survival adaptations or programs that once provided protection, create blockages and suffering in adulthood.Â
If you have ever had the sense that you were meant to do more, to be more, but that something is blocking you from getting there, it’s probably an unconscious program from childhood.Â
Project Pure guides people to recognise their survival adaptations to process the pain those adaptations serve to protect. Once the pain is processed, the adaptations no longer serve a purpose and pure essence will surface and prevail.
 What we do
At Project Pure, we help people find their way back to a calm, connected, and authentic life.
It began with a personal journey—through insomnia, emotional overwhelm, and the deep unraveling that often comes when we lose trust in our own bodies. What followed was a quiet return: to sleep, to stillness, to wholeness.
Now, through practical programs, built from psychological and psycho-somatic knowledge, and rooted in nervous system healing, body-awareness, and natural living, Project Pure supports others in doing the same.
We believe that when we feel safe and grounded in our bodies and clear in our minds, we begin to remember who we really are. From that place, healing becomes not only possible—but inevitable.
Our first offering is a program to overcome insomnia, and we are growing to support those navigating anxiety, and other modern-day challenges—guiding them back to inner calm, trust, and their pure essence.
Because when we strip away the noise and return to what is pure, life begins to flow again.
Annelies Basten, MPsychÂ
Founder
Annelies’ curiosity about the “why” of people and the world began early. As a highly sensitive child growing up in a small, conservative village in the Netherlands, she often felt like she didn’t fit in. This sense of not belonging sparked a lifelong quest for deeper understanding—of love, life, and her place within it.
Her early survival strategy became high achievement. She was always top of the class, winning national medals in synchronised swimming (now called artistic swimming) and later in road cycling. The underlying belief was: “If I win everything, then I’ll be loveable.”But no matter how many accolades she collected, the inner void remained. She still didn’t feel truly loved, whole, or connected.
During university, her mental health declined. A period of intense struggle—including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, and suicidal ideation—led her to spend two and a half years in psychoanalytical psychotherapy within a psychiatric hospital. After earning her Master’s in Psychology, she knew she needed a radical change. Leaving old patterns and people behind, she moved abroad and eventually settled in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Here, she found a place—and a way of being—that felt more aligned with her heart. She began living and working in integrity with her values, always in service to something greater. Her work ranged from fundraising for charities to opening and running a plant-based café, all rooted in the desire to help create a kinder, more conscious world.
Drawing on both her academic training and deep lived experience—insomnia, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, depression, high sensitivity, high achievement, and suicidal thoughts—Annelies now holds space for others to rediscover their own true essence. Her approach is structured, safe, grounded, and non-judgemental. She gently guides people back to authenticity, connection, and inner peace.
Annelies believes in the body’s innate wisdom, the healing power of presence, and the intelligence of nature. Her daily practices—meditation, yoga, and sunrise ocean dipping—are ways she stays grounded, regulated, and attuned in an overstimulated world.
“I remember the dark days—exhausted, hollow-eyed, and filled with despair. I had lost all trust in my body, truly believing I might never sleep on my own again. To be here now, sleeping naturally and deeply, feels like a miracle. But it’s possible."
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