My relationship with yoga

My relationship with yoga started 11 years ago, when an acquaintance took me to a trial lesson of a recently graduated vinyasa yoga teacher. As a class we moved and we did breathing exercises, it was nice and that was enough for me to keep coming.

In the beginning I didn't know what was going on, but I felt that I always wanted to go back to those movements. To the awareness of the breath. From moving with sweat on the upper lip to that moment of relaxation at the end of the lesson. I had no words for what happened, but I knew I wanted more. So I also signed up for hatha yoga, yin yoga, acrobatics yoga, yang yoga, fitness yoga, sleep yoga. I flirted with yoga, challenged or loathed my body and didn't come for two weeks. But something in me always called back to the lessons. Now I know that that is my longing for the light within me.

I discovered yoga on youtube, but kept coming back to that teacher who gave me words to what happened in me. One time a voice in me became very loud and I just couldn't seem to sink into my body, the other moment I could finally relax on that mat.

D

uring my pregnancy it was therefore logical to also do pregnancy yoga and I discovered how I could get in touch with my life through my breath.

After my pregnancy I found my own moment and a glimmer of peace about the change of my body on the mat. Too often I searched for words that went wrong in my head, while when I felt it I also experienced that it was a coming and going. I found the courage to get help through yoga if my head so much prevailed that I only survived life.

Because yoga gave me courage and creativity helped me to express myself without words, I made drawings with yoga postures in it. The postures always became the starting point of my drawings. It felt so good to combine yoga with drawing that I started playing with it and also started drawing after a yoga class. I even painted a yoga mat.

And a new seed grew in me, that of the wish of deepening the subject matter. I started reading books about yoga. I heard about living yoga off the mat. I wanted to know what that was. I started to follow yoga teacher on instagram who talked about living yoga off the mat. In my search for teachers who could tell me more about that, I came across my current yoga teacher training. I doubted enormously, I made lists of pluses and minuses because I wanted to convince my mind what my heart wanted. Eventually I signed up and in the last few months I have relived my entire relationship with yoga. I fell in love and followed a lot of yoga lessons. I made contact with a fire in me and found courage on the mat to ask for help off the mat. At this moment I am standing at that moment, just after I find the courage to get help through yoga. I am brave. And I want to use this courage to complete my education. And then use this courage to take my place as a yoga teacher.

I want to use the courage to trust that everything will turn out to be good, and that I always have yoga as a tool to return to myself, on the mat and beyond.

Passing on yoga and art is what I visualize to come my way. This combination of expressing

yourself without words and feeling without intervenings from the mind is an experience that I wish for everyone.