Release your energy

Today, I captured my thoughts in a video which you also find on my YouTube channel.

Watch this video here.

It’s all about self-love, tuning into your body, observing your thoughts, connecting with yourself and diving deeper to who you really are. Release energy to have space for all new and beautiful things to come into your life!

By coming closer to who you really are, you will be able to activate your full potential and to design the life that you are destined to live.

Life is beautiful.

Yours, Nina

 

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Understand your mind

What is central to this blog post is self-love. Self-love is the most important ingredient for you to live a successful, healthy and happy life.

Briefly think about Indian curry. Would you ever consider cooking that dish without curry? I don’t think so. So, really think about self-love as the single most important thing that you can’t live without. Because believe me, you really shouldn’t.

With this blog post I want to encourage you to become aware of your thoughts and emotions. Afterwards it’s important to express these in order to let them go. Lastly, it’s essential to bring your thoughts and emotions into movement (emotion = energy in motion), so that everything that you are can flow again. We are meant to flow, our energies are meant to flow, our whole life is meant to be in flow.

You have to understand that you can train your mind to be a successful mind.

If I speak about ‘success’, I don’t relate to ‘success’ in classic terms, I mean success on your terms, in whatever area of your life, for example work, relationships, partner, health, free-time etc.

So, whichever areas in your life you consider important, please be in the knowing that you have the power to train your mind to be successful.

You are the creator of your dream life.

Once your mind is trained to success, once you are ready to see the positive, yet handle the challenging, your successful mind will give you findings, insights and inspirations.

Make your mind your best friend – with awareness and through findings. Because then you will be able to use your mind instead of only possessing it.

Use your mind, don’t only possess it.

Do you want to befriend your mind? Do you want to get guidance from me on how to train your mind? Then get my eBook FEEL UNDERSTAND HEAL #1 on Amazon. Just click here to receive guidance and practical exercises from me on how to get started with understanding your mind. Also, attend my next workshop FEEL UNDERSTAND HEAL #3 in Munich to dive (deeper) into your personal growth journey and to start your shift. Click here to save one of the last spots.

If you have any questions, leave me a pink note!

Yours, Nina

 

 

Feeling aligned

I am feeling really good, inspired and energised lately, so the following question came to my mind:

Is this what it feels like to feel aligned?

So, I observed my thoughts and feelings more intensively over the last weeks. Sitting here right now writing this, I realise ‘Yes, that’s it, this is what feeling aligned means to me.’ These last two words, however, are critical, as you will experience a feeling of alignment differently than me. Nevertheless, I want to share my perspective on this feeling, as I’ve been able to experience it in such a positive and life-changing way.

I noticed that thoughts are simply the children of my emotions, meaning I’m in a positive mood and emotion, so my thoughts tend to be more positive. However, it also works the other way round, being in a negative mood means I’ve been thinking more negative thoughts. Now here’s the problem of this vicious circle. Let’s turn it around. If I have negative thoughts, a negative emotion is very likely to follow, and again it also works for my positive thoughts inducing positive emotions. So, here’s what I’m saying:

Be aware of your thoughts. They are the children of your emotions.

I happily noticed that I hold the power to shift this happening, that I can decide to think positively, that I can do mind and body work to allow this shift to happen. And I made it happen and I still do every day. Over the last years, I observed my thoughts, I observed my feelings, I questioned them, I tracked them back, I simply allowed myself to truly feel myself without avoiding, without fearing, without ignoring.

You hold the power to make this shift happen.

I understand more and more, how important it is to give things time. Because time is a good revealer of what’s really true.

Time is a good revealer of what’s really true.

What I mean is, if something bugs me, if someone makes a comment that triggers me, if I feel angry, sad or confused, I don’t instantly react anymore (there are exceptions of course, I’m just a human being). I give my best to let this feeling run through me and to give it time to rest. When this feeling really settles somewhere within me, I can still react, but if it doesn’t settle, then why react, right? Because my reaction would have required my energy and the more I think about it, the more stupid it is to instantly react to things.

Be aware of your energy.

Another thought that sticks around with me is that I truly believe that things happen for a reason. So, if something unpleasant happens in my life, I really try my best these days to remind myself that there must be a good reason for this, that this is a sign of the universe that something even better is just waiting for me around the corner. So, I decided to stop feeding these fires, that drain me, that I cannot change anyways, and to rather focus on the things that I can change and that I can feed with love instead.

Stop feeding the fire. Feed love instead.

And yes, probably the most important topic for most of us, myself included, is letting go. I  let go of being right; rather I remind myself that my reality is not the same as someone else’s, so the term ‘being right’ doesn’t appear reasonable anymore. It is always a matter of perspective. That’s it. Don’t hold on to thoughts, emotions, things, people, opinions; they change, they evolve, they flow, they develop, but they never stand still, so I decided to let go of being right and instead to bring my attention to what comes afterwards. Also, and I know it’s ironic, but most of the time when I cannot let go, it is definitely time to let go. Maybe you can resonate.

Let go of being right.

The topic of letting go brings me to my beloved topic ‘Alignment’. Because I perceived that if it’s aligned with me, whatever it is, a job, money, a partner, a guy, a friend, it will stay. It will f***-ing stay. It’s all about trust. When I trust life, when I trust the universe, when I understand that I am a connected human being and not on my own in this beautiful world that I live in, then the universe conspires to bring me joy, lightness, happiness and alignment. In a feeling of trust, I don’t have to grip to people or things, I don’t have to control anything, I can simply let go and trust that with letting go, my life will start shifting to the better.

If it’s aligned, it’ll stay.

When I’m feeling aligned, I talk about a feeling of greatness & inspiration. I feel strong and energised. In a state of alignment I trust that everything will come to me when the time is right and when I’m ready to receive it. When feeling aligned, I feel the power within me that I am the creator of my dreams and my dream life.

You are the creator of your dream life.

I feel so blessed that as a result of my alignment and faith, I published my first eBook ‘Feel Understand Heal #1 – Reveal your true self.’ In this eBook I help you start your inner journey to reveal your true self. I want the expression ‘Be Yourself’ to be the guideline for your life, because you can only be truly happy, when you know who you really are.

Living a life in full alignment and happiness is the commitment we, I, you should give ourselves, don’t you think so?

Yours, Nina

 

 

Reconnect

I’ve heard the words ‘Connect’, ‘Disconnected’ and ‘Reconnect’ a lot lately. Maybe this is because so many people feel disconnected from themselves and want to reconnect with their body, mind, and spirit, or I’ve noticed it increasingly since it has become one of my favourite topics. I truly believe that if we lost connection with ourselves that we can get it back, we can build the connection with ourselves again. We can reconnect.

Reconnect on different levels

In my opinion, this needs to happen on different levels, physically, mentally and spiritually. Reconnecting with yourself means first of all to become aware, of your body, mind and soul. Ask yourself what is going on here? Where are my pain points physically? Where is my mind going? What keeps my mind busy? Is your soul telling you something? Do you sometimes feel restless? Why? When do you feel most disconnected with yourself? When do you most feel the urge to connect with yourself?

Notice and sit with it

Become aware, notice and sit with it to start with. You don’t have to take any action right away. I know it’s difficult, but it’s better not to fight it, because that would mean you are fighting life, and that in return would mean that you are fighting yourself.

So, start with bringing more awareness into your being. De-automize your being and your actions, whatever you do, do it less automatically, more consciously. Bring more awareness into your life.

Maybe you wonder now, what this is all about and how this should help you reconnect?

Awareness

I know from experience that bringing more awareness to my being, to my body, mind and soul is the first and only step required to commence the reconnection process.

How do you think you can connect with your beautiful life, if you don’t start connecting with yourself? How can you see, feel, smell and taste all the beautiful things in our world, if you cannot even see or feel yourself? Awareness and appreciation are your entry to reconnect with yourself.  Use your 5 senses consciously to bring more awareness into your life, they’ve been given to us with reason, so use them and enjoy them.

Feel Understand Heal

Once you feel & understand, you can heal. Once you start your individual reconnection process, you can come closer to your true self. Once you start the journey becoming the real you, you’ll feel lighter and happier. Of course, there will be difficult moments, of course, you won’t feel light 24/7, but again I know from my own inner journey how amazingly rewarding it is to start this process. To walk the liberating path of personal development.

A liberating feeling

It is liberating. ‘Cause every day feels lighter, with less bullshit, instead with more awareness and gratitude, especially for the small things in our life. Because I also noticed one more thing, it is not really the big things that make up our lives, it is the small things.

And if we manage to appreciate the small things, if we manage to appreciate ourselves, we can reconnect with ourselves, we can let go of bullshit and instead embrace all the beautiful new things flowing (or flooding!) into our lives.

Become yourself

The closer you get to yourself, the more you become yourself, the lighter you will feel and the happier you will be. Because you are truly you. Isn’t that a wonderful outlook?

You can be happy only if you become yourself

If you feel disconnected, if you sometimes wonder who you are, if you truly want to start your reconnection journey, but don’t know where to start, then I cannot imagine anything more beautiful than supporting you on your journey and taking that first step.

I have been on this journey (still am, it’s an ongoing process) and whilst it was tough at times, I am deeply grateful to have (had) people by my side supporting me.

If you resonate with this blog post, then check out my 3-hour workshop FEEL UNDERSTAND HEAL that I will be holding in Munich on Tuesday, 22nd May. I’m so excited about this journey and it gets better every day (with some exceptions haha).

Love to life, love to you and love to myself.

Yours, Nina

 

 

 

Reveal your true self

Inspired and based on Patanjalis’ Yogasutra by Ralph Skuban

Reveal your true self by ‘vairagya’

I chose this topic as part of my yoga exams presentation. Whilst dealing with the Yogasutra in more detail, I realised just how much of a code of practice this book is for life. At least for me. This blog post is inspired by the book and Ralph Skuban, however, it only reflects my way of approaching the topic and is written in my own words.

The word ‘vairagya’/letting go is one of the most important words and statements in Patanjalis’ Yogasutra. Whilst it appears more than once, I focus on chapter 1, verses 12-16.

However, my starting point lies in chapter 2, verses 3-4, where it’s said that we humans suffer, because we don’t know, who or what we really are. Also referred to as ‘spiritual blindness’ or ‘avidya’.

If we are now conscious and mindful enough, we will probably seek getting out of this suffering and spiritual blindness with the objective to reach inner freedom. For me, this means being, who we really are.

Start walking as to reveal your true self. 

In the Yogasutra, this is a higher level of ‘vairagya’, it is ‘paravairagya’, a complete detachment of everything.

Where to start

I would recommend to start at the beginning, just like Patanjalis does in chapter 1, verses 1-11. He states to dedicate yourself to yoga, to self-realisation. Yoga is basically a way to heal, it means healing to the grounds of our being, through a process of cleansing.

One way to cleanse is by calming down and quieting our thoughts and mental patterns, which are continuously changing and evolving, making it even more difficult to quiet them. The stillness of our thoughts is referred to as ‘chitta vrittis nirodhah’. And once they become still, we will be at rest, feel peaceful and find inner peace.

How to find inner peace

In chapter 1, verses 12-16, there are some insights on how we can quiet our mind, and the most important finding for me is that we need to understand that we are NOT our thoughts, that we are NOT our emotions and that we are NOT our memories. We mustn’t identify with our thoughts, if we want to quiet our mind and reveal our true self.

Also, it’s beneficial to establish a ‘practice/abyhasa’ like a regular meditation and yoga practice, and most importantly we need to cultivate an inner attitude of letting go.

Vairagya

By practicing ‘abyhasa’ and ‘vairagya’, we will be led into stillness and hence closer and closer to our true self. With the help of letting go (‘vairagya’), we can find our inner light, our true essence again and we will start shining our (moon)light again, that has been hidden and covered with dust for a long enough time. We can begin to walk the way to our true self.

I love the image of a crystal here. We all are a crystal, but over time, our crystal, our true self, may begin to dust based on wrong identifications or at least identifications that we didn’t really question and hence accepted. The good news is we can start blowing off the dust, today, right here, right now. We are free to dissolve beliefs and limitations, that don’t serve as any longer, and we can create and absorb beliefs that well serve us. By dissolving our old beliefs, we approach our true essence of being, slowly, but surely.

We understand that our happiness does not depend on external factors, but only on what’s within us. We will break out of the prison that we built ourselves, we will break up accepted dogmas, we will free ourselves from living the life that others want us to live and will develop back into our true essence.

Yes, this is somehow rebellion, we rebel to get our lives back and to live the life we really want to live. However, that’s good rebellion, if you ask me.

Let go

To summarise, Patanjalis biggest calling is to practice letting go.

• Accept what you cannot change.
• Forgive as if it never happened.
• Do not judge everything.
• Let go of what is hurting you.

Imagine a full glass of water. Only by letting go and emptying your water glass, you can create space for new, beautiful things that make you lighter, freer and happier.

For me the most beautiful effect of ‘vairagya’ is that I will be able to love and serve even more, as I develop more empathy for others, more strength to support others and I gain clarity for my life.

A matter close to my heart

This is a topic close to my heart due to my personal experience. Through yoga and my travels to Latin America, I became more mindful and conscious about me and my life, hence I started to reflect and question the existing.

Knots were bursting and I started going my way to reveal my true self. I began blowing off the dust of my crystal and gradually saw parts of my true self again, my inner light that I had somehow forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.

I’m still in the process of dedusting my crystal, but knowing that I’ve already broken open a few chains and limitations, makes me feel so happy and free that I would always walk this way again.

Yours, Nina

Freedom – Am I free?

Freedom. Happiness. Love.

These 3 words are my key goals, my why, for being on this journey of personal growth. This article is dedicated to the all important word freedom. But what does freedom actually mean? What does it mean for me? Am I free?

I have stumbled upon these questions more than once now. Probably because I’m on this spiritual journey. Probably because I’m questioning existing beliefs, behaviours and limitations. Probably because I’m curious by nature.

I have always been. 

Yes, I’ve always been curious, but looking back now, I feel like there was one kind of curiosity that was accepted in life, and another curiosity that wasn’t. Because it was too questioning. Too rebellious. Too scary. Which means that over time, I’ve reduced the amount of questions asked, I didn’t challenge the existing as much anymore, I basically lost my natural curiosity about life. I lost who I have always been.

However, it would be unfair to say that it is fully our society’s fault, because at the end of the day I accepted the existing, I accepted certain beliefs, I accepted specific behaviours as well as limitations. Most likely though, the acceptance wasn’t a 100% conscious process, but I trusted that the existing was right, good and I guess normal. Because why would you question something that seems to work? The answer is you wouldn’t, until you do, which is when you realised that things don’t actually work. Well, for me at least.

I’ve been at this point several times now, but my breakthrough to dig deeper and to really question the existing happened whilst travelling through Latin America, especially when I was in Mexico. Ever since, I’ve embarked on a journey, on my inner journey.

Destination: Myself. 

I understood over the last years that my inner journey with the destination ‘Myself’ has long been overdue and is absolutely essential to the pursuit of freedom.

Whilst we are of course influenced by society, our parents and upbringing as well as by politics etc., it is still our choice – especially when we grow older – which influences we actually accept or reject within our value system.

We are free to choose.

This means we can choose every moment who we are and who we truly want to be. But we will only experience true freedom, once our mind is truly free, allowing us to be, truly and authentically.

True self against Troublemaker

However, our true self often faces our difficult self. I like to call it ‘Troublemaker’. We are scared, our thoughts limiting and our self is less wild. Love is increasingly replaced by fear. We’ve lost ourselves.

But don’t we remember what our true essence is? What our purpose of existence is?

True essence

Our true essence is to enjoy life, to play like a child on the playground, to explore, to be happy and to love.

I am craving that life again, a life of freedom, of happiness and love. I got an amazing taster of life and my true essence whilst travelling through Latin America and I simply cannot go back. I want to get to the bottom of my true self again. I want to let go of all limiting beliefs, I want to express my feelings, I don’t want to live my life on other people’s terms, so that I’m being liked and accepted, I first and foremost want to like myself.

Because I’ve understood: If I like myself, I can dissolve everything that does not serve me any longer. I can blow off the dust of my very own diamond that is my true and authentic self.

And then I can go and get my freedom back, visualising everything I’ve always dreamt of.

PS: Do you see the yellow reflection on the picture? On the left side, right where the heart is? No more words needed…

Go and follow your heart.

Yours, Nina

 

 

 

 

When wishing for the pause button

As the year 2017 came to an end, I reflected and reviewed my big and small wins and well as what I failed at, what I could have done better. No worries, I’m not going to write this all down here, but I think it is important for every single one of us to complete that bit of work. Not to beat ourselves up, but on the contrary. Because I noticed that I actually achieved a lot, there were loads of small wins, that I didn’t give myself enough credit during the year. Btw, I’m not only talking about projects, but also shifts in my mindset, changes in my behaviour and actions taken. Of course I also recognised my failures, but the good thing is, you can only learn from them, you can make things better next time. Just be conscious of yourself, your behaviours and actions. Be mindful of those behaviours and actions you’d like to change and then just think “Oh, I was just about to do it again” and then act differently. Break that habit!

Be mindful and break that habit.

After I reviewed my big and small wins, I also pictured my 2018. I wrote down my vision for 2018 at the end of last year. My vision relating to various aspects in my life, like my job/work situation, health & fitness, love, relationship and my ideal set up to live. I thought to myself “Well done, Nina” until I had a call with my coach on 2nd of January to dig deeper into my vision and my associated goals. Despite my daily gratitude, yoga and meditation practice, there were still a few challenges and limiting beliefs that needed to be melted in order to reach my true vision – speaking from my heart. And we did. After the session, I went back to my vision and it sounded too rational in a way, so I re-wrote it completely. I moved from my head to my heart. And I was brave enough to listen.

Move from your head to your heart. And listen. It will reveal the truth.

My coach also asked me what I wish for my spiritual growth in 2018. And here we go. I have a little story to tell to answer that question.

I’m writing the 31st of December 2017. I wake up with a content feeling. The sun is out and it’s already 12 degrees outside, yes really. I jump out of bed (and that day I literally did!), I quickly changed into my running gear and 20 minutes later I was out of the door, direction Isar river in Munich. The second I stepped outside, I was just feeling so happy, so calm, yet excited about life, so grateful, so whohoooo, a feeling difficult to describe. My almost ecstatic feeling even intensified when I started running and moving my body, feeling the sun on my skin and in my face. I couldn’t do anything about it (and I didn’t want to), but I was running around grinning like a Cheshire cat. Even now whilst writing this, I have to laugh.

And whilst I was fully enjoying the run, the sun, the movement, and simply my own company, there was this second of thinking “I want to hold this feeling.” This thought instantly moved me from being in the here and now to longing for something. I tried to hold on to something beautiful and let’s be honest, if there was the possibility sometimes in life to hit the Pause button, we might all happily use that button.

When wishing for the pause button…

Interestingly I find that the topics that I’m engaging with, suddenly appear everywhere in different shapes and forms. One appearance was in a yoga class. The teacher opened the class with exactly that thought.

We try to hold onto things we like and we try to get rid of feelings we dislike. But how about letting go of all likes and dislikes? How about loving what we love in the moment we love it? How about enjoying what is in the moment the enjoyment is present? How about accepting what we dislike in the moment we dislike it? How about accepting suffering (dukha) as part of our lives to be able to fully enjoy the pleasures (sukha)?

…makes you fall out of the here and now.

So, to bridge back to the question, what do I wish for my spiritual growth in 2018?

I want to let go of all likes and dislikes to be in the here and now, at all times.

Yours, Nina

Brainwashed?

This blog post is inspired by a conversation I had with my sister on the phone, she lives in Frankfurt with her family. Lovely Katrin, I’m dedicating this post to you.

My sister and me haven’t been chatting for a while, so there was loads to catch up on, but also I wanted to talk with her about Christmas. All these last years, my sister stayed in Frankfurt to celebrate Christmas and I would be with my parents in Munich. However, this year, it was important for me to bring us all together.

And yes, there are always ‘problems’ to overcome, like who sleeps where, who brings what, what do we cook, etc. We all know that these are no real problems though, hence the quotation marks. These are ‘problems’ we create in our heads, we make things way more complicated than they are, and there are various reasons for why we do this.

However, one thing became super clear to me in this conversation. There were only two options.

Option 1) We really want to be together for Christmas. In this case, we can work the rest out and everybody just needs to relax a bit.

Option 2) We don’t want to be together for Christmas. In this case, let’s just be honest with each other and say so instead of looking for ‘problems’ and making things difficult.

One big learning I’ve had over these last couple of years is to talk ‘Tacheles’, haha, this is German and basically means, that you should speak the truth in an honest and straight-forward way. Of course, we should all keep in mind not to offend someone. But rather than making things complicated and talking about non-existent problems, let’s just be honest with each other and make things work, one way or another.

Back to the Christmas story. I mentioned exactly the above points to my sister. And suddenly it was like a big knot in her head popped “Hm, yes you are right”, she said. The next day she called my parents to organise what needed organising. I was so pleased.

In that same conversation, we talked about relationships, children, time for ourselves and how we are sometimes not too happy with how things are splashing along. Within seconds, I was fully switched on. I’ve been dealing with these topics for the last couple of years really. And in these last few months specifically, I’ve been looking into the subject of resilience, de-conditioning and re-conditioning and how one can let go of old identities and beliefs. In doing so, I came across a lovely quote from Jean Houston, which I will translate into English for this post:

Development involves letting go of a small story to become aware of a big story.

I realised in the last couple of years that I paid too much attention to the small stories in my life, that I gave them too much room. I was simply busy dealing with external things, maybe I was trying to escape…? But then suddenly – triggered by two broken relationships within a short period of time – I had my Aha-moment. I became aware that I can choose freely how much time and space I’m giving to certain things in my life, how much suffering I’m accepting in my life, how many good things I let into my life or even attract into my life and I can also choose freely how I react in challenging situations.

And then I realised:

This is my big story. Personal development.

The progress of letting go and re-conditioning certain identities and behaviours in my life to my true self by giving myself permission. I didn’t really understand that there was one piece missing until such time that I was already right in the middle of my personal development. And suddenly it became clear what a wonderful change I had accomplished for myself and my life.

I’m still en route, but this route feels so much more beautiful and aligned with me.

And now I want to explain the title ‘Brainwashed’ of this article. When my sister and me talked about the topics mentioned above, I realised just how calm, focused and clear I was. At the same time I felt full of love for myself, for her, for my path and for hers. And she responded with a little laugh (as she probably doesn’t know me like this):

Have you been brainwashed, Nina?

And I replied ‘Yes, but I brainwashed myself. With personal development.’ To live a more fulfilled and happier life. A life that is right and true for me.

If you can relate to this article, look no further, but at yourself and walk your way. It will be worth it.

Yours, Nina

Yoga Teacher Training-Episode 1

As promised, I would like to share with you my experiences during my yoga teacher training (YTT), which started on Friday. I will be putting up a post for each of the 8 weekends in total, so this one is episode 1. Stay tuned, if you want to know more about my insights, ’cause maybe you are considering a training, too?

First things first, I’ve been so much looking forward to my training, meeting new people with hopefully a similar and positive mindset, and getting deeper into my yoga practice.

We started the YTT with an introduction about who we are, what we usually do (work-wise), how long we’ve been practicing yoga, which styles, if we are already teaching, if we have completed a training already, and most importantly why we are here.

Why am I here?

I decided to do the yoga teacher training to get deeper into my practice and to learn more about the yoga philosophy. Where is yoga coming from? What does it stand for in its purest form? What’s the ultimate purpose of yoga? Another reason for me was to go on an even deeper spiritual journey in a safe environment with the wish to solve some topics for myself, too. Topics where I feel stuck, and that manifest themselves in my mind & body.

After the introduction, we went straight into the asana practice with Nella. We started with standing poses such as Tadasana, Utthita Hatasana, Uttanasana and Utkatasana. Writing this is a great way to learn the Sanskrit names. With each of the asanas, we clarified what the positive effects are on the body and most importantly how your alignment should be in the asana to avoid misalignment and injury. We followed the same process for Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog). The teachers and assistants would then normally pick about 3 people from the group to show common challenges and risks in each asana. These will then be discussed and corrected. We also learned modifications and which tools (such as blocks, belt etc.) to use when necessary. After a few hours of valuable yoga practice, we finished the practice with a relaxing and reviving Yoga Nidra session. Gosh, how I love this! I’m heading home smiley and happy and ready to sleep.

Conclusion: The first day was a full success. We are a nice bunch of people, all different, and yet with one thing that connects us all… yoga.

Day 2 starts at 9.00am with a meditation and continues with a beautiful yoga practice of approximately 2.5 hours. I can definitely say that I’ve not felt my muscles like this before. Each asana is complex on its own, even Tadasana is challenging if you really make all the changes in your body. I must say I already love this feeling of feeling my entire body, all my muscles and my mental presence so much.

Then we get to hands-on assists. Assists are so valuable, if received by an experienced teacher. The corrections do not only go into your head, but into your body and mind. If you just let go, you can feel the changes and it feels amazing. It’s this Aha moment.

Pretty soon thereafter we go together in groups of 3 and teach our own class consisting of 3 asanas, including verbal corrections and assists. I start in our group and I really do enjoy it. Yes, I forgot to mention all the relevant points in each asana, but hey this is what we are here for. Most importantly, I keep thinking, yes I love this! We finish the day with a 15 minute Savasana, where I receive an absolutely wonderful neck and shoulder massage from one of our assistants. I leave the yoga studio at 5pm feeling fulfilled.

Conclusion: The 2nd day provided so much input already and I cannot wait to make use of it all in my own yoga practice.

Day 3 is our spiritual philosophy day with Ralph. I’ve been really looking forward to this part too, because as you know I like personal development, I love yoga and I love the spiritual journey we are all on, consciously or not. Actually writing this article makes me realise how complex and yet simple this topic is. But I’m struggling to summarise the day at this stage. We spoke about where the term yoga stems from, what yoga actually means (it means self-fulfilment), we spoke about immortality, but how we all need to die one day. Most importantly though we realised that we have one more thing in common, in addition to practicing yoga. We are all on the search for our purpose of existence. Some want to know more, some less, but at the end of the day, we are all trying to find our place in life, on earth.

Conclusion: This YTT is one of the best decisions I’ve made so far. A heart decision, that I’m sure will open up new spaces physically, mentally and emotionally.

Yours, Nina

 

What do you want?

I had booked a 5 day yoga retreat in Tulum, Mexico, with the intention to become calmer and to move out of my head and into my heart. The retreat took place in the hotel Yoga Shala, which turned to be one of my favourite places to stay in Tulum.

The retreat greatly combined yoga with meditation and coaching input. One day, we spent the entire morning looking at different areas in our life. The task was to dream the best imaginable scenario in each area and to write down a few sentences.

The areas we looked at were:

• Truth – Communication – Listening
• Intuition
• Connection to Higher Power
• Sexual – Sensual
• Will – Power – Self Worth
• Love – Heart

I still have all my (pink) notes from that day. Looking at them now approximately one year later is so powerful. And I notice one thing amongst them all. It’s all about connection. It has been back then and it is still now with an even stronger feeling.

For me, the first point was majorly about having enriching, inspiring and authentic conversations with people where I can be the best listener without any expectations or boundaries. Where I’m truly present in that moment. This is still true for me now. I’m still practicing paying full attention during a conversation though, as sometimes I can still be distracted.

Intuition was all about connecting with my heart and my gut feel, as it will speak the truth, always. This is still true for me now and I’m getting better each and every day, but there are still moments where I overhear my intuition and just go with what I should do instead of what I would like to do.

Connection to higher power was about being my own Goddess and feeling amazing with myself at all times. This is not my truth anymore. I remember that I was lost on that one during the session, as I’m not religious, and I simply didn’t know what I wanted to be connected to. So I guess I just wrote something. However, I do know now. I feel connected to the universe and the more I trust myself, others and the world, the better my life seems to develop.

Sexuality and sensuality was strongly linked to love during the retreat and it is still now. I do believe that the moment you indulge sexually, you indulge emotionally. Because we all want to feel connected, we all want to feel loved.

Will, power and self-worth were all about being heard as much as possible and being able to express my authentic me. This is still true for me now. If I can express myself, I feel great, I am authentic and I love myself.

Love was probably the most relevant area for me. And it is still now. I want to become an endlessly loving person that gives love, but doesn’t expect it back. A person who is able to let go. At the end of the day, we all live for love!

Now, it’s your turn. Make yourself comfortable with a beautiful notebook and a nicely coloured pen (mine are pink of course) and write down a few sentences to each of the areas, without thinking too much, just write down what comes to your mind first. Let your heart lead the process.

Once you have completed this, continue with the following questions:

• What do I want?
• Why? Which feeling would I like to feel when I get what I want?
• What will happen for me, if I create this change in my life?

Your answers will guide you to your purpose of existence. If the answers are strong enough, they will be your key motivation to live the life you really want.

Yours, Nina