It usually hits me when I’m cycling. The physical motion is inviting to a state of mindfulness and, from there, this inner-awareness often arises. It starts out with this feeling that there’s something I need to get rid of. As if I were carrying too many things on me, things that ‘don’t belong’. I might be tired, feel spaced out, or unsettled.
Continue reading “I let go of the superficial therefore I reconnect”
It was January 2014. From the beginning of that month, I would have to commit to a Dutch language course, every Tuesday and Thursday evening, at a building called De Potgieter, located at a pretty square in Amsterdam West. I had finished a beginner’s course around one year before that. The municipality of Amsterdam, who was paying for my studies, had stated I could not postpone the attendance of the second level anymore. Otherwise, they would stop financing me. Sounded fair. It was a now or never situation, thus. I was hoping it’d work.
Continue reading “The girls who make me smile with all my teeth”
“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for the truth” // Benjamin Disraeli
“I am afraid I can’t fall in love anymore”, my friend tells me, with a smartphone in hand, his Tinder account left open. The shiny screen he holds so tightly is a promise of happiness in the form of endless beautiful faces smiling at you, stating availability, opening a passage to something greater than the dullness of everyday life, the loneliness most of us know all too well.
One of the people that have impacted me the most during my yoga teacher training at Tula Amsterdam is Carolina. She’s kind and soft, warm and witty; one of those people one immediately likes. Now that the training has passed I must admit that it wasn’t an easy period for me. It was a time of big changes and uncertainties in my life and I felt disconnected and anxious more often than not. Moreover, a yoga teacher training can be a very confronting experience in which your shortcomings get so exposed in your eyes, and any emotion present may feel like it’s double its size. Carolina’s presence was soothing. We got together to practice, she met my mother, and we even got the chance to do a yoga photoshoot together. When she announced she had to take the final exam earlier because she was going back to Spain, I felt pained at first. Continue reading “Carolina and her yoga retreat in Menorca”
It all started like this. He shuffled up the cards and suggested I picked one. SO… I did. I read the question. I sighed. Here comes a hard one, was the thought that crossed my mind. I wouldn’t have been able to answer this question, in all honesty, ten years ago. Now I know that it’s important that I do. When we’re sincere and open about our struggles, we help others feel less inadequate and less alone. If not for you, do it for them.
