I remember my first time I did yoga, it was in Bruges, a class at lunchtime. I could not wait until class was over… boring I thought. I needed action, dance, run… all to stop my monkey mind, just doing slow asanas and shavasana, what was that about, concentrating on your breathing and relaxing :).
Fast forward years later, yoga and also meditation kept popping up in my life, during my travels, attending yoga classes in Colombia, El Salvador, on ships and back home in Brussels and later in Ghent. I found my favorite teachers and noticed the changes in my flexibility, and generally becoming a calmer, softer person.
I never imagined me ever going to be a yoga teacher, for one teaching, I am quite a shy person, the idea of teaching was absolutely frightening and 2. in 1999 I had a severe traffic accident leaving me with many fractures such as rib, clavicula, femur and patela injuries, which had an impact on my mobility and life in general.
As I was doing more and more yoga and some friends of mine were doing yoga teacher trainings I started looking into it and checking out how I could combine it with my work and personal life.
That’s when I found Yogalife, they had a teacher training in Ghent, it’s a company originally from India and I knew some of the teachers beforehand and enthusiastic students who had followed the training.
I loved the training weekends, meeting beautiful yoga souls from all over the country (and neighbour) countries. The teachers and subjects were amazing. After all it’s really not about the asanas but the whole yoga lifestyle and next to the yoga practice we had anatomy, meditation, yoga philosophy classes and much more.
There I was once again confronted with my physical limitations, certain poses I could not do, my ego mind was asking me why I was there as I saw many of my fellow students fluently doing all the poses. Of course I overstept and overdid myself, resulting in more pain and injuries just because I could not accept where I was at that time.
After the training I continued to practice yoga a lot, combining it with crossfit lessons and running. Once again totally not following what my body was saying what simply was; take it easy, I am tired.
It was by speaking to health practicioners and also listening to myself explaining my story over and over again, that I realized, this is what I just have to do, take it easy, no more doctors, no more massages or fysiotherapists just simply listening to my body and follow its leads.
So that was what I did, I still practiced yoga but really listened to what my body was saying, I stopped doing crossfit and running for a while, being to hard on my body for that time. During my practice I respected my limitations and paid attention on not overdoing. And sometimes simply not doing yoga for a day.
And that’s just it. That is yoga, respecting yourself and your body. And here is what I mean with yoga for everybody. I really believe there is a yoga practice for everybody. Whether you are young or old, fit or not, flexible or not. Whether you need some active dynamic yoga or a more relaxing yoga class. There is so much out there, so many amazing yoga teachers who share lovingly their knowledge. Go and discover a class nearby or online. And of course you are welcome in my classes online or (soon) in real life.
Lots of love.
Véronique