Yoga is a gateway drug

The first time it was around 1989…
A girl in my class was doing it.
I felt curious, but also very skeptical about it, as I was still in my phase of Jesus, believing that he is saving me and coming back and to be a missionary to help other people to believe in the Lord.
From this perspective something with such a strange sound like YOGA could only come straight out of the kitchen of the devil. “Teufelszeug” as my mom would say, which means as much as “things from the devil”.
In the year 1999 my whole life changed: I heard the music of Massive attack and I watched “The Matrix” . After the film I broke up with my boy friend, with whom I was together for almost 7 years ( yes, that damn 7th year…), I just felt like in a cul-de-sac, there must be more to life, then I was living…
It was a hard time for me: I started a psychoanalysis.
I was always interested in that process, now I was ready…
I was grinding my teeth. My dentist said: Why don´t you try Yoga?
There it was again this dangerously strong sounding word.
It was not that dangerous any longer, as they suddenly started to offer it in my fitness studio.
I went and I got addicted immediately.
The last position I liked the best, I fell asleep and when they woke me up, I felt I slept for 1000 years, totally refreshed.
I wanted to have more.
As I am a quiet obsessive person I like to dive deep into things, to find out more, to experience them fully.
I like to go to places nobody would go, or only few, I do sometimes things nobody would do.
I am an explorer and adventurer of life.
So, give me yoga!
I went everyday, if there was no class in my fitness studio, I would go to other studios, which would belong to the same chain as mine. I would ride my bicycle crisscross through the whole city of Berlin just for YOGA.
I would start even my own practice at home, twice a day I was on the mat, trying to understand what was happening with me, with my body, with the yearning of a deeper connection …
Although I was super disconnected from myself, that's why I went to the Psychoanalysis, I wanted to find out, what it was, that deep down was torturing me.
I was drawing a lot in those times. One of the drawings was myself putting my own hand inside of me, like as if there was a big whole in my chest and I wrote next to it: There is nothing I am empty.
This was the whole I wanted to fill. I tried it with sex, but that is another story to come.
So there was yoga, it would fill it a bit, in a strange fashion.
Finally 2006 I went to India and I thought:
“Ok, now I am going to dive into it fully, I go to the roots, to the mother.” Indeed I really had the call by the mother and I was going to Auroville.
I was so excited about yoga. There was a woman, she was teaching astangha yoga. You would sweat like a pig and I thought perfect, that's the right thing for me, as I didn’t feel well in my body, as I didn’t fulfill a certain Body Image that I had of myself. I wanted to loose weight.
After two times practicing I felt super under pressure and dropped the class. Then I found another teacher, but my landlady told me, that this teacher forced her into a position once and since then she had dangerous kidney problems.
In the three and a half months I was in India I somehow lost completely my interest in yoga, I stopped my daily practice. That was it. And I started to dance and immersed myself fully into dancing daily.
2010 I had my second crash: this time I had a divorce. I had stopped working with my gallery, which meant I was out of the art market. The film company my ex-husband, a friend and I had together was falling completely apart and with that my whole dream of Hotel Believe and with that I thought my life purpose was gone.
Later I understood, that my awareness of my life purpose was just growing and expanding and leading me to my real self and to my authenticity, to my truth.
But right then I was devastated, lost and sick, burned out, disillusioned and guess who was there?
Yeap Yoga, my old friend, my rhythm, my breath, my pain all there on the mat.
Meanwhile it was such a hip movement, sometimes I almost felt ashamed I belonged to it…
I always wanted to be different and rather creating trends, then following them…
But what can I do. Yoga just makes me feel so good…. could not stop it.
Now I would not go to fitness studios any longer, no now there were fancy yoga studios popping out of the ground everywhere…
One of my favorite ones was Spirit Yoga and I started to go regular again.
Yoga had me back: I would attend intensives, kundalini yoga, flow…etc. but never too much, so nobody would think I am also one of them, they call themselves junkies.
Then there are all different kinds of junkies: spirit junkies, freedom junkies…yoga junkies…all the junkies…I would never call my self anything connected with junk, even if it sounds funny, but in these days, as we understand more and more the power of words and that they create reality…well you decide which words you use.
One thing for sure I am addicted to yoga, layer for layer I go deeper and it has a similar effect as the other green gateway drug: it reveals your truth, to speak your truth, to be and live your truth.
…to be continued…
Thank You for staying till the end with me, I know there is a lot out there…I appreciate your time and let me know, whenever you have a question or a remark or….
Don´t hesitate to contact me
Injoy
Yours Mikki
