When I practiced yoga for the first time, I did not know much about it –  I just got the feeling that yoga would be good for me. I thought it might be a nice way for me to turn the focus more on myself and to get rid of that feeling of constant lostness. By that time, I did not only feel lost – I felt lonely and as if there is no love in my life. I did not understand, that it actually was not love from other people or from my family that was missing.

Starting to constantly meditate and combining meditation with Asanas and Pranayamas helped me in so many ways to feel a little more grounded. Though, what I did not expect was that so many old feelings would be starting to come up. I had to live through so many different emotions and crying all the tears that needed to be cried for a very long time. Bringing up all of these old emotions, yoga made me seek guidance. I found a very beautiful soul that became my mentor and my spiritual teacher. With her help and through constantly practicing yoga, I started working on different traumas – every one of them closely connected to a chakra. 

One of my traumas had caused that I had been putting all the energy I had and every spare minute into supporting other people as well as into pleasing other people for the sake of being loved. I realized that most of the things I decided to do in my life were not things that I truly wanted – my job, my studies, my hobbies and even my behavior and my cute voice were actually all things that I thought would make my family, society, my boyfriend happy. 

This realization shook me up. It was actually not love from other people that was missing. It was self love. By constantly putting the focus on other people, I completely lost track of what I wanted and who I really was. But above all, by refusing to live my own truth and constantly making other people a priority, by chasing their love, I was disrespecting myself and showing myself that I was not worth being loved. 

Through practicing yoga, I learned to concentrate on myself, to differentiate between external and internal and to pay attention to my own desires. Yoga did not only help me opening my chakras and working on my traumas – Yoga made me find the most profound love: self love. It made me listen to my inner truth, follow my own path and take my destiny into my own hands. 

And it taught me a very beautiful lesson: by loving myself every day a little more, by following my destiny more and more, my relationships started to flourish without even putting any additional effort into them. I started to meet humans with so much love and curiosity – and I am getting back an incredible amount of love, kindness and compassion no matter where I am going. 

Picture taken by beautiful Ferry Tan, showing our closing circle at The Practice Bali.