I quit.

I quit my Yoga studio yesterday. I had my own studio for a year now and I gave it away yesterday. there´s still stuff to figure out (e.g. who buys a hundred yoga mats, belts and blocks...) but it´s the first step after a long struggle to let it go.

I quit working as a yoga teacher abour 2 months ago. It was horrible. I wasn´t able to work anymore, there was nothing I could give that wouldn´t mean for myself to bleed and suffer. but still I beat myself up for being weak and being a loser. it took me weeks to understand that I am allowed to make this decision. that I don´t have to suffer for anyone.

I quit living the life I thought others expected me to live. or even I epected myself to live. I dared to stop earning money, letting go of all responsibilities (working on that part) and to start to listening what I really need and want. Maybe that´s a first. I guess it is. At least this consciously.

As soon as I stopped working, I started to smoke again. After 5 years being a non-smoker! I just needed the dramatic gesture. I just didn´t know how to breathe deeply anymore (this coming from a breath-loving yoga teacher) without some nicotine guiding the air into the depths of my lungs. But I quit that, too. After too many (wonderful) evenings with a friend contemplating about life with (non-alcoholic, yes I´m a true party master) beer and way too many cigarettes, I decided it´s time to quit again. I quit before, I never wanted to smoke again, none of the cells in my body wanted this crap inside me anymore, so I quit. I mastered 2 days so far. There´s no cravings, and I am glad that not yet another obsession has slowly crawled back into my life.

Speaking of obsessions. I haven´t quit all of them. They are fighting insinde me for so many years now I guess they just got used to the game. It´s hard to imagine them not doing that anymore, but that´s my big learning task for now. Lettting go.
I have had an eating disorder from early age on, after losing a lot of weight I gained much more after and I am struggling ever since. on the outside with my weight (and excepting my body as beautiful) and on the inside (allowing myself to live and therefore to eat). there have been good, bad and worse times, but I am afraid I have never been happy with how I looked and felt. due to a more or less yogic diet I lost quite a few kilos over the last years, having achieved a healthy weight of 57-59 kilos, I am a tiny 1,61 m woman. only to find myself fall back into old patterns of bingeing and feeling horribly guilty, only compensation that feeling with more food. and yes, tomorrow I´ll be strong again, tomorrow, tomorrow. tomorrow still is tomorrow. So I have gained at least 5 kilos, which doesn´t sound too dramatic (even when I type it here) but it feels enormous and it´s so frustrating to have gained all that back... I feel like an elephant. I know I don´t look like one but I feel like one. My clothes hardly fit me anymore (thank god it´s too hot to wear jeans, and thank god for all the lovely wide dresses on the market) and I freak out by the look into my closet. In one of my very dearly loved self help books I luckily happened to find many years ago, there is this sentence: You cannot 'feel fat'. Fat is not a feeling. But I KNOW it is. And I KNOW I´m not the only one.

So here I am, a 30-year-old yoga teacher who dropped everything apart from that excess weight, but I did drop my job, my financial existence, my business, my career plans, my pressure to go on and on although I wasn´t able anymore to do so ...
And yes there is something else I didn´t drop. My will to live and to finally find my way to be relaxed, faithful and happy.

I will keep you posted ;-)