Happy International Yoga Day,

From all of my heart I truly hope you got to practice yoga today. I had to pleasure of teaching two wonderful classes, one at Meridian Ranch Rec Center and one at Hippie Soul Yoga. Both classes with truly amazing students. Today took me on a mental journey to when it all started and it goes way back…

When I was in my late teens we had a small (only room for 6 people I think) yoga place near me and I joined because one of my best friends joined and she loved it. This was around 1997 if I remember it right. I still remember the smell of this place, it was like a small oasis of calmness and deep peace. The Yoga mats where thick and the poses mostly laying down, or seated. I always felt completely in peace when I was here. And I loved my yoga teacher Helle, she was and is still a true sweet lovely person, whom I will always look up to. Their home was very welcoming and I even had a chance to eat dinner with her family a couple of times, enjoying the organic magical foods they served, food I never had been served before. These classes sparked my interest and I continued to practice yoga over the years of and on. It wasn’t until 2017, 20 years later I finally stepped into the role as a teacher and what a journey it has been. I lost my boyfriend Christian in 2016, he died the last Monday of august from an aorta dissection. This threw me under the bus and I was sick for a long time. I also went through a personal a difficult journey being sick and I wasn’t able to really get back on my legs again until I started digging deeper into Yoga and Meditation. When I wasn’t able to practice Crossfit anymore, I practiced Yin yoga, even though I didn’t love Yin, Yin took me where I needed to be and “we” developed a very close relationship that promoted more healing then I would have ever imagined.

In 2017 I travelled to Koh Samui in Thailand, all by myself. I had before made some really difficult choices to live some time in Greenland and to try to heal and come back as a more balanced and whole person. My choice was a Yin Yoga 100 hour YTT. Little did I know that this was the steps to something much much bigger then I could ever imagine.

I cried myself through almost every single yin pose, all I remember that the space was being held for me and the wound from loosing Christian slowly started to mend. The trauma from both the grief and my surgery that gave me PTSD, was still an open wound, but here in Thailand surrounded by nature and like minded people, it was easier to just be with it. I traveled inward so deep that at some point through the training my body with “bounce” me out of a pose because it had enough. I learned to listen to my body, to feel again, to sense and to be with my grief. Sometimes I would open my eyes and I would find another student close to me, whispering I got you, or Im here. The pure love of holding the space was my healing, I will never be able to thank each one of the people enough for the space held and for them being there for me.

Each meditation I had was a transforming, I still recall the smell, the voices, the birds singing, the cars that drove by and the sounds of the waves of the ocean near by. I knew I had to take this journey, I didn’t know where it would take me, and I never dreamt of it taking me back to the states.

After my first 100 hours, I went back to Greenland to teach. After a year it was time for another journey to Thailand, this time Koh Phangan, a smaller iceland close to Koh Samui. My second Yoga course was 250 hours, YTT. 200 Multi teacher training and 50 hours Ariel Yoga. This was a completely different set up, but the group of people taking this course were amazing. 200 hours of yoga training is not a walk in the park, but I felt a lot more balanced and calm, maybe because I knew what I signed up for. The course few by like a sweet summer breeze, being so close to the ocean, sipping the sweet fresh coconut water every day, was like living a true dream. It was also on this journey I made my discovery of ceremonial cacao. This almost impossible to get drink was hard to find, but at one of the Ecstatic dance events, they served cacao right outside the Ecstatic dance scene. I remember sipping it like it was pure gold. I was a fan right away. And again with that first sip, a thousand other dreams have become true. I traveled to Bali after with a friend, that magic of Koh Phangan didn’t wear off right away and with Bali coming after, it’s hard to say what was the most magical experience. Bali brought a buzz of busy beyond anything I have ever experienced, Bali has it’s own order of being able to transform you personally and at the north side of the iceland on a stunning retreat I desided finally to claim my own name. This story is one that has to be told in a separate post, but it’s closely connected to the transformation I have been through.

After 2 months in the warmth and beautiful Bali I returned with so much radiance and inner life joy again, that I was finally able to recognize the pieces of my life puzzle again. After returning to Thule I went into the process of legally changing my name and this is also the point where I met my husband Tim. After dating Tim for some time, we decided that we wanted to continue our dating and after one year he bought the house we live in now and asked me to marry him. As you all know covid hit and just after we filed the papers for the engagement, everything shut down. Again yoga came into the picture and we started practicing yoga together online, because we were not able to be together for the longest time. When I finally after almost one year was able to move to the USA, I still had to wait months to get my work visa, I decided to try a 300 YTT after Yoga Alliance finally opened up for online trainings. I signed up for a joined combination of 200 hours Ashtanga and 300 years Yoga teacher Multi style training. I also decided to teach via zoom 2 days a week. This yoga journey was different, but I must admit I truly enjoyed it and at some points I felt like I had to go deeper into this form of training. We had to submit a lot of videos, meditations, breathwork and we had to teach different areas from the Yogic philosophy. Even though covid was a hard time in everyones life, alot of positive things came out of it. I continued teaching online and I started my own company called Moon Harmony LLC. This company still exists and has developed into being much more then just yoga, I now have Reiki Master and soon to be a sound healer also. After the world opened up again I started working different studios around town, today my classes are limited to Hippie Soul yoga and Meridian Ranch Rec Center, places I truly love to be at and they are both close to where I live.

Even though Yoga have taken me through some of the lowest points of my life, I have grown more then I never thought from practicing yoga. Even with hundred of hours of training, I still struggle with flexibility due to Lyme disease and inflammation in my body, this I truly hope to be able to recover from the time to come, to explore how my yoga practice looks like with a body that is 100 % in top tuned health.

In case no-one told you today, you are amazing, fantastic, you are loved and

you can do everything you set your mind into.

Namaste,

Penelope