First of all: I love Yoga!!!  It’s good for your body, mind and soul.

How did I get in to yoga?

When I grew up I did all kinds of sports. At the age of 5 I started with ballet as I grew older I also got into jazz dance and modern dance (dancing was my life, I loved it and still do) while I was a dancer I also tried tennis for a few years. I did aerobics (I learned it and became an instructor, but only for a short time). I have done fitness and not to forget Tae bo. Do you remember that one or maybe it’s new to you. Well, I really liked it. Billy Blanks was on fire, hihihi. So as you can read I tried all kinds of sports, but dancing was the one sport I never quitted.

At the age of 24 my body was starting to give me signals. I needed to take better care for myself. Ha, that’s what I know now. But when I was 24 I was like:

I am dying, I can’t breathe, something is really wrong with me, am I depressed?, somebody help me!!! and even the love of my life, Didi (now a days he is my husband) couldn’t help me.

I went to my doctor. She called it anxiety attacks and hyperventilation. She advised me to stop working for a while. In the mean time I needed to go to a psychologist, a physiotherapist and she gave me some pills, only to use if I felt really bad. So, I did what she told me. Took time from my work, I weekly went to a psychologist  and a physiotherapist for 6 months and once in a while I needed to take a pill, because at some moments I didn’t know what else to do. Sometimes I just couldn’t keep it together and the only way out seemed to take a pill.

I hate taking pills, but if I took one, I calmed down and got tired. I would mostly fall asleep and after I woke up my anxiety attack was over. So the pills helped, but I knew they were not THE solution. The anxiety attacks and the hyperventilation got less. So I started working again and tried to pick up my old life. I thought that I was doing great. I had my job, a boyfriend, a house, a cat. Everything seemed perfect and I would have an anxiety attack or hyperventilation only once in a while. That wasn’t so bad. I learned to live with it.

Lives goes on…..

At the age of 26 I got pregnant. Wow, I felt really good. That’s the first time I went to a yoga class. It was a class full with pregnant woman. I Iiked it and I learned a lot. Especially the breathing part. A few months after I gave birth to my first beautiful daughter I went to a hatta yoga class. I tried it for a few weeks, but at that time it wasn’t my thing. So I kept on dancing, but instead of 5 times a week dance class, I now just went 3 times a week. That was more than enough for me at that moment.

At the age of 29 I gave birth to my second beautiful girl and at the age of 31 I gave birth to my third beautiful girl.  Until that point my life seemed perfect. I thought I had it all. But then, when I was 32 years,  my hyperventilation got worse again and I needed to quit dancing. Somehow I didn’t have the strength anymore and I had trouble with my breathing during dance class. I tried other sports, but every sport was too heavy for me. So I decided to do no sports at all for I while.

In the meantime I lost a lot of weight, even though I ate a lot, I got cranky (moodswings), I had hair loss, I felt tired, but was restless, etc. Well let’s say: it wasn’t the best time of my life. But still I kept going. I thought: well, I’m a mother of three, I work part-time, I do my housekeeping, etc. Maybe it’s too much for me and that’s probably the reason why I’m feeling so shitty.

What the bleep is a thyroid?

Then, one night, when I was sitting on the couch with Didi just watching a movie, I felt really restless. So I measured my heart rate and it seemed really high. I told didi and we measured it together. It was 130 beats a minute and that just in relax mode when I was sitting on the couch. That didn’t seemed right. I measured it later that evening again and the day after, but my heartrate didn’t get lower. The next day I made an appointment with my doctor. She wanted me to check my blood. So I did.

The result was: an overactive thyroid which is also called Graves disease. WHAT??? Never heart of it. What the bleep is a thyroid? My doctor explained me what it meant; a tiny little butterfly-shaped gland (the thyroid) located in the middle of the neck is overactive and that’s causing all of my symptoms.

My doctor send me to an internist and one thing lead to another. The internist described me some pills and I needed to visit her every month for a year for check-up. After a year of taking pills my thyroid was working again as it should. Sadly A year later I got the symptoms back and my thyroid was working to fast again. I was like, no pills again so I searched the solution in the alternative circuit. I tried a lot of treatments but they all didn’t work and so I decided to try the pills again and start living a bit more relaxed. After a few months I was able to quit taking pills and I just needed a check-up once a year.

In the meantime I started to think more about myself and decided to live my life instead of all the other people’s lives. I also started with Hatta yoga, because I was feeling bored, I needed to do some kind of exercise and a lot of people where telling me how good yoga would be for me. It was no coincidence that one of my best friends is a yoga teacher so when she invited me for her class, I went. This time I loved it. It felt really good doing something for myself, that’s good for my body, mind and soul.

And now ?

Now I’m 39 years and still practising yoga as much as I can. The beautiful part is that I can practise yoga everywhere. There are no boundaries (in my house, in the garden, in a park, on the beach etc.). If I practice yoga it’s about me and exactly that gives me so much satisfaction. I love stretching my body, it makes me agile and flexible. Not only my body, but also in my mind. Yoga gives me energy and

    
it quiets down my mind. I haven’t used pills for some years now, so I think it’s true that if you just take care of yourself and you listen to your body you will feel better.

By the way: my kids love it as well. At the moment they love acro yoga and often we do the sun salution (sūrya namaskāra) together. I really love that one. So, I used to be hooked on dancing, now I’m hooked on yoga. Yoga is the way of life for me at the moment.
Maybe you are already practising yoga. Maybe you are considering on taking a yoga class. All I can say is: try it!!!  If you don’t try it, you don’t know it. If you live in Venlo I would reccomend Yogahuis Venlo.

Do you want to know more about me then visit https://yolofamilytravel.com/lets-meet-the-family/ or just send us an mail.