Jon Bon Jovi Jakarta May 6, 1995; Click for a compilation of this concert
On May 6, 2020, we go back in time 25 years, and end up in Jakarta Indonesia, where Bon Jovi will totally be rocking the house, giving a sold out concert which has been edited for television. This moment in Bon Jovi history, will be the starting point of my new YouTube series.
And then we go…..
Starting slowly, reviewing 2, 3, concerts a week. But soon this These Days ride will spin totally out of control!
We will have five concerts a week at times, and rocking until the end of the year.
Their 1995, our 2020.
Then we’ll have a five month rest, which I suggest we use to recover. Unless I find out remarkable Bon Jovi history was made those months, and we continue in some other format. But either way, in May we return for our encore. And No! It is not the entire These Days tour.
Just like we didn’t start at the starting date of the These Days tour, our series will end a bit differently. With a legendary concert of Bon Jovi at a venue in the Netherlands which had not been used for rock concerts until then. Nor has it been used for it ever again. It was a one-off concert at a recreational park in the East of the Netherlands, June 1996. A concert remastered by hAnD90 on YouTube, and he refers to it as:
“A concert and setlist, so long and filled with magnificent songs
that it feels almost surreal.”
It’s May 5 now…. 2020. And I feel I have SO much to do! Film the introduction, prepare tomorrow’s video. And how the hell will I keep up?
You know what? I have no idea.
But I guess if they can do it, touring the world at this crazy pace; Then in some way, shape or form: So can we, 25 years later.
Let’s go.
~Suzanne
The Bon Jovi concert series, was not finished but it was not cancelled either! It’s just that making 1 video, analyzing shows that were 2,5 hours long, took me at least 6 hours and it just became undoable. So it stranded temporarily. Bon Jovi related (1996 or earlier) stories are expected and will be postedSuzanne Beenackers YouTube
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
Originally, the title to this blog had a third name in the loop.
Next to Artist versus Yoga Teacher, I was going to squeeze in:
Entrepreneur.
And although I immediately took it out, if only for reasons of style, now that I have started writing and musing over this story that I m about to share, I think:
“Well maybe that WAS the key!”
Maybe the fact that Entrepreneur did not make it into the title of this blog post, explains not just what happened last night – the story of I Can’t Get No Satisfaction – but that it explains my entire life.
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We used to have a game on television here in the Netherlands “Lingo”, and it was kind of like Bingo.
And the host would say, whenever a ball with a number came up that was not on the “big bingo card”;
“X (insert number) is not on the card.”
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And with me: “Entrepreneur” is not on the card.
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That is not to say that I don’t enjoy marketing and selling: I absolutely love and adore it!
But not for my own services.
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With every decision that I make for myself, trouble starts when I start seeing myself as an entrepreneur.
Or if I take actions (even the ones I was going to take already!!) with the perspective of making money.
This does not mean I don’t ask money for what I do:
I don’t give away time for free, nor do I undercharge.
But my main goal is focusing on creating what I want to create, and then to usually share it for free.
It saves me the selling process and maintaining customer service.
If I were to create and sell an online course, I would be responsible for it till the end of time. Every time I see the words “lifetime access” tied to courses that I buy myself, or that are offered to me, I get shivers down my spine. And not the good ones. Promising lifetime access to online products, feels like a virus you will never get rid of.
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Whereas creating online for free, is absolute heaven.
I have two YouTube Channels and two blogs under this name.
Plus I write a lot of “illegal blog posts” , which means I don’t post them to a blog but only on Facebook.
And I have a pen name, for which I practically do not write anymore because of the C crisis.
My pen name has existed online since 2010, and it’s a more or less secret account, so that I can write freely about my exciting, secretive, sex life.
Needless to say, with C. there no longer is anything remotely interesting to write about.
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And next to all of that, since three weeks, I am teaching online classes.
And it was in this setting that this story takes place. Because I showed up to teach my online class themed “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”, and there was no one there in the Facebook group.
It’s a small Facebook group, and it’s aimed at friends and former students of the studio.
I have no intention of recreating an “official” online studio (this is The Artist part, more on that later), so I didn’t mind that no one was there. It was just that I had not thought it through in advance, what I was going to do, if I was there by myself.
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I knew at least one student who had paid particularly to attend Monday’s class, and one in particular for Thursday, but was I “obliged” to teach on Tuesday, if no one was there? Did any of the others fancy this particular class in Replay? Or could I pretend play, someone would watch it again later, and get great value out of it; So that I could get rid of this eerie feeling and just teach as I always do?
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When 40 minutes later my mind still had not solved that riddle, and my class had not been the quality it normally has, I gave up, cancelled the rest of the class, and wrote a message on our page, just in case people were looking for the replay and could not find it.
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The strange thing was, that I understood immediately – as soon as I saw no one was on the live stream – that I would not be able to teach the class.
But I pushed through, because I was so flabbergasted by it.
I didn’t understood WHY, this was such a big deal, right?
I ve been making YouTube videos since 2015, and the largest part of it were yoga videos.
Then why, within a month after my first live stream, did it suddenly become such a big deal that no one was there? It was this question, this not understanding the deeper underlying principle that would explain the WHY, that caused the restlessness, and caused me to continue. At least for 40 minutes anyway.
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The strange thing was, that I had kind of predicted this would happen!
Both no one showing up, as well as me totally “overthinking” it.
. I predicted it, although laughingly, because the topic of I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, is obviously so sexual I totally understood people feeling uncomfortable attending.
. But I also predicted that I would think this through, until I had gotten down to the core of its meaning.
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Because I started the live stream with the Mick Jagger quote about financial, sexual, philosophical satisfaction, stating that – as opposed to Mick – I scored a full 100% on philosophical satisfaction. That over the years I had thought so long and hard, over many of the underlying very philosophical and psychological mechanisms, that you can ask me anything about anything, and I ll know the answer. I will be able to cut to the core of whatever it is you have trouble with, and I will discover where you have lost your power, which is always at the root of every problem. And then I will tell you which belief or vision you need to let go off, or what you need to do, in order to immediately regain control over your life.
Suzanne Beenackers, 2020 unreleased live stream yoga class.
“I m philosophically satisfied. And not only that, I m filled to the brim,” I said in my introduction to the online class I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. “I really would not know where to store another drop.”
Yet I m writing this blog post on a Wednesday morning, after a yogaclass I did not teach, and about a sex life I do not have.
If I had been in any way serious about being sexually satisfied, I would have spent this Wednesday morning entirely different.
C crisis or no C crisis. .
So I m in my fourth week of teaching the online classes* to friends and former students, and after no one showed up last night, I woke up with this sense of:
“Shouldn’t I make this bigger?”
After all, if I make a real sales page, with people looking for yoga finding this exciting online group, where it’s about Sex and Purpose, and the classes are mixed with popular culture and rock mythology;
If I did that and made it successful, there would never be a Tuesday night ever again, where I didn’t have anyone live there with me.
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But I could feel the pull, the shift in energy, immediately.
First off, between yoga teacher “me” and artist me. .
Yoga teacher me, is someone who still feels the need to “sell yoga”. To offer something that resembles what people expect when going into a yoga class.
To Yoga Teacher Me, adding Mick Jagger or Jon Bon Jovi into the mix of what it is I teach, is nothing more than an accessory.
Yoga Teacher Me is very conservative and tends to think: “That’s all fine, have a little fun. Just don’t take it too far.” .
Whereas Artist Me, immediately thinks:
“Oh really? You know what, I M GONNA TAKE IT TOO FAR! You leave me no choice!” .
Artist Me rebels against any and all limitations.
And she does it hard.
She’ll burn the thing down, if that’s what it takes to get rid of your expectations of what it is she should or should not do.
She ends relationships, friendships, business arrangements.
She starts fires, arguments, she blows things up.
And Artist Me is definitely the one teaching upcoming Thursday’s class:
“Sympathy for the Devil”
In fact, she leaned back, put her feet on the table, interlaced her hands behind her head and said:
“Well, now there’s a class that doesn’t need any preparation!”
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Artist Me is the devil incarnated, and it’s the most authentic and real part of me.
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So in hindsight, I understand perfectly, why I could not teach a live stream with no one there.
Yoga Teacher Me would have done it. She would dutifully do her work, that she said she would do. She needed no praise or approval, she didn’t need anybody there, to teach her yoga class. For Yoga Teacher Me it would be enough that someone might enjoy the Replay.
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And Entrepreneurial Me would definitely have given that live stream class. Because it was paid for (people pay per week) so to Entrepreneurial Me it would not have made much difference if they were present to enjoy what they paid for.
Business is business.
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The only part of me, and like I said it’s the biggest, most dominant part of me, that has no interest in doing her duty, in meeting expectations, or being paid, is Artist Me. And from an artistic point this makes sense: The art I create can only exist because there is an audience. It’s a very well-known definition of art, to say it cannot exist without it being seen.
And it’s a definition I really like. You could even say that the art comes into being, ONLY because of an audience! In the 80s there was a modern art retrospective at the Groninger Museum, in the Netherlands. And on opening night the managing director of the museum said they had gone over all their pieces: “Is this art?” If it was art, they would not show it. The exhibition only contained pieces which were NOT art! But of course, they immediately became art, the moment they were admitted to the expo. Something similar is the exercise Marina Abramovic has given to her students: Every day, sit down and write an idea on a piece of paper. If it’s a good idea, save it. If it’s a bad idea throw it in a (designated) trash can. After 30 days, bring both; The stack of good ideas and the ideas from the trashcan. She ignored the good ideas and went over the trashcan ideas with her students: Discovering they were all brilliant ideas.
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A yoga teacher teaches what helps her students. An entrepreneur gives what has been paid for. But an artist needs the spectator, to breathe it to life.
An artist cannot work unless you offer him or her your soul.
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Just like the Devil.
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~Suzanne
Yesterday, I created a powerful video on Gimme Shelter. You can find it here at the bottom of this post, or on YouTube.
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
Because although I could not commit to one language, one medium, one craft; I COULD commit to creating.
In fact it was harder not to create, than to just let it flow out of me.
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YouTube videos.
Yoga classes.
Blog posts.
Unofficial blogposts, or “illegal” as I like to call them. Where I used a Facebook page or my LinkedIn profile instead of a website to write, because I didn’t want subscribers to get too many emails.
Every day I created 2 or 3 things.
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Creating daily has firmly planted my feet into feeling absolutely great.
I acknowledge being privileged here, I have little to no worries. But that makes it ( I think) even a bigger responsibility to keep your spirits up.
Creativity keeps my spirits up, but in turn, it also gives me something positive to share.
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So almost from the get go, I understood creativity to be the antidote to a life in solitary confinement. Although with social media and multiple communication tools present, the term “solitary” is of course extremely relative.
But compared to 6 weeks ago we all live in this tiny little world, trapped with our thoughts.
And in that world, I have found Creativity, giving myself permission to write, make videos and teach online classes, is really a great escape.
If you have control over what you create, it suddenly doesn’t matter that much that there’s huge chunks of your life and your future, you have little to no control over.
But yesterday night, during my free-flow, improvised yoga class -where not just the exercises are created at the spot, but the theme itself is given full freedom to develop within the 75 minutes of the class –
I struck upon a wisdom which revealed an even deeper underlying principle, that I had unconsciously be applying.
That was far more extensive than just having something to do.
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It was the aspect of Giving, without wondering how you were going to “get” stay nourished and taken care of yourself. After having spent a large part of the class laying the foundation: To make a decision, to stand your ground, to claim what is yours – all so that your foundation becomes strong enough for you to start inviting people in, and start sharing your gifts- I said: “There is also a quicker way.”
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And I said the quicker way is to simply start giving from wherever it is you are, and whatever it is you have, trusting that you will receive whatever is nessecary for you to function. That it is not up to you to stake your claim, or to defend your resources: It is only your task to share and give, what you feel called to share. And to have faith that you will be taken care of. That the resources will come. That your work, is only in the giving, only in the sharing what you ve got.
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And not only is it quicker: But have you ever wondered, that maybe this is really the only way? How much money were you going to save, how steady does your income need to be, how many crisis or unforeseen circumstances are you going to insure yourself against, before you feel “ready enough” to start giving to others and start sharing your work freely?
It reminded me of how I became a yoga teacher. In 2001, I was doing more than 1 hour of yoga a day, and I was looking for a way to get taught in a way that supported that. At that time there were no medium levels of support: It was either your weekly class, or a teacher training. So I chose a teacher training, without any plans to become a teacher. I just wanted to learn more and get the support. But halfway in our four year training we did learn how to teach, and I immediately was one of the few who started doing it professionally. And it was because of a deep insight: If I teach, I make space in my mind to receive new things. Teaching, verbalizing it to others, is the last stage of understanding it. As soon as I have shared it that directly, the lesson (on my part) is learned and has become part of who I am. And space for the new is created.
It is the giving, that allows you to receive.
You can’t sit on your talents like Scrooge McDuck sits on his money. In year two of my training, it had become evident to me that the way to that made sense to complete this four year education, was to start sharing.
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I think it’s the same way with giving and sharing your work. It is not just in the creation, in the creativity, where the healing comes from. It’s in sharing it. It’s in posting that video I created, publishing that blogpost, but also:
It s in teaching that class, and passing on what I know by teaching yoga.
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You could even say that the reason I feel so good about being creative, is not because of the (narrow minded definition of) creativity at all: It’s because it allows me to share something.
Yoga classes on YouTube and to my online group, and other videos on YouTube and creative writing.
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Jon Bon Jovi and his wife have been very involved through their charity organization JBJ Soul Kitchen, providing meals. They work around the clock, to make this happen, together with a lot of volunteers. “If you can’t do what you do, you do what you can.” Jon Bon Jovi has called it, in a song he keeps adding different verses to which people send in to him.
He’s even sung it in classrooms, with children telling them what to sing.
You can follow Do What you Can on Bon Jovi YouTube and Instagram.
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Four wise words that Jon Bon Jovi figured out weeks before I did:
Do what you can..
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~Suzanne
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
First off, here is the Bounce album on YouTube.
Press Play to get a punch in the gut!
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See, feels good right??!
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It was one of the things that had been in the back of my head for a while, giving me little “What about?” reminders every once in a while.
What about Bounce?
Why did you buy that album?
Was it a coincidence?
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The zeros were Bon Jovi’s most productive decade.
Not only did they produce 5 studio albums, Bounce (2002) being one of them:
They also toured extensively, and had countless Bonus projects going on.
The 4-5 disc box 100.000.00 Bon Jovi fans was released.
Their One Wild Night live cd.
This Left Feels Right, an album with alternative versions to their songs.
And said 5 studio albums Crush, Bounce, It’s my life, Lost Highway and The Circle.
And that’s just what I know by heart, since getting back on the Bon Jovi wagon.
In the decade itself, I wasn’t a fan.
It was as if we lived in alternative universes.
With the exception of one album:
Bounce.
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With Bounce not being particularly memorable, as far as the general opinion goes, and none of its songs being played at any of their recent concerts: Had it then been mere chance this record had come in my possession?
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Interesting question. But not exactly an urgent one, and it was dropped the moment it arose. One day. Maybe. If I feel like it.
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Yesterday I listened to Bounce and it hit me right in the gut. There really are no words to describe what it DID to me – something I only knew from another vastly underappreciated record This House is Not For Sale: It filled my heart with joy, my gut with rage, my life with a strong forward moving force that NO MATTER WHAT- We were not going to back down!
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Don’t get me wrong: I immediately noticed Bounce having weaker moments. And even repetitive elements (just like This House is Not for Sale!) that you could criticize or question. And I decided to spend some more time with the record, and its history. What had happened? What was its context?
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And I stumbled upon The Forgotten History Of The In All Probability Best Bon Jovi Record Ever Made.
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Think August of year X. Bon Jovi had just ended their One Wild Night Tour, and was going to take it easy, musically. There were no plans to go into the studio anytime soon. Now think September 11. The world was shook, and a wave of despair came over us. New Jersey, being close to New York, was heavily hurt.And the band Bon Jovi, known for its anthems and its message of hope, leaped to the rescue, to the frontier, and after their first months of charity work were over, they had many stories to tell.
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“That was my brother lost in the rubble, That was my sister lost in the crush”
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Bounce, Bon Jovi’s 2002 almost forgotten album was the stab in the gut we had all felt in 2001, but they took it and put it to music.
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It was no coincidence that for two plus decades, Bounce was the only Bon Jovi release that immediately made it into my collection.
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And into my heart.
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~Suzanne
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
With the unpredictable cycle of starting business plans and cancelling them;
Rebooting video and letting it fall flat on its face;
Dangling between video and writing
and the impossible choice between two languages.
But also:
The unexpectedly soothing and satisfying experience of becoming a yoga teacher again:
I finally understood what the underlying common demeanor was.
What they key element was, of what it is I DO.
And it’s not either or.
Not even either the work I do under this name, versus the pen name;
An alias account (on Fb since 2010) where I basically stopped writing after C crisis.
With my entire sexuality falling flat on its face, and probably staying there for months if not years to come,
there were no aspects of my life that were even remotely secretive or exciting enough to be written about under a pen name.
But it was not an either or, of any of those things.
As tempting as it is, to simplify life to ONE thing you’re doing, ONE thing you’re selling;
For some of us, that’s not the way we roll.
We don’t know what we’ll be doing the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning, let alone what business we’ll build for years to come.
But I did find the one thing I, and perhaps any other soul who has been wondering how to survive this crisis sanely,
can do to not just get out of this intact.
But to be so engaged in something else that you stop caring about whether or not you do get out.
Something that is so profoundly spiritual, yet so engaging, addictive, COMPELLING! that if they tap you on the shoulder after C. you’ll furiously snap:
“I m busy!!”
And that thing that will save you (if you have it in you, if you are this) that thing is CREATION
It is only in creation and our creativity, that life makes sense. Not because we understand every little detail, but because we’re creating new things.
Like God created the earth;
We too become the creators of our own lives.
The statue on the picture is Shiva:
Creator of Worlds.
But he is also the destroyer of worlds.
Whether Shiva creates more than he destroys?
No one knows.
Maybe the other Gods pitch in, to make up for the damage.
I wrote about Shiva because I have this statue at my studio.
And it wasn’t until later that I heard the story of a studio burning to the ground for no apparent reason,
and its owners “blaming” it to Shiva;
Although I m sure they were smart enough to understand that something else was created.
And that the brick and mortar yoga studio was no longer nessecary to contain it.
Maybe the thriving but fixed business, was standing in the way of the new work the teachers would now start doing.
The moment you stand still and resist change you are like ice:
You can only hope that you won’t melt.
But the moment you become creative, you start your dance with Shiva, in the ring of fire.
You breathe life into life.
You bring unexpected death and destruction.
And people will never know what to expect because you will be ever changing.
As soon as you start creating, you will become Life itself.
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~Suzanne
The Fire Inside is a Bon Jovi song from the 4-5 disc box set 100 million Bon Jovi Fans Can’t be Wrong
You can find the song at the bottom of this post.
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
This is not an easy blog post, and I give you full permission to not read it.
I created an upbeat 8 minute video, today. So I certainly do not intend to make Rock Star Yoga all doom and gloom! And knowing myself, I may actually “snap out of this”! I may suddenly see the light, and move forward in a way like never before. So you’re very welcome to wait until that day, because I appreciate your presence and I am very selective with what I read myself:
If you are here for the days that IT ROCKS!
I send you all the love, and permission to skip, fully granted ❤
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But for me, nor the massive breakthroughs nor the sudden cancellations, happen overnight. A lot of thinking and processing happens before that, and today is such a day.
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In the 8 months Rock Star Yoga exists, I have not doubt it so strongly as today.
And I want to share with you what haunts me.
Why I feel unsure if there is still a place for Rock Star Yoga, in this world.
If there is still a place for me, the truest part of me, as an individual.
I’m sure the toned-down, responsible version of me can make a contribution.
But that’s not the real me.
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Tonight I wrote a post for the Facebook page.
And what was intended to be a short goodnight post, turned into a detailed description of why I suddenly doubt my mission, my purpose, in light of the C crisis.
Why I really have no idea what my purpose is and if Rock Star Yoga did not belong in a world that is now lost.
In one of the many earlier videos of Rock Star Yoga, which I had to delete because YouTube had unedited my 400+ videodatabase, I talked about the difference between creators or creatives versus builders or sustainers. And that although the world is fascinated with creators/creatives, little is understood of our nature. That you can’t educate us, or train us, or ask of us to behave in a different, more constructive way, without damaging the essence of who we are.
Just like a builder/sustainer will never come with something truly creative;
A creator/creative will never come with something truly sustainable.
We, creatives, create and we destroy. That is the nature of who we are. You could say: That is our purpose.
In retrospect, the post I wrote for Facebook, and I will include it exactly the way I wrote it there, is about that difference.
I guess what has been haunting me is:
In a world that became for builders and sustainers, overnight,
do we still create?
Sometimes I feel every update in the last month cries for this particular Gif:
Jon Bon Jovi in the eighties.
I believe it’s from the Wanted Dead Or Alive video.
I could, should maybe one day will, write a blog post on the complexity of ALL of the emotions going on in this three second clip!
But not tonight.
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Because tonight I really do feel like Jon there.
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As if it never ends.
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Like all of us I suppose, I feel confronted with difficult choices every day.
Can I go out? Should I ALWAYS stay indoors?
Can I NEVER see a friend or family member without having to be deeply ashamed of my wildly irresponsible behavior?
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And for how long?
Until there is a vaccine every interaction is going to be scrutinized?
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Despite Dutch government explicitly saying the virus will become a common factor in our daily lives, and that the only reason we are putting a stop on social interactions is because otherwise the hospitals will collapse,
I keep reading comments that imply all citizens should behave as if they are in total lock-down.
Even though government deliberately did not go for a lock-down because it does not believe the virus can ultimately be stopped.
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But on social people who go outside are shamed.
Even though our Dutch regulations say you can go outside, and even meet a friend as long as you are healthy and don’t touch each other.
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So it seems at least to me, that somewhere something doesn’t add up.
Social distance for strangers seems to have been confused with friends and family; And working from home and avoiding crowds was confused with measures instructing a total lockdown.
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Some of you may remember a video I shot two weeks ago, and I m not going to include the link because that’s making it more important than it is, but I have a social phobia.
And it’s taking its toll.
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I, and I can only imagine other people with social phobias as well, do not hear the reasons on which you judge other people.
We hear that you judge.
And we interpret it as:
“If I want this person to be my friend, I need to behave just like he or she insists is the only right way, or I have to be prepared to discuss it.”
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I understand it’s fear.
I understand you’re worried.
I understand you’re probably projecting accusations on things and behaviors you’ve seen that do not have anything to do with me, onto me.
But all that doesn’t make it easier.
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And I wonder how long we are going to look at each other to “be careful” in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones?
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This could take 18 months, before we have a vaccine.
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Are we going to forbid healthy people to go out, for 18 months?
Are we going to prohibit children from playing outside, for 18 months?
Are we going to keep banners on our Facebook profiles “Stay inside” for 18 months?
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And I have a social phobia: Nothing scares me more than the idea that I behave in a way that you will judge me for.
I will stay inside for 18 months, don’t worry.
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So it would surprise me if you would see me change things.
If I would have that conversation on how much time we are prepared to stay in hiding.
I ll hide forever.
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Not because I m afraid of the virus but of your judgement.
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Some of us destroy others, others destroy themselves.
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Two days ago, I destroyed my pen name.
I didn’t want to be the artist I was for 14 years, because she could not breathe in this world.
So I rescued her, and brought her to 1995.
Where she can take solace, for as long as it is needed.
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But Rock Star Yoga?
Man… I don’t know.
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I feel that either I have to pretend Rock Star Yoga is a bonding, unifying practice; vanilla and sweet.
And safe.
In other worlds, I would have to pretend it’s normal yoga.
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Or admit that Rock Star Yoga is rebellious way of doing life, because it ultimately stands for individual freedom.
In a time when everybody is so relieved that we have finally found our collective, that is an unbearable message…
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And that therefor, just like my pen name, I may have to stop Rock Star Yoga.
Because we have enough that disrupts society already.
..
Rock Star Yoga was to create awareness that you are a lot more free than you think.
That morals are worth fighting.
I was 15 when I said groups and collective thinking were evil.
I never fitted into groups, I was afraid of them and I found them dangerous. By calling it a social phobia I m taking all the blame ( “Oh it’s me!”) but that’s me being agreeable.
I think it’s very threatening that we are not thinking about our own boundaries and so easily adapt the Your Body Is A Weapon Of Mass Destruction That Should Be Hidden Indoors vision.
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So dead or alive?
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I really, honestly, don’t know.
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~Suzanne .
Update
In June 2020, I renamed this site from Rock Star Yoga to Rock Star Writer.
I ll update all blogposts (there are 46) and will get my fingers into the YouTube channel soon, including retrieving content I had to take down in January because of technicalities.
These blog posts will go out randomly, as topics reveal themselves.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
* sadly enough all referrals/ links to the Rock Star “Yoga” page on Facebook (url), have become invalid. I intend to start curating this blog, and update the links.
As I m writing this I have no idea if I will make yoga videos tonight;
A Bon Jovi talk?
SURE!
But yoga?
Eh…
From what I recall from yesterday, when I postponed my “We Rule the Night” yoga video (inspired by a rare 1985 Bon Jovi song) to nighttime, only to realize:
I DO NOT rule the night-
Is that I promised myself I d do better today.
And not wait so long.
Because despite the badass ring to it;
My Rock Star Yoga was going to be a daytime thing.
However!
Little did I know, that me finding out I lost my bankcard yesterday, followed by intensive searches both indoor as well as outdoor, tracking back yesterday’s hour long walk;
Combined with a few Corona related choices and forecasts I had to make-
Would lead to me living an entire day that was entirely unforeseen.
But, and this did come true, as soon as I accepted that I lost the card and it was not going to come back-
I made a decision.
That this was going to work in my advantage.
That any financial costs or time investments, would pay themselves back.
That things were happening exactly as they should.
Maybe if my card was found, it would be like a super high end business card! And picked up by someone who would Google me, and would like what he or she saw.
Because I may not rule the night, and not film those yoga videos I promised.
Or toss them out when I do (yesterday’s Rock Star Yoga video ended in the trash bin)
But that’s no reason not to rock life.
When I got home, someone who I had sent a message through LinkedIn two weeks ago, had written me a very kind reply.
In my mind, at least energetically, he was the one who had picked up my lost bankcard, the high level golden business card!
Whatever your unexpected chain of events is today:
Stay calm.
And rock on.
~Suzanne
PS: new Bon Jovi talks and Rock Star Yoga videos are posted at:
From October 1988 to February 1990, Bon Jovi toured the world with their Jersey Syndicate Tour.
They visited North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Europe; And they created three music videos and one music documentary.
Which could have their last because the tour schedule was so gruesome, and all band members so exhausted, that it would probably have been their last tour and the band would never have gotten back together, if they had finished it one day later..
I saw Access All Areas once, must have been nine months ago or something. And I remember that it was actually quite painstaking to get all the different parts together at YouTube. But now I found this Spanish subtitled version, which has the entire documentary. There is no DVD.
After the 90s, when Access All Areas was released on VHS, the DVD was only supplied in the New Jersey Super Deluxe (not regular Deluxe) reissue box, from 2014.
I think being able to rewatch Access All Areas all in one piece will already make a huge difference, compared to the scattered experience from last spring. But there is another reason why I know it will be different this time, rewatching it; I found the structure behind it.
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In preparing the video I shot today – one I ultimately deleted when I was editing it, because my psychedelic glitter top was hypnotizing the viewer – I had encountered the Wiki page that explained the structure of the documentary; What and where.
I think it will make a great manual to (re-)watch this documentary Access All Areas.
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I like structures. Usually I create them myself. For example I categorized all Bon Jovi albums and all songs per decade, for my Bon Jovi series on YouTube.
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But to complement this pret-a-porter Bon Jovi content list I found, I added dates from their tour schedule.
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You can find the documentary at the top of this page.
And here is its content:
<text continues below>
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1. Introduction 2. Show #3 / Dublin, Ireland – 1 Nov 1988 3. Show #9 / Rome, Italy – 14 Nov 1988 4. Italian TV Show 5. Behind The Iron Curtain 6. Moscow Music Peace Festival – 12, 13 Aug 1989 7. First Leg European Tour – Nov/Dec 1988 8. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 26 Jan 1990 9. Tokyo, Japan – 31 Dec 1988/ 1 Jan 1989 10. All Star Jam, Wembley Arena, England – Dec 1988 OR Jan 1990 11. In Store Signing / London, England 12. Berlin, Germany 13. Nordhoff Robbins Music Therapy Benefit 14. Sydney, Australia – 2, 3, 4 November 1989 15. The Homecoming 16. Rare Club Dates 17. Show #232 / The Last Gig – 17 Feb 1990 18. “Livin’ On A Prayer” 19. Credits
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I will be watching the documentary again, and hope they have added dates in the documentary. And that mine was incorrect. Because if my dating is right, it sure explains why I didn’t “understand” the documentary the first time; They seem to have changed the chronological order.
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Which immediately shows the downside of being so determined to “figure everything out”. To dig and dissect until you understand the underlying structure, so that you can put it back together again;
Some things are like love. Or God. They cannot be understood. Only felt.
..
~Suzanne
PS! I will create another video tomorrow. And will remember to wear a different shirt 😉 Have you subscribed toRock Star Yoga YouTube yet? I create Bon Jovi inspired Rock Star Yoga talks + yoga videos
PPS Let’s rock it together! The subscription button is somewhere on this page, usually on the top right, and we’re on:
A while ago (I looked it up, it was 2012) a book was published which promised to transform your life before 8 A.M.
Originally I thought this was a brilliant idea.
Who would not want that?
Until I discovered applying The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod included doing an hour of All The Things I Don’t Want to Do before 8 A.M.
And that the time-slot was problematic for me.
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I was never home before 10.30 P.M and the only time I went to bed before midnight was the half year I had a boyfriend who wanted to have a call every night at 11.15 PM.
I would unwind with a vengeance in 45 minutes flat, so that I was in pj’s in bed, by the time he called.
I know it would sound much better if I said I was naked or only wearing a red G-string, but sexy sleeping is one of those on-and-off things for me.
And one that’s usually off.
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Aside from that brief period in my life where my lover provided me with a sensible bedtime, I never got to bed before 0.30 AM.
There was no way I was going to transform my life first thing in the morning, unless a boyfriend was going to plan that out for me.
In which case it would last 6 months.
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But it wasn’t just that Hal Elrod’s ambitious kick start to the day conflicted with my nightly teaching schedule.
It was also because I genuinely dreaded the tasks I was supposed to do.
Something Hal referred to as:
“best practices, developed over centuries of human consciousness”
Well not Suzanne’s consciousness.
I m not going to start my day with a glass of water, meditation, affirmation, visualization, reading, journaling, yoga;
And call that the life I want.
It’s actually a spot on description of a life I will avoid at all costs.
But (again) it is more than that.
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The reason Hal Elrod’s morning routine, just like 5 step processes or How To- books AND also regular yoga, will fail to impress the creatives, the driven entrepreneurs, the full-on high level badasses of the world who are stoked about life and everything in it?
Is the passivity of it all.
The stillness.
Nothing is created, so therefor it will never satisfy us.
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I can only imagine that for some people spending their entire morning on inner-work and reflection must work out great, because morning meditation and yoga are thousands of years old, and people have called The Miracle Morning life changing.
So I will take their word for it.
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And, get ready for this – and this will require an extremely flexible mind and paying attention, but it is crucial to understand- It’s not that I don’t journal.
It’s not that I don’t do yoga.
It’s not that I don’t visualize or do affirmations.
But it comes from an entirely different place, and it is something that buzzes with excitement and is so tightly knit to my goals and dreams that it is an effortless, ever changing, don’t-even-have-to-think-about-it, stream of consciousness and activities.
That I have done for 10+ years by now.
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It is also the reason I at one point stopped doing yoga because I didn’t want to “calm down and relax”.
Why would I want to leave that place at the top of the mountain where you just feel really really good about life?
Why would I come down from feeling great?
What was there to relax from?
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So the key difference between Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning routine, regular, standard journaling, and so on and so forth, and what I teach; Is that I make sure I only do things that GIVE me energy. That is what gets me up every morning super excited to start my day.
Currently I have slowed down my morning routine by watching Sex and the City having breakfast and cuddling the cats. But for years I just took my breakfast behind my computer and started writing. And maybe I ll switch back some day, because it’s certainly the most natural thing for me.
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So before I share my rock star morning routine and also tell you the real secret to creating the life you want (one no one seems to understand) here’s the first big takeaway:
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DO the things that give you energy STOP doing the things that drain you.
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Kicking yourself to the gym every day? Christ! Do you know what else you could be doing with all the energy? Probably save the world and everybody on it. Activities you do for yourself should GIVE you energy, not drain you. Not even initially (although I will nuance that later).
But in general, you should be extremely excited over all the things you do in your life. And if you don’t feel that; Reframe it, rewrite it in your head. Find a way so that you CAN feel excited about it. Attach a big goal to it. Make it a challenge. Turn it into a quest. But do not start doing that activity, feeling all yucky because it’s like energetically rolling around in your own dirt. You first need to elevate your energy, until you’re pumped to go do that thing.
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Last week I drew back from what I will call “The Only Job I Ever Really Wanted”. Not because I didn’t want it anymore but because it had been two weeks, and I had not heard from them.
The momentum had just disappeared. I had been pumped about it but after two weeks of waiting it was gone. And as effortless as it had been to go all in, that’s how easy it was to pull the plug. Because I refused to let something that had given me energy, turn into something that was draining and basically a struggle.
Things should not be a struggle.
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A struggle is if you want something and you’re not getting it. The solution is to stop wanting it, and to believe you will get it if it was meant for you. It was already created by your mind, by wanting it;
There is no more work to be done.
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You just need to stop doing/ actively wanting it, and you need to give it a chance to come to you.
.. You know the saying that you can’t lose what’s really yours because it will always return to you. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t yours. You can’t lose your dream job, your dream partner, your dream life. You only lose the things that were not that.
Have faith. Follow the flow. Follow the energy, and stop digging through the dirt, swimming upstream, pushing shit up the hill, and then needing to relax and reflect on that. No. You need to move the other way, where the energy just flows naturally, and the idea of a yoga class either excites you (because you have some cool ideas on how to rock it!) or it repels you because your purpose work calls you so loudly, there is no way you re going to waste time to slow down.
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After I share my morning routine, I will tell you the other secret, one Hal Elrod doesn’t know either.
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So what is my morning routine?
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Well my favorite morning routine, or daily routine, is extremely simple and monotonous: Write, write, write, write. I could do it all day, every day, and maybe one day I will give into it. It’s an addiction of the sweetest kind.
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But I assume that’s not the answer you want to hear.
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So my other daily routine, and one I did not commit to, nor designed, until I understood the secret I will share later, is based on doing things that energize me. Or that are very tightly connected to my goals. I have embedded the “requires (startup) energy” between the effortless activities. effortless/ energizing = e/e requires startup energy = SU Here is my 1 hour Rock Star Routine:
1. e/e 8 minutes – finance. Check back statements/ pay bills/ log expenses 2. SU 8 minutes – journaling. Write out affirmations, all present tense. I am/do/have 3. SU 8 minutes – work on publishing my books. This is the most difficult activity for me, where I have the most resistance around 4. e/e 8 minutes fitness -listening to Bon Jovi 5. e/e 8 minutes stretching/ yoga – listening to Bon Jovi 6. e/e Write for the remaining hour to unlimited, depending on how much time I have.
Why doing small/ 8 minute tasks is critical
(the secret even Hal Elrod doesn’t know)
One of my biggest rationalizations to not do Hal Elrod’s morning routine, was that I don’t like small tasks and switching. I work from flow, and unless I have at least half an hour, I don’t feel like doing it. To cut my life up in 10 minutes chunks seemed unappealing and highly ineffective. No one gets anything done in 8 minutes. And although I still find it unappealing – it will never replace the flow of writing – I eat my words on calling it ineffective. Doing a tiny bit of something is VERY effective. You know why? Because you create from the mind. If you do it right that is. Which is by treating these “activities” not like an activity – as if you’re ticking off a to-do list – but like mindset work or like performing a magic ritual.
The 8 minute activity is the magic, the ritual creating your future.
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My financial future is not created from what I do in those 8 minutes – but from the mindset of being in touch with my own finances, and connecting to my dreams and goals in that field.
My body is not reshaped because I do my exercises, but because it reminds me of my health and fitness goals.
It is not the journaling as in blindly copying yesterday’s affirmations and writing them out another day; It is starting fresh, writing out the affirmations that come up that day. You should never have to refer back to yesterday’s page to know what your goals are, you should just let them come up and the real goals will come.
..
It all ties in with what I call Rock Star Yoga: An intuitive practice where you just put on a Bon Jovi album, tune in with what’s inside, and move your body the way it wants to. Someone could write out exactly what it is you do, or what I do, how we move our bodies on the yoga mat and how we’ve spend the 1 hour 5 minutes of “Keep the Faith”; But it was never about that.
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It was the tuning in, that got us the experience. The tuning in, is the magic.
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Tuning into an area of your life, will get you do results. Not what you do.
..
So now create your own morning routine. What are the areas you want to focus on in your life? As a reminder, mine were: – creating a future/ life of my dreams: which made me include journaling and writing – becoming a famous author (under my pen name): which made me include publishing my books – creating the body of my dreams: fitness and yoga – upleveling my finance: checking in my bankaccount daily. Which highly energizes me, so I could have included it just for that reason only..
Keep track of which activities are effortless/ energizing = e/e or:
require startup energy = SU
Naturally, to make it fun and a “Hell yes!” routine, include as few SU’s as possible, and as many fun, energizing activities as you can. Maybe you first want to design and implement a Rock Star morning with energizing activities, and without any activities you don’t like.
So to rock your morning and create a Hell Yes! routine that will get you out of bed all excited:
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1. do things that RAISE YOUR ENERGY
And that are completely effortless!
Design your routine in a way that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning.
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2. implement extra activities to CREATE FROM THE MIND
On any and all other areas in your life, that matter to you.
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Keep on rocking.
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~Suzanne
Let’s rock it together! The subscription button is somewhere on this page, usually on the top right, and we’re on:
Jon Bon Jovi is currently visiting the UK and giving interview after interview for British radio and TV. I expect, without bursting into tears.
This is my longest video series to date, and I actually already shot three of these videos yesterday.
Working until midnight.
And after going to bed, guess what? I GOT BACK UP! In the middle of the night, I deleted everything from YouTube. and adjusted the previous blog post, taking out a coaching offer.
Everything had suddenly felt SO wrong. Afterwards I slept like a baby.
So what had happened?
Well, after a tumultuous Tuesday, I had sat down and broke down everything I had learned and decided I was going to turn up the heat. I spent hours filming, redoing, uploading. But the reason I found myself jumping out of bed and frantically taking down EVERYTHING I had created, is because sometimes topics are so hard, that you are not satisfied with how they come out initially.
That the truth is there, but the “Story” is not. Not yet.
So I started from scratch and redid all my work today, and yes. They’re spot on now. Still uncomfortably honest, and I may go out the moment I post them, to get my mind off them- but this is the way they’re supposed to be.
~ Suzanne
Here they are: 4 different videos with Bon Jovi titles. And moving through the decades, like we always do.
On finding out I had been playing small creating yoga videos (!!)
And had also left way too much space for playing small after a social hiccup.
What we can all learn from this 2nd album from Bon Jovi, which was a do or die moment in their career, is that if you meet resistance or if things don’t feel right, the answer is never to play it safe and play small;
But to turn up the heat, and go bolder and bigger.
The Fire Inside is from 5 disk set “100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong” and was dated back to the 90s. The song is about creative passion.
This video is on how I had marginalized my purpose work (the fire inside) to being this thing I was going to PLAN OUT (??!!) at taking place in 1 hour and 45 minutes on weeknights.
Remembering Freddie Mercury in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, when he is told off for being late: “I’m a performer, darling, not a Swiss train conductor.”
Ending by looking forward (although that might not be the appropriate choice of words here!) to the third video, and how it was already quit the ordeal yesterday.
Oh, the biggie. This week I discovered something about my sexuality, that ran a lot deeper than anecdotal events and stories which I may or may not have shared. I discovered the one major thing, that will always make my sexuality threatening to others.
Jon Bon Jovi and his wife have been very involved through their charity organization JBJ Soul Kitchen, providing meals.
The zeros were Bon Jovi’s most productive decade.
With the unpredictable cycle of starting business plans and cancelling them; 
This is not an easy blog post, and I give you full permission to not read it.
Sometimes I feel every update in the last month cries for this particular Gif:
As I m writing this I have no idea if I will make yoga videos tonight;
A while ago (I looked it up, it was 2012) a book was published which promised to transform your life before 8 A.M.
Rock Star Writer 