Author: Suzanne Beenackers

creative writer & artist

Always

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When he holds you close, when he pulls you near
When he says the words
You’ve been needing to hear, I’ll wish I was him
‘Cause these words are mine, to say to you
‘Til the end of time

If there is one thing I will remember from this year, it will be attending the Bon Jovi concert.
It caused such a massive shift within me, I knew my life would never be the same again.
It was two hours and twenty minutes of anthem after anthem, in my experience.
And a song in the encore, every fan hopes to hear: “Always”.

It is rarely played because of the vocal range it requires. Jon Bon Jovi must have been feeling really good, because there certainly weren’t any external incentives.
Nijmegen wasn’t a big show.
There were no professional recordings released from that day, by Bon Jovi. No plans to use footage shot on a rainy night on a location no one has ever heard of.
It really was an encore, an extra.
And it was the icing on the cake of a spectacular night.

Unfortunately, despite the spiritual experience of that night, the concert didn’t turn out to be the overnight fix I had been hoping for.
I didn’t know that the final leg of my… depression? Midlife crisis? Burnout?
Was still ahead of me.
But on the bright side: It all did end before last Tuesday happened.
I had already celebrated my full recovery, before my lover broke up with me. During the final countdown of my crisis, I had deliberately kept myself from contacting him. It was oh so very tempting, to use my crisis as a way to intensify what we had.
To form a more intimate bond, by letting him help me.
But I couldn’t do it.

First of all because it would have been extremely painful for me if he had refused. And secondly, if he had comforted me, I would have been unsure if he had done so because I had pushed myself onto him or if he had wanted to be there for me.
Due to the freedom and the lightness we had always had in each other’s company, asking for help felt like pushing for “Always”:
It wasn’t mine to ask.
So I didn’t initiate contact.

Something I have a bittersweet feeling about now, in light of recent events. He has ended our affair and one of the reasons was because only spending the good times together, made “it” feel a bit empty.
Like I said, so bittersweet.
You must forgive me for not telling the whole story, but this part was worth mentioning I think.
Anyway, the real test came after the breakup.
Had I really changed?

Not so much compared to before the concert, but I was thinking more of:
Had I changed in comparison to the last time someone I was really into, broke up with me?
Over ten years ago.
To my ultimate delight, I can say:
Yes.
I am an entirely different person.

And that is such a powerful and joyful feeling, that there are moments this feeling – of dare I say enlightenment? – outweighs the sadness.
Maybe it’s comparable to if you’d turn into a vampire, and you know that you re immortal now. But would you ever be sure, until you were put through something that normally would have killed you?
That’s how I felt when for the first time in ten years someone I deeply cared for, and am still very much in love with, ended the relationship.

Obviously a separation process has many stages, and especially in the beginning a form of denial may be part of why I m feeling so good.
And yet:
I can’t help but KNOWING this is different.
That just like the vampire, I have become a different breed, that doesn’t abide by the same rules as she did ten years ago.
And I ve distinguished two reasons why that is.

Reason 1 : I still know how to feel good

Ten years ago, I was unaware that you must never build your road to your Higher Self or your happy self, through another person. Sure: I felt over the moon when I was with him.
And in the anticipation of seeing him, the hours before our date.
But I was SO aware it were my emotions, my feelings. I didn’t have them with any other man, yet that didn’t mean they were tied to him.
They were mine.

In all the years we were together, I had a clear vision that the positive feelings I was experiencing were created by me. And that I would therefor be able to access them any time I needed them.
Including the time after he broke up with me.

All those years, I appointed myself as The Person In Charge, when it came to feeling good. He never took advantage of that, and certainly pulled his weight when it came to making our dates memorable.
But it was learning to master my own feelings, that has been the major difference between moving on now, versus crashing down ten years ago.

Reason 2 : Love doesn’t die

Just like under “1” this is of course something he does contribute to. I have dated men who turned so cruel and cold in their communication, that there was no way I could keep my love for them burning.
In hindsight, I would definitely say the guy who broke my heart ten years ago qualifies as that. But it didn’t break until I had found out what he had done behind my back and had not told me.

I’m just saying all this to illustrate that these two ways in which I ve changed are relative. They re much easier to “accomplish” if you re dealing with a mature partner breaking up with you.

Anyway, like I said: Love doesn’t die.
A real connection, is something entirely magical.
You can learn to love someone, or create ideal circumstances for it to develop. But if you are romantic like me, nothing will beat the aliveness of a connection between two people who meet by chance, or who develop a bond over time, because they work together for example.

Whether two people get a real relationship, or if they end it;
It’s all just outer forms.
Things which are dependent on circumstances, and on desires as to what it is you want out of life.

A real connection, in my opinion, is something that transcends that.

Real love is like Always:
You don’t give it because someone paid you to do it.
Or because someone is entitled to have it.
And you don’t earn it by being at your best behavior, nor can you ever get it as a reward.

Real love can only be given freely.
And all you can hope for, is to have someone who will receive it.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

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Unspoken Expression | The Rise of Slash

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It must have seemed quiet here.
Maybe even as if Rock Star Yoga had died on me?
That has not been the case although I understand why it may have seemed that way, with this blog all but abandoned.

The last time I wrote wasn’t even rock music related, but about the upcoming Star Wars episode 9:
The Rise of Skywalker
And it was actually a STRONG realization that I needed an escape from The Rise of Skywalker – all the disturbing plot leaks, the turmoil, the polarization in the fanbase – at least until the movie’s premiere, that made me focus on my love for rock in the form of guitarist Slash, instead.
For the first time of my life.

As an 80s and 90s Guns N Roses fan, and I felt in particularly drawn to their unique guitar sound, it feels weird for me to admit this, but apparently I “manage to miss” Slash.
I don’t understand what happened.
My boyfriends were always guitar players, up to the point that I could not imagine that ever not being the case.
Yet my love for bands always revolved around lead singers Jon Bon Jovi and Axl Rose. Sebastian Bach. Lenny Kravitz.
They could be lead singer and guitarist.

But it took until my 47th birthday and falling in love with someone who looks like Slash, which both happened late July this year, before I started looking at Slash with a fresh pair of eyes.
And it took until the current mayhem in the Star Wars community AND a sinking deeper into this whole concept Rock Star Yoga, before I could commit.
Really.
Commit.

Every Star Wars video I would normally watch, was replaced with a Slash interview. I wrote out his bio, made an overview of all the records he had made, and the bands he had been in.
I wrote out entire paragraphs from interviews, things that seemed important.
All the while thinking over and over again:
“How did I manage to miss Slash?”

I still don’t have an answer to that and it embarrasses me. Part of it may have been that I (apparently) needed to reconnect with Bon Jovi first.
Just like I had when I was a teen.

Guns N Roses gave two recent shows, practically in my backyard. Nijmegen, 2017 and 2018.
Yet I listened from my balcony and didn’t have a ticket.
Three hour plus rock shows, in two consecutive years, and I just admired from afar?
(text continues under Slash’s 2017 tweet)
Like I said, I really don’t have an explanation why “it” didn’t click immediately. I did listen to Guns N Roses, after both shows 2017 and 2018. But it was more like a rekindling of my 80s/90s fanhood.
Not something new that was developing.

But what didn’t happen after those concerts, did happen this year.
And I do remember how Slash entered my life.
I got reacquainted with Slash in spring this year, watching Nikki Sixx’s radio show The Sixxth Sense.
The final show of The Sixxth Sense was an hour of Nikki and Slash talking.
It was magnetic.

But I already “had my hands full” preparing for the Bon Jovi concert this summer AND Nikki Sixx was already “the surprise rock star crush”.
I had no time nor desire to investigate Slash further.

Then the falling in love with the lookalike happened in July, followed by my first “round” of investigating Slash.
I was still very unsure about the lookalike. As sort of a coping mechanism, and because I knew how overbearing and intimidating my attention can be (they often talk about “the male gaze”; but that is nothing compared to my gaze!), I decided to focus on Slash instead.

Whatever chances I had with the Slash-lookalike, I wasn’t going to trash them by obsessing over him.
And the real Slash was safe:
He was already adored by millions, one more wouldn’t matter.
And I had 25 years of missed records, interviews, and an autobiography to keep me busy.
Whenever the being in love became unbearable, or I wanted to speak to him but couldn’t, I would turn to Slash instead.

But it wasn’t until last week, when a combination of circumstances changed all that, and made me drop in deeper. So deep that the Slash lookalike beau feels strangely unfamiliar by now.
We have barely seen each other these past months. And only unintentionally.
Nothing private or personal.

So the reason I m studying Slash now is no longer to keep my mind off matters with this new man. That has calmed down or even cooled off, who knows 🙂
Instead it happened through a combination of factors:
1. Reconnecting with Rock Star Yoga
Although I have not been active on this blog, Rock Star Yoga has not left my mind. Whenever I considered letting it go because I still don’t want Rock Star Yoga to be “professional” or a “business model” I realized:
No.
This is it.
Rock Star Yoga, advocating a rise in creative and sexual energy, and a self-practice of yoga supporting that, instead of taking yoga classes being taught by someone else, is a thing.
It is THE thing.
I want the people who resonate with designing their own yoga, to have an alternative and to start relying on themselves instead of outer guidance.
Rock Star Yoga is the badass, creative – dare I say masculine? – yoga, that is a wonderful addition to what has been presented to us as being yoga.
2. getting sucked into pre-Rise of Skywalker anxiety
I knew I needed something extremely powerful to pull myself away from the pre-Star Wars 9 media buzz.

So 1 + 2 had already made me decide to focus on “Rock Star Yoga”. And one Friday night I went to my favorite hotel bar to journal on my options, and setup this Rock Star Yoga 2.0 so to speak.
I was aware I had been neglecting both this blog, as well as my own yoga practice. But with Rock Star Yoga being my ticket out of The Rise of Skywalker turmoil, I was determined to make this work.
I wrote out three bios:
Jon Bon Jovi, Nikki Sixx, and Slash.
And it was soon clear to me I felt the click with Slash. Not only was his birthday almost similar to mine (July 23 for him, versus July 24 for me); He was also the closest to me in age, being only 7 years my senior.
He was an introvert, just like me.
He didn’t like making eye contact.
He preferred communicating through his work, over speaking.
And he was happiest playing guitar, always working. Although the reunion with Guns N’ Roses came as a surprise, and unexpectedly put him in two bands instead of one, it worked out brilliantly. His “solo group” band members were worried he would not come back after a few gigs with Guns N’ Roses turned into a three year world tour.
But he always returned and kept making records and tour with his own band too.
On tour he would be writing new songs all the time.

For Slash, playing guitar seemed as natural and satisfying, as writing is to me. I have been a yoga teacher for over 15 years but I more or less “accidentally” became a writer. By now I feel more writer than yoga teacher.
I write under this name, but the majority of my work is under my pen name.
I am a writer, I know that.
That is what I do when nobody is watching and it is my procrastination of having a real life.
Until I realized that of course, this is my life.

Part of me still hopes that doing yoga, Rock Star Yoga, will save me from being a writer. Because in that case I have the days to “myself”, can have a normal job, right?
Because I “only” have to make time for yoga.
Eight hours of writing a blog post versus 90 minutes of doing yoga?
It’s not difficult to see which one is easier to fit into a normal life.

But I will get back to this “problem” of being addicted to writing at the end of this post.
Anyway, circumstance 1 + 2, the desire to get back with Rock Star Yoga and to quit watching Rise of Skywalker videos, combined with the journaling session at the bar, really put Rock Star Yoga 2.0 on the map.
And with it, my love for Slash.

And my first yoga session has indeed been with interviews (not even music yet) with Slash. Doing yoga listening to his soothing voice, talking Gibsons and Les Pauls: I totally loved it.
More than ever I was overwhelmed with “Why did it take me so long to discover Slash?” moments.
But it was something else as well… something that ultimately gave me the missing piece to Rock Star Yoga.
You see, I knew a couple of things when I started Rock Star Yoga this July.
1. Rock Star Yoga was going to be about raising your energy
And through any means necessary.
One of the key “problems” with normal yoga, to me, had been that yoga is micromanagement. It never addressed being creative, sexual, having fun, doing any and all things that make you happy and lift you up.
To me yoga = energy management.
And the first thing to do if you want more energy is to free yourself of the restraints, the things you re not allowing yourself to be, do or have.
Or, alternatively, to at least make a very conscious decision to keep the restraints, but to be more realistic about the amount of compensation that is going to require.
Rock Star Yoga was going to start with pulling all the lids from all the barrels of energy you got stored in that basement of Where You Can’t Come.
Which brings me to the second characteristic:
2. Rock Star Yoga was totally free.
There were no rules, no gurus, no path.
It was ultimately a full creative expression of your body, moving from one pose into the next, at your own pace, doing your own thing.

Through this blog and my YouTube, these points 1 and 2 have been consistent. But watching the Slash interviews and how he works, and becomes one with his guitar, gave me the third piece of the puzzle, which has already reshaped my yoga drastically…
And just like I apparently managed to miss Slash, even when it were the guitars of Guns N’Roses that I loved so much – I managed to miss this key element too.
Even when I have always been inspired by the physicality of yoga.
Even when I have always been inspired by yoga teachers with a back ground in dancing.
Even after calling it Rock Star Yoga and doing yoga to rock music… even then.
I had managed to miss the physicality of Rock Star Yoga. The “what” that the body really is… What is the role of the body in Rock Star Yoga?
What makes it vastly different from any other form of yoga, I have ever heard of?

Slash’s fingers moving over the guitar told me that.
His remark that he felt incomplete without a guitar taught me that.

Rock Star Yoga means that you discover, treat, play your body like an instrument, like a guitar.

The immersion of a musician into his work, becoming one with his instrument, is wildly different to a scientist or a writer, being absorbed by his work.
A musician is a performance artist.
What makes Slash playing guitar, or even talking with a guitar on his lap, so attractive, is because it has become the most visible part of his consciousness.
Just like in yoga, when we say that the breath is the most tangible part of the spirit, the guitar, the instrument itself, has become a tangible part of his spirit.
One of the parts or explanations of (normal) yoga I ve always liked, is that yoga is the merging of consciousness and body.
Consciousness is represented as Shiva.
And the body is represented by Shakti.
By merging Shiva and Shakti, you experience the body as a whole.
Even though my intention for Rock Star Yoga was to stay true to this Tantric aspect of the body and the consciousness becoming one, I had not figured out how to communicate this. Or how to “inspire” it.
But by seeing the body as an instrument, just like Slash pours his consciousness into his guitar, the riddle had practically solved itself.
In Rock Star Yoga, your body is your guitar.

Sometimes I  still wonder, will it really happen?
Not the yoga part, but will I stop being a writer? Calm down? Cool off even 😉
In favor of being a yogi, and in favor of having a normal job.
Maybe even in favor of being a publisher, and more consciously marketing and selling my books. 
Instead of constantly writing new material.
Will I ever stop being addicted to writing?
But as much as love the idea of being more mobile, of not having to bury myself behind my computer for days on end, have a normal working environment with real colleagues, jokes, lightheartedness, connection, I think:
Not in this lifetime.
Writing is who I am, it is the blood that flows through these veins.
But what I can do, just for 90 minutes a day, is listen to Slash interviews *, and pour my consciousness into my body, and let it play. Express. Be.
The unspoken expression of Rock Star Yoga.
That, I can do.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

* My favorite interview with Slash is A Scary Sleepover video with a game called Guess Your Dino where he easily identifies plastic dinos by their correct names.

 


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She Don’t Know Me

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This is the official Star Wars trailer, released a few hours ago:

“But I do”

Rey:
“People keep telling me they know me. No one does.”
Kylo Ren:
“But I do.”

If you’ve followed the new Star Wars trilogy, you know that Rey has every reason to feel alienated. She doesn’t know who her parents are. And she’s also confused because she can feel this force inside of her, which she describes in The Last Jedi as “Something inside me has always been there, but now it’s awake and I’m afraid.” 
Whether Kylo Ren is so sure he knows her because he knows about her heritage? Or feels he knows all about her because of their Force bond?
Or perhaps because he’s just good with the ladies?
We ll have to wait until December 19 to find out.

But the truth is of course that Rey is right.
No one really knows her.
Or you.

But the biggest problem is not that others don’t really know us, but that we don’t really know ourselves. We’re all haunted by Forces within us, that may have stayed dormant for decades, until they are suddenly awake.
And usually they are awakened by facts or circumstances that need severe processing by themselves already.

They don’t usually awake on a quiet Tuesday morning, entirely by themselves.

On an interesting side-note about when Rey’s Force was awakened: 
Among Star Wars fans in general, and in particular among the ones who call themselves “Reylos”, from the by us perceived pairing of Rey and Kylo, it is believed that the reason The Force awakened in Rey in the first place (The Force Awakens, 2015), was because Kylo Ren set foot on Jakku!
The desert planet where she lived.

Kylo’s ship lands on Jakku, the door opens and a heavily masked and cloaked Kylo Ren enters the Star Wars trilogy, and awakens The Force inside of Jakku resident Rey.
Kylo being the trigger to The Force awakening is Rey, is how (we) Reylos explain the title The Force Awakens.

Our Reylo prediction for the new Star Wars is that this bond and history between Kylo Ren and Rey, will be explained.
In the novelization of The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren actually says upon seeing Rey: “It is you!”
Implying he has heard about her, has a shared history with her, or perhaps he’s a few years older and he saw her being brought to Jakku.
Most likely because she is part of a prophecy, or otherwise so powerful, that she cannot be raised somewhere her enemies would find her.

All in all, the reason Rey feels no one knows her, is not so much a consequence of other people not having a good enough understanding of her. But of her not having a good enough understanding of herself.
First because of her missing parents.
And then because of this Force awakening.

To make matters worse the last of the Jedi (masters of the Force) has stopped believing in himself and has locked himself onto a desert island, and the only one who is eager to connect with her is Kylo Ren.
Who is described in all Star Wars lore as “a dark side warrior”.

Rey and Kylo have uncontrolled and spontaneous Force Skypecalls, where they suddenly have an intergalactic connection.
The only one who understands Rey, is the one the entire Universe has instructed her not to date.
No wonder Rey is confused.
But.

To then say people don’t understand who she is?
That’s where she goes wrong, right?
That’s where we all go wrong.

The people around us can only reflect the truth we hold about ourselves.
If we don’t know ourselves, believe in ourselves, trust ourselves?
Very soon, the only one who can look us straight in the eye, really connect with us, and bring us further on our path?
Is a dark side warrior named Kylo Ren.
Saying in that husky, seductive voice:
“It is you.”

I’ll take it.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

“She don’t know me” is a Bon Jovi song from their first album.
I added the video below.


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If That’s What It Takes

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I used to see it VERY clearly:
But not anymore.
I knew I was going to change the face of yoga, and most of all – I was going to change how people view it.
From something with limited applicability, something learned from someone else, to something limitless and personal.
Something unique and creative.
Something YOU create by stepping onto your mat, putting on the music of your choice and just take it away.

I imagined you’d already practiced with YouTube videos from Yoga with Adriene, or taken a few classes in your town.
Perhaps you weren’t able to find a studio or class times to suit your need.
These blogs on how yoga doesn’t have any rules, and that finding inspiration within yourself is the key, would strengthen your belief in yourself and protect you from looking outside of yourself for guidance.

But like I said:
I can’t see it anymore.
Not the BIG picture.

I can see the small picture, of me keeping this blog on as a hobby project, and helping the occasional student who wants help designing their own practice.
But I can’t see the big picture, where I change the face of yoga.

And the main reason is that I think I m autistic, and if that is the case it means that my entire frame of mind is different.

In the light of my autism, the reason I failed as a yoga teacher, and the reason teaching stressed me out becomes extremely simple:
Because teaching yoga, especially as a woman, is what we autistic people call “super neurotypical”.
It means all social standards, unwritten rules and expectations apply to me.
And then some.

I ve seen different transcripts of a neurotypical conversation, versus a conversation between two autistic people. Two autistic people talk by alternating having a monologue about a certain subject.
They have a high density of information.
It is content driven.

Two neurotypicals have conversations based on making each other feel good, have a low information density.

The reason I can’t see myself changing the face of yoga anymore, is that yoga already has the perfect neurotypical face:
It is based on making you feel good and has a low information density.

In my defense: I do make a good one-on-one connection, where we immediately get to the core of what it is that moves you and inspires you.
But if you just “brush by me” or come into contact with me, without me being able to tune into you personally?
My presence could have a terrible effect on you; You may unexpectedly feel the pain of knowing you’ve been living the wrong life.
And then what?

Can I then still say Rock Star Yoga is great, because it provides an inspirational, personal approach to yoga and doesn’t have the limitations of taking group yoga classes in normal studios?
No.
I say: “I wish you had never met me, because I ve only made things worse.”

My autism diagnoses is telling me what I have known for a long time: That most people are better off not knowing me.

That it’s only the one percent within the one percent, who will absolutely thrive knowing they can design their own yoga, just like they can design their own life.
My clarity, my presence, and probably my mental makeup because I m autistic are just as great for them, as they are highly disturbing for those who are just Googling “yoga”.

I no longer want to change the face of yoga, because I believe its current face is perfect to most.

But then how do I reach the one percent within the one percent, without disturbing yoga for the others?

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

afterthought 9 December 2020

This post was written 14 months ago, and I still don’t know the answer to this question.


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Burning Bridges/ We Don’t Run

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I always thought Bon Jovi’s 13th album Burning Bridges (21 August, 2015) and their fourteenth This House Is Not For Sale (in shorthand “THINFS”) had been released a lot closer together.
But due to THINFS being pushed back, they were ultimately over 14 months apart.
Months which were spent rebuilding 50% of the bridges which were commemorated on Burning Bridges.
Unfortunately, this was the 50% where Bon Jovi had split with their record company.
Not the 50% where Bon Jovi split with its other front man, Richie Sambora.
which will probably always remain an enigma, although I do think they will get back together.

All in all, Burning Bridges was an album Bon Jovi didn’t want to make, and the last song, Burning Bridges, makes that abundantly clear:

Sayonara
Adios, auf wiedersehen, farewell
Adieu, good night, guten abend
Here’s one last song you can sell
Lets call it burning bridges
It’s a sing along as well
Ciao, adieu, good nacht, guten abend
Play it for your friends in hell

song Burning Bridges

The song Burning Bridges and the album with the same name, were their goodbye to Mercury/ Universal Music after a 32 year collaboration. But they kissed and made-up, as Jon put it, and fourteen months later THINFS was released by Universal again, this time on their label Island music.

In a clip I found on YouTube (sound-only) Jon cryptically referred to Burning Bridges as their latest record, but not their next.
They didn’t release singles from Burning Bridges, there was no art work, and Jon delivered it in a brown paper bag.
Since I assume files are sent digitally nowadays, the picture of Jon delivering the master tapes in a brown paper bag to Universal manually, could be him exaggerating.
But I don’t know.

Burning Bridges was the only album almost entirely without art work

But Burning Bridges, although low-key presented as an album “for the fans”, was not a bad album at all.
And without any videos or art work, it had a nostalgic bootleg feel to it.
The fans loved the songs, and I’m your man is a personal favorite of mine.
And the band itself loved the song We don’t run so much, that they put it as a bonus track on their next album THINFS.

We don’t run, that song that was on Burning Bridges, but brought over to their next album as well,
has also been played throughout their entire THINFS tour (2017-2019).
So Burning Bridges wasn’t a bad album.

The song We don’t run contains a direct referral to the album Burning Bridges:

I’m not afraid of burning bridges
‘Cause I know they’re gonna light my way
Like a Phoenix, from the ashes
Welcome to the future it’s a new day

from the song We don’t run (live)

Today I used the album Burning Bridges as the soundtrack to my yoga.
And it reminded me of a somewhat related story, about the rebirth of my yoga practice.
In July 2018 I quit teaching groups, closed my yoga studio, and looked forward to practicing yoga just for myself and start enjoying myself on the mat again.
But none of those things went as planned.
14 months later, I still own my yoga space for teaching privates, but I didn’t really get my mojo back for my home practice.
Not until today!

Today FINALLY after 14 months, “it’ dropped.
Just like the THINFS album, my renewed home practice, Rock Star Yoga, was born much later than I had anticipated.
As if the release date kept being pushed forward, because it wasn’t done yet.

We often think we can speed new things up by marking the ending of the previous.
But it cannot be rushed.

Fourteen months is a perfectly normal time frame, for a band to reinvent itself after marking losing Richie Sambora who had been with the band for thirty years.
Just like fourteen months was normal for me, after quitting teaching after 15 years.
You can’t whip yourself into a new, finite shape, no matter how much you would want to.

“The Burning Bridges record is our latest.
It’s not our next.
This is sort of the end of the cycle. Not the beginning of the new one.
2014 was a pretty traumatic year for me. And I’ve come through it. ”
Jon Bon Jovi, July 2015

When Jon Bon Jovi started giving promo interviews for THINFS, late 2016, he said he had had three very bad years.
Counting 2015, the time of Burning Bridges, as one of them. He wasn’t done yet; All he had done was burn the bridges.

No one knows how long it will take for a new band, a new yoga, a new life, to rise from the ashes.

But for the lucky ones, it’s fourteen months after burning the bridge. 

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

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Livin’ on a prayer

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She says, we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot for love
We’ll give it a shot

from
Livin’on a Prayer from Bon Jovi

I once had a conversation on Twitter (under my pen name) with a politician who started following me, because my bio said I was inspired by Bon Jovi.
He added:
“As a true socialist, I do think Tommy and Gina deserve more than just each other.”
Naturally, I agreed.

In the Netherlands, entire social structures have collapsed. Tommy and Gina would be worse off now, than in 1986.
Yet that was not the reason why I used to experience a totally unfamiliar desire for my life to end, whenever I went looking for a job.
I knew this was not just strange but also ungrateful:
Tommy and Gina would have been THRILLED to even have a job!

The two characters from Bon Jovi made me realize more than anything, that I was not seeing clearly. That somewhere in my head, two circuits were connected that shouldn’t be. Or not connected, where they should have been.
Either way, it puzzled me.

First I thought it had to do with the type of job.
And that if I could find the ideal job, I would be okay. But then when I did find that, my response was the same.
And the thing I tried after that?
Same response.

By the time I had dealt with unexpected suicidal thoughts three times, I decided to see a doctor.

Now, just to give you an idea of how overtaxed our health system is (could this perhaps be because health care is the only government funded social structure still in place?!) we are now at the point where suicidal thoughts are normalized. It has taken me several visits to the GP to get the right referral, and I m still nowhere near actually getting help. February 2020.

So perhaps it is a good thing that I did not wait for that, and tried to solve my problem best I could, by trying on different diagnoses. The one that fit me like a glove was Asperger syndrome, autism.
The results of looking at my life through the lens of autism, have been nothing short of phenomenal.
When I imagine an autism-friendly job, with highly specialized work, uninterrupted work flow, and minimal to no social interaction?
Bring. It. On!
I honestly can’t wait to start.

Once I designed a job, bearing in mind the strengths and the weaknesses connected to autism, my despair completely disappeared.
It was hacked.
I m good to go.
And I was very surprised that I wasn’t half as hung up on doing my purpose work, my writing, as I thought I was. But this does not mean that I m giving up on my dreams!

My dream is to earn a full living publishing my books.
I write under this name, Suzanne Beenackers, but the majority of my work and all the books I ve already published are under a pen name.
My goal is to have a full income publishing under both names, but this will require careful planning.
If I start working 40 hours for an employer, then how will I do that?

That’s why I ve made a list of priorities, which may come as a surprise.

priorities next to a full-time job

I will start full-time employment as soon as possible, and until that time I will work full-time publishing my books.
Either way, the years where I could wake up and start writing and creating, are over, at least for now.
But I no longer consider that a problem.
After all, that’s how everybody lives.

And I ve devoured more books on how to make your side hustle work, than there were Bon Jovi songs on last night’s set list.
(Rio de Janeiro)

So now that I will be working a regular job, what choices will I make for my free time?
At number 3:

3.  work on my business

If I one day want to make a full income from my books, I need stay in communication through social media and write or create something every day. 

2. Physical exercise and keep my house clean

Yoga, fresh air, and a clean house are important for my mental health. I m absolutely prioritizing that.
Unless of number 1!
Then I choose number one 🙂 

1. social life and sexuality*

This was a difficult decision because prioritizing fun sounds so frivolous. But ultimately I know this is right. And that if I wouldn’t make this my number one in theory, I would still do so in practice.

I will always choose seeing a friend, doing my volunteer work, or teaching a yoga class to my old students, over my other leisure time priorities. 
And my sexuality*, has an even higher priority.

Because my entire creativity, my vitality, and my entire lust for life, is rooted in my sexuality.
Without that, nothing would work.

This doesn’t mean that I need a lot of lovers or anything like that. It simply means like I need to feel, like I have a lot of lovers.
Which is a different thing.
But I need to be in a state of constant expectation, and excitement. There is no other way to put it. And it really hardly even matters what (or who) I have to “show for it”. As long as I feel on top of the world as a woman, and fully owning my power and my sexuality, I m good to go.

The politician was right.
Tommy and Gina do deserve more than just each other. 
But it’s good the know that technically, you don’t even need that. 

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

* Still unsure of what prioritizing sexuality means, if it’s not sex?
Here’s an example:
Jon Bon Jovi and a fan on stage, yesterday night.
It’s sexy, it’s loving, it’s very consensual.
And it takes a hell of a lot of practice:

 

NO TICKET NEEDED

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Lost Highway

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Jon Bon Jovi also lost his highway, but only literally because he was on a boat. He played on a cruise Runaway to Paradise, Palma de Mallorca

I just wasted an hour creating videos (for my pen name account) and I deleted all of them.
It seems the thing I want to share is just not ready to come out by spoken word, without becoming heavy.
I say becoming heavy, because I don’t feel that heavy.

When I go on dates with friends I talk about it very candidly, and we always have a good laugh over how I had to try out using different words at the GP, to describe what my mental health complaints were, in order to get the right referral.
Narcissism?
Suicidal thoughts?
I wanted to know what was wrong with me, and although my off-the-cuff self-diagnose was manic-depression, I could see how my defiant pose could also indicate a personality disorder.

I m on #day10 of trying to get a mental health diagnose, if I start counting this journey from the first consultation at the GP that was literally a request for help.
Because this depression has been going on for 18 months and I ve contacted the GP before. But only to inform her and keep my file up-to-date in case I would get a crisis.

I wanted to do this now that I still had bandwidth to do so, instead of having to tell a congruent story when I was already having suicidal thoughts, already homeless, or when the only thing I could say was:
“Put me on Prozac or any opiate you ve got because I ve accepted a normal job and need to forget my purpose work and everything I came to do here on this earth or I ll go mad.”

She had offered in-house,”light” mental help then too.
Something that initially appealed to me!
But when I actually sat there, with someone who clearly did not understand my problems, I was overwhelmed with a “shoot me now” feeling, that wasn’t beneficial for my mental health.
I never went back.

So if I count outside that brief flirt with getting help, my real journey started 10 days ago.
Despite promising myself I would not put my life on hold until I had a proper diagnosis – I can feel that I AM doing just that! Putting my life on hold.
For seven days I ve been absolutely convinced I have autism.
Absolutely.
Convinced.
It all made sense.

I have a male brain.
I value being in my inner-world way more than in the outer world.
I am totally allergic to small talk.
And super comfortable having a deep connection with others, even strangers.
For me it’s so much easier to really connect on an emotional level, than to engage in superficial “emphatic conversation”, which I find energetically draining.

Friends know I am not the right person to talk to, if you need a shoulder to cry on. But I m a brilliant friend if you want to go for coffee and discuss your deepest fears, spontaneously surfacing, and have a laugh over them.
I show my feelings openly and freely, and only hide them because I know people feel uncomfortable if I show my real self.
However, teary eyed me is only one side of that coin: she is tied to Lighthouse Self!!

And Lighthouse Self is not always welcome so I often leave her at home.
But sometimes when I m out, I get into the zone and start feeling really good, unexpectedly, and I can feel the light switching on!
And then hiding my true self becomes like pulling the light cord of lighthouse.
I want to shout: “I can’t hold this for long! Go away!”

Having unexpected lighthouse moments when you’re around people who feel threatened by that, is a nightmare for all parties.

But my most autistic side is actually the soft side of the coin, the vulnerability.
These moments when I just unexpectedly cry looking someone in the eye, or listening to music or watching a movie. Sometimes I just cry caressing my cat.
My emotions are so close to the surface, it costs me even more effort to hide them, than it costs me in the lighthouse situations.
I ve learned to toughen up a long time ago.

Autism also explained why the profession of yoga teacher (for groups) was not the right one for me. I cannot make a personal connection in a group.
The same thing that makes it so very easy to teach one on one, is what made it straining to teach groups.
Now it did get easier over the years!
And now I have a few residual groups, old-students from the studio. And this goes really well.
Last two years of normal studio life was easier too:
Because we all knew each other.

So the more intimate the setting, the easier I find my work as a yoga teacher. Because there I can make a real connection, and autistic people communicate on an energetic level.
So I thought I had cracked the code to where my mental health problems began:
In this neurological condition called autism.
But then today: Whoops!
Totally swayed to the other side.

I started reading on highly gifted people with autism, and also on highly gifted people mistaken for (also) being autistic.

And after being convinced for a whole week that my upcoming test for intelligence – I will be tested on autism, intelligence and personality disorders – was just a formality, because I m certainly not brilliant in pattern recognition or math – I did a 180 on the whole autism thing….
No.
No autism.
Can’t be.

High intelligence, or highly gifted, explains for my problems way more than autism does.

For instance:
I know perfectly well what people try to establish with small talk. I understand them. But I m interested in deep and or intellectual conversations.
About your life, and how you’re hacking things, and emotionally developing yourself.
It’s tempting to shame myself for not being interested in other people, when in reality, if those people make good jokes, or reflect on their lives, or know many things about many things, I LOVE to talk about them too!

I ve discovered about half a year ago that I can’t remember experiencing any problem conversing, putting on a mask, or having to hold on tight to the cord of the lighthouse, when I was talking to someone a bit nerdy.
Which usually means intelligent right?
We’d always get along.

That was the first time I saw a neurological explanation, for what was basically not being able to function in normal society.
But it wasn’t autism, that was intelligence.
Yet the past week, when I projected it onto autism?
Oh that felt so much better… 

Because if I saw myself as autistic, someone who was wired differently, I would be incapable of doing things that were practically second nature to others.
And I would have to figure out the manual to myself, because autistic people vary vastly. They come with all sorts of talents and sensitivities, so you can’t copy paste.
The only way to deal with autism is to weigh every aspect of your life, everything you do and don’t do, and ask yourself:
“Is this decision or habit mine? Or based on what the world says I can or cannot do?”

Autism gave me a validation.
Both for my talent to make a real connection with people easily (autistic people communicate from an emotional level), and to let the tears come whenever they want.
But autism also explained why I felt drained to make small talk. And in such a charming way….
“I m autistic, sorry.”
But if I m “only” very intelligent?
Or “only depressed”?
Anything else that is not as disarming as autism, then I lose my hall card, right?
I can no longer dodge situations when neutral, accessible human interaction is required, without suddenly coming across as horrible and arrogant.

So I m back to square one.
I have no idea when the testing and the diagnoses will happen, but I m counting on 6 months. 

At times like this it’s good to remind myself of why I wanted to get a diagnoses:
To get some perspective on why I am so stubborn in needing to do my purpose work. Even if it is never going to make me a cent, not in life nor after death.
Even if the worst case scenario, of giving it my all and never being recognized in any way, I want to stand tall and say:
“But I did what I came here to do.”

After wasting ten days, it’s time to do just that.
Yoga, this blog, and everything else I came here to do.
Before I really lose my highway.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer


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Keep the faith

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I have no idea what Jon is doing here but I need more of that

When you’re just a few weeks in to having your own Rock Star Yoga blog – fangirling over Jon Bon Jovi and Nikki Sixx, sporadically using the word “yoga” or entirely omitting it –
[*note: in 2019 the blog was called Rock Star Yoga]
there is one thing you really don’t want to do;
To go through your Bon Jovi hit titles too quickly.

Or maybe there’s two things you really don’t want to do:

1. To even name your Rock Star Yoga blog posts after Bon Jovi songs in the first place.
Imagine the fuss of keeping a system to avoid double titles at some point.

And
2. To then go through your hit titles too quickly.

You want to save that Living on a Prayer, Keep the Faith and Bad Medicine, for the days you can make them count.

And something tells you that day isn’t going to be your average Wednesday in August, just a few weeks after starting this blog.

So naturally, when I found myself leaping for the big guns, I hesitated.
Especially since I m pressed for time, and I can’t write this blog post to include everything that happened the past week.
In fact I intend not to.
In short?
I tripped.
Fell off the Rock Star Yoga bus.
It was a very modest trip, I didn’t end up with a needle in my arm and a thousand dollar a day habit, like Nikki Sixx in 1987.
So a little perspective is in order.
But nevertheless I was disappointed that I still had so much internal shit to deal with.
This time it had to do with work.

Over the course of a year, I have made the decision to get a normal job three times, and all three times it gave me thoughts of death as a good thing.
Now for clarity sake, I call these suicidal thoughts although they were premature and (thank God) don’t actually count as that.
So don’t freak out, because I didn’t either.

I just saw them as a sign that I was about to do something that made me want to end my life = a warning to not go do that.
Which in my case, was that I was about to go to work.

So, the first time, which was 2018, was a job that was not right for me, and the location was far away, so I needed to commute.
The second time it was a good job but I changed my mind when I discovered it was already taking up mental band width.

I didnt want a job, which required thinking about it after 5 P.M.
By the time I pulled back I had already been energetically lining up with that company for five days. I had promised I would think over the weekend about our work agreement.
Until I realized I didn’t want to think about anything else but my own business.

And I know sacrificing a weekend was a one-off investment, that ultimately I would get paid for this.
But I just couldn’t see how five days of unpaid energetic alignment with my ideal employer (which he was) was ever going to result in me getting a job that had boundaries.

Which lead to attempt number three:
Let’s leave them diploma’s at home and do simple work.

However this became rather unpleasant when I realized that a four day workweek here, would cover 50% of my monthly expenses.
I don’t want to work 5 days, because I want be able to accept private clients/yoga classes on the Fridays. And I need that money too, in particular with a low paying job.

But that I would sacrifice 80% of my workweek, to get 50% of the net income I need (I have business expenses for my yoga studio too) was not motivating.
And the thought that I would basically be throwing away 80% of my life NOT doing my purpose work (which is writing/ creating videos under this account and my pen name), was not very appealing either.

So this made working a low paying job a recipe to stress myself out. With every minute away from my desk not doing my purpose work and also not making enough money to pay the bills.

After giving it a lot of thought I therefor decided I will use my retirement fund, to pay for this phase in my life.
This way I can do my purpose work, and I can teach “normal” yoga on Friday, and the rest of the week I can write these blog posts (among other purpose work) and build my rock star yoga business.

So Saturday morning I was still under the impression I would go regular job hunting.
My spirits were low, I had migraine, heart complaints and my breasts were so painful it was as if I was in some sort of violent period.
Which I wasn’t.
Yet as soon as I pulled the plug on the idea of regular work, and decided to break the bank/ pension fund:
Poof!
Gone were all the complaints!

The moment I chose ART and TEACHING YOGA, no matter what the consequences would be?
I was fit and happy.

I went on a short holiday and then the mourning came.
It was a mourning for the loss of a life I never had, which I can compare to something I had been warned for, but never felt:
The mourning for children you didn’t have.

It is said that even women who never wanted children, may experience a sense of loss, for not having them. I never had that, but I think this compared.
I never wanted a normal job. My resistance towards it is as old as my academic diploma. And yet because everybody else seemed fine with it, I always assumed it was a Plan B for me.
Knowing there isn’t a plan B, is daunting.

What if I lose my house? What if I can no longer take care of my cats?
And yet after a few days of crying, and letting it all sink in, I feel light as a feather.

Some people will think that the title Keep the Faith means that I have faith that it will all work out well.
That is not true.
I don’t know if this choice leads to a 7-Figure business or to living on the streets.
Keep the Faith means:
Trusting that your choice is the right one.
Regardless.
* dramatic pause *

On a brighter note!
For this blog I chose a photo from Jon Bon Jovi, hanging by his microphone stand. It was flashed to me on the “Stories” timeline on Facebook:
A feature I never quite understood except that if you want to save it you have to be really quick.
The Jon Bon Jovi story photo from the Bon Jovi’s Stuff page kept buzzing through my head…
There was something strangely erotic about a collapsed Jon Bon Jovi with his hands high above him, holding on to his mic (see top of this blog post)

Providing no Jon Bon Jovis were hurt taking this picture – my imagination is running wild with very good things

It reminded me of another photo of Jon Bon Jovi on stage on his knees. A photo I had saved, I knew that.
Pity I had not been able to save the standing one…
When it was 4 PM and I still had not forgotten Disappearing Collapsed Jon At the Mic, I started Googling it.
But there was no way I could find it.
When I was browsing through my downloads to get the one from Jon on his knees, I suddenly saw it!
I had been able to save Jon with the Mic this morning, after all!

When Googling it again, feeding the file to the Search bar, it didn’t come up with similar photos, nor a date or place. So I have no idea where the picture is taken.

But I do hope that after my downfall, my collapse, and the days of hard work, I too will end up exhausted but satisfied and happy, my hands together, high above me. Or collapsed on my knees, head down.
And look as erotically charged as Jon.

I have faith.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer


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(These arms are) Open all night

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I can confirm these arms are always open for cuddling, licking, fetching, scratching, biting, playing catch, hide and seek. Because I am her love child. ~Flipje

“This title, Open all night, we’ve used about five times.
We finally did a song on the Bounce record, called Open all night. Great title, we never could get it right.”
Jon Bon Jovi, 32 min 28 sec 

So apparently there were five songs called Open All Night.
But even if you go with the three that were released, you’d have trouble distinguishing them.

The only mainstream version of Open all night is, like Jon said, on the album Bounce.

The Box Set, 100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong, is for the fans and has two other versions: Open all night and These arms are open all night.

Three different songs, but they’re all ballads which makes them similar.
And although the title of the song on Bounce is “Open all night”;
Those lyrics say These arms are open all night.
Adding to the confusion about which song is which.

All-in-all Bon Jovi is open all night, usually with the arms included.
And it’s something that inspires them.

And lap sitting you have to tell them lap sitting too lap sitting is great it’s not just about the arms it’s also about the lap sitting because I am her love child ~Zaza

I’ve listened to all three songs, and here is what I found.

For clarity’s sake, I m going to assume the protagonist of these songs is male, and preferably Jon Bon Jovi, unless he specifically says that he is Jones and he drives a dented red Chevrolet then we go with that.
And we’ll assume the other person is a woman.

So here’s the three different songs:

1. Open all night
at 100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong
live version Atlantic City 2004

Is about a girlfriend who has left to make it in the world and her boyfriend waiting at the bar, telling her not to worry.
Open all night refers to the boyfriend being open all night, meaning waiting for her.

2. These arms are open all night
at 100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong
live version Borgota 2004

Is about a man who introduces himself as “Jones” and informs us he has a dented red Chevrolet, and gives a woman he met at the bar a detailed description how to get to his house.
Now if Jon Bon Jovi would try pick me up with this:
“These arms are open all night
If you need someone to talk to
A hand to hold onto and if it feels right
These arms are open all night”
That would be a Hell YES! if ever there was any.
I would feel completely seen, wanted, desired, and although I m not a night person at all, I would make an exception.
However.
This song explicitly identifies him as not being JBJ, but as “Jones”.
And I m actually surprised Jones sees the headlights of the woman behind him following him, because he confesses (out loud?):
“God only knows how long it’s been that I been this lonely”
Would not make me feel wanted at all….

For each their own I guess, but I m more than just a warm body and the shorter the encounter is gonna be, the more I want to feel that this man will do anything to be with me, because he desires me just so much it’s driving him mad.
Which brings me to:

3. Open all night, main version, Bounce
album recording

There is a reason this is the one that made it to the main studio album.
It starts with a verse where Jon – Jon’s back! I like him MUCH better than somebody who introduces himself with a surname Jones – shares with us that he saw us coming from a mile away and noticed our poor little heart was bruised black and blue.

Then we get a verse where he tells us that he too, has been hurt. He knows how it feels. And that the last thing we need is another pickup line, so he’s not going to do that.
Wait.
Maybe I should just quote this. Here are those verses:

“I saw you coming from a mile away
Trying to hide behind that pretty face
Bet my last dollar baby you been bruised
Poor little heart all black ‘n’ blue

Last thing you need’s another pickup line
You must have heard them all a thousand times
God only knows what you been through
Believe me I been broken too

It aches, it breaks, it takes your breath away
I’ve been around that block a time or two”
…
Okay, if there is a woman now, considering to NOT immediately go with Jon, she’s lying.
We just got picked up in 2,5 verse.
Bring in the chorus:
“Baby, I don’t want to fall in love with you
I try, try, try but I can’t get around the truth
Please don’t say my name, give this heart a break
I don’t want to make the same mistake but it’s too late
I’ll leave on the light
These arms are open all night”
Song number 3 wins. Jon gets the girl.
This is such a no-brainer that I feel like an idiot even going through the rest of the song, but I will do so, as a sign of song-appreciation.

So we had Jon buttering us up with perfect verses and bringing it home with the best pickup chorus in the history of rock music and then we have:
(Take it away Jon)
“I got your taste in the back of my mouth
I want to reach in and pull it out
And I’d be lying if I didn’t say
When you’re this close I’m afraid
Of the way I’ll feel if I touch your hair
The way I’ll miss you when you’re not there
And that I’ll see you when I close my eyes
It’s too late, I’ve crossed that line“
Not only did Jon have us at “Baby, I don’t want to fall in love with you”
He now burns the very last of our entire defense system to the ground,
by admitting he too has fallen hard for us.
That he didn’t want to fall in love, he wasn’t looking for it, he wasn’t needy or lonely, and yet it happened anyway.
*soft sigh*
Isn’t life beautiful?

Are we now not all dreaming of being swept off our feet by someone we don’t want to fall in love with, but we just can’t help ourselves?

In another documentary, Jon speaks about his mixed feelings of singing ballads in front of a live audience. The interviewer tells him that the crowd was completely quiet the other night, when Jon sang his version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
Jon answers:
“There is a ballad called Open all Night, on Bounce, that I love for that reason.
But it gets the polite applause at the end, because it’s not that..”
*makes energetic hand gestures*
(18 min 30 sec)

After this analysis of the lyrics of Open all Night on Bounce, I don’t believe Jon. I don’t believe anyone would not get it, if Jon sang this live.
That was not a “polite” applause.
That was “God that hurt please play a rock anthem to make it go away.” – applause.

It was a crowd with arms that were not just open for Jon;
They would have given them both to have him in it.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer


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These arms are open all night (Live)
version on 100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong:

Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars

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“My heart’s like an open book
For the whole world to read”
~Nikki Sixx

I was going to share everything.
After all, I am just like Nikki Sixx, an open book.
And as far as I have secrets, I review them regularly, if they still require to stay hidden.
Usually they don’t.
They re just my ego telling me I won’t be loved and successful if I share that side of myself.
When really?
Does the world need another great pretender?
Rip the band-aid.
Bare your naked soul to the world, as my favorite online coach Katrina Ruth calls it.

In the context of taking honesty to a whole new level, I was going to share this weekend’s stunning photos of Jon Bon Jovi in a crispy white shirt, which were taken on Saturday.
It was at an annual fundraising for the Apollo theater, and the photos bore the mark of Getty images and the photographer.
However.
Because the mark was always on the right of the photo, and Jon Bon Jovi was always standing, watermark-free, on the left side, I was already doing a decent job cropping him out, to make a collage with the older one;
A photo of Jon in a crispy white shirt last Saturday and a 90s (I think) photo taken by an anonymous photographer. Also of Jon in a white shirt, sitting by the pool.

Until I realized this is how I could get into trouble. By using photos from a press agent.
It took until I clicked on a version that had actual price tags onto them, before I snapped out of my Paint job and was like:
“You know what? I ll blog with the anonymous, retro shot of Jon Bon Jovi at the poolside to make my point.”

In case you need a visual of the pictures that blew my mind this Monday morning, just read on we’ll get to that.
I didn’t see current-day Jon in white shirt on the official press release of Getty Images, nor on the website of Harlem’s Apollo Theater.
I saw them on a Facebook page for Jon Bon Jovi fans.

Now, this in itself is a small miracle because I don’t spend much time on Facebook. The only social medium I like is Twitter, because it allows much better conversation, and is based on your personal interests. There is also less censorship on Twitter, it’s an adult thing, and you don’t have to use your real name.
You click with other people on mutual interests, it’s as simple as that.

Facebook gets about half a post to seduce me to spend time there, before I click to my notifications and start handling my messages and my pages.
Half a post, that’s all.
Today the JBJ fan page hit me with this one.
(For the fans check post 2, which has the other photos taken this weekend)

The specific current-day Jon Bon Jovi in white shirt photo that blew my mind was this one.

It really was so profound that I found myself kind of needing to process that, and it slowed down starting my day. It was impossible to think about anything else until I knew WHY I liked looking at Jon Bon Jovi so much.

This weekend I already had a long conversation with my mother, to ask her if she could please share her take on male beauty with me.
Because I never see it coming, until it’s too late.
That men are swiped off their feet by beautiful women?
A given.
But how many women are aware that they are swept off their feet by beautiful men?
Or are they not?
Am I an exception?

And what is it then, this mysterious thing we call male beauty?

The last question was a good one to ask my mother, because she’s always much quicker in determining it. I even have a case of my mother saying someone was beautiful, and me simply laughing about it.
And then becoming completely smitten later on.
She knows stuff.
I don’t, not before he has already done his enchanting work.

Together with my mother we came up with a few characteristics.
Teeth, hair, and overall attitude.
I was the one adding “teeth”.
How he holds himself was definitely numero uno, when it came to being an attractive man.
Great teeth, great hair and a strong on-screen and off-screen presence, are as much part of current day Jon Bon Jovi, as they were his traits on the undated photo near the pool.
So nothing new there.

And then it hit me!
This is a cookie jar thing!
Beginners mistake!
But let me explain.

If you re on a diet and you refuse something that is offered to you, for example a cookie from the cookie jar, this costs energy, causing your willpower to plummet.
If after that somebody offers it again, you will not only take the cookie. You ll probably take two, three or a two fists full of cookies.

And in that light, it suddenly made total sense that my Monday morning had a startup delay from one current-day Jon Bon Jovi photo in a white shirt.

Because a week ago, someone sent the first retro shot of Jon by the pool, to me and I tried to resist.
I tried to pretend that barefoot Jon by the pool with his shirt open, was something I could also not swoon over.

Please note that this whole “acting like a grown-up” pose, was taking place during my Rock Star Yoga fallout.
[*note: in 2019 the blog was called Rock Star Yoga]

I was not practicing yoga.
I was not writing for this blog.
But I was super busy wondering where the inspiration went.
(where do you think? could it be sitting by the pool perhaps?)

Pondering over why was I no longer caring for doing yoga to Bon Jovi music and then write about it.
(Uh, maybe because you’re ignoring that cute photo?)

Hard lesson huh?

Inspiration did come to me during that fallout from doing yoga or writing for this blog.
Yet in hindsight?
Oh, it came more than once.

I said in the previous blog (Fever) that I had strong feelings for Nikki Sixx and I wrote an erotic story under my pen name.
Or perhaps I left that out, because I/my ego wanted to keep that from you, but that’s what it was.
Full-on erotica.
I had inspiration in spades!

But I thought it was inspiration that wasn’t fancy enough to share here. I didn’t want to be the weirdo yoga teacher who only practices if she feels inspired by male rock stars.

So I said “No” to the cookie of letting Nikki Sixx inspire my yoga and Rock Star Yoga blog; I said “No” to Jon by the pool inspire me;
And I tried to take the edges off, by taking that inspiration over “to the other side” of my blog under my penname.
The non-fancy side.

Yet, this morning, the cookie jar came again!

I had no more willpower left to resist and let it have me.
Thought about it for as long as I needed to think about it, which was one Monday morning.
And then I wrote this long blog post about the stunning appeal of Jon Bon Jovi wearing crispy white shirts.

Moral to this story?
Take the damn cookie.
And take it the first time.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars is a Bon Jovi song from Crush (2000)
And was played on almost concerts on their most recent tour.

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Bon Jovi concert reviews 1995-1996 Suzanne Beenackers YouTube