Click to watch a newly remastered 35 minute video from the concert Bon Jovi gave on New year’s Eve, 1990
The first of January is my strongest day of the year. You could even say that knowing it will soon come, is what gets me through December.
New Year’s Day doesn’t just mark new beginnings, with the days getting longer and a full year ahead, it’s also the ending of a season where all my days seem to disappear somewhere under Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, meal planning, buying and or designing seasonal postcards, and so on.
In January we start over, to make ourselves or our lives aright.
At least, that’s how I see it.
So today was indeed spent doing the things I from now on want to do daily, as well as having a great time with friends, and walking and sunlight and cycling and being very excited for the whole new year- but now at the end of the day, I feel: Blimey. For this Rock Star Writer project I have very little to show for….
It’s like so much has failed for this site, as well as for the YouTube series, that although I am still enthusiastic for about 80% of the projects, they are all so far behind on schedule that I almost don’t dare to show up for them. Don’t dare to bring them back to memory, by picking them up!
As long as I keep them hidden under the last posts, no one will know. As long as I don’t post a new video, no one will know how much time has passed.
But then again: That is not how I want to start the year. Or at least, it’s not how I want to start January 2nd.
So I ve decided to “come clean”. To be honest about the mess I made, and take responsibility for not doing the things I said I was gonna do. And what you can expect in 2021. .
ENDING Most SERIES
This site and channel started in 2019 as Rock Star Yoga. And I ve created about 50 videos for YouTube on juicy topics (I remember videos where I now can’t believe I dared to share that!) but also really novel ones that basically came down to a 50/50 mix of yoga and personal development with Bon Jovi.
And the result was really great.
But due to a combination of factors, some technical and some personal, I started feeling very conscious of the content.
And on top of that, the description boxes kept getting out of date, because I went through some changes with my offerings, website names etc.
A few weeks ago I started restoring them – which was a great idea. But I also turned it into a new project where I blogged the restored video, and adding a new blog post as well. In retrospect that’s when I got overwhelmed. But blogging/ restoring my old content was not the first thing that failed.
I also had a series Live from London, which had stranded. A series The Box Set, which had stranded. And a YouTube series on concerts from 1995, that had also stranded.
But now the mess was so big that I have decided to cancel all series (The Box Set, Live In London, restoring old videos) and only pick up the YouTube concert series, from everything I started in 2020.
And for the blog? I will do what has worked, time and time again, which is a line I even repeated in every description box on YouTube (too bad I didn’t understand its implications!).
It was: “Blog with its own unique stories (+ address to this site) “
This blog Rock Star Writer will have its own, unique, one-off, single-shot stories of whatever comes up.
I’m singing Carpe Diem I’m saying seize the day Come on, let’s live forever It’s new year’s day
from Bon Jovi, New year’s Day 2016
. Let 2021 be the year where we do not plan ahead.
And make it Carpe Diem instead.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
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The New Rock Star Writer
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A couple of days ago YouTube channel hAnD90 released a 1986 remastered Bon Jovi concert audio. Bon Jovi | Live at Nippon Budokan | Tokyo 1986
It was filmed the day Slippery When Wet was released, which was the band’s 3rd album.
So the set list was a mixture of new songs, which the fans had never heard, and songs from their first two albums, both of which had been toured in Japan.
Despite Bon Jovi not having its big breakthrough until Slippery When Wet (You Give love A Bad Name, Livin’ On A Prayer) the band had always been very popular in Japan.
The songs from those first two albums were well known.
When hAnD90 referred to the set list as “A Transitional One”, in the description box, it stuck to me. As if it was the label I had been looking for to describe what is happening to me, and why I m so inconsistent in showing up here. Or even, in knowing what to “play”! I m not releasing my bestseller today, that much I know. But I may have made the biggest leap of my entire adult life in the past 24 hours.
Without using boring words, which may trigger you to stop reading, the short version is this:
I m going all in on my writing.
Oh, shoot! That was still boring! Better not tell how I got there. I think all you need to know is that I won’t rest until my JOB is to work on my own business selling my books.
Not services.
Not my time.
Not working for an employer (although I may do that to support myself).
The only thing I ve ever been good at is writing.
The only thing I have ever wanted, is writing. And this account Rock Star Writer, will be one of the two biggies. It is the account I will show up DAILY, either blogging, making a YouTube video, or updating and revising one of our earlier posts.
I will be on Twitter and Facebook every day.
*boring paragraph*
For the past months I have been investigating getting a proper career, so I would have full creative freedom as a writer/ a creative.
But as I was learning how to build funnels, I realized that I m going to have it all.
Full creative freedom.
And make a living from my writing, without having a real business. I never want to see another VAT form again.
I want the 20th century writer status where you work in an vacuum of not having to register with the chamber of commerce.
The idea of “being” a business, like I was the past 20 years, still sets off screaming voices in my head. It’s difficult to understand if you don’t live in the Netherlands, but here we have made the side-hustle into something that will actually cost you hundreds of euros a month, just to do it legit.
It’s a nightmare, and I never want that again.
I will only use existing (sales) platforms, that do not require a business bank account or your business Terms of Service to be uploaded.
*end of boring paragraph*
In one month I went from thinking I wanted a job in marketing, to a job in IT, to a choice for building funnels (a marketing tool) because I ve always had a fascination for them; Only to realize I don’t want a new career at all. I want to finally be a writer, after being a yoga teacher for so so very long. Not only is every career, or hour away from my desk taking me away from my purpose work; Since my “side-hustle”/my creative work/my purpose, requires me to sit behind my desk; My new career absolutely CANNOT be sitting behind my desk! And since all careers,
– that I would be even remotely good at, other than yoga teacher- require sitting behind the desk? I can’t have a new career.
This was a VERY easy calculation! There is no other conclusion possible.
8 hours work + 2 at home = 10 hours behind my desk daily is horrific. Damn damn damn, I cannot belief I wasted months and months, thinking I would go get a career. I m so extremely angry with myself, for wasting so much time. So angry.
And next to the simple math of seeing I don’t have any ass sitting hours to sell – Nothing outside of writing will ever satisfy me. Sure I ll get a job for as long as need be, that pays the bills and keeps me on my feet, literally. But my place is here. Home and on the internets.
And I just remembered that the strongest features of the band Bon Jovi, the thing that shot them to fame ultimately with their third album, were two things:
– knowing what they wanted
– knowing where they belonged
I may not have released my biggie today, but I sure as hell laid the foundation.
~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.
(this is not the concert registration from hAnD90)
This video of perhaps the first time ever performance of You Give Love A Bad Name, was shot the night of the Nippon/Japan concert (1986):
Regardless of how the chips may fall, who gets the girl, who saves the day, who is the hero or who the villain – who failed and who succeeded – there is ALWAYS a turning point.
Either in a good, or at least a more satisfactory or finalized way.
Where, as time passes, you see the end result of where it was leading.
Or, which happened the last three weeks in which I did not write for this blog and everything I created for this account on YouTube and the things I did behind the scenes were a mixed bag at best, things only get worse.
It wasn’t until today that I realized me figuring stuff out, was (obviously) not working.
And that if taking time off or trying to correct things, was actually only messing it up more – it was time for a different approach.
To show up in the divine (or diabolical) work of progress this site and this account is, and to just tell that story.
To at least share, in as minimal words as I possibly can, why I lost my vision of what it is I do here.
But why I can’t let go.
So let’s start with what I tried to fix:
One year ago I started “Rock Star Yoga”, a new way of doing yoga, which I was going to talk about on YouTube, do for myself in my own yoga practice, and I started this blog to write about it.
But the most consistent in all of those things, turned out to be my writing.
That is why, about ten days ago if I recall, I renamed this website as well as our Facebook page to Rock Star Writer.
I think Rock Star Writer is the best way to describe what I do here:
I write.
And I like rock.
And even though I also occasionally do rock star yoga, and I have a lot to say about rock star inspired mindset principles (f.e. Show up “wherever you are”, and as you are, would be our mindset or life coaching theme for today);
I ve felt uncomfortable having the service based ring to “it” (yoga), almost from the start.
Even though I was not selling Rock Star Yoga, wasn’t teaching it in person, and I didn’t (and don’t) have a book out. Even though there’s no community, tribe, following to create with this blog either (these are all marketing terms) because I m such a loner.
Today I turned down a super discounted trial offer for a group program, which also gave you a self-study library that made my mouth water, which you could keep for life.
But the thought of only joining to get my hands on the library but then being in a group and having to resign from that within a month – it was just daunting.
I only do self-study, and every time I ve joined a live training I ve felt drained and weird.
This is a big confession but I’m just not the type of mentor, nor client, to have or be in a community.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have things to teach. Which in my case are stories that often begin with something Bon Jovi or with the philosophy that I called Rock Star Yoga.
I do think having Bon Jovi or the Rock Star mentality as a starting point is unique. I would have “learned” my life’s lessons a lot easier if it had been spiced up with, or wrapped up in, some solid Bon Jovi!
Storytelling is my healing craft, using Bon Jovi my specialty, but if I would call it storytelling the “service provider” alarm would go off again.
Just like with yoga.
The service provider alarm and the group alarm; they go off a lot.
A lot!
If Covid measures had been set so tight as my service provider alarm, the Corona virus would not even have made it into this month, July.
And if the measures had been sanctioned with the same vigilance by which I am punished after being in a group (I m on day 5 of an anxiety attack, recovering from a group setting thingy I had at the end of last week) – no one would have gotten it into their head to not obey they rules.
I am almost programmed negatively, to be part of this world.
Every step forward, is punishable by 5 days of anxiety and an existential crisis.
Which is why – during my three week absence here – I am ending my company/ freelance after 20 years.
So that impossibility of choosing a good name for this site, or what it is I do – without setting off my alarms – is just something I will have to live with. I m happy I ditched the word yoga, because that definitely felt wrong. But to now have a header that just says “writer”, and not refer in any way that if you read my stories it will very likely make you feel better? That you’ll be like: “Hey! If Suzanne f’s it up, yet she still shows up anyway, so can I!” Rock Star “Writer” will never cover that. There will always be people who expect I write about rock music, or will only ever write about Bon Jovi. That was the price for cleaning up the website address and the name of the Facebook group. It will never be perfect. But I ve made my peace with that. From now on, writing on this site, will continue “as planned”! Quotation marks meaning: The writing was never planned. Stories presented themselves as we went along, and that is the way they will keep being written.
In its own imperfect way, I have found my peace with the name and this blog never being perfect. Which might explain why I was ready to write this tonight. And why the other, second part of what it is I do, or did, is nowhere near feeling complete or right. My YouTube.
Last Monday I recorded a video for it, and the short and very shameful version of it is: I tried to end it. It really was a “Hey! I did this 1995 Bon Jovi concert series here, and tried to transform it into a more open topic channel, and it’s not working so Bye!” – video It was 25 minutes long, and it was actually very upbeat and happy. It wasn’t final-final.
“I am known to change my mind” it said. But the only – the only! – reason it wasn’t posted, was because despite it being the middle of the day, the video had one of those misty, pale colors veils over it, that I always hope is reserved for night time shooting. It is not. It had been 11 AM and I still had a misty veil over my 25 minute goodbye video. I didn’t want that to be the last video, so it was cancelled.
And within a day, I could feel new ideas were coming up…. Not ending or pausing the channel had been such a good “decision”. Quotation marks meaning here that it was chance or divine intervention, because I had nothing to do with it.
And I can still feel that it’s a good thing that parting video from last Monday, did not get posted. Even though it did contain a nice update on where I am in life, and all the exciting work related things that are going on. How post-entrepreneurship, post-service provider, post-limiting label anything, life actually looks like.
Bottom line is that it’s cool! Accepting that you have no idea where you’re going, and are clueless of where you are, is an unexpectedly calming realization.
Welcome, to wherever you are.
~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.
One of the most interesting parts for me, when creating the 1995 Bon Jovi concert series on my YouTube, is: I know I ll learn something from it.
But what?
Just like my Dutch yoga series/ Dutch YouTube, which was supposed to be daily and that fell flat on its face two weeks ago; It will be okay in the end. But when?
My online classes, which I taught with so much joy, to friends; I think I ll pick them up this week, but will I?
I started an entire new series for my pen name which didn’t even make it into a blog. It just stranded. It was supposed to be a 82 day series, that didn’t even make it through the first day.
And I wanted to start doing yoga with Bon Jovi albums again, meanwhile also selecting my favorite songs, reviewing these albums here…
Nothing.
When will I stop being in this cycle of uncreating and self-sabotage?
I went down a slippery slope, ultimately stopping all creative outlets, in the same two weeks I made a BIG decision with regard to work.
And yes- I suppose it was inevitable that going through the decision making process of cancelling the entire side of you that has to do with business, entrepreneurship, with marketing, content management- basically everything you’ve been doing for the past 20 years – will cost some energy.
Of course it will.
But two weeks and counting?
And then there’s some financial things I have to take care of (again, or still) that I also have not done. So after two weeks of doing very little, I also have not done anything useful except for blowing up two decades worth of experience, and (ultimately) today’s decision to start my life from scratch tomorrow.
To pull myself back up on my bootstraps, forget the last two decades, and start again.
And yet, in those two weeks where there seemed to be forever more ground to be swept from underneath me, I HAVE been consistent with my Bon Jovi series on YouTube.
Until even that became a problem. And I dropped out on June 6, 1995, their first night in Berlin.
It was a short show: 1 hour fifty minutes. You can find it here below.
And it was this show that could have taught me:
– to perform in less than ideal circumstances
Bon Jovi knew right from the beginning of their June 6, Berlin show, they would only be able to play a short set, before curfew set in and the police would get them off stage.
Jon Bon Jovi mentions it several times in the show.
– to push to make it memorable
It was almost like Jon was back to his “opening for the Scorpions” mode, that is how much he engaged with the crowd and cheered them on.
And Richie practically had to win over his own crowd, doing his solo song Stranger in this Town. And he too succeeded and gave everybody a great time.
– to cut corners
They didn’t play anything from their still to be released album, These Days, and focused on the songs everybody knew.
– to take risks
It was the only night they played “Never Wanna Say Goodbye”, with Steven Van Zandt. It was his song, and he was on stage with them every night in Europe.
But this was the only night they played this song. “Without practicing it” as Jon says.
– to be poetic
“The rain held up for us: I think even the angels wanted to see this show tonight.”
Today was the second rainy day in a row, for The Netherlands. Maybe that was the reason I m still at rock bottom: It wasn’t time yet, for the angels to intervene.
~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.
The short but powerful show they gave on their first night in Berlin, with all the lessons in it, I didn’t learn.
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.
.
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.”
.
And with me: “Entrepreneur” is not on the card.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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?
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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!”
.
Artist Me is the devil incarnated, and it’s the most authentic and real part of me.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
Just like the Devil.
..
~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.
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 ❤
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
Because tonight I really do feel like Jon there.
.
As if it never ends.
.
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?
.
And for how long?
Until there is a vaccine every interaction is going to be scrutinized?
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.”
.
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.
.
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.
.
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?
.
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.
.
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.
.
Not because I m afraid of the virus but of your judgement.
.
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.
.
But Rock Star Yoga?
Man… I don’t know.
.
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.
.
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?
.
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.
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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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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A couple of days ago YouTube channel hAnD90 released a 1986 remastered Bon Jovi concert audio.
Regardless of how the chips may fall, who gets the girl, who saves the day, who is the hero or who the villain – who failed and who succeeded – there is ALWAYS a turning point.
One of the most interesting parts for me, when creating the 1995 Bon Jovi concert series on my YouTube, is:
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:
Rock Star Writer 