video: at 2:40 the fan who also knew red lipstick is key, in making your mark 

There have been many things that messed me up.
Some bad of course. Like breakups that had the side-effect of breaking me, instead of merely putting an end to a relationship.
Or the humiliating experience when I realized that I would never be able to do things, other people can, without wanting to blow something up.
And out of courtesy, I would choose to blow up my own creative work,  I wouldn’t harm anybody not even myself.
But still. Not good for the ego.
.
In my twenties I was beaten several times in a row, in a memory card game, by a four year old.
That was funny, I thought. And not humiliating at all.
But realizing many of the things people commit to, do on a daily basis, allow for, and so on, when I know I would not make it until noon?
Painful.

However, the absolutely most staggering experience of failure is when the downfall and the failure comes from  a HUGE success! 
Something that went really well, and that you looked forward to learning from and fall back on, and that gave you the feeling you had discovered the secret to life, and boom!
Flat on the face!

The experience, the wisdom, the insight you intended to use as the foundation of your very life, bottomed out before you could even sit on it, lean back, and watch your life unfold in its now perfectly aligned order.

To me, one of those experiences was the Bon Jovi concert in 2019.
It was a PEAK experience (I m capitalizing, to emphasize the elements of success)
which I PREPARED in every way I could
(visiting the location, studying maps, knowing the regulations, studying set lists, videos and lyrics, dressing for the occasion, packing my tiny handbag with the precision of a Mount Everest climber)
and then I WALLED OFF all distractions on the day itself.

I was that one fan who did not make any recordings, did not take one selfie, and I did not post anything on social media.
.
Around 10.45 P.M. I made my way out of the park with everybody else. My ears were ringing, my gums were tingling, and I looked at all the people who had also been there attending that same concert, yet looked so different… 
It took a while before I realized they had attended the concert in a “normal” way. Hanging out with friends, making new ones. They had had something to eat at the many food stalls, drank a few beers, had used the bathroom a time or two I imagine.

And tomorrow they would probably go back to work in a job I would not be able to keep on a good day, let alone the day after an open-air concert on the other side of the country.

To illustrate:
My Bon Jovi concert was in the middle of what proved to be not a one, but a three week period where I ignored e-v’ry-thing. Unknowingly even!
But I was just so absorbed by it, that weeks later I had to contact the landlord of my yoga studio because I had not missed one but two monthly payments!
I had the money, but I just had not attended to my finances.
I had not attended, to anything.

The price had been a lot higher than anticipated (I m not even going to try to describe the mental fallout!) but I was super grateful, and determined to milk this experience for everything it had to offer me.
I still reap the benefits of it.
Daily Bon Jovi Yoga is finally taking flight because it has found its new format the past 24 hours, and that idea was born on that day in 2019.
So it’s not that I didn’t know I had gold, just that the concert recipe of success turned out to be non-repeatable.

You can, or perhaps it’s better to say “I can”, PREPARE for PEAK experiences WALLING OFF all you want, in an attempt to then create a unique experience;
It doesn’t work that way.
You can’t reverse engineer your way through life.
Or I can’t.

One of the painful lessons I learned is that just because I enjoyed preparing the f out of my Bon Jovi concert, does not mean that by preparing something I will automatically create something I enjoy.

In recent years I ve had a couple of job interviews for higher level jobs, and the interviews always went really well.
But it made me oh so resentful….
I would not say I started hating them, but I definitely started resenting such a company for having already “taken” hours (I gave them myself, obviously it was not their fault at all) or days of my time, where I got my head around their production process, their money flows, their customers.
Meanwhile my own daily purpose work had suffered, just like my payments to my landlord had suffered when I had all eyes on Bon Jovi. 

Preparing for something the way I did for a Bon Jovi concert is a process that comes at HUGE costs, and that you can’t just copy-paste-repeat in areas of your life where you strive for worldly success.
So my peak experience at Bon Jovi, didn’t really have applicable lessons the way I thought it would because the key element had been my favorite rock band visiting the park next to my house.
And that was the only situation it was going to work.

I remember my mother complimenting me that I knew a forest nearby so well. I had printed maps, combined routes, but what my mother didn’t know was that the interest had not lasted.
“It didn’t stick,” I said. “And unless Jon Bon Jovi is appointed as forester, I am just not that into it.”

I need to be deeply interested in something, in order to prepare, wall off, and create a peak experience around it. And in all likeliness it’s going to take a man I m into, in order for it to get to the level that Bon Jovi concert had.

Although these lessons have revealed themselves since that concert in 2019, I keep learning more.
The concert really is the proverbial well that keeps on giving!

Two things I learned that I want to share with you, are how this has all inspired me to finally get my head around Bon Jovi yoga. That vision I had in 2019 has taken a generous two years and counting, to take flight.
And the other one is about red lipstick, and I m going to save that one for last because that’s the most sexy one.

Okay, I know you now want to skip and move to the final paragraphs!
LOL
Hold on, I ll be quick, don’t worry.

I have (unexpectedly) given up on the idea of teaching Bon Jovi yoga, in a traditional sense of teaching, because I am not doing Bon Jovi yoga for myself. I m hardly doing any yoga, I m practically yoga free.

When you properly teach yoga (I was a teacher for 15+ years) you need to be doing yoga,
you need to be physically familiar with doing the poses,
and have a daily practice.

Honestly, because I have been doing yoga with Bon Jovi albums since 2019, I did expect that would turn into a daily yoga practice again. The sessions I did were fun, but I always dropped out.
A few years into my career as a yoga teacher, I became a writer as well, and that’s when it all started…
Writing is such an introspective profession, being alone on my mat became the last thing I needed.
I craved connection, not solitude. And having a yoga studio and teaching yoga fulfilled that need. And because I taught a lot of classes, it didn’t really matter that I started practicing less.

I am no longer a yoga teacher and before I went all-in on teaching daily Bon Jovi yoga on YouTube, 
I wanted to get back on my mat in private.
Which then did not happen.
And then Bon Jovi yoga on video also did not happen….

But now I ve flipped it around and I have decided to start “teaching” Bon Jovi yoga online anyway!
As a fan, just like you. Not as a yoga teacher.

All my yoga will be in the video, on screen.
I m SHARING what I do.
Instead of secretly yoga-ing my ass off off-screen and then showing up all poised and in control, and very professional; No.
I m going to show up as the hot, sexy, no-longer professional but definitely more fun than ever Daily Bon Jovi  Yoga practitioner, and we can all laugh en enjoy ourselves as we have fun on the mat.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE 
And the first Daily Bon Jovi Yoga video will go up this week! 
It will be called Runaway, and I ll be taking it up from there, going through the entire catalog.

If you are such a big fan that you re now wondering if I ll be going album by album, and do the deep cuts separately?
Sign up!
You’re the ideal viewer for this series, and I mean it.

But no it’s all integrated. Deep cuts will be done within the chronological order of the albums.

I already made a study of 102 lesser known songs, and although YouTube has removed some of them in the complementary playlist I made, I created the list in writing as well, so the groundwork is already done.
102 Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – 2020
These deep cuts (I think I ll drop the covers, but have not made up my mind) will be incorporated in the series I ll be doing on YouTube. 

One more deep cut paragraph for die-est hardest of fans: 
“Let’s Make It Baby” will be made into a (very sexy I reckon) video for both the New Jersey album as well as These Days. And if you re still with me, and you can immediately “file” this remark in your head and think: “Okay, that makes sense.”
Please sign up because you re so going to love Daily Bon Jovi Yoga on my YouTube!

Remember, as I told you, I m no longer practicing yoga offline, off-screen, so I m practically as new to yoga as you are.
These videos will require zero yoga habit from me, nor from you!
You do not have to be limber or athletic to join. And as it’s on YouTube and created NOW, it’s as much about connection and laughter, as it is about yoga.

So Daily Bon Jovi Yoga. Subscribe HERE. Coming soon.

And then: Lipstick time!

Last year, in a moment of honesty and boldness that I rarely have, I posted a photo and wrote a post about it even I think, about buying condoms and two red lip pencils, to express my faith in restoring my sex life.
And this weekend, I bought new condoms and a mascara called Fear Me, and also a red lipstick. The name was  Red Virgin! 
How could I not fall for that, what an intriguing name.

I had already started with the introductory videos on the channel, wearing red lipstick, and I knew that was the right look for it.
But also: The condom and lip pencil investment early pandemic 2020, did work! 
I did not use all condoms but buying a few new packages and a new 2021 red lipstick this time (I ve also used up one of last year’s red pencils, and am on my second one) seemed like a smart thing to do.
I even took a photo, but unlike last year I do not feel bold enough to post it.

But it did got me thinking about red lipstick, and it brought back memories of the Wembley 1995 dvd (a 90 minute cut of the concert) where a woman with red lipstick plays an important role!
She’s very visible, and a photo of her has been used as a screen shot on YouTube, Vimeo, and during “You Give Love A Bad Name” she is edited in when the lyrics go:

“Paint your smile on your lips
Blood red nails on your fingertips
A school boy’s dream, you act so shy
Your very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye”

Just like me, she prepared for this concert, and she did it well.

She looked so extraordinary, and had such stage presence even though she was part of the crowd.
She could not be ignored. I believe in business success, there is an adage:
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

The platinum blonde woman, with the red nails and the red lipstick in 1995 Wembley concert was so flamboyant and present in the moment. She could not be ignored.

But what I learned, in those two years since the Bon Jovi concert in 2019, is that the only reason she could do that, and be that, and that we still can’t take our eyes off her 25 years later;
Is because of the man, and the band that was ON stage.
She was in full connection with that energy.

And that’s the takeaway for me: 
I m never going to do yoga at home, any more than that woman in Wembley would dress up like that with nowhere to go.

My YouTube, is because I think we all need that place to go.
A place to shine and to buy red lipstick for.

Come join.
.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
Paypalme

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NEW 2021: Art & Popular Culture: World Between Worlds 
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video: at 3:00 Jonny welcomes you into his church

I saw the word in two places I did not expect it.
One was referring to author Gabby Bernstein and the second was on the cover of the famous bestselling book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
The word was “spiritual”.

Gabby Bernstein was referred to as a spiritual coach, and the cover of the book promised:
“A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity”

“Spiritual?” I wondered, as if it was an entirely new perspective. 
And in a way it was!
I was a yoga teacher for over a decade and a half, but I think this had made me compartmentalize spirituality a bit.

Spirituality was reserved for shops where you could buy a deck of angel cards, or a postcard with a bracelet  in the color of a chakra attached to it. 
Spirituality was related to Christianity too. And to yoga, because of Hinduism.

But to tie spirituality to life coach Gabby Bernstein or to a book on creativity was an entirely new concept to me.

And these two mentions of the word happened within the same day, and they caused an avalanche of thoughts.
Because pretty recently I had already realized other accounts where my own work had proven to be spiritual.

My main motivation, the thing that shakes me awake and that I can’t NOT look into;
Is I always look for meaning. 
I’m a storyteller, but not a real storyteller because I never know the ending. Let alone the moral of the story. Or what it’s supposed to prove or illustrate.
I write a story in search of meaning.

I have an uncontrollable urge to understand what happened and why.
And how it can be healed, or sweetened, if it’s a bad thing. How can a more compassionate viewpoint lead to a better understanding and less pain?

Or, alternatively, if something was really good, and want to know why it was so good and filled with love and light.
And then highlight and amplify those aspects. Perhaps record them in a way so they will be better remembered, or more people will see their beauty.

I look for meaning, and writing is my process of uncovering it.

Just this morning I tried to first make notes for this story, so that I would have breakfast first.
Without the computer on.

But although to the outside world, it must have looked like a picturesque image of a woman trying to have breakfast when her cat was standing on her lap and constantly wanted to butt heads with her, or climb into her neck, or otherwise insist on melting together with his human, in a way that made having breakfast at the same time almost impossible.

In reality it was a woman who had gotten out of bed, read a page in her “prayer book” (more about that in a minute) and KNEW she had a full and completely finished story in her that would unfold the moment she’d start writing.
But instead she tried to stay offline for her breakfast and note down the different elements and structure her story first. 
So that she would get to work knowing, what she would write!
Like a real writer.

And instead she felt the story falling apart.
As if it was picked on by hungry scavengers, the story started to disintegrate.

Sure!
I could now see what the different parts were, as they were randomly flying around over breakfast! 
Story elements that were no longer tied to the entity, to the story as a whole.

I would have to manually sow them back together to what I presumed the story had looked like.

So in my grownup attempt to hold and pause the story for the duration of one breakfast, and take the time to examine the story first, it was being ripped to shreds instead.
What an agonizing breakfast.
What a horrible way to start the day.

Back to what I call my prayer book.

The book is called “Until Today” by Iyanla Vanzant, and it has 365 one-page thoughts to start the day with, organized per date. So today I read the one for May 27.
It said, among other things:
“Intellectual spirituality will not save you.”
And:
“Practice grounding your spiritual philosophy in your heart.”

And suddenly I understood everything…..

WHY it feels so good, to be here on this blog always starting with “something Bon Jovi”.
* insert love heart shower *

WHY we feel so good when we’re at a Bon Jovi concert and it’s time for Lay Your Hands On Me.
And Jon Bon Jovi says:
“Welcome to Jonny’s church of rock n roll.”
And we get speeches about souls being saved, and a special welcome to the sinners!

WHY indeed intellect will not save us. Nor will angel cards I reckon.
Why structuring my story was pointless.

The one who knows what’s in their heart is already done for the day.
Whether it is Jon Bon Jovi, Lay Your Hands On Me, or a blogpost that is just waiting to be written.

There really is only one thing, and one thing only that is gonna save you.
Love.

Follow your heart, my friend. 
Or follow Jon Bon Jovi.
Gabby Bernstein.
Or follow the path of the Artist’s Way.

They re all the same.

“Welcome to Jonny’s church to rock n roll where all you gotta do is believe.
You gotta raise your voice so they hear you.”

Raise your voice.
So they hear you.

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~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
Paypalme

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(what the Lord wants I guess!)
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It’s a surprise!

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On the evening before Easter, I ask of thee;
Do you think it was a coincidence “Livin’ On A Prayer” was Bon Jovi’s finite-no-going-back-now breakthrough?
Could it, for example, also have been called “Livin’ On Five Bucks” or “Livin’ On Love”?
Or was there a reason it was the song with the word prayer in the title that called on the Lord and touched our hearts?

That neither God, nor you and me, would have felt called if Tommy and Gina had been “Livin’ Hand To Mouth”.
Is it possible that in that song a prayer was said?
And because of that song a prayer was answered.

Tommy and Gina and Bon Jovi were given all their hearts desired, not because they only had their prayers to live on.
But because that’s the only thing that’s gonna work.

I know in that paragraph several more question marks could have been and probably should have been used. But they seemed obsolete. There was no reason to keep putting things in questions, because you get the gist;
Of course it’s not a coincidence.

All those who call on a higher power, consistently, will have their prayers answered. Whether you’re Tommy and Gina wishing to get Tommy’s job on the docks back and a nice pay raise for Gina, or Jon Bon Jovi wishing for world fame.
The procedure of how prayer works, is explained in several places in the bible. But since this blog is about Bon Jovi, I will happily choose for John!
(Jon’s original name is John, with an h)

John 16:24
Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.

Ask and you shall receive.
It is as simple as it seems, but in many cases the relationship with God was an aspect of religion. And religion in turn, was an aspect of things like social life, community, parenting. Education. Power structures where religion kept a hierarchy intact.
And in questioning the status quo, religion was thrown out by many. As was their relationship with God.
And asking and praying, was lost.

By the time Bon Jovi was pounding the pavement, as a photo book I own eloquently worded their hard fought rise to fame, by that time hardly anyone grew up religiously.
In the Netherlands we got a good social security system, which meant that the task the church does in many countries, which is taking care of people who need help, was pretty much covered by government. So perhaps our secularization has been unintentionally thorough.
But in most Western countries, the church lost much of its power and less people called themselves religious.

In the mid-eighties, deregulation of the financial world brought forth a new generation of wealth, but at the same time unemployment for older industries such as steel, was on the rise.
In The Netherlands, those who are the age of Jon Bon Jovi meaning born between 1955-1965, have had an incredibly tough time trying to get a job, whether straight from school but also if you went to college.
There wasn’t any work.

And it was in that time, when there were no more churches to turn to for meaning and the world was weighed down by unemployment, that Bon Jovi brought the new gospel:
Livin’ On A Prayer.

It is their trademark song and every now and then it hits the charts again, inspired by a viral video of people singing along in the park; Or when a country is going through tragedy.
The message of Livin’ On A Prayer, is timeless.

Just that every 2000 years or so, we get a new John to bring the message.

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~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer