Category: stories

Consider this embraced | My incomplete and personal history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in The Netherlands

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment
My home made school agenda 1988-1989 Crafted with photo of Antony Kiedis, by photographer Patricia Steur. Nudity covered for social media.
My agenda 1988-1989, Crafted with photo of Antony Kiedis, by Patricia Steur. The cover photo is protected using sticky tape, a trick many teens without access to sticking foil used. I have no idea where or when I had a tape embosser but apparently used my one shot at it strategically!

I m almost inevitably going to heavily disappoint myself and you, at how terribly little about
-the remarkable history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in The Netherlands
-their intimate relationship with its most respectable music journalists and media
-and the rich YouTube legacy that has left us;
I manage to cover in this post.
And the tiny glimpses I do get sorted, fact checked, lined up and presented, will definitely not do justice to this well of historical and musical heritage.
But I m gonna try.

I m also beforehand apologizing for infinite number of things of late 80s cultural context, that is probably required to understand why they rooted so well in the Netherlands.
And also why a very young Bon Jovi fan like me, had photos of Anthony Kiedis in her school agenda AND considered their 1989 Mother’s Milk album “that album when everybody got to know them”
and even (bear in mind I was just 17 in August 1989 when Mother’s Milk hit) “the moment they got commercial”.

…

Okay, as far as late 80s cultural context goes? 
If in 1989 you re an avid 17 year old BON JOVI fan (in the Netherlands, 80s Bon Jovi was a band no respectable journalist would “touch with a ten-foot pole”, or at least that was my impression), and your school agendas have been embellished with a variety of clippings from music and fashion magazines, but only the pages that were BLANK because you had not enough JON BON JOVI CLIPPINGS to cover all of them just with his appearance?
If then?
Under those circumstances?
You cover your agenda with Anthony Kiedis and consider the album Mother’s Milk – which was released after the school year 1988-1989 – absolutely a million miles away from being alternative or underground because in your perception the band had been around for ages?

That requires context and a timeline that even I would not be able to reconstruct. But again: Gonna give it a go.

So: Music scene in the 80s.

As I already said, Bon Jovi was pretty much a no-no, no-go, and it was entirely acceptable to attribute their ENTIRE commercial success to their looks. So they were considered a “hair metal” band, and I think we should begin by acknowledging that to everybody who was not a Bon Jovi fan, which included every music journalist and person of import in the media;
No one knew, it wasn’t clear, which hair metal band would last.

The Dutch venues Bon Jovi played late 80s were indoor, and totally sold out. But so did the gigs from The Scorpions (Germany), Whitesnake (US, extra popular in The Netherlands through Dutch guitarist Ad van den Berg), Van Halen (UK, Dutch connection through brothers Van Halen, and this band was always heavily supported by Dutch DJs) and Swedish band Europe also rocked the house and easily sold out Dutch indoor venues.

In that crowded overflowing market, New Jersey band Bon Jovi could very easily be discarded based on their looks, and there wasn’t one Dutch journalist who appreciated them.
The only Dutch media personality who sided with them, was Adam Curry. The American born host of the show Countdown and the host of the Dutch radio show Curry & van Inkel. 
But Curry worked for our Dutch broadcasting corporation Veronica, and on the spectrum of eight to ten corporations we had, Veronica was the youngest one and the most commercial of them all.
Veronica’s flagship was their television guide. All national broadcasting corporations issued their own television guide, that was their most tangible form of branding.
These magazines expressed the values of the particular public broadcasting corporation, and Veronica was the only one non-religious, non-political, and aimed at teenagers and young adults.
Their magazine was full color, and it kept you updated on all the trends, films, new music, and of course informed on cool programs that would be broadcast.
Curry also made a point pronouncing their name the American way, which described phonetically to a Dutch person, means he said: “Baaahn Jovi” 
Because the Dutch pronounce their O entirely different to how an American would do that.
Curry’s way of pronouncing Madonna’s name (correctly) and pronouncing Bon Jovi’s name (correctly), even became the laughing stock in a column of a no doubt respected columnist whose first name was Annelies.
Curry’s response: “How would you feel if I pronounced your name Anné-Lies?”.
All this to illustrate, that in order to be seen, acknowledged, supported  and respected by the Dutch music scene, and even to get the honor of having your name pronounced correctly, you had to have the EXACT right, pretty fucking elitist way of showing just the right thing, at just the right time, and in the right place and STEER AWAY FROM VERONICA AND THEIR MAGAZINE AT ALL TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then, maybe, you could talk.

Dutch press adored Bruce Springsteen by the way. That too, didn’t help Bon Jovi stand out in the “hair metal” or rock genre.
I think Dutch journalists felt they betrayed Bruce Springsteen, who was hailed, appreciated and LOVED from the 70s, but also because of his 1984 album Born In The USA.
Dutch journalists seemed to believe they could only include one artist from New Jersey in their Dutch Hall Of Good Music, and they had already given that spot to Bruce Springsteen.

Now on the other end of the television guide spectrum, there was also ONE public broadcasting corporation that stood out as the absolute most elitist, high-brow, and culturally respectable.
This corporation was the VPRO, and their television guide was the hallmark of having good taste.
If as a teen you said: “We have the Veronica guide” everybody knew what kind of background you had (your parents were easy going and entrepreneurial).
If you said: “We have the VPRO guide.”? 
To this day, people know EXACTLY what your background is.

Given the fact that I knew who the Red Hot Chili Peppers were, and that I had a school agenda from the pre-Mother’s Milk era, covered with arty photos from Anthony Kiedis, it should come as no surprise;
We, had the VPRO guide.

Occasionally I bought the Veronica guide, and indulged in it. In the same way I bought music magazines, such as the one the photos from Anthony Kiedis stem from.
Being a Bon Jovi fan, buying the Veronica guide, watching Countdown and listening religiously listening to Curry and van Inkel every Friday night, were aspects of my own, individual, self-expression.

Except, of course? You guessed it right? 
My parents VPRO guide, gave me access to the alternative world of Dutch music.
And I often listened on Wednesday afternoon, to a VPRO radio show that I knew had cool alternative music. 
I don’t know when I heard the Peppers on there, only that there were a lot of references to George Clinton.
Maybe it was 1988, or maybe it was after Mother’s Milk 1990…
All I know is that in 1988-1989 I already had that Anthony Kiedis agenda, and I considered them famous and known. And “of course why wouldn’t you know them”.

When I look at the 1987 album The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, I only recognize Fight Like a Brave.
When I look at the 1989 album Mother’s Milk, I recognize the titles Higher Ground, Knock me Down, and Johnny Kick a Hole in the Sky.
From the 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik; The Power of Equality, Breaking the Girl, Suck My Kiss, I Could Have Lied, The Righteous & the Wicked, Give It Away, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Under the Bridge, and Naked in the Rain.
I remember making a cassette tape in the early 90s. From cds I rented on my library card, I recorded Blood Sugar Sex Magik on one side, and Mother’s Milk on the other.
That’s when I was the most involved with their music.

But since I have a more intimate relationship to my stationary, than to my cd collection, for me the real relationship with the Peppers was through that crafted agenda. With those photos from Kiedis and his then girlfriend Ione Skye.
There is a Dutch piece, that was released just earlier this year, where Patricia Steur talks about how she created these photos:
DE PLAAT EN ZIJN VERHAAL: ‘ALLEEN DE RUG VAN ANTHONY KIEDIS VOND IK WAT SAAI’ 

And my relationship was in that Wednesday afternoon radio show, where The Red Hot Chili Peppers played live, and all I remembered was that it was heavy on the George Clinton references.

I was unsuccessful at retrieving the radio broadcast. But I did encounter a treasure box of Red Hot Chili Peppers material from a Dutch documentarian,
Bram van Splunteren.
I collected what was public in a YouTube playlist
It includes a conversation with John Frusciante, in what were the most difficult years of his life:
John Frusciante Vpro 1994 in HQ + Stuff

In 2016 the VPRO and Bram van Spunteren collected the 1988-1992 work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers into a documentary: Red Hot Chili Peppers – A Dutch Connection. It is available on Vimeo after login. 

Another important man who created the deep roots the Peppers have in the Netherlands, is famous tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher.
In the 80s, he made eagle on the back of Anthony Kiedis.
And the two went on an extensive trip to Borneo, to discover the origin of tattooing. 
Schiffmacher’s Dutch book about this expedition has just been rereleased, after having been out of print for decades.
In his autobiography, Anthony Kiedis describes the expedition as a trip to hell and “a Vietnam experience”.

Documentarian Bram van Splunteren, photographer Patricia Steur, and her then husband the famous tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher;
Together with the context of the serious Dutch music scene being the dominant one, had made for fertile grounds for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  And when they gave a show yesterday, at the local park, I took a little stroll around the grounds, and contemplated how I could avoid writing about them, because I was already vaguely aware of there being something extra special in The Netherlands.
Between them and us.
But I didn’t really know how to go about figuring that out, I didn’t know if I was correct, and I was days behind on what I considered my “grownup” content creation (videos), which was not going to get done anymore, if I took on this project of saying something about the Peppers.

I even contemplated not taking that stroll; Because then I would not have a reason to write.
If I would not take a stroll, I could ignore them and win my time back.
But that too, did not felt good. Them being here felt way too significant to be ignored.

So what I did, before I took my stroll, is I looked for that old agenda. And I scanned the photos with Kiedis, and I trimmed the files.
And then I took the walk around the venue, through the trees, over the grass, passing thousands of people who had gathered to listen to the concert.

After about 70 minutes in, the music had stopped, I noted the time because in case the concert is uploaded to YouTube I want to hear the rest of it;
But right then, all I heard was this;

A male voice, I think it was Flea, although I have no idea how I would know how Flea sounds…. But I think it was his voice when I heard him speaking about us, the Netherlands, and said:
“You were one of the first countries that embraced us. Thank you.”

And there I had my answer.

I had been right; The Netherlands had been one of the first countries that had embraced them. And now, after this post, you know why.
Their music and position as outsiders, made them loved almost immediately by serious, alternative, Dutch music scene, that was dominant in the media. 
Media for whom Bon Jovi was too common, too low-brow, and that actually didn’t come around until 1995 These Days.
Which is my principal reason for not liking that album, even though it is an amazing album! 
But I just can’t.
I never forgave The Netherlands for their collective disdain for Bon Jovi, where only Adam Curry and the Veronica guide supported them.

But the Red Hot Chili Peppers?
Maybe that was the higher ground we found each other.
Where I could stand them, and they could stand me.
And where yesterday, we found each other again.

The Peppers were glad to be here. Many Dutch people, including a whole new generation, were thrilled they were here, and I was happy too.
I m sure many of us would have bought a last-minute ticket if it had not been sold out months ago.

We were all happy to embrace each other, once again.
On higher ground.

.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
☕️ Buy me a coffee
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That was it! 

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You can find my books The Little Mistress Who Turned Into A Baby Koala
A Boyfriend Like Jon Bongiovi
and White Tigress Yoga Workbook
at the bottom of this page: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rockstarwriter

If you live in The Netherlands, Belgium or Germany, you can also order these books from me – just go to the bottom of this page:
https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rockstarwriter
to check out which ones you want, and write me an email at s_beenackers@hotmail.com.
Payment is via PayPal or bank transfer.

This Rock Star Writer blog is an element of “Rock Star” [phase 2]

Title: “Rock Star”
or “Rock Star yoga/ business/ writer”

artists: Suzanne Beenackers, little bear Puux           
art form: performance art
phase 1: earliest expressions, mixed work, July 2019 – March 2022
phase 2: April 2022 – 

3 YouTube channels
1. English YouTube “Liberation”: Rock Star Yoga + Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs
2. Nederlandse YouTube “de Catacombe” studio voor Rock Star Yoga 
3. YouTube Rock Your Business
De headers from all channels have been changed already, so you know you re in the right spot.

4 blogs
1. Rock Star Writer (current blog)
2. Yoga Blog: Daily Bon Jovi Yoga
3. World Between Worlds
4. Dutch blog: Suzanne Beenackers

2 Facebook pages
1. Rock Star Writer on Facebook
2. Dutch: Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver Facebook met beertje Puux

1 Twitter account
my personal Twitter account

You Never Really Know

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

 

At the risk of being expelled out of Bon Jovi fandom, and for good reason this time ;), I have never gotten my head around listening to Richie Sambora.
Regardless of how many times I was blown away by a live guitar prelude to Wanted Dead or Alive.
Or all the times he sang “I ll be There for You”, and in my opinion had earned the right to always be the one singing that song.
Regardless of how many times I was swept off my feet by HEAVEN HELP US ALL!!!!!
Oh God what a good song.

Anyway, despite all of those things-
Oh, and also, despite all the proper Bon Jovi fans (the ones who do not self-proclaim to be musically dyslectic, those ones) being solid disciples of the man, and his 1991 album Stranger In This Town being a musical version of the bible;
I simply could not get into Richie Sambora’s work the way I knew I was meant to.
Because I like his voice, I like electric guitars, and I like the blues WAY more than alternative, pop, and country. I like the blues more than protest songs, I like it more than meaningful singer songwriter-y types of things.
And I like Richie’s guitars because I think they will bite your fingers off if you play punk or ska on them, but maybe that’s just my imagination.

But all in all there had been ample signs that told me I would love Richie Sambora’s music and yet…
Not today. And the not-todays became years.

One week ago, hAnD90 uploaded a remastered 2012 Richie Sambora concert, with live chat, and because Today still had not come, it was one I knew I could skip.
Although unfortunately, there were also more personal reasons why I had to keep a way lower online profile than I found professional or desirable.
But yeah.
The fact that it was not a Bon Jovi concert but a Richie Sambora concert, whose music I hardly knew, did make it a painless decision to let the premiere of that video just pass, without joining in on the live chat.

Anyway, all those things, I m just reconstructing them for you here.
Because they surely were not on my mind this Sunday! 

I’m almost at my one week mark of being sick. It’s a common cold, but the virus-low Covid years combined with the fact that etiquette around public sneezing and coughing has changed dramatically since 2019 for sure;
This common cold has already trashed one week worth of premium appointments and dates!
Including sex!

I also did not film any videos for any of my 3 YouTube channels, but that was a minor setback, compared to the havoc the cold created in my personal life, to be honest.

And God knows how many more perfectly good parties, workdays and get togethers I will have to give up the upcoming week, before I can finally take part in everyday life, in a crisp and clean way.

So all in all, this Sunday was not dedicated to finally hitting it off with Richie Sambora.
That much was sure.
Or was it?

Because I just ordered Richie Sambora’s 1991 album Stranger In This Town.
I did enough research to be able to tell you it has a 99% Google rating of people liking it.
The 2012 Richie Sambora concert is blasting through my headphones, and I have devoured the well-written description box below the concert video as if it contained the secret to life. That’s how eager I now am to know everything about Richie Sambora.

Richie Sambora | Live at Circus Krone | Munich 2012
video & audio remastered by hAnD90

And also! Where I have always felt kind of uncomfortable to admit that if Richie Sambora would go touring, I would not know if I d go?
I know I ll not just GO! But PAY whatever it takes!
If it were the 90s I d sit a night on the sidewalk of the local record store to purchase tickets. So after all that time, I am finally, a Born-Again Richie Sambora fan!
With her musical bible, the album, “Stranger In This Town” on the way.

The reason this all happened and that this day had such an unexpected turn, is because I wanted to indulge in writing about something sexy.
After a week of my most intimate relationship being the one with a box of Kleenex and Thyme syrup, I was going to indulge in treating myself to writing about Zalman King movies.

Now, Zalman King movies are in general not very highly rated, because they are always about sex. And not the art house type, but the soft-focus, Emanuelle-type thing.
Do you know Emanuelle?
Loved those ones too so much…. but they were 70s and early 80s. Zalman King’s movies featured in the late 80s and 90s. 
His two most famous movies are 9 1/2 weeks and Wild Orchid, but my favorites are Two Moon Junction (1988), which you can still see on YouTube if you have an age-verified account, and Delta of Venus, which they very unfortunately took down recently.
It wasn’t until about two years ago, that I realized all those wonderful movies were made by the same man, and that he was also responsible for my absolute favorite series of all time;
The Red Shoe Diaries.

Now I haven’t seen any of those episodes back since then, so I m relying on a three decade old memory here, but The Red Shoe Diaries was about (and I m not going to Google it, to keep it real here!) a journalist or writer played by David Duchovny, who placed an ad to hear about women’s sex stories and then they all started sending him letters.
With his voice over, and the female voice over from the woman telling the story, every episode revolved around one story.

When I started investigating Zalman King, after finding out I had such an instinctive fondness for his work, I found that there was little “irrelevant” about his work, really.
Because they all had had the same theme:
They had all been about women’s sexuality.
A theme that has got millennia of repression to catch up on!
(plus one week)

The Zalman King movies had been an avid advocate of female sexuality, and at a time when the female voice in erotica was almost absent. When erotica itself, was almost absent….

Making this a wonderful theme to write about, to bring at least some zest and sparkle to these days when I saw my bed way too often and for all the wrong reasons, I sat down to write about Zalman King.
For starters I was going to look for the music from The Red Shoe Diaries, to listen to. 
Music that would bring me in the mood!
And I found a playlist that was titled after the Red Shoe diaries, but it appeared to be broader because it also had music from 9 1/2 weeks on it. But that was not what stood out for me;
This list, which the maker claimed was a soundtrack to The Red Shoe Diaries, contained two Richie Sambora songs.

Wait what?
Richie Sambora made music for The Red Shoe Diaries?
Are you joking?

Since the list was a bit of a hotchpotch with music from other Zalman King work as well, I knew his songs could be from one of the movies as well. But that would also come as a surprise me.
So I dug into that new finding, instead of diving into Zalman’s King work. Which was probably the better choice, considering I wrote the previous paragraphs Wiki free. I think I ve already studied Zalman King to a level that greatly extends the Minimum Rock Star Writer Requirement!
Whereas the work of Richie Sambora has been lacking in my knowledge, and I know it.

And as it turned out, the list had been correct! 
There are indeed two Richie Sambora songs on the original 1992 Red Shoe Diaries soundtrack:
You Never Really Know
and
Rest In Peace.

I have recreated the album, soundtrack to Red Shoe Diaries on my YouTube. Richie Sambora’s “You Never Really Know” is number 4 on this list and “Rest in Peace” the final track.

But it got even better!
Because as I threw “Richie Sambora You Never Really Know” into Google, it gave ONLY the Red Shoe Diaries album, as its source! 
No other album! 
Rest in Peace is the opening song to Richie’s 1991 album Stranger In This Town, but You Never Really Know? 
Never featured anywhere else.

A few years ago, I wrote a blogpost about 5 Unexpectedly Sexual Bon Jovi songs. One of them was a Richie Sambora song River of Love.
And in the paragraph about that song, I said:
“I don’t think any fan has any doubt which one of the two front men possessed the “raw, untamed power”, as Star Wars put it.”

Right now I m still listening to Richie Sambora singing his heart out in These Days, the Munich 2012 concert.
And rereading that post about the 5 Unexpectedly Sexual Bon Jovi songs.

In retrospect, I don’t think I would have chosen the Star Wars reference there. It gives a bit of a shock, in a post solely about erotica and Bon Jovi, don’t you think?
I m not sure, if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Then or now in this post…  Zalman King would not approve.

But it no longer surprises me that Richie Sambora had two songs on the soundtrack of The Red Shoe Diaries. With that raw untamed power, that made it into my top 5 Unexpectedly Sexual Bon Jovi Songs.
Of course his music made it to Zalman’s soundtrack.

And three decades later, it was how I finally connected to Richie’s work.

You never really know.

.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🥳 PayPalMe 
🇳🇱Tikkie van de week [de allereerste! 🤗 ]

That was it! 

Subscribe to the blog, to get these posts in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.

English channel:
Rock Star Yoga (yoga) + Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (talk)
And you can follow my Yoga Blog: Daily Bon Jovi Yoga

Nederlandse YouTube:  “de Catacombe” studio voor Rock Star Yoga
Begint zodra ik beter ben

NEW: Books!

You can find my books The Little Mistress Who Turned Into A Baby Koala
A Boyfriend Like Jon Bongiovi
and White Tigress Yoga Workbook
at the bottom of this page: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rockstarwriter

If you live in The Netherlands, Belgium or Germany, you can also order these books from me – just go to the bottom of this page:
https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rockstarwriter
to check out which ones you want, and write me an email at s_beenackers@hotmail.com.
Payment is via PayPal or bank transfer.

This Rock Star Writer blog is an element of “Rock Star” [phase 2]

Title: “Rock Star”
or “Rock Star yoga/ business/ writer”

artists: Suzanne Beenackers, little bear Puux           
art form: performance art
phase 1: earliest expressions, mixed work, July 2019 – March 2022
phase 2: April 2022 – 

3 YouTube channels
1. English YouTube “Liberation”: Rock Star Yoga + Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs
2. Nederlandse YouTube “de Catacombe” studio voor Rock Star Yoga 
3. YouTube Rock Your Business
De headers from all channels have been changed already, so you know you re in the right spot.

4 blogs
1. Rock Star Writer (current blog)
2. Yoga Blog: Daily Bon Jovi Yoga
3. World Between Worlds
4. Dutch blog: Suzanne Beenackers

2 Facebook pages
1. Rock Star Writer on Facebook
2. Dutch: Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver Facebook met beertje Puux

1 Twitter account
my personal Twitter account

Hearts Healing Even – A Letter To Jon Bon Jovi And Richie Sambora

Published on by Suzanne Beenackers4 Comments

Dear Jon and Richie,

I ve gotta be honest with you; 
The mood I m currently in, is not the gentile, understanding, yet a holding-the-space-like-a-mofo mood I thought I had to offer you, at the beginning of this week.
When I tweeted that I was going to write about you on this blog.
It’s quite the opposite.

The mood I m in is an everything needs to burn and be destroyed mood. Starting with a ritualistic massacre of the last two decades of my life, because I was a yoga teacher and I have feelings about that.
Not the teaching of the classes itself, especially in recent years when my students became friends and friends will be students again, post-Covid.
No, the hate and resentment started when I took my trainings and there were expectations and things you that were expected of you as a yoga teacher, and things that were frowned upon or “not encouraged”.

In retrospect it feels like I was gaslit for two decades, into being of service, into being connected, into being Good.
And I did and was all those things because I believed I had to because that was my work. But I compensated by not practicing yoga, hating myself, overeating, resenting my work, and living under a different identity.

But mostly I compensated with hate.
If yoga taught me anything, it taught me how to hate.

If I go looking somewhere late 20th century, I should be able to find the unspoiled, honeymoon version of yoga, that brought me to life and made me fall in the love with the practice.
At first I thought she, this fun loving yoga spirit, was hiding in Bon Jovi albums;
And all the home yoga I did do the past few years, were with your music!
I was sure something as pure and good as the first 3 years of my practice, would automatically return to me if I kept listening to your records.
But no such luck mon cherie.

It was like in 1989:
My boyfriend, with whom I had been listening to Bon Jovi records, broke up with me. I felt I had no choice but to stop being a Bon Jovi fan, and switched to Guns N Roses.
Appetite for Destruction, never felt so good as then.
And Appetite for Destruction, is what is needed now.

Before me and yoga get along again, I need to listen and do yoga, or simply just listen if doing yoga is too much; I need to listen to Appetite for Destruction.
The bad yoga memories need to be expelled, purged, drawn out like poison from a wound.

But after I ve had my most destructive phase? And in case it ends well, and me and yoga hit if off?
I ll try Bounce!
Then These Days!
And then all the other Bon Jovi records.*)

So that’s where I am at! 
In this week filled with disappointments when I thought yoga would come back to me easily and effortlessly, I fell right back into the pit of hate, resentment, loathing instead. 
It’s poisoning me, at great speed. And it’s either going to kill me from the inside out, or I find a way back to my true self, starting with having Appetite for Destruction do the heavy lifting for me.

It is in that very inconvenient, raw, energy I am in, that I look at the two of you.
Jon and Richie; our two beloved front men just like Mick and Keith, just like Axl and Slash.
And from those three duos, you were and are the ones with the head start. The better cards.
Less extreme personalities.
Better people skills.
Less drug addiction.
More clarity business wise.

And you made it through!
I mean, damn it you guys!
You did not break in that hell of the late 80s, early 90s, when bands were just SMACKED around by life, by management, by the train of the music industry moving at great speed and crushing everything that could not keep up.
You coped, you made it through, only to let the whole thing fall to pieces in the 21st century.

I think I am the only fan who has never watched the full induction into the Rock N Roll hall of fame. I just can’t. There is so much unsaid. It is so uncomfortable to watch you two, clearly still not knowing how to deal with the fact you re no longer working together.
But then I thought, there is a plus side to it;
Because I think you are so close.

It will take far less effort than you could possibly imagine.
It probably would not even feel like effort at all.

You are so close to finding each other, I can feel it in my bones. Whatever it was that started to poison how you related, just like my relationship to yoga got poisoned without me recognizing it;
It’s not real.
You are still the same men, as you were in the earliest days of the band.
And you’re also still the same as when you were writing songs in Richie’s basement.

There is a Covid pandemic, which may keep you two from meeting in person. You re living on opposite sides of the country.
But otherwise I would have suggested to start in Jon’s basement;
That place he shared, or showed, to the fans on Instagram and Twitter.
Where all the memorabilia lay from all those years with the band.

Just push all the stuff aside, roll some basic equipment in, and roll out a rug on the floor. Set up two chairs for two men with guitars, and a fridge with some cold beer.
And you just see what comes up. 
Keep it simple.

And if that is too much, if it hurts you almost physically. If it’s too close to too much pain;
Then you go to Plan B.

You start with Appetite.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

.

*) post-script 2021 04 02:  Shortly after writing this post all the hate and resentment disappeared, and I’m doing yoga again! https://dailybonjoviyoga.com/  It’s not daily yet. That name was a bit too optimistic. But me and yoga have definitely kissed and made up and we’re rockin’ it.

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Bon Jovi concert reviews 1995-1996 Suzanne Beenackers YouTube

Happy Now

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The first weeks of this year have been straining because they were lonely, yet at the same time highly satisfying.
I would even argue solitude was the only thing that was going to purge my life of everything that was ultimately just clouding my vision, and kept me from seeing what needed to be seen.
And also from everything that was keeping earlier insights from becoming ingrained into my daily life. From becoming part of who I am, to the point where to-do lists are no longer needed of what your daily routines are.
Just like you don’t need to write down you have to brush your teeth.
But like I said:
A massive amount of solitude was needed for that.
If I had not been so sure this intense period was required to change me, I would not have lasted.

There are plenty of things I could have done to come back up to surface noise level, where things could be “done” in order to solve the problems. I could have rebooted my social life, go to museums and expos in other cities. I could have gone looking for work, since I already knew that even when my writing will make me more money that I can spend in a lifetime, I do not want to “be” a writer.
I want a normal job.
It was particularly tempting to make looking for a job a priority, and instead I held the course.
I looked loneliness in the eye, the void where my profession as a yoga teacher had once been, the place where my lover had been, the place where all the friends I had lost along the way had been, and I said:
“Show me what I need to know. Show me what I need to understand. Show me my purpose and my true path.”
It had been twenty years, since the last time I let myself come this close to the cliff and looked down. But regardless of what you learn or see, it is an extremely empowering experience to not run or fix things and just be where you are. On a cliff.
With your eyes open.

Something I would not have to explain to Jon Bon Jovi is how much fun it is to work in an all-male team.

This morning my lessons went from big, abstract principles I had learned this year, into practicalities and priorities.
And I noticed something strange and funny!
The activities “doing yoga” and “working between men” were interchangeable. I only needed one of the two, on a daily basis.
And yoga, was part of a much broader category, of activities that could substitute yoga. Or working between men.
Cleaning my house.
Beautifying/ taking care of my body.
And being with a lover.

Being with a lover is a tricky one. It’s not really fair to put it up there, but I did choose to make it explicit, so that I don’t say No because I think I need to clean my house or do yoga or something.
Maybe I get so busy, my brain gets fried, and then someone special says: “Would you like to meet tonight?” and my fried brain answers: “I really can’t”
Thinking: “I need to do yoga.”
To prevent that, I put “Seeing a Lover” in the yoga/body/house category.

But the reason being with a lover does not count as one activity, is that I do beautify and take care of my body before I would go see him, so it should count as double. Triple if he comes over to my place, and I clean the house.
No wonder seeing a lover made me feel so good.

But I kind of knew why dates with my lover had felt so good, so that wasn’t my big Aha!
No, what struck me as odd after writing out the 7 Major Things, in their correct order, I could rewrite it with a big OR in between two of them.
It was between work (originally at #4) OR yoga/body/house/lover (originally at 6).

My ideal job, where I will stay for the rest of my life, is among men.
And we work in a team creating something together, so it’s not (for instance) like a sales team, where we each have our own client base.
It’s also not a shared work space for creatives, where I work my own business as a writer/ entrepreneur;
Because then we don’t work together.

As I adjusted the list of daily activities, adding a big OR and adding my number 1 which I had forgotten – “Sit with cats”; I let it all sink in, and realized there was another big one, which also didn’t need to get done, as long as I had a great place to work.
I wasn’t 100% sure about this one..
But enough to make the leap.
It was writing.

Not the daily writing of smaller posts, 1 hour blog posts, or reposting something with a new quote, or from a new perspective.
Those are my “breath” and butter and need to get done every day even if the world would stop turning and humanity would cease to exist.
You could not stop me from doing that, even if my life depended on it.
No, I mean writing big stuff.
The four to seven hour stuff.
Like this one.
I realized that too, was an OR thing. Not an AND!

Ultimately my original list of 7 Daily Things to stay happy and on track, had 3 activities or areas of my life, where I only needed one a day.
Either I would work between men.
Or I would take care of my body/yoga/house/see a lover.
Or I would write a blog post for multiple hours.
One out of three, was more than enough.

Daily To-Do List, based on core values and goals 2020

  1. sit with the cats
  2. mindset work: listen to audio/ YouTube/ journal
  3. write small post/ repost social media
  4. track my finances, revenues and expenses
  5. write long post OR work between men OR do yoga/house/body/see lover
  6. (optional) social/ fun/friendships
  7. (optional) publish my books

Creating Peak Experiences

For better or worse, number 1-5 must all get done in order to feel accomplished. There is no way I can cut corners here, it will feel sub-optimal at best.
But most likely it will make me feel terrible.
The last time I remember being absolutely fine not doing 1-5 was when I had a Bon Jovi concert.
These were my days for about four weeks straight, I d say:

1. sit with cats

2. my mindset work was omnipresent but it was all related to Bon Jovi videos, interviews, writing about Bon Jovi, making videos about Bon Jovi and so on

3. I didn’t use my phone or post to social media at the concert itself, but was extremely productive writing and making videos for my pen name accounts. I did not post anything under my real name, since my mind was 100% English speaking and not in tune with my Dutch work (I didn’t have this Rock Star Yoga blog yet)

4. I did not track any finances. It even became the only time I forgot my payments. For weeks before and after the concert I was just not present in my personal finance at all.

5. I wrote many posts about Bon Jovi, all under my pen name

6. Not much social activity and I attended the concert by myself.

7. publishing books? I didn’t even know how many syllables that were

So the weeks around the Bon Jovi concert show what happens to the dailies, when I want a peak experience.
I stuck to the routines that served me, but they were completely colored to Bon Jovi. I dropped the rest. It could have caused problems because I was definitely not paying any attention to anything else.
I risked it.
And we’re 7 months later, and I still think so warmly about that Thursday June 13.
If Bon Jovi comes back (and I expect they will in 2021 or 2022) I will adapt the routine again and take a minimum of two weeks off from work, one week before and one week after, to give myself full experience of it again. 

So although I have now formalized everything I want to do each day, I will not make the mistake of being rigid. I think the value of having such a list, is that it prevents you from unconsciously creating a life that is not in line with your values, or simply with what you need to function as a human being.

It makes it explicit what the cost will be, if you answer to everything and everyone who wants or even needs your attention.
Just knowing you’re at the equivalent of sacrificing a limb, if you throw a Sunday at something which is not in your top 5, is already a big win.
But if Jon Bon Jovi asks you over for tea, all you need to do is give the cats a big cuddle and you’re ready to go.

Never say No to a peak experience.

~Suzanne

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Let it Rock | the origin story of Rock Star Yoga

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My name is Suzanne Beenackers, but I also work under a pen name.

I ve been a fan from Bon Jovi since 1986, and consider their record Slippery When Wet, and in particular the first track Let it Rock, my initiation.
Not at the time of course.
14 Year old Suzanne thought listening to that record was an entirely normal thing to do.
Even though nobody from her class owned that record, knew that song, nor went to the 1988 Bon Jovi concert on a weeknight on the other side of the country.
Fully normal.
When in reality?
No.
Not really.

The Let it Rock intro classifies as “sex on a keyboard” and Jon Bon Jovi ends it on a deep sigh. A combination powerful enough to shake up even the most dormant sexuality.
And that’s just the first 1 minute 20 seconds.

In the eighties hard rock was banned and demonized within certain Christian circles and although I find it very unlikely satan would be hiding between the guitar riffs, I do agree now that it’s both sexual and spiritual what happened on that record.
Guitars were my first love, and although I ve strayed from the path for 25 years when I was a Madonna fan, I came back to Bon Jovi in 2019.
For good. 

The Madonna Era 1994-2019

I have questioned why I abandoned my love for rock. But ultimately I understood why I needed to go away. And what happened in those 25 years.

Because where Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses and other bands too but only in the form of concerts not so much records, brought me the experience of sex, the energy of it;
Madonna taught me WHO I WAS. 
My interest in her was an identity one. I liked her music because I liked her. She was expressing herself, including her sexuality, through her music.
So I listened to her music to get to know her.
But the only record that really got under my skin was Ray of Light;
Her only album that heavily features electric guitars.

For 25 years I explored, developed and identified myself through her, and in 2019 in the half year working up to a Bon Jovi concert, the first one since 1988, I felt I was leaving Madonna behind.
The concert was on the 13th of June, and she released her new record on Friday the 14th. I never listened to it.
There was such clarity that “our time together” was over, if you can say something like that about an idol being in your life.
I now know who I was and where I belonged: 
With rock.

Yoga in the modern world

Madonna brought me many things, but the most apparent one was that she inspired me to start yoga.
In the 90s yoga in the Netherlands was the domain of pregnancy yoga, done on sleeping bags in community centers, and a magazine with Eastern oriented scholars sharing their wisdom printed in black and white with a yellow cover.
Yoga was done responsibly but it was also a bit boring.
Not to say hopelessly uncool.
When Madonna did her 1998 promotion for her album, it revolved heavily around her finding yoga after the birth of her daughter Lourdes and how she had gotten back into shape with it.
She had a lean, muscular body to prove it.
This is how yoga was put on the map of the modern world, where it has stayed from that moment on. And it was from here, that my love for yoga was also sparked.

This story illustrates how I adopted the idea of yoga, before I started doing yoga. I have always referred to 1998 as the year when I started doing yoga, until a few years ago I saw in my old agendas that it had actually been late 1999 that I had taken my first class.
The reason I remembered it differently was because the idea of yoga was taking shape inside of me. And this (adopting the idea first) would actually become one of the pillars of this blog (the one you re reading now).

Yoga, including Rock Star Yoga, should first be an idea, a concept that you explore and try on like a coat. You make it part of your identity first.

This is not to say that this will be the case for everybody. 
I know many people who are won over by yoga, by doing yoga. Taking a class, or being introduced to a class by a friend.
But that has never worked for me, and because I can’t be alone on this – and because all the people who get on the yoga wagon by experience are already catered to left, right and center – I ve decided to become more vocal about this order in which I have done this, and many things after.

Finding the agendas and realizing the concept of yoga had become a part of me, long before a yoga practice had, became a major insight.
That I can do anything by bringing it/ the experience of it, into my vibration. Maybe “in my vibration” is an even better way of describing what I do, than identity.
Bringing yoga into my vibration is what I did after Madonna first mentioned it in 1998.
Nourishing yoga in my vibration for over a year, is what brought me to pick up taking classes and to start doing yoga daily.
And ultimately, yes, yoga did become my identity, when I became a full-time yoga teacher. 
Until I could feel it slipping away..
First the vibration of it. It felt like I had lost my connection to yoga, like priests who can no longer hear God’s voice. But on the outside it looked the same. I still did my work.
Then I lost my own practice.
And then my identity when I stopped my group classes in 2018.

Like sand through my fingers, yoga had left me.
Life had left me.

Finding Healing

When I bought the ticket to the Bon Jovi show, early December 2018, it felt purposeful.
Magical even.
It was like the idea of seeing them in June, seven months later, was already casting a spell backwards, over the seven months of waiting.
It became this space, this vacuum, in which I could create an entire new life which I could then celebrate with the concert as its highlight.
Unfortunately, it turned out the road ahead was not that easy.

December to February were marked by a renovation, moving in and out of my house, not having heating. And the stone cold loneliness of a life without cats.
My cat, little Max, had died one year prior.
Knowing this highly unpractical renovation was scheduled for my building, and because my yoga business was already coming apart at the seams, I had decided not to take new cats until I had my life sorted out.
One year after his death, December 2018-February 2019 were without a doubt the lowest months in my life.
Immediately after the renovation, a friend brought me her cat to look after. It was soothing to have that little boy running around my house.
Life would only go up from now on.

Early May 2019, on a Tuesday, my sleep-over cat was picked up by his mother in the morning, and in the afternoon my two new cats arrived.
They were called Flip and Zaza, and I had been following their story since 2018, and had engaged with the organization that was fostering them, raising money for them, and sharing their posts when they asked for adoption.
It was so strange because they were adopted, only to be given back, and then fostered in a place that wasn’t part of the foster families who were participating in having them get adopted.
It was like they lived in a bubble, outside of space and time.
Until in 2019, after my renovation, they were relocated to a different foster family that was very successful at mediating their cats;
And they were brought up for adoption.
“It’s Flip and Zaza!” I exclaimed.
And I sent them a letter.

It was as if they had been waiting, as if God had been taking care of them, so they would become my babies when I was ready.
May 2019, I was ready.
My new life could start.

And yoga would be rocked back into my life, with a vengeance.

Let it Rock

I just looked it up, on the accounts under my penname, and after all the delay of the renovation and being miserable, and then the healing when I had the stay-over cat; I ultimately did start studying Bon Jovi, as I intended. 
Because when I bought the ticket, I had not just seen that entire 7 month period of waiting as one big new years resolution to a better life;
I also wanted to get reacquainted with the material, learn the lyrics, set lists, listen to interviews.

I was bringing the Bon Jovi concert into my vibration, long before the actual show. 
And just like I had done with yoga, two decades before;
It worked.
Of course it worked.

When I went to that show I knew everything there was to know. From the security procedures, to the lay-out, to the set-list.
And I had even “practiced” not eating for prolonged periods of time, because I didn’t intend to waste time buying food on the premises, or use the bathroom.
I had set my eye on standing first row, and ultimately, through a combination of almost “beginners luck” (and not knowing about pricey early access procedures and so on), through determination, preparation and a lot of friendly people;
I got first row.
Damn.

When I got out, my gums were tingling as if I had had really good sex, and I knew I had learned everything I needed to know.
And that there was no going back now.
But I didn’t know exactly what it was.
A few days later, I did.

About Rock Star Yoga

Rock Star Yoga still doesn’t have its finite form, and something tells me it never will. That it will always be a concept, an idea, something that each for his own will figure out.
Rock Star Yoga will always be something that you can bring into your vibration, and fit on like a coat. Something to toy with, to nourish, and to ultimately;
Become.

There are a couple of reoccurring principles and guidelines that I refer to, as being Rock Star Yoga. Things I find of use, and of importance too. And that are rarely mentioned in regular yoga.

These three pillars of Rock Star Yoga, which are mentioned at the bottom of every blog post, are:

1. raising your energy
Through any and all means nessecary.
Two big often overlooked sources of energy are Purpose and Sexuality. By limiting these, you are limiting your potential and your energy.
Raising your energy also means, to raise your energy through yoga
(versus merely focusing on relaxation) or to engage in yoga in order to prepare and support your body to channel these big waves of creative energy.

2. RSY means a fully creative self-practice
Versus taking classes, sticking to a schedule or educating yourself in a certain lineage.
If you feel unsure where to start, you can find help on YouTube. Yoga with Adriene, is my personal favorite. But there are plenty of other tools around.
If/ once you feel safe enough, you can let go, and just let the body express in the way it desires.

3. RSY means your body is your instrument
Just look at the way Slash handles his guitar, and an entire new way of looking at, and experiencing, your body, could arise. 

Rock Star Yoga was born on that day.
In the sun, the rain, and the thunder, of a Bon Jovi concert on June 13th, 2019.
Or as Jon Bon Jovi said:
“We ve made it all the way through the winter and the summer, in the last two hours.”

We’ve made it all the way through half of my life, since I was a 14 year old girl. 
Maybe it was her, that was reborn that day.

~Suzanne

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“We ve made it all the way through the winter and the summer, in the last two hours.” [At 13 minutes]

Only Lonely | the album 7800° Fahrenheit

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Scheveningen, 2010

In the category Least Sexy Compelling Bon Jovi Titles I think “Only Lonely” from their album 7800° Fahrenheit (1985) must rank pretty high.
Or, as Jon Bon Jovi introduced the song playing Scheveningen, The Netherlands (The Circle tour):
“This is one of the songs we never never never do.”

Depressing titles are not clickbait or as we said in 1985:
It just doesn’t sell.
And Fahrenheit was not their big breakthrough.
That would come with their next album Slippery When Wet.

“I always overlook the second album. Always have, always will.
We had no time to make it and we didn’t know who we were… “
Jon Bon Jovi on 7800° Fahrenheit

Yet it is a fan favorite and I ve seen one fan posting a photo, just last year.
He was over the moon for having his copy of Fahrenheit signed by Jon Bon Jovi.

If I would compare it to Star Wars (which I am) 7800° Fahrenheit was like The Last Jedi:
Some consider it the weakest of the Star Wars movies.
For others it’s a fan favorite who would not trade it for the world.
That, was 7800° Fahrenheit.

There are three songs on Fahrenheit with a similar theme:
Only Lonely
The Hardest Part is the Night
Silent Night
All about loneliness, survival of a breakup or otherwise emotionally trying to stay afloat. 
Fahrenheit is a far cry from the optimistic songs that would become one of Bon Jovi’s most recognizable trademarks. 

And yet it was this album in particular, that has sprung to mind multiple times, over the past few months. Because no other Bon Jovi album, describes the void of my last 18 months, as this Bon Jovi album that history forgot.

I usually start counting summer 2018, and then it’s 18 months.
But “it” had set in late 2017, without a doubt. Making it two years of depression, burnout or as I have come to understand it:
An existential crisis.

I had lost everything that defined me or lost my connection to the aspects and people in my life that remained the same.
There were very few friendships that survived and two of my best friends migrated.
One in 2017 and one in 2019. I “only” have one friend left nearby. She’s so much like me that we are practically the same person:
Driven, passionate and full of purpose.
We don’t have casual encounters or weekly Netflix dates. If we meet there is this powerful chemistry.
It would be extremely unwise to see each other often, unless the other option is a lengthy pilgrimage to a spiritual guru who will transform your life.
Then we could just plan an extra date and let our inner worlds collide and be home before midnight, fully changed.

But the two friends with whom I had dates that were so lighthearted, watched silly series or could eat french fries meanwhile discussing what the correct amount of mayonnaise is (I was a strong advocate for the 1:1 ratio fries to mayonnaise);
They have left.

I am alone.

However the biggest blow came late last year in December, when my lover broke up with me. 
This was not so much because there was a frequent get-together I was now missing out on. Nor did any support nor life-changing mental chemistry disappear.
I had made sure that when we were together and I had felt us elevating to romantic play and floating on a cloud of happiness I reminded myself:
“This is ME.
I am doing this too.
It is this level where I feel good, but I can get here without him too.”

For five years, like Tom Thumb, I had left a trail of spiritual rocks so that I could always find the way back, to the place where I had been with my lover.
So regardless of me feeling very sorry that he left, and that I would be alone there in that place where I had once been with him, it wasn’t losing this ethereal level of existence that worried me.
It was losing my identity.

During our affair I had forgotten that of course the biggest blow after a breakup is an identity one. An ego one.
I no longer “had” a lover, I no longer “was” a lover. 
After five years, I was just Suzanne…

Because I didn’t really know how I felt about that I followed the rocks back. Maybe this place where we’d been together, would tell me who I was. Or at least who I had been, during my time with him.
Who the version of me had been, there on that elevated plane of existence with him.

And I found her.
But she was so strong and so different than I remembered her.
I thought the part of myself that had been with him, had been flowy and feminine. Fun, playful, a little submissive. 
But she was none of those things.
She was there by herself, and she was unapologetic and fully at ease. She regretted that she didn’t have anyone to play with, but she knew she was not for everybody and that even if no one else ever came;
She was okay with that.
She could be there by herself, forever if needed.

It’s been a month since we broke up, and I feel ambitious and certain.
I have ended teaching yoga, and will go on “merely” as a writer and a publisher.
Suddenly, I was able to wrap up two years of not knowing, that will be remembered for Only Lonely, Silent Night and The Hardest Part is the Night.
Two years which both history and me, will forget.

“All of us were going through tough times on a personal level.
And the strain told on the music we produced.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience… Lance Quinn wasn’t the man for us, and that added to the feeling that we were going about it badly.
None of us want to live in that mental state ever again.
We’ve put the record behind us, and moved on.”
Jon Bon Jovi on 7800 Fahrenheit

Maybe my lover was not the man for me.
And I would have gladly skipped the two years that were the worst period of my life.
But 17 months after 7800 Fahrenheit, Bon Jovi brought out their third album. It was their breakthrough and the #1 best-selling album of 1987.
Slippery When Wet.

Sounds like this will turn out great.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

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Bon Jovi concert reviews 1995-1996 Suzanne Beenackers YouTube

January 2021
This site started in 2019 as Rock Star Yoga, and this post from January 2020, concluded with this paragraph :

About Rock Star Yoga

The three pillars of Rock Star Yoga are:
1. raising your energy
Through any and all means nessecary. Two big often overlooked sources of energy are Purpose and Sexuality. By limiting these, you are limiting your potential and your energy.
Raising your energy also means, to raise your energy through yoga
(versus merely focusing on relaxation) or to engage in yoga in order to prepare and support your body to channel these big waves of creative energy.
2. RSY means a fully creative self-practice
Versus taking classes, sticking to a schedule or educating yourself in a certain lineage.
If you feel unsure where to start, you can find help on YouTube. Yoga with Adriene, is my personal favorite. But there are plenty of other tools around.
If/ once you feel safe enough, you can let go, and just let the body express in the way it desires.
3. RSY means your body is your instrument
Just look at the way Slash handles his guitar, and an entire new way of looking at, and experiencing, your body, could arise. 

(end)

My Way

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

“I also didn’t have time for the time-consuming responsibilities and distractions of a relationship, so it wasn’t her so much as it was me.
I was getting back to my old self;
I was getting into work mode.”

Slash, page 295
on breaking up with his girlfriend in 1990


The first thing that reminded me something in my life was still “off” was Slash’s auto (!!) biography, simply called Slash.
I think this will be my bible for the rest of my life. Slash shows himself as an absolutely magnetic combination of driven yet cool. Broken yet whole. An open book yet more mysterious with every page.
Or as Ali G would have said:
I definitely would.

Which reminds me that if you ever see me having an entirely new area of interest (f.e. classical music or something) you should immediately shake off the idea that I am ACTUALLY interested in that.
That I have grown as an adult or something.

Atomic Blonde (2017) has been a constant source of inspiration and has fueled my 80s and Berlin obsessions. And I now know the actor James McAvoy. 

These new areas of interest are created by men I am in love with or male idols, or by movies about super badass women, always on the dark side by the way.
I thought Wonder Woman was crap.
There I said it.
But Atomic Blonde, with Charlize Theron as a vodka drinking, chain smoking, sexually entrepreneurial butt kicking MI6 agent in 1989 Berlin?
Have still not recovered from the obsession for 80s design/interiors, that sparked.

Lately somebody mentioned that someone was heavily into BMX and explained what BMX was, assuming I would not know.
But I am into Slash now, and before he picked up a guitar he was a talented BMX cyclist, hanging out with an entire gang of friends with bikes, often chased by police through Hollywood Hills.
Little did the person having a conversation with me know, that I therefor knew exactly what BMX was.
So I may end up knowing things about things that are not me; but that I am fascinated with because someone I m in love with, is affiliated to it/ saw the movie/ liked the thing, and so on.

Therefor the correct question if you see me knowing stuff that seems a bit not-me, is:
“What’s his name?”
In which case I don’t answer, because that’s always a secret.
Unless it’s Slash because he’s famous and the chance that we’re going to become secret lovers is very slim. So if the answer is “Slash” I ll tell you.
But where was I?
Oh!
Slash’s biography, and how it suddenly dawned on me that I was in trouble.
That my plan for 2020 was off.
And that it was never gonna work, unless I fixed it.

The Plan saw the light late 2019.
It had to do with work, and also with teaching private yoga (secondly). But it was especially the work thing, that I was most proud of.
Nothing was standing between me and working full-time and choosing a career of my liking.
I have been a yoga teacher since 2003, and the past 1,5 year I have gone back and forth between teaching yoga, writing (that goes by itself, it’s impossible not to), and my desire or resolution to get a contract job.
So when I finally received clarity on that topic, I was over the moon!

It’s better to hang out, than to dive head first into the shallow end of the pool.

Not only had I decided I was going for a job, I was actually looking forward to it. A job would give me full creative freedom in my writing.
Yet reading chapter after chapter about Slash not even prepared to “waste” time on relationships? Because his obsession – not even so much with being famous, but for music and creating – was just so all-consuming it made it impossible to perform in any other area of his life?
That was when I realized marginalizing my writing to the evenings was not going to work and that diving head first into a new career, might result in me crashing into the shallow end of the pool with my head on the concrete.

This was such important information that I decided to block it out immediately.

But then, as important messages from the Universe do, the message came again.
This time through a quite lengthy quote on writing:

Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing.
If you’re writing, you’re a writer.
Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon.
Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves.
Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone.
Write like you have a message from the king.
Or don’t.
Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.

ALAN WATTS

I knew I wasn’t one of the lucky ones who didn’t have to write.
That could be ruled out immediately.
And secondly, I also knew I didn’t have to make myself write “as if” I was on death row, clinging to the edge, on my last breath;
That’s standard.
That’s why writing takes my life, even when I don’t have that time because I would like to be doing something productive that actually makes money.
It’s why I have two blogs under this name and three under my pen name;
Because otherwise my readers would go crazy.
I have friends coming up to me apologizing they haven’t read everything I posted lately, and I almost want to shriek:
“Don’t!!”
I write because I absolutely have to.

So I received the same message twice:
That I did not have a choice in what I wanted for myself; The choice had been made for me.
Writing was more important to me than breathing.

I had wished I had been that much into yoga.
Just think of the great shape my body would be in, if I had done yoga in all the hours I spent behind my computer since 2006!  I would be cast body-doubling for an actress half my age playing Wonder Woman.

Or I wish I had spent that time on my finance, my publishing business, my yoga studio, or in 2020; My career!
I would be absolutely unstoppable!!
But again: The quote from Alan Watts on writing and from Slash just erasing everybody out of his life who was taking up his attention, made it clear that ship had sailed.
The choice wasn’t mine to make.
Aside from the number of hours required for a full-time job, I didn’t have the “head space” for a real career. My mental band width was taken, and it had been taken since 2006 when I started writing, and it would stay that way for the rest of my life.

On my other accounts/ my pen name I write a lot about my love life:
Same story.
It is all really interesting to go have a conversation about if it is ethical or not to write about your love life, but in the end that decision too was never mine to make.
I can agree with a lover that I SHOULD NOT be writing about us.
But to put it into practice would require an entirely different woman.
I can agree with an employer that I should go the extra mile, and become obsessed with my work and adopt it as my own identity to be that person/ do that thing;
But I already am my own person and I know what my thing is.

Yesterday, pretty much out of the blue, I saw one area where I was spending mental band width, time, and future plans on, that was neither linked to a career on a contract; Nor was it related to writing and having full creative freedom.
This area was:
Teaching yoga.

I ve taught group classes from 2003-2018. I still teach a group friends, former students. And that s cool.
The problem, the thing that I will not be doing ever again, was that even after 18 months of dropping in and out of the idea of teaching yoga, I had settled for keeping myself on the market to teach privates and keeping the option open to reboot my yoga studio for privates or even group classes.
I had entered 2020 thinking that because I like writing about Rock Star Yoga, and I like doing yoga, and because I like writing out yoga schedules and teaching my group of friends every week;
I somehow owed it to myself and maybe even others, to stay open to the possibility of making my living with teaching and letting people work with me.
Which was not true.

Writing this Rock Star Yoga blog is like this thrill, like cutting off a way too big piece of cake. Starting way too big, with too many topics.
You can see it in this blogpost!
A title from a Frank Sinatra/Paul Anka/ Jon Bon Jovi song ; opening with a quote from Slash’s bio, brushing on Atomic Blonde and to then work up to this major life decision that I m going to quit teaching yoga after 16 years?
How the hell do I think I m going to bring that to a close?
Each of those topics probably deserve an entire blog post of their own.
The answer is:
I have no idea.
But that is the thrill of it.
To just bury your knife, or in my case my pen, deep, deep into the cake of topics that are all sweet and interesting, and watch sauce dripping out, the cream sticking to the blade, the icing breaking off and dropping onto the plate and think:
“I don’t care, I m going to eat this thing.”
That is writing to me, also writing about doing yoga.
Whereas teaching yoga was more like this green salad with falafel balls that you know you should be eating, and that is good for you;
But you re never dreaming of it.
Let alone thirsting for it.
You ve never caught yourself hanging on the cliff by your fingers blurting out: “Do your yoga!” before you fall into the ravine.

So yesterday, January 7th 2020, after teaching yoga for 16 years, 8 months and two weeks – 1,5 year spent on the fence – I quit teaching yoga.
And it felt wonderful.

To the outside world not much has changed.
I still have the (small) studio: It offers me a business address for the Chamber of Commerce, and I still teach my friends group there.
The name of the studio has already been the name of my publishing company, so I don’t have to change that either.
It really is that very small thing of saying: “No. I don’t teach, I m only a writer.”
That set me free.

I look back at 1,5 years on the fence with mixed feelings. It was the worst time of my life, no doubt about that. And it is tempting to blame myself for taking so long, before I could see how to go about this.
But these things take time.

I don’t want to ramble on about it, but one of the things I overlooked is that I am much more comfortable being hired for my intellect (so in a job) than for my ability to relate to other people (coaching or teaching yoga).
This was one of the things I didn’t understand until late 2019, when I saw I m most likely autistic.
The realization of being autistic has opened up new ways of seeing things, which I had never tried before, because I had been relying on common sense = things that are helpful or applicable to non-autistic people.

One of the celebrities I came across during these months of studying autism, was Slash. He has never positioned himself that way, so by no means am I handing out diagnoses, but to me it was extremely helpful that he was mentioned as an example of someone who was quite possibly autistic.
And when I watch his interviews now, the thoughtful way he expresses himself, and the way he gives so much space to the people he talks to, I recognize that as “Yes, that is how I see autism.”

The casual but stunning social analysis Slash makes of his surroundings – just broad strokes but so spot on, page after page – is also proof to me that he is indeed autistic, or at least what I consider to be autism, as in something that sets us apart.
In my experience non-autistic people are so involved in social dynamics, they don’t give words to them because they understand them naturally.
Or if they don’t, they suffer from it but they can’t put words to it.
Having a need and a talent to reflect and understand life, at such a detailed level, is certainly not what I would call normal.

After Slash has broken up with his girlfriend, he concludes the chapter with a take-away that illustrates why I could not come up with my solutions, and could not see what I needed, until very late in life.
For me it took 47 years and the insight of seeing myself as autistic, before I saw this.
What Slash already knew at 25:

“I’ve always had to do things my way; I ve gotten high my way, I ve gotten clean my way, I ve been in and out of relationships my way.
I ve taken myself to the edges of life my way. And I m still here.
Whether or not I deserve to be is another story.”

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

January 2021
This site started in 2019 as Rock Star Yoga, and this post from January 2020, concluded with this paragraph :

About Rock Star Yoga

The three pillars of Rock Star Yoga are:
1. raising your energy
Through any and all means nessecary. Two big often overlooked sources of energy are Purpose and Sexuality. By limiting these, you are limiting your potential and your energy.
Raising your energy also means, to raise your energy through yoga
(versus merely focusing on relaxation) or to engage in yoga in order to prepare and support your body to channel these big waves of creative energy.
2. RSY means a fully creative self-practice
Versus taking classes, sticking to a schedule or educating yourself in a certain lineage.
If you feel unsure where to start, you can find help on YouTube. Yoga with Adriene, is my personal favorite. But there are plenty of other tools around.
If/ once you feel safe enough, you can let go, and just let the body express in the way it desires.
3. RSY means your body is your instrument
Just look at the way Slash handles his guitar, and an entire new way of looking at, and experiencing, your body, could arise. 

(end)

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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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