Category: yoga diary

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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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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

afterthought 9 December 2020

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

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

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

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

song Burning Bridges

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

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

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

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

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

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

from the song We don’t run (live)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

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