This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

There is a new Bon Jovi documentary coming out, in April. In the trailer Richie Sambora says: “I’m excited. What are we gonna do? Are we gonna tell the truth, are we gonna lie?”
Which is exactly how I feel, although I’m pretty sure I am not excited.

Disappointed.
Frustrated.
Angry.
Excited? Not so much.

Because I burned myself, again, in the real world.
Something I’ve done how many times now? More than twenty times within the six years we’ve known each other?
And that’s probably a low estimate, that if you spread it out over six years, means I only burned myself every quarter.

The truth is, I STILL believe in having a place in the world LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.
With friends, with connections to the city where I live. Offering something local too.

I so much believe in the value of connection and local, real life things.
And when it comes to teaching yoga locally;
I would sign up immediately, if someone taught classes with this energetic vibe.

“The energy of the band, undeniable. Like a freight train coming at you.”

With this thing, this X factor, that is as undeniable in the entrepreneurial world as it was in Bon Jovi in the 80s.
This life-bringing force that will shock-start any heart that has given up beating, because it got so taken down by the depressing micro-managing of it all.
By the smallness, required to be allowed in, in the local community, and in the yoga community.

The past few weeks I had a vision of how we could change the yoga industry, and make the world a better place for everybody;
Teachers, students, local communities.
I could see it all so clearly!

And then I had four to six weeks, packed with appointments in the real world, including yoga people;
And it was like the life was drained right out of me.

Instead of moving the ball forward, I think I actually lost students, lost friends. And I know, I lost my desire to do anything, at local level.
And that hurt, because I have become nostalgic for my life as a fulltime offline yoga teacher, 15 years ago.
When I wasn’t a blogger/writer yet.

I had been writing under the name LS Harteveld, but it was all offline, and I posted it on a Dutch social medium.
I didn’t even have a website until 2010.
Life was simple; Both for my writing as well as for my yoga.

And I wanted that for myself again, to just run my classes every week. A slow, uneventful, existence as a yoga teacher.
And because I now had insight in where the profession of being a yoga teacher, had taken the wrong turn (worldwide! not just here), I thought I had cracked the code to get it right this time.

A recipe that would allow me to run my classes, without any fancy marketing. (including any additional blogging)
As well allow all other yoga teachers to do the same.
We would all be allowed to live our offline lives, and to give that serene offline energy, back to our students.
It would be heaven.

Until I clashed so hard with everyone around me, and I realized I was just not made for this.
I really, and I mean REALLY, need to rise to that absolute highest level of, yeah of what?
Of being a writer?
Of being an international mentor?
Of being an online marketeer?
What exactly?

I think the most positive thing I can make of this, is by comparing it to Frodo leaving Middle-Earth for the Undying Lands.
He had saved the world, but, as he explained to his friend Sam, it could not be saved for him.
He could no longer live there, the injuries he had  affected him too deeply and could not be cured on the earthly plane.
But at closer look, you can also see that he had been affected mentally. He lost his swagger, on Mount Doom.

I think I knew this would happen when I heard myself explain to someone why I had abandoned my work of helping the yoga world thrive;
That I am, the writer LS Harteveld.
Then, I am the writer under my real name.
Then I am the entrepreneur under my own name.
And only then, a yoga teacher, someone with an interest in the craft. And that last bit could be wishful thinking. Part of me suspects I am zero yoga teacher, that it was the idea, of being a yoga teacher.
And that the clashes came from my ideas colliding with what everyone else wanted (their) yoga teacher to be.

Which then in turn, sparked self-hatred.
As if I wanted to cut everything yoga teacher out of me.
I am still not completely over that. 

I have invested so much in setting up my yoga business again. And part of me still wants to go all in on this, in particular because I know how much value it would bring both to me, as well as to my students!
It already is.

But every time I bump my head and meet resistance when I pursue the bigger yoga vision behind it, I immediately fall back to a deep resentment of not doing my actual purpose work, which is being a writer and being an entrepreneur.
And I just want to burn it all.

And after understanding how beautiful the profession of being a yoga teacher is, as beautiful as the Shire itself, that is just so deeply disappointing.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living