I started this year with a wellness weekend together with a close friend of mine… and I was really looking forward to it. For reasons I can’t name myself, 24 has always been my absolute favorite number, so I was convinced that 2024 would be great. And it was – but with some teething troubles.
Slow start
Although I started the new year with a lot of motivation, I didn’t really get out of the starting blocks. The projects I was working on didn’t really take off as I would have liked. I realized that I was missing something crucial. Towards the end of the year, an opportunity arose to find this missing piece of the puzzle, but more on that later.
In February, I booked myself into the Yoga Vidya Ashram Bad Meinberg for the first time in several years to attend a Vipassana seminar. This place holds some not-so-fond memories for me, so it was an emotional but also liberating stay. The ashram used to be a sanctuary for me and I am one step closer to regaining that status.
Another favorite memory of this year is my carnival trip to Griesheim. Together with a colleague, we cheered on another colleague who performed several times in a session with her dance group and also gave a carnival speech. Anyone who knows me knows that carnival is completely out of my comfort zone, but I had so much fun – which was certainly also due to the sensational company. It’s a wonderful thing for me when colleagues become friends.
To make sure there was still something going on, I decided to fulfill my dream of an Ayurveda retreat in Sri Lanka and booked a two-week stay for May.
Upswing in spring
In spring, the long-awaited movement suddenly came into my life.
I first got in touch with Asana at Home, an online yoga provider that was looking for yoga teachers to teach on the platform, especially classes for other yoga teachers. I applied and soon had a Zoom call in which I presented two concepts. One of them was accepted on the spot, with the prospect of also implementing the second. This sense of achievement gave me a very welcome boost, which I used to develop the final concept for my course and present Asana at Home.
Another great experience in spring was a visit to Hanover to see my long-time friend Kadda. We spent a wonderful day at a lake and a fun girls’ evening on her balcony. It was also there that we decided to set each other up via an app after both of us had struggled with heartbreak in recent years. That’s right: a dating app where you don’t search yourself, but your closest friends make suggestions. Exactly the right thing for us, as we wanted to get to know someone but didn’t feel like going on a search ourselves.
Heart opener
In yoga, we talk about “heart-opening” positions, for example backbends in which the chest is stretched. This category includes some of my favorite asanas. Now I decided to open my heart again off the mat too.
My dear “frolleague” (friend + colleague) Caro had suggested Daniel to me via said app, with whom I met for brunch on a Sunday morning in Frankfurt. God, I was nervous! Meeting a complete stranger with whom I’d only written for a few days before? What was I actually doing here?
To make a long story short: Today, on New Year’s Eve, we will not only toast to the New Year, but also to the fact that we have now been together for half a year.
Thanks to him, I was finally able to put the painful experiences of the last few years behind me and finally experience again why the sometimes-frustrating search for a partner can be rewarding after all. I could hardly believe my luck to find such a loving, smart, funny man with whom I could have the most profound conversations, but also be incredibly silly. Even now, six months later, I can hardly believe my luck and will be eternally grateful to Caro for setting us up. Not just because it means I’m in the happiest relationship I’ve ever been in, but also because I love that our friendship goes deep enough to be able to appreciate me so well. Thank you, Caro!
Ayurvedic adventure
Before Daniel and I became a couple, I had another adventure ahead of me: my long-awaited trip to Sri Lanka!
I spent the most incredible two weeks at the “Plantation Villa” resort in the middle of the jungle, where I meditated every day, practiced yoga, enjoyed Ayurvedic food and Ayurvedic treatments and met wonderful people. There were also plenty of excursions.
I finally saw my favorite animals, elephants, in the wild; I released baby turtles into the wild, I visited a tea plantation, I visited the village temple together with the local staff of the resort on the occasion of the Buddhist holiday Vesak.
Another highlight was that I was finally able to experience authentic Ayurveda at first hand – through treatments, nutrition and the care provided by the wonderful Ayurveda doctors on site.
In the new year, I will dedicate an entire blog article to this profound journey so that I can tell you more about it.
Turbulent second half of the year
A lot happened in the second half of 2024. I spent my entire summer vacation finishing the online course for Asana at Home, which was incredibly fun. The course is now online and I would be delighted if any of you yoga teachers are interested!
In addition to this positive development, there was also a development in my office job that wasn’t quite so positive. As a result, I decided to leave this job and apply for a job at where Daniel lives so that we can move in together and see each other more often than just at the weekend. This means that not only a new job, but also a new place to live is waiting in the wings for me in the new year. I’m really looking forward to living with my better half and everything the new start has in store for me.
There was also a less pleasant development in my private life, namely the end of a long-standing friendship that had been going badly for some time. This was an important lesson for me: it is always important to work on friendships and not throw in the towel at the slightest inconvenience. But it’s just as important to recognize when it’s no longer worth it. To recognize when you’ve had enough. To recognize when you have grown too far apart.
So it was even nicer to spend a weekend with my favorite girls from my studies. We all live in different cities, so it’s always a highlight when we all get together. We explored Cologne together, laughed a lot, enjoyed delicious tapas and brought each other up to date. Weekends like this recharge my batteries enough to keep me going for longer.
Looking forward to 2025
Now that the year with my favorite number is coming to an end, I’m looking forward to 2025. I have lots of ideas, wishes and goals for the new year. As I mentioned at the beginning, I was missing an important piece of the puzzle that I am currently working on: a crystal-clear positioning as a yoga teacher. I am currently doing a coaching session for this, which is giving me incredible pleasure. It’s a great feeling to invest in myself and I can hardly wait to see what the result will be and what I will make of it.
I also want to continue working on my blog in 2025, which had to take a back seat this year due to the very time-consuming work on the online course.
I will also be ringing in the year 2025 with a yoga and journaling workshop at Yoga Vidya Frankfurt. If you live in Frankfurt, please come along! And if you live somewhere else, feel free to participate online! I would be very happy to welcome the new year with many great people. Together we will look back on the old year and look forward to the new one. No matter what 2025 will bring – this is how you start it in the best possible, most mindful way.
Now all that remains is for me to wish all my wonderful readers a happy and healthy new year. I look forward to everything that is to come!
