Somehow I have always felt that I wasn’t the one creating my life but rather was floating along in a raft ‘til the next harbor. Already as a child, I felt watched and that I watched – like there was more inside me and more around me that my eyes could see. At times this was really calming but also agitating, even scary sometimes because of its uncertainty, its void.
I was always in awe when I got "kicked" off the raft, in awe, how I really got there. I walked through doors that opened up. I didn choose these destinations, I did choose the doors to walk through though - the raft chose the harbours. I felt guided. Something was defintely guiding me, mapping this out. But I never really questioned what it was that guided me but it kept me searching anyway.
This flow or vinyasa or Esther and Jerry Hicks like to call it the "Vortex" brought me to Florida when I was 18, I knew I wanted to travel, I knew I wanted to leave Austria, I knew I wanted to do something "different", and not go to Uni in my hometown. Thats really all I knew.
I neither planned Florida nor going to university, but ended up studying in Palm Beach anyway. I had been really firm with my friends back home: “No, you guys go ahead and study, this is not for me, I want to see the world”. Fate wheeled me into a college tennis team without having had much of a say, as I was offered a full scholarship.
I always wanted to go to New York, that much I knew. This time I gave my fate a bit of a shove and push after two years in Florida, in applying to 50 universities that had a tennis team in & around Manhattan. Pace offered a full athletic scholarship.
After graduation I remember pounding Manhattan’s pavement in heels, wishing they were tennis shoes, running from one interview to another, when I saw a long line waiting in front of The Plaza Hotel to be hired. I got in line and ended up working for the Trumps as their Guest Relations & VIP Manager taking care of their private guests, Hollywood stars & royalty. Yes, it was an extremely fast paced, exciting lifestyle and glamorous job, but something was missing; it was like wanting to get to the bottom of the well.
Back on the raft I got dropped back home in Austria, where I found myself supporting Dr. Thomas Klestil in Vienna during his presidential campaign. I had never joined a political party before but was fascinated by that world; and again it was a rollercoaster of excitement, my office was facing the Vienna Opera, the presidential campagne was a whirlwind of events and when our candidate won and became president of Austria, a well-deserved break dropped me in Asia, for the first time.
I had not at all even contemplated Asia before until my feet hit her ground and there I was at the airport in Bali in 1991 looking into the porters’ eyes sitting on the floor, smelling this odour I knew. I have seen those faces – I thought. The humidity felt so right on the skin, it felt home, or better I felt home or came back home – it felt so familiar. I knew this stop would be longer. Bali is such a beautiful mother to protect, teach and raise. In her arms a family grew, my daughters were born and several sleeping passions were given the space in me to ignite: health food, natural therapies, building villas and ... of course ...yoga.
When I first discovered yoga, I was pregnant; a friend came over and showed me how to relieve my back pain, so I randomly practiced here and there, but it "didn’t really hit home" for a long time. After the births of my two daughters, I always carried them on my right side, and already having genetic issues with my hips worsened by my tennis career and a scoliosis, these symptoms started to deteriorate to such a point, that even hitting the clutch in the car was extremely painful. One of my closest girlfriends suggested to buy an automatic and do yoga; I did both. I went straight to a five-day intensive Iyengar yoga workshop that totally wiped me out, not only on a physical level. When I was hanging upside down (that’s how it felt for me) in Trikonasana, the teacher started pulling every side of my body and then asked me to stand up, looked me straight into the eye and said with a finger pointing at my nose: "You! If no-one in the world needs to do yoga, YOU do! Lets get started!"
From then on I practiced three times a week, no matter what, I went to yoga practice. In the beginning it was so painful that many times I was in tears over physical aches or emotional openings. I asked myself why would anyone with a half-way straight mind go to a yoga class by free will? Soon to realize, that the pain of healing was preferable to the constant pain of my misalignment.
Fixing it hurt less than always being in it.
I was very fortunate to meet my teacher at a very early stage of my practice: Olop Arpipi. an Indonesian Iyengar senior teacher, who I feel lives and breathes what he teaches. His authenticity inspired me. I wanted that. Olop definitely sparked that fire of passion for yoga in me and at this point I want to express my sincere gratitude and admiration to my teacher, who was in the studio those three times a week, always present for us, with a smile, encouragement and determination.
Not only my hips improved, my o-legs got straighter and my scoliosis pain subsided but also on a mental, emotional and spiritual level I started to open and deepen, to such an extent that I wanted to pass on this treasure I found. I wanted to become a teacher.
After my first teacher training in India, I created “Bali Yoga & Wellness” – a yoga & wellness agency that arranges private classes and treatments in villas, homes, retreats and hotels in Bali. Our services range from one-to-one or small group yoga classes, manifold natural therapies such as Cranio Sacral, water aerobics, surf and swimming lessons, a tarot card reading to a trip to a Balinese Healer; whatever anyone wanted to grow, feel good, be well, get healthy or pampered.
Next to my yoga business, I developed a real estate company managing and building villas.
When I suddenly saw the raft back in the stream I panicked, as I wasn ready to leave. I was home, I was comfortable, I was all set up. I guess today I look at as, maybe I was too comfortable? No challenges anymore?
Chiana, my first daughter, had finished her highschool in Melbourne and had decided she wanted to get to know her origins better, one of her home countries (as she has 3 as her father is a Kiwi) and study in Vienna. Originally I came along to support her and fate again led me to create Bali Yoga Wien - a yoga studio in the center of Vienna – totally unplanned - a bridge between East and West. A bridge uniting, connecting, creating community. Just as HA-THA Yoga seeks to join the Sun with the Moon, the Passive with the Active, the Yin with the Yang, the Female with the Male ... so I feel my expression or contribution for this search/longing for union, which really is the ultimate goal of yoga, is Bali Yoga Wien.
I feel I have arrived at knowing my "dharma" as the Bhagavad GIta calls it, my calling. I do what I love and hope to inspire others and aspire to be clear enough to let it all flow through me to pass on what this ancient art has to offer.
Yoga has changed my iife and I pray it may create miracles for you as it does for me!"
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