Nai-publish: 24.04.2018
„Tell us, what was the weirdest thing, you’ve ever done.“
That was one exercise in our first yoga class on Saturday night. It took place in a beautiful villa with beach view in the north of Corfu.
Before I had arrived there by the green bus from Corfu town and by feet along the beach of Acharavi, I enjoyed experiencing the old town of Kerkyra (Corfu town). I loved these relaxed and well preserved typical small alleys with all these wonderful shops for clothes, natural beauty products and olive wooden things. If you should ever get there, have a nice cup of coffee and try the Greek yoghurt – it’s excellent!
Back to the mat at the beach terrace. I had never heard the English word “weird” before, so I didn’t know what to answer. By listening to the answers of the other yogis, I realized it must be something… weird. Of course. But I still didn’t know what to tell. I thought my life was just so… normal. Boring. The opposite of weird. Without any special happenings. I lived in a small town in the west of Germany for almost 30 years, went to school there, had my family and all my friends there or nearby, worked in the same sales office for more than 12 years - THERE! My whole life took place in one small town with 40.000 inhabitants. And I was really really sick of this kind of life.
As there were some others who also didn’t know what to say, I joined them in just saying “I didn’t do anything weird in my life.”
Today, I would definitely give another answer to that question :-)
Today, I have exactly 19 days of work in that company in front of me. I quit my job. I quit my flat. It was a long and hard way with a huge lot of ups and downs, of deepest despair, hope, people who trusted and believed in me, who encouraged me to go on my own way... people who didn't. (Thank you all so so much, you all have brought me to where I am now!) A time full of dreams, thoughts, reflections, longings for distant places... which maybe reflected the longing for a better feeling and a happier life, which felt so far away, too.
It's 6 months ago now, that I was in my first yoga retreat on the Greek island. And I really learned to love the daily yoga practices, Greek food, the green and peaceful island, people there, the feeling of health, honesty, my new experienced freedom – and myself. I did a lot of things that I actually didn’t want to. During the time on Corfu as well as the 30 years before. It was a very hard process to get to that point to decide freely and only for myself what I really want to do and to not make my own decisions depend on the opinion of other people. Or on what I think what other people COULD think. And I still have not arrived completely at this point!
And well... my story with Corfu is certainly still not finished yet...
But for now, just enjoy the wonderful impressions I got there :-)