A period of stillness, March 2019.
The universe gave me a gift. I drove to Groningen for a workshop. As I arrived there, the workshop was cancelled. I had booked a hotel and went there. And thank goodness: I brought my guitar!
Before I knew it, the lyrics of “Geschaafde Knieën” were on the paper. After recording it on my phone, I’ve listened to it a 100 times, and each time I cried. When I cry of my own lyrics and melodies, I feel it’s good. It resonates, it’s healing me. It is such a gift to be able to turn the processes of life into music. And so I heal myself, through music.
Grateful that I found my mission.
Aho.
Music has always been a big part of my life from an early age. When I was 11 years young I got my first guitar. I never took lessons with a teacher, but found my teachers on the road.
During my trip in Australia I dared to develop myself even more as a musician. I got a beautiful guitar from a man. Shortly after that, on my way down south, my bag was stolen with my passport and credit cards inside. I couldn’t withdraw money from the bank without my passport. So I had to make music on the street for 2 weeks to earn money to fly to Sydney and apply for a new passport. During these times I had to completely crawl out of my shell. After this, I started performing a lot in pubs and bars.
During my trip I had the opportunity to experience fantastic adventures. My enthusiasm comes from the deepest of my cells. This is one of my strongest qualities, but also one of my challenges in my “puppy” phase. Traveling is great, you experience a lot of fun things and meet beautiful people. Because you experience a lot in a short time, get new impressions and often have new people around you, you also need space to process all of this. It is very important to take time for this. I found this quite difficult, because I found everything and everyone too interesting to take it easy. The Universe gave me many opportunities and many things happened that tried to slow me down, but I didn’t listen to this. For example, I bought a bus full of bed bugs, I got very big bloodinfections in the jungle and my bag was stolen with my passport and all my credit cards. In addition, on top of all this, in order to stay another year in Australia I had to do another 45 days of farmwork to get a 2nd year visa. I still had 50 days in Australia. This time was extremely stressful and I exhausted myself or real. During the last weeks in which I worked for my 2nd year visa, I made music on the street to apply for my passport in Sydney. Phew! Anyway, I made it! In the end I did not use this visa anymore, although I paid a high toll for this.
During this period I already felt deep inside that I needed time to rest. Ever since the bed bugs in Australia I had a lot of back pain. Once back in the Netherlands, I even woke up at night with tingling arms, because my back was so tight. Listening? Come on. Moreover, I had already booked my ticket to Asia. Lets roll again! I ran into a lady who had been on a yoga retreat in Thailand. I also went here for 3 days. This felt very nice. I had almost forgotten that yoga existed in all the chaos of travelling. Immediately I thought again that yoga would be very good for me. But, aren’t adventures and festivals much more fun? Again I ignored all signals from my body. When I was in Indonesia for 2 months and still had a lot of pain in my body, I was hit by a mosquito that was infected with the Dengue virus. I became very ill and ended up in the hospital. There was just one way: To go home. There was no way I could travel any further. I couldn’t even carry my backpack on my back. On the day my visa expired and I would continue to Malaysia, I made the choice to book a ticket to go home, to rest and heal.
When I came back from my trip and I recovered a bit, I started taking yoga classes at “Casa Basicflow” in Aarle-Rixtel. I was so in need of this! It gave me so much space, both physically and mentally, I remembered what yoga gives me. Sabine, the owner, had planned an open day for her studio and was looking for a musician. I said I play music and went home to get my guitar. Sabine loved my music and she asked me to play at her studio. Shortly afterwards I played for the first time in the Savasana relaxation of one of her yoga classes. I found this experience so intimate! The powerful silence, the people lying down and the music that fills up the room. Then I felt this is it: Music and Yoga!
After my first experience with yoga in 2012, I immediately fell in love. I felt myself landing in my body. I took yoga classes for 3 years. After that I started traveling and during this period yoga was not a fundamental part of my life. After the intense period I just described, I found the Yoga path again. By practicing yoga more and more, it helped me enormously during this time to come closer to my feelings and to take care of myself. It has been a crucial part of my process. In meantime it has become a way of living to me.
After dreaming a lot about it, I started a yoga teacher training at “Yogacollege Tilburg.” Jasper and Marloes from YCT have helped me tremendously during my yoga training journey. I knew it from day one. YES, I’M HOME.
During my younger years I came in contact with sound healing and singing bowls several times. It has always intrigued me.
In 2017 I bought my own singing bowls in Nepal. From here I started collecting many different instruments. After this, during my yoga training, I started connecting with the instruments and working with the chakras.
In my yoga training I had to look at very deep parts of myself. I’ve been lost and separated from myself so many times that it’s been quite a journey to find myself again.
It has also been quite a journey from my head to my heart. And you could hear and feel this in my voice. In the sound, in the energy, in my behavior.
As I started to ground deeper and deeper within myself, my voice also grounded better. By making the journey through the chakras with all its themes, I got to know myself very well. And you can also feel and hear this in my voice.
I remember more and more that music is my mission, and I am ready to fully embody this. Where I’ve gone into distraction so many times and ignored my music path, I kept coming back to it. Now I know, I can’t walk away from it anymore:
I AM MUSIC
The more and more I delve into sound and resonance, the more I am amazed by this powerful medicine. We are vibration, everything is vibration and frequency. Your soul has its own frequency. And my mission is to support people to remember who they essentially are. To reconnect with their soul frequency. Music is my greatest instrument in this.
I really enjoy organizing workshops, sessions and retreats where my music is a carrying energy. In Belgium I followed a training for sound healing with Marijn de Wit of “De White Arrow”. Now I know what is my mission. Music is my medicine, and this gives me so much energy! Music is my medicine, and this gives me a lot of energy!
