A Journey from Disconnection to Aliveness

I was born and raised in Romania and spent the first part of my adult life in the world of doing, studying economics and building a career in Amsterdam, while working for one of the most renowned fashion brands in the world, Tommy Hilfiger. This was what a lot of people, including me at that time, would consider a successful life.

Yet, by my early thirties, I found myself mostly tired, depleted and living with chronic back pain and insomnia. I felt disconnected from myself, with many questions and doubts about a life that seemed perfect from the outside.

I started wondering if there was more to life than work, and dreamed of the possibility of experiencing life with more meaning, joy and ease.

When I was close to burnout, a coach encouraged me to reconnect with something I had loved as a child: making things with my hands. And so, a return to creativity through intuitive painting became the first doorway towards looking at life through a different lens.

Intuitive painting taught me to listen and flow more with life and embrace the process, rather than focus only on the end result and achievements.

I also discovered that creativity was not about talent or making beautiful things. It was about authentic expression and aliveness. This entire process shifted something deeply inside me, and I knew there was no going back to my old life.

Exploring Aliveness through Creativity

In 2011, I decided to quit my job and travel through Asia to solve my health problems and find answers, with no plan for my return. I arrived in Bali for what was meant to be a six-month sabbatical and I never really left. Bali welcomed me with open arms. I felt at home almost immediately, and the island became the ground on which a very different life began to unfold.

What followed became more than fifteen years of exploring Yoga, Ayurveda, creativity, nature and, of course, myself.

I started studying and training in Bali, Thailand and India, had the opportunity to manage a yoga studio and an Ayurvedic health centre, started teaching yoga regularly, and created programs and transformative retreats for other people.

At the same time, I continued exploring painting, dancing, designing, writing and simply playing. I had my first painting exhibition, created jewellery and bags from recycled materials and danced almost every day.

I felt deeply alive during those years, and I began to understand how creating with my hands and moving my body regularly could change the way I felt, perceived and experienced life. My daily yoga practice at home became my anchor, and a tool which gave me the opportunity to understand and connect with my body through a much deeper conversation.

Along the way, Bali taught me the importance of simplicity, spaciousness and slowing down. The Balinese relationship with nature, the elements, the land, the ceremonies and the rhythms of the day showed me that we are not separate from nature, and also that the environment has a huge impact on our wellbeing.

A Practice of Surrender

Then 2020 came with new challenges. The identity and work I had built suddenly dissolved as the pandemic entered my life, and despite having many tools in my self-help toolbox, I returned to a familiar place of fear, striving and uncertainty. Life felt heavy again, and branding myself as a yoga teacher online felt forced in a lot of ways. I experienced depression for the first time in my life, though fortunately only briefly.

I am forever grateful for the help and support of my friends and family during those times. Gratitude arrived then as a clearly felt sense, not just a concept. It became, quite organically, part of my daily practice.

This is when I also started practising Yoga Nidra daily, using it as a tool to feel safe and supported again.

Discovering Michael A. Singer’s The Surrender Experiment opened a new chapter for me. I began to question the idea that life needed to be constantly directed, controlled and manifested according to my plans.

What if my purpose was not always to make things happen, but to become more available and receptive to what life was bringing my way?

What if there was another way of moving through life and the decisions I had to make, with more ease and trust in a power greater than myself? Trust in life, trust in the energy that creates and moves everything.

I also went deeper into Yoga Nidra and conscious rest, and I began to experience rest not as something I needed when I was exhausted, but as a doorway into greater presence, energy and aliveness. This was definitely the beginning of my own surrender experiment, which keeps unfolding, bringing more peace and less control to the way I live.

The Art of Slow Living and Conscious Rest

Today, my life is a continuous exploration of this path. I am learning to move with less force and more ease, to listen, respond and allow the next step to guide me, rather than forcing or constantly reaching for something different, more or better.

My daily practice is also guided by what is needed in the moment and what the body wants to explore, rather than a very linear and strict method. I let life speak through me as I practise on the mat or work with other people in my sessions. I trust my body, and listen to it more and more.

My work has become an extension of this exploration: practising slow living, conscious rest, creativity and communion with nature and inviting others to explore them with me.

I don’t have all the answers, nor do I believe there is one right way.

All I know is that this is the path I feel joyful about exploring right now. There is a sense of arrival in trusting life more each day, in surrendering to its plan, in letting God guide the way.

If you feel curious to explore this way of living together, I hope this inspires you to reach out.

Gratitude to all who have made my journey possible: my family, my teachers, my friends, my man and God.