This Podcast Has Been a Long Time Coming

Episode 1: Who I am, what I do, and why I’m finally saying it out loud

I’ll be honest with you: Pressing record took longer than I would like to admit. Not because I don't have anything to share. I’ve been teaching yoga in Groningen for fifteen years and also working with Ayurveda consultations and nervous system coaching. I have roch background in science and emboided wisdom, and encountered a lot along in my work and on my own path. And I love sharing about my observations.

Yet, starting a podcast means being heard in a different way.

This first episode is my way of beginning. An introduction to who I am, what I do and - more importantly - why I do it the way I do.

The version of myself I’m less used to sharing

I have a PhD in medical sciences. I’ve spent years in biomedical research labs and clinical rehabilitation. I’ve trained (and also still train) with some of the most respected teachers in Ashtanga yoga, Ayurveda, and somatic work. I have a lot of letters after my name, and for a long time, I leaned on that. Not dishonestly - it’s all real - but as a way of feeling credible, "worthy enough". Safe. Seen for what I know rather than who I am and how I hold space.

I grew up in East Germany. I became a world champion rower at seventeen - and learned, in that process, to achieve relentlessly, numbing out pain while losing touch with myself. I spent years overdoing, overgiving, overproducing. I had a long and complicated relationship with food and with my body. I was very good at being useful and not very good at actually resting. Or receiving. Or being seen without a role to play.

I was, in other words, a textbook example of some of the people I now work with. And I had no idea.

I found myself back through an attuned yoga practice, non-dogmatic Ayruveda and nervous system work. All provided a sense of rhythm and reclaiming safety in my body, all in different ways. Yoga first gave me a way of working and relating to my body as something that doesn't have to be fixed or needs to achieve or perform - and lately so much more unfolded from this ground. Ayurveda gave me an embodied language for rhythm and individuality - for understanding that the answer isn’t the same protocol for everyone, and that how we digest life (not just food, but experience, stress, change) matters just as much as what we eat. And nervous system work - specifically Somatic Experiencing - was the piece that made everything else actually land.

What this podcast is actually about

The short version: It’s about finding your rhythm again.

The longer version: It’s about what I keep finding to be true in my work - whether I’m teaching Ashtanga yoga in Groningen, sitting with someone in an Ayurveda consultation, or seeing someone for nervous system coaching - which is that the missing piece is almost never more information or more effort. It’s something quieter.

Safety felt in the body, not just understood in the mind. Rhythm. Attunement. A way back to yourself that doesn’t require you to override what you’re feeling in order to get there.

The people I work with are often smart, capable, caring people who carry a lot. They’ve tried the information. They’ve tried the willpower. Sometimes they’ve tried the intense retreat or the supplement protocol, diet or the cold plunge or the 5am routine. And something still isn’t quite landing. That’s usually not a discipline problem. It comes down to the nervous system. And we can work with the nervous system - just not through more effort.

That’s what we’ll keep coming back to here.

What I do - and how it fits together

I run Bhumi Yoga in Groningen - an Ashtanga Mysore yoga program that’s been running since 2010. If you’ve ever been curious about Ashtanga yoga in Groningen but assumed it wasn’t for you - too advanced, too intense, rigid, too much - I’d gently push back on that. The Mysore style means every student works at their own pace, with personal guidance, and the practice is shaped around their body and nervous system. Not the other way around. The way the teacher holds space, is attuned and their own way of relating to the practice plays a big part here too.

I also offer Ayurveda consultations in Groningen, in Eenrum and online. My approach to Ayurveda isn’t about dosha boxes or rigid food lists. It’s about rhythm - about understanding how you digest life on every level and making small, meaningful adjustments that actually fit who you are.

And I work with people through Capacity Coaching - nervous system and body-led coaching that works at the level where patterns actually live: The body itself. Not analysing what’s happening, but creating the conditions for something to shift. Through sensation, through interoception, through slowly building a felt sense of safety that makes old ways of bracing and overriding no longer necessary.

The thread through all of it is the same: working with your system, not against it.

Why I’m also recording some of the episodes in Dutch

One more thing I mention in the episode - and it feels worth saying here too.

I’ve been very comfortable professionally in English. Dutch has felt more exposed, "not good enough". And I’ve spent years defaulting to English as a result, even while living and working here in Groningen and in het Hogeland, even while longing to connect more fully in this language.

Language is never just language. It carries identity, belonging, different versions of ourselves. And I’ve realised that holding back in Dutch is just another version of the same pattern I talk about with the people I work with: Making myself a little smaller to feel a little safer.

So some episodes will be in English, some in Dutch. Both imperfectly. Both honestly.

If any of this resonates - if you recognise a particular tiredness, or that quiet sense that something is missing even when everything looks fine on the outside - I think this episode might be worth your time.

It's a full fifty minutes, but it goes places, shared from the heart. You can find it on all major podcast providers.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE

And if you’re in Groningen and curious about Ashtanga yoga - you can find more here.

And if you're curious about Ayurveda consultation or nervous system coaching whether in Groningen or Eenrum you can find out more at the links or get in touch directly. I’m always happy to talk.