I thought there was something wrong with me. How could I be so unhappy while having all this?

Through the years, my family fell apart, I was suffering of depression, stress and anger. My job no longer served as an anchor in my life and I realised, that I had set the wrong priorities. Change in me (and not in others) was needed.

This is when yoga and meditation came into my life, in 2005. I was so confident about the change ahead, that I was waking up very early to practice before going to work. I gave away my TV set. I decided to leave behind my drink-friends and move on, to create the space for new people to come in my life. My Yoga practice gained more and more focus, it gave me a lot of power and a fresh direction.

My first realisation in Yoga: Myself and my mind are two separate things. The mind is full of programs and stories, all of which are not serving the true Me.

My executive job in the Banking system became increasingly meaningless to me. I realised how it was consuming my vital energy, without serving any noble purpose. I wanted to go deeper in the spiritual experience and I began to visit Ashrams in Europe and India. I could see my perception changing already. When you start to understand yourself, you also understand and connect with others. We are the One Consciousness that is having different experiences.

From childhood, my mind was programmed with beliefs about what is abundance and how we need to work hard to make money. It is a trap.

I know very well how it feels to be “successful”, an “achiever”, running after money and material desires that offer nothing but a short pleasure. My heart was sad and angry inside, shouting for freedom. We usually try to silence it with alcohol, antidepressants and spending time with others that suffer the same, thinking we entertain ourselves. The truth is that this is a self-destruction mode. There is no Self-Love whatsoever in such a way of living. Realising this, I felt safe in the hands of the Universe and being free from insecurity, after a few weeks I resigned, while at the peak of my Banking career.

Everyone said I was crazy, but I was happy and excited for my new beginning. Honestly, it was the best decision I ever made!

The biggest problem with change is, that our mind is too attached to the old familiarities. This is falsely presented as insecurity and fear of tapping into the unknown. We lack the trust in our Self and Life. But with the support of spiritual practice and full intention, it is possible to change your vibration, the state of your mind.

When you come close to your heart, your reality changes. The heart is the seat of your true free will.

I learned to trust the universal forces, by understanding that in the end, we cannot really control everything. Honestly, there is very little that we can actually control. Yes, we have free will, but the daily flow and every decision we make, are driven by our subconscious messages and programming. It now sounds funny, but I used to think I could control my life. I was unconscious. Thankfully, my decisions are nowadays less fear-driven than they were five or ten years ago.

How can we learn to make adjustments in our subconscious? This is exactly what we will show you in the Shakti Yoga Emotional Detox Retreat.

A window to more awareness, a passage to the subconscious programming, a chance to make changes. Shakti Yoga and the Emotional Detox retreat, gives an opportunity for transformation and empowerment. It is a hub for connecting with the lost power of your Heart, a safe anchorage for cultivating self-awareness and self-love.

The universe brought me to Koh Phangan, to create this space for everyone that is longing for self-healing and happiness, to blossom from inside.

It is the perfect environment to make a real pause, evaluate where you stand and get really powerful insights. Here you will remember how to trust again.

And here we are, a few years after my first visit on this magical island, with a family of amazing facilitators. We have created Shakti yoga retreat center (Shakti in Sanskrit is the energy of manifestation). A safe space for you, where you will connect with your inner guidance.

Among all this, I remain humbly human, not pretending to be anything more than I already am: an inner worker, in the challenging process of self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, self-love and self-realisation.

Namaste

A message, 2021

It has been a very strange and turbulent period, with rapid changes in our way of life, that had deep effects in our sense of trust and our already fragile emotional stability. We have been brought into a new reality, where we are strongly advocated and tightly driven to move further away from the universal truth of connection and oneness. We are being forced to move further away from the Truth of the Heart. The ancestral trauma of separation is now being activated in the most dramatic way.

However, there is always a choice. This is the foundation, the first law of the Universe. There is always a choice. Depending on our conscious decision, the new reality can become of more suffering, or a true blessing, a voluntary imprisonment or a brave liberation of the Heart. Making this choice, is the challenge of a lifetime during this phase of transition. The battle for this choice is happening inside the collective Mind, the maker of its own prison, where it comfortably resides. So let us not be deceived, because not making any choice is a mere submission, that will keep us in emotional suffering.

Unexpectedly, the forced change had a side effect: it has also initiated a wide awakening of many. There comes now a deep understanding that we cannot continue living in fear for a future that we, ourselves, create in this present moment. It is now more clear than ever, that if we live in fear today, we create a tomorrow of fear. It is a struggling process, an emotional battle between Fear and Love. And the first awakening will be to realise that the ability to express true Love, springs from loving our Self. Not in a way of feeding our ego, but in a way of nourishing our emotional wounds, connecting with our true higher nature that lies in the space of the Heart. This is the great awakening that will lead to our transformation from victimhood, towards Self-Love.

Satyaprem