Enlarge image
"My friend thinks it is wrong for more and more people to concern themselves with themselves while the world is on fire outside."
Photo: agrobacter / Getty Images
I do yoga.
For almost seven years.
It all started with a few self-doubts and a voluntary social year (FSJ) in India.
After a few weeks down there, it was December 2014 and 26 degrees in the shade, I went to Goa to the
Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Center.
I took a yoga class there and I've been addicted ever since.
I do yoga because it makes me feel good.
My head is still, my body is awake.
Everything becomes calmer, clearer.
For a few hours I don't rush from one todo point to the next.
Life seems more like a game to me.
My friend Svenja doesn't like yoga.
When I took classes online during the pandemic, she started to hate the voices of my yoga teachers.
When I once told her that climate change could also be combated by changing people internally, she got angry.
After all, we couldn't wait 30 years for an inner change.
Svenja thinks it is wrong that more and more people are concerned with themselves while the world is on fire outside.
In fact, our generation is full of people who would rather go to the yoga studio than go to demos and listen to podcasts about their self-esteem in the evenings.
My friend says that because of the sheer reflection of their own traumas, dealing with the world seems too exhausting for many of them.
I know what she means: most of the yoga practitioners I know are rather apolitical.
And yet I never want to stop doing yoga.
At the end of my FSJ, I had a stomach bleeding while traveling in northern India.
I've never been so close to death.
After an emergency operation in a state hospital in India (not recommended), I left early after 10 months.
I was in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and couldn't even say goodbye to my host family in Karnataka.
"Come home straight away," my father said on the cell phone.
Back in Germany I moved to Berlin because I always wanted to move to Berlin.
It was terrible.
I come from a small town, Berlin overwhelmed me.
My studies were not what I had imagined.
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
But I kept going into yoga almost every day.
I am now doing a yoga teacher training course in Munich.
Yoga means a lot to me, it shows me what is important in life.
But I also know that Svenja is right when she says that if you are so busy yourself, you shouldn't forget the climate crisis.
I've done countless yoga seminars, but I've never finished reading a study on climate change.
But I also believe that you and other people who are very concerned about the climate can learn something from me.
Activism is of little use if it is practiced to the point of self-sacrifice.
That is why the »Psychologists For Future« were created, which among other things offer support for committed people.
Burnout is not uncommon among climate activists.
Knowing how to take care of yourself, how to stay with yourself, Svenja can learn from me.
Activism and self-awareness are not mutually exclusive.
At
least
you
should
n't
.
