Hi I'm Erik, a yoga teacher in Sofia Bulgaria, always a student, originally from the Netherlands and will continue my travels across the world

Hello steemit!

It has been a while.

Because I have been away for so long and so many things happened, I reckoned why not make a new introduction.

My name is Erik

I'm a 25 year leo and I'm a happy guy. I was born and raised in the Netherlands and have been living there for over 22 years until I made the best decision of my life to leave that country and start working in Bulgaria. I just finished school and after not doing anything the entire summer, spending my savings and feeling a bit worthless I thought it would be a good idea to find a job. Looking for opportunities in the design field in my neighbourhood was not easy. So I started looking online for job opportunities throughout the entire country. What I did not look for was a call center job in Eastern Europe but that's where I ended up and I learned so many things important skills because of it.

I used to play football as a kid, until I got bullied out of the soccer team and I met my trusted computer which sucked up my energy and creativity while giving me fake happiness in return. It's kind of a sad story really. I can remember how passionate I was about football, I wanted to be the best and I wasn't bad if I say so myself. All it took was a couple guys who didn't know what they were doing and a coach who didn't really care enough about team building.
In the end it made me into the person I am today, complaining about your past and thinking about what could have happened is useless. Think about what you can do right now and where you could be in a year if you stick to it, that's where the real money can be found.
I got into some martial arts, did a little bit of aikido and got really passionate about kendo, then I got into fitness and that in turn got me into yoga. Which has become my passion. This is one of the things I could spend my entire life doing. Yoga is a path you can decide to walk and it can bring you to some amazing places, doors open that you didn't even knew existed.

So many things happened in the past few months.

Let's start from the beginning.
The last time I updated you guys was when I visited the Netherlands and Belgium to see my family, meet the baby of my good friends and to get the first bit of a new tattoo done.

I ended up being really sick the final day and that stuck with me for a couple of weeks, it turned out to be tonsillitis. Not necessarily something I would wish unto anyone. Swallowing was very uncomfortable and talking was a no-no. I'm not a guy that goes to the doctor for every little thing. But after this stuck with me for more than 10 days while trying to live as healthy as possible, I knew it was time to call in the big guns. They gave me antibiotics, some pink liquid to wash my throat with and a lot of ibuprofen. 10 days later it was all fine again.
Some times doctors really know what they are doing.

Back on the happiness train

When I got healthy again it was time to start focussing more on my skills. Yoga became more regular again and it turned out that there were some studios that wanted me to teach there. This made me really excited and now I'm full on walking the yogic path. I had been teaching a yoga class every sunday for a while and since november I started doing 2 classes a week.

Starting this year I added 3 more classes to that. So I'm going to be busy. Teaching yoga in the morning and evening while working in the office and practicing acroyoga the rest of the time.
Yoga makes me feel really good, that's why I love it so much and that is why I am so happy that I can share it with other people. Seeing that the people attending my classes are feeling good and that their bodies are starting to open up more makes me proud. Not in a way that I'm the best or anything, far from it. It makes me proud because I actually helped those people.
Compared to what I do for a living which is picking up the phone in a call center, hearing people complain about their shipment or explaining their late payments, this is definitely an upgrade.

My secret to happiness?

I think it all starts with living healthy, eating good food and drinking nice things like water for example. Exercise is definitely the next most important thing. I like to do yoga, a bit of calisthenics and acroyoga to keep my body mobile and strong. The endless list of additional benefits yoga and partner acrobatics has are just a really big bonus.
Another thing that I find important is to work on things in which you can see yourself grow. Yoga and training is definitely one of those things, playing the bass, didgeridoo and mouth harp are too. It feels really good to be able to holds a groove and add in some fun notes, which at one time was totally impossible, while noticing you just became a little bit better.
There are many other ways to get more happy, I could go on for ever. The final thing I will share today is to get closer to nature, walk barefoot from time to time, hig a tree, gaze at the sun and appreciate the moon. Forgetting about the concrete jungle around you and reminding yourself about the world you're actually living in.

I'm going to prepare some breakfast now, which kind of looks like the picture below. I really enjoy a big load of fruit to break my fast with. Yes I'm still callign it breaking my fast as noon is closing in on us. I'm still not eating food in the morning and in the late evening and this too is something that makes me happy and healthy.

I'm signing off, not going to make any promises on the regularity of my posts, but I have been missing Steemit. It is definitely going to be part of my life again because I feel like sharing this amazing journey that's ahead of me.

I forgot to mention one thing which is kind of important.

This is my third and last year in Bulgaria, at the end of this year I will move on to my next adventure. I'm possibly thinking about Sri Lanka, but perhaps I will end up somewhere else completely.

I will brainstorm about this and other thought gems next time.

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Let's make the world a tiny bit more positive together ❤