my story
My background and professional career and above all: how a great weakness became a great strength.
Background
Our spiritual inner life has always fascinated me and so I began very early to ask myself wondrous questions about our existence. Why do we suffer? Why am I here? and above all: Who am I?
When I was 8 years old, my mother was diagnosed with cancer - a disease that I have been in contact with ever since in my closest environment. At the age of 22, I was forced to say goodbye to my mother on her last journey. This painful loss was a profound experience that gave my life a new meaning.
2004
Professional career
On my journey through life, I first studied the world of rules that are supposed to regulate our human interaction (law school) and I quickly realized that there is one thing that cannot be regulated on paper: our feelings and emotions, which in turn determine our behavior and thus our moral actions.
After graduating with a bachelor's and master's degree in law, I didn't feel at all called to the work of a lawyer. During this time, my first physical ailments began to make it difficult for me to sit in the office. Money, career and prestige in the job were of little interest to me. My goal was to find out what I could do with deep fulfillment. To find my inner and individual source from which I can create and give.
Along the way, I worked as a caregiver for a severely disabled person, as a bartender and waitress, as a museum guide. I studied physics for a semester, spent a month planting trees in an ashram, a Winter spreading my vibes in a Swiss mountain hotel, a Spring in solitude on the island of Crete, a Summer living in a caravan, and a Fall as a Digital Nomad setting up my laptop in Spanish beach bars.
Yoga and meditation have accompanied me almost daily during this time. As therapy, compass and map for my next station. This process of unfolding lasted almost 10 years. I moved about 20 times and tried countless professional stations until I found my calling.
In 2016 I rented a large atelier and studio to teach yoga there. During this time, I also completed my first Yoga Teacher Training. But it did not feel right yet.
And so, for the time being, I withdrew into my own yoga practice and development for a few more years. Later I completed trainings as a yoga therapist, NLP coach and an Indian, English-speaking yoga teacher training.
From lawyer to digital creative and yoga teacher - who would have thought? Today I express my vocation in writing, photography, filming and design and give yoga classes and individual coaching. A long road? Yes, but above all an exciting and great adventure.
2017
My greatest weakness
I learned early on to always be very strong, to be there for others, and to put my own needs and feelings in the back seat. At the same time, I felt deep compassion, profound love, and intense pain with and for others - but rarely, if ever, allowed it to surface.
In my mid-20s, my occasional aches and pains became chronic: excruciating back pain, migraines, dizziness, pain in almost all joints, food intolerances, abdominal pain, nausea and chronic sleep disorder as well as cognitive lapses accompanied me more and more frequently.
Over 10 orthopedists, psychologists and neurologists could not determine a cause or disease. The diagnosis of exclusion was eventually "fibromyalgia syndrome" with no prospect of improvement or cure. I became more and more anxious in everyday life and in social relationships. The questions in my head became louder and louder: "Why do we suffer, why do we get sick? How can we heal? How can we become whole ?"
2020
My greatest strength
A healthy person has 1,000 wishes. A diseased person has only one. Material pursuits and distractions - all these things lost more and more of their meaning. Crisis can be a very productive state. In the midst of my adventure of professional search, I had to find a compromise between journey & unfoldment on the outside (career, society and sustenance) and withdrawal & development on the inside (recovery, transcendence and becoming whole). What started as a compromise turned out to be a wonderful balance between the two sides of the same coin.
Yoga showed me that my greatest weakness can be my greatest strength if I accept the weakness as an integral part of me and am in tune with it. Only when I began to stop rejecting the pain healing began. When I began to accept it as a part of me, I began to understand what it was trying to tell me. And when I was truly grateful for what the pain was trying to tell me, it was gone. Today, I understand why my body was screaming and know what I can do to keep it healthy, free and joyful: Yoga.
One moment in August 2016 holds a special place in my memory. My low point became the high point of my journey as I awoke from my life as if from a disjointed dream. A perspective, unprecedented, sprang from a void and linked every previous perspective together. Thus, a wonderful unison revealed itself behind all the emotions, pains, experiences and encounters: only when we have looked at an object from all, yes all perspectives - only then have we perceived it in its completeness. Only then can we truly accept it - and also let go of it completely. When we see something as only positive / only negative we have only partially encountered the thing. The true character of the object then remains hidden. Only when I could also look at my greatest weakness from the other side, it revealed its true character. Thus I realized that a valley is only very deep if the mountains around it are very high. Whoever succeeds in internalizing this fact, even in the bleakest of times, will find a timeless beauty in the transience of all conditions. Then the ups and downs of life suddenly make perfect sense. Then only a great strength can emerge from a great weakness.
2021
My mission
For all those who also want to explore and expand their inner life and being, I am there as a travel companion and pass on my experiences and findings in my coachings and classes. In Yoga I devote a lot of attention to the expression of our body as a physical instrument. This instrument wants to be played, with all its emotions. Every person has a unique melody that makes others and oneself dance. It is my greatest joy to share the tools with which we can tune and sometimes even repair our instrument.
Thank you for reading my story. I hope I could inspire you!
Jacqueline Dischler
