Meet Fit Girl (Yogini) Ashley

Hello there Fit Girls! I’m Ashley and I am very happy to be part of the #FITGIRLCODE crew! I am a passionate yogini (girl who practices yoga) and will be writing yoga articles for you! But before I post my first yoga article, I wanted to introduce myself to you lovely ladies. So here you go :)

I’m a 24 year old Dutch/English/German/Nigerian girl who lives in Rotterdam,The Netherlands yet sees the world as her playground. I love yoga, meditation, music, laughing, the sun, dancing, using words to express myself and spending time with the people I love. I would describe myself as a lover of life. Someone who lives with a smile on her face and a laugh in her throat.

My yoga journey

I have fallen completely in love with yoga! My first experience with yoga was five years ago when I was in India for my internship. I would get up at 6 am and have a rooftop yoga class given to me privately by a good friend. The sun would just be coming up and it was just absolutely incredible. It was the best introduction to this ancient form of exercise ever! When I came back to The Netherlands, I quickly went back to normal life and forgot all about yoga. But then, a couple of years ago, a couple of friends of mine were going to yoga and I decided to join them. I spent the next few years trying out different yoga studios but nothing ever stuck. And then I found Balanzs! It truly felt like coming home. Super fun teachers, diverse classes and just a very lovely atmosphere. So since September 2014, I have been practicing yoga nearly daily and the impact it had on my life is incredible.

Yoga gives me peace

The best way to explain this to you is to rewind back to a few months ago. My relationship of nearly 3 years had just ended, my landlord was trying to kick me out of my house and financially, I was down to my last few euros. Now in the past, this would have been enough for me to want to crawl under the duvet with a few bars of chocolate and not want to leave my bed for two weeks. Instead, I was just happy. I didn’t feel stressed at all. I kept going to my yoga practice and I realized that I could tackle all of these things at once. I felt this inner strength that I had never felt before and I knew that it was because of all the yoga I had been doing. The mental clarity that I nowadays has helped me to really focus on my career, choose healthy food options and to work through problems without any stress. And it’s all because of yoga! Small miracles do really happen when you practice yoga!

Yes, I have lost weight, become stronger, have way more flexibility than ever before, but for me, the biggest benefits have been the discovering of my inner strength and mental clarity.

I’ll be heading to India in October to become a yoga teacher. I want to help Fit Girls find their own peace within and infuse their life with positivity.

You can follow my yoga journey on Instagram! Please get in touch with me for any yoga questions or subjects I need to write about. Or simply, just to say hi! I really look forward to connecting with you!

Namaste,

Ashley