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I recently met yoga teacher extrordinaire Mandy Vazquez at a yoga class held at the awesome One Roof space. Mandy makes you feel like you’ve known her for years. She’s warm, bubbly, inspiring and generosity seems to ooze out of her. As a yoga teacher, she unlocks an inner strength you dont know you have and seems to drop all sorts of wisdom without realizing she’s doing it! On top of all this, she’s in the middle of writing a book about all things love, loss and dating. Here’s a little taste of some of that wisdom.
What do you do and why do you do it?
I’m a yoga teacher and I do it because I truly love it. It’s like therapy to me, and I meet and get to know so many different people I would never had known if it wasn’t for us coming together in class.
What’s the best gift you ever got?
Last Christmas my husband put together a video of my family and friends in Sweden. He had them record personal messages to me, talking about old memories, that they missed me, and what else they were feeling. I hadn’t seen my family in a year and was extremely homesick. On Christmas morning when he played it for me I cried, and I still cry every time I watch it! Best gift ever. What’s the worst gift you ever got?
On one of my birthdays my ex fiancé at that time asked me to pick either a restaurant visit or a gift for my birthday. I picked the gift, it was the Twilight movie, and I didn’t even like Twilight. And then he had me go to the grocery store after work and make us dinner. Needless to say, I didn’t marry the guy… What’s you advice for all things love, sex and dating?
Just be you. Before I moved here I was me all the time. For being a teenager, I surprisingly had my shit together. Then I moved here when I was 19, alone from Europe and everything got confusing. All the men I met wanted to change me and I let them. I wanted to be liked. Loved. Desired. Just like many other young women. My problem was that it stuck with me for years, and I started to notice that as the men tried to change me into someone else and someone I didn’t want to be, I also tried to change them. I tried to change their way of thinking. My mind was on autopilot to think that if I changed this about me, or said or did this or that, then everything would be great. They would adore me and love me and we would live happily ever after. But one relationship after another failed and I kept getting hurt, over and over again. Then one day I had enough. I just said no and I decided to just focus on myself and my yoga practice and ignore men. Men who tried to lure me into false expectations of a relationship. They probably didn’t do it intentionally, but I think many of us try desperately to be someone we are not and finding people that are not right for us, only to come to a sudden stop in the relationship and realize, ‘hey, this really isn’t for me, bye”. So instead of just practicing my physical practice, I decided to take it one step further and practice the way of living.
I learned that I can never control anyone else’s emotions or actions, only my own. Trying to change someone is a waste of your energy. Trying to predict or worry about what might or might not happen, is a waste of your energy. I learned to conserve my energy for myself and for the things in my life that serve me, and to let go of what no longer does. To practice non-attachment to material things and especially people and the relationships that we build (friendship or romantic) is hard. We are naturally selfish as human beings. But we are also naturally compassionate and empathic to others.
So instead of wasting your energy on being upset with someone who has wronged you, redirect that energy and find the empathy in your heart to understand that this person is going through something on his own. It doesn’t has something to do with you. It has to do with what’s right at that present moment for that person. That person is doing what is right for them, and so should you. So my best advice is to practice how to let go. Feel empathy even if it doesn’t benefit you. Let go of trying to control situations you come across that are out of your control. You are you, and you’re awesome! Any person or life event that is right for you will see that. You will attract it like a magnet.
What’s your go to pick me up?
Yoga, reading books and strolls on the beach with my pup. I know, I’m such a cliché but those are my absolute favorites! Tell us about your first heartbreak…
My first boyfriend in this country. Not proud to admit but before that I was known as the ‘heartbreaker’, this was my first kick to the curb. We dated intensely for 4-5 months. Then he freaked out, said it was going to fast and I didn’t hear from him for another 2-3 months. He had given up on the dating scene then and come to a conclusion that I was the best option (yee, thanks!) but by then I was already over it. But the first month or two I was devastated and my poor roommates had to act as my personal therapists and tried to force feed me. I thought life was over. I would never find another man, and blah blah blah, same old same old after every single break up. But now he’s happily married, I’m happily married, and that is all because we LET GO! Tell us about a time you Bounced Back better than ever
The guy I dated before I had that big revelation mentioned earlier. At first I was devastated like usual. Then he asked me to still spend time together while he was ‘figuring things out’ because he was pretty sure I was the best women he could ever get and he would get his senses back- ha! That’s when my switch for all past failed relationships was turned on. I said no, it was magical. Then nine months later I met my husband! |
