About
I’m Mona. I currently live in a small town in the Bavarian Forest, which is my ancestral homeland and a place for me to cocoon, quietly create, and bask in the simplicity of village life.
I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator for most of my adult and public-facing life.
In the background I experienced waves of transformation and inner and outer change. Chronic pain and trauma have initiated me into a healing and spiritual journey. Throughout my thirties I have learned what post-traumatic growth really means.
The pain I have lived with in my body since my early teenage years made me explore meditation and yoga, and I have practiced both now for almost two decades.
For about a decade I have been passionately dancing Contact Improvisation and have found many dance floors all over the world that felt like home.
I’m an ever curious Gemini being, and my insatiable interest has led me to explore and study many spiritual directions and healing modalities. The ones that have stuck with me for years now are IFS (Internal Family Systems), Somatic Experiencing, Core Shamanism, and Dreamwork.
“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Teachers, guides and lands I want to honor
At Swasti Yoga Shala in Rishikesh, India
Yoga
In 2017 I went to India to do my Yoga Teacher Training with Sri Surinder Singh Ji at Swasti Yoga Shala. Even though my approach to yoga has strayed from the traditional Hatha Yoga sequences, my sharing of the practice will forever be infused with the spirit of Surinder Ji’s dedication and integrity.
In 2022 I discovered that Eric Bennewitz has his studio not far from where I used to live in Hamburg, so it was an easy decision to jump into his 50-hour Rest into Being Yoga Nidra Teacher Training, to learn in depth about the profoundly restorative and sometimes psychedelic power of the Yoga of Sleep.
In 2023 when I understood that I and many other bearers of wombs needed a different approach to yoga, I was lucky enough to find the brillant Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, and I was able to participate in her Yoni Shakti Well Woman Therapy Training in Stroud, UK.
At Uma’s Well Woman Yoga Therapy training in Stroud, UK
Dreamwork
I intensively studied the writing of Marion Woodman and Linda Schierse Leonard. Both opened up a feminine and bodily access to the world of dreams for me. Yet when a friend recommend Toko-Pa Turner to me, my practice of dreamwork became much more natural and intuitive and helped me access a sense of belonging and layers of meaning in my dreams that had not been available to me before.
Shamanic Journeying
Olaf Bernhardt was my teacher over the course of two years and helped me understand that it is possible to have a clear and gounded relationship with the spirit world. I learned from him how to navigate the otherworld with trust and integrity.