Claudia van Zuiden Personal Coaching

Once a week, I still teach yoga online and love the group of people who have a genuine interest in ta***ic yoga and actually live it, not just on the mat, but in real life.

My yoga teacher in India always told me, that it is easy to teach those who are already on the Path. He told me that I should also teach those who struggle with life and its challenges.
So for nearly 30 years, I share what I was taught and my own experiences with it.

Tonight we explore the ancient yogic understanding of the two fundamental energies that exist within all of life and within each of us.
In yoga these energies are often represented as Shiva and Shakti.
Shiva is pure consciousness. He represents stillness, awareness, presence, clarity, structure, and the witnessing mind. Shiva is often associated with the masculine principle, not as male, but as the quality of stillness and direction.
Shakti is the life force itself. She is movement, creativity, intuition, emotion, transformation, and the power that brings life into form. She represents the feminine principle, not as female, but as the energy of flow and creation.
Neither exists without the other.

Neither exists without the other.
Without Shiva, Shakti becomes scattered energy without direction.
Without Shakti, Shiva remains potential without expression.
You might also recognise these as Sun and Moon energies.

Besides asanas etc, the questions we will be reflecting on are:
Where am I overusing effort?
Where am I needing more presence, receptivity, or trust?

What would you answer to those?

Then there is the day that I bestand together with the most beautiful man who held me in his arms when I was a baby and he was 4 years old, who was my first love & boyfriend and gave me the first kiss at the birthday party of my dear friend Marjoleine.

And then, in the presence of our beloved family and friends, with open heart and every part of who we truly are, the same Marjoleine marries us.

Too many emotions to write now, too many family and friends still here to celebrate with us to spend to much time on the phone, but want to share how immensely grateful and happy we are for all this Divine Love 💕🙏

Meet Mr. & Mrs. Massaro - van Zuiden 💕💝🎉❤️🙏

It is Pinksteren and beautifully warm here in the Netherlands. I’m sitting by the water, cooling down and re-reading a book that was gifted to me by my colleagues after I left my job at the maternity hospital in Torphins, Scotland, back in 2004. What a wonderful team of women I had the privilege of working with there.

The work itself was deeply rewarding and humbling, and I look back with great gratitude on those 8 years.

The book is about a woman’s path to enlightenment, with many women sharing their stories and experiences from a Buddhist perspective. Having studied and applied Buddhist principles for more than four decades, I become increasingly aware of how profoundly they have shaped my life.

More and more, I see how important it is to create spaces where people can realise they have a choice: to live from a reactive mindset or from a creative and conscious one. The moment we become aware of this, we begin to uncover the full potential of our consciousness.

This is rarely a straight path, I know that from my own life experiences. But it is a path towards freedom. A path that helps us recover from being trapped in old patterns, fears and conditioned reactions.

And once we truly begin to understand that we are not limited beings, but beings of immense potential, our life experiences themselves can transform into something deeply meaningful and fulfilling.

As I look around me now, children laughing and playing in the water, people enjoying the beauty of this place, I find myself sending love out into the world.

Can we all, just for a moment, meet each other in peace, presence and love?

Perhaps that is where it begins. 🤍💫🪷

And…Next Friday evening, at our home, we have 2 places left for the Wo’moon Circle I will be facilitating. DM me if you want to know more about it or want to be there.

Dear ones,

Tonight there will be no Hatha Yoga class as we honour Liberation Day here in the Netherlands. Instead, I would love to invite you into a personal practice of reflection and contemplation.

In yoga philosophy, we often speak of the 4 paths of yoga:
✨ Bhakti Yoga — the path of devotion and the heart
✨ Karma Yoga — the path of conscious action and service
✨ Jnana Yoga — the path of wisdom and self-inquiry
✨ Raja Yoga — the path of meditation and inner mastery

Take some quiet time for yourself this evening and reflect on these paths. Which one speaks most deeply to you at this moment in your life? Which path feels most natural to your soul… and why?

And as we remember liberation collectively today, perhaps also reflect on what liberation — moksha — truly means for you personally.

What does freedom feel like within yourself?
What are you ready to release?
What keeps you from fully being who you are?

You may wish to meditate, journal, sit in silence, light a candle or simply walk in nature with these reflections in your heart.

Next week, when we return to class together, we will explore this more deeply as a group.

With love,
Claudia 🌿

May carries a different rhythm.
Where April often asks us to awaken, May invites us to embody. To root what we have learned into the way we lead, live, speak and connect.

For me, mindfulness in leadership is not simply about being calm or present. It is about becoming deeply aware of the energy we bring into every space we enter. Our thoughts, our reactions, our words, our nervous system… all of it influences the people around us. Leadership begins long before strategy. It begins within.

Nature teaches this so beautifully in May. Nothing in nature rushes, yet everything grows. Trees do not force themselves into bloom. They respond to light, nourishment and timing. Perhaps we are being asked to do the same.

Mindful leadership asks us to slow down enough to truly listen. To notice when we are leading from pressure rather than purpose. To recognise when our bodies are asking for rest while our minds keep pushing. To become aware of whether we are creating fear or safety, contraction or expansion, within ourselves and others.

The older I get, the more I believe that true leadership has very little to do with control and everything to do with presence. Presence creates trust. Presence creates clarity. Presence allows others to feel seen.

May reminds us that growth does not happen through constant force. It happens through alignment. Through staying connected to our values, our heart and our deeper intention.

And perhaps that is the real invitation this month:
To lead like nature grows.
With awareness.
With steadiness.
With openness to continuous learning.
And with the courage to soften where we have become too hard. 🌳

April is about Alignment.
Action.
Awareness.

But let’s be honest…

How are you ‘really’ doing with that?

Because what I see, even in the most capable, experienced, heart-led leaders, is this:

You’re still making yourself smaller than you are.

Not because you lack vision.
Not because you lack ability.
But because something in you is still holding back from fully opening.

And I get it.

Because living in true alignment isn’t just a mindset shift.
It asks something deeper of you.

It asks you to:
• See clearly where you’re out of alignment
• Take action even when it feels uncomfortable
• Stay aware of the patterns that quietly pull you back

But here’s the truth most people don’t talk about:

When your whole being opens to what is actually possible…
when your nervous system can hold it…
when you are no longer shrinking to stay safe…

Everything changes.

You don’t push harder.
You don’t perform more.

You expand.

So let me ask you:

What is still holding you back from living like that?

And more importantly…

Are you ready to explore ‘how’ to move beyond it?

This is exactly the work I do with leaders who are ready to stop holding back.

Curious what this looks like in practice? I’ll share more soon.