GPN Wellness & self-care website introduction
The film business is demanding and requires those of us crazy enough to work in it to be tough, flexible, and put in the long hours that it asks for. Film fulfills a large part of our creative hearts, and we were most likely born with some of it already in our DNA. We love it, and this is why we do it.
It can be easy to get out of balance while working on a film set. We often overlook our own health because the time for self-care isn’t always there. We hope that the catering is healthy and we also hope that we can find time to eat. It sometimes feels that the only extra time we have is dedicated to sleeping, and even that is often not enough.
Part of our job here at GPN is to make sure that our film family is being nurtured and cared for in all aspects of film life. We’ve come to understand that even the smallest amounts of self-care have large benefits on physical and emotional health and well-being.
We would like to introduce you to the brand new Wellness & Self-Care part of our website. In this section, you will find different ways to take care of yourself while filming (or even in between projects). We have two wonderful yoga teachers who will be guiding you in short yoga and meditation practices to help alleviate tension, calm your mind, regulate your nervous system, and bring you into your personal center. We hope this allows you to feel grounded, clearer, calmer, and more present with your work and yourself.
Antonia Viethen
Antonia is Julia’s personal in-person yoga teacher in southern Germany. She is German and has been practicing yoga for twenty-five years and teaching for seven. Antonia teaches a gentle healing yoga that places importance on the individual, giving them access to mobility and flexibility. Her philosophy on yoga is that it is about connection. Connection to your own body, connection between the mind and the body, connection to others, and ultimately, connection to the universe itself. Her goal as a teacher is to transport this philosophy to her students and to help them move through life with more ease, joy, and connection. Yoga is “meditation in motion”, both on and off the mat.
She believes that through the physical asana practice, the stillness, calmness, and quietness that we experience while taking a yoga class can be transported to all areas of our lives. Our bodies remember movements and learn them quickly, our minds are also quickly able to tap into a state of calmness when we regularly practice being still and quiet. What we practice in a yoga class can then be taken into our lives and put into play there. For example, when we find ourselves in a stressful situation or in mental overload, we can use the breathing techniques practiced in yoga to calm down our nervous system and the mind. The benefits of yoga extend far beyond just rolling out a mat.
Using this philosophy, Antonia will be designing classes specifically for GPN members to be able to tap into a state of relaxation wherever they are and whenever they need it. Her goal is to help make working life a little easier and to possibly awaken within you the desire to grow through the practice of yoga.
Get to know Antonia in her yoga practice in this video: Eye Exercises
Irina Verwer
Yoga teacher and health coach Irina is a native of Holland but living in Berlin. Julia discovered Irina through her yoga teachings online. She loved her approach to yoga and life so much that she began working individually with her doing somatic practices.
Irina also teaches a gentle healing yoga and adds her studies of Ayurveda, somatic therapy, women’s health, and nutrition to her classes. Irina’s yoga studies began two decades ago in Holland. She was introduced to Ayurveda as a part of her yoga teacher training and pursued deeper studies in this field. She was drawn to healing people and learning about the many aspects of healing and health. She took a women’s health specialist training, a nutritionist training, a somatic therapist training, and later, an intimacy coach training.
In 2020 she moved from Holland to Berlin to live with her partner and continued her private coaching practice there. She also built up a solid online presence, has created a series of online programs for women, and teaches online yoga classes and courses for the “Yoga Easy” platform. She has written two Ayurvedic cookbooks and continues to lead yoga teacher trainings.
Her wish for the GPN community is to give people permission to be softer and “to be okay with okay enough”. Through her many years of work, Irina has seen how hard people push themselves and how hard they are on themselves, which often leads to disease and/or burnout. She would like to give the community a way to care for themselves more, nurture their bodies, and find the space to rest. Irina’s yoga practice is on the softer side, and what she’ll be offering on the Wellness site will be practices that encourage rest, relaxation, and being gentle with ourselves.
We are very grateful to have these two women here to support us. They will be offering a variety of different classes with different focuses and lengths of time, and all are geared towards helping you find balance and peace among the stress and fullness of a life in film.
Get to know Irina in her yoga practice in this video: Teeth Grinding Relaxation