A former nun has revealed why she gave up her life in a convent to teach yoga in a bikini.
Ana Nycole Gomes, 24, gave up a life in the convent to teach yoga on the beach in just a bikini, after a chance encounter with a stranger ‘changed something inside her’.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, Ana said she was 16 when a man at a church-organised youth retreat told her she was ‘too beautiful to be a nun’, which became a turning point in her life.
The man, who she met in Alagoas, Brazil, was a stranger to her and had made the comment as a joke, but Nycole says it hit her deeply.
Nycole recalls the moment felt like ‘permission’ to question everything she had been taught.
According to Nycole, she never met that man again, but says she will never forget the words he said to her.
‘It was like someone turned a light on inside me. I started to wonder if I was ready to give up the world before I’d even lived in it,’ she says.
Nycole reveals she grew up believing she was destined for a life of isolation and obedience, but now spends her days finding discipline in yoga.
‘I grew up believing I was born to live in seclusion,’ says Nycole, who is currently based in Maceió, Brazil.
‘My family raised me for that. But when someone told me I was “too beautiful to be a nun”, something changed inside me.’
Nycole goes on to say that offhand comment sparked a rebellion that changed the course of her life forever.
‘I started to wonder if I was ready to give up my youth, my desires, my freedom,’ she recalls.
‘I grew up between loss and the need to reinvent myself.’
