Behind the Rainbow
The horror behind the Wizard of Oz
Recently, I was preparing an episode for a podcast about yoga and addictions. I watched various films and documentaries about famous people suffering behind the scenes. One of these stories impacted me deeply.
When I was a child, The Wizard of Oz felt like pure magic: the music, the colours, the dreams… that yellow brick road that promised that somewhere over the rainbow, everything would be okay. Dorothy, with her endless curiosity and ruby red shoes, inspired me for a long time — and probably those red shoes have been with me nearly all my life.
I watched the film Judy, dedicated to Judy Garland. Something shifted inside me. I felt a deep sadness as I discovered what we’re not shown: the brutal price a little girl paid to embody a collective dream. A girl stripped of her childhood, her rest, her freedom… just to give us a magical movie.
I had not expected that behind one of my favourite childhood films was one of these addiction stories. Judy couldn’t eat what she wanted, or when she wanted. She couldn’t sleep when her body needed it. She worked over 18-hour days, fuelled by pills. She lived under the constant watch of a system that exploited her — all while demanding a perfect smile, a flawless image, an eternal voice.
And suddenly, reality hit me: the girl who sang to us about a better world beyond the rainbow was trapped in one filled with control, addiction, and loneliness.
She grew up surrounded by pressure, insecurities, and deep isolation. Humiliated, punished, silenced… Judy became the very myth that made us dream of faraway worlds, when she herself was longing to escape into one.
Today, I wanted to write about her, because there are so many Judys in the world. It’s painful to realise that, so often, the beauty we admire has been built on pain. That behind the shine of many public lives lie stories of normalised abuse and demands disguised as success.
But this isn’t about stopping our love for what once made us dream. It’s about seeing with wider eyes. About recognising the wounds hidden beneath the makeup.
Judy is a brutal mirror. It shows us how so many people suffer in silence, hiding behind lives that aren’t real — lives that appear dazzling on the outside, but inside are full of pain, addiction, and constant inner battles.
That’s why I remind myself — and you — that behind every smile, there’s a story. That we must be deeply respectful of those before us. That we must let go of judgement, labels, and — most of all — the need to speak about someone we don’t truly know.
Because the truth is this: we never really get to fully know another person…
And even less the monsters they fight alone every day.
How Yoga Can Support Addiction
Addiction often begins as a way to cope with what feels unbearable — the pressure, the emptiness, the wounds left unhealed. It’s not just about substances; it’s about the search for relief, for silence, for escape.
And while healing is never simple, practices like yoga can become powerful companions on that path. Yoga offers not just movement, but presence. It invites us back into our bodies — gently, without judgement. Through breath, stillness, and conscious awareness, we can begin to reconnect with ourselves in a way that feels safe.
We learn to sit with discomfort instead of fleeing from it — to feel, instead of numb. Over time, this creates space: space for healing, space for softness, and space to rebuild a relationship with ourselves that isn’t based on performance or perfection, but compassion.
From now on, I hope that when you hear Somewhere Over the Rainbow, you feel it differently. Not just as a promise, but as an echo. A plea. The voice of a little girl who just wanted to be left to be herself.
That’s why, now more than ever, I commit to looking with tenderness.
To choosing paths that don’t sacrifice the essential for the aesthetic.
To creating spaces where we can be, not just perform.
Because the real rainbow isn’t found on a set.
It lives in the free soul of someone who is finally at peace with herself.
PS: A special thank you to Maria Macaya for participating in Tu Momento Yin and open my eyes even further to what we can find Behind the Rainbow if we have the right tools and are surrounded by the right people.