When trying to fit in is difficult.

For most of my life, I felt like I didn’t belong—in a country, a job, or even in my family.

I’ve been a foreigner since I left Belgium at eight. Living in Venezuela meant growing up with the Spanish side of my family: ultra smart but more interested in business than art or philosophy. When I was 13, I used to scare the hell out of them by asking, “What are we going to do? Capitalism doesn’t work! Neither does communism! There is no viable economic system!” Or… “Where does the universe end? Is there anything beyond it?” (I gave up on the former but still wonder about the later one.)

Moving to New York was awesome. It gave me the freedom to be whoever I wanted but did little to improve my sense of belonging. We were all drifters.

A few years into my Reiki practice, however, while deep in meditation or offering a session, a sense of connection and wellbeing would settle over me and the words “I am home" would pop into my head.

Home in my own body and mind, but connected to everyone and everything.

A fleeting feeling, it’s true. But a feeling that has given me a sense of belonging anchored in myself, not in temporary situations, relations or possessions. A feeling that allows me to let go of the need to define who I am to others and even myself.

Now when my family thinks I am a Hare Krishna who goes around New York with a begging bowl singing “hare, hare,” because I meditate, I smile. (This is not a joke, they actually do.)

What makes you feel like you are “home”? What gives you a sense of safety and warmth? I would love to hear about it!

Love and light,
Nathalie

Every Sunday evening, I teach a Reiki + Meditation community class at YES, a lovely yoga studio in Ridgewood. It’s one of the highlights of my week. Most of the attendants are young, joyful, and very chatty.  As soon as the class starts, however, they go quiet and put on a solemn, “peaceful” expression. It’s too tempting. I make them do the silliest of shakeouts. Regulars now do it laughing, but every week I see the newbies giving me the side eye while thinking, “Is this a joke? Is she for real?” Until we really start... and they discover the class is not about easy guided meditations or Reiki sparkles. By the end of the class, their eyes open in wonder about how good they feel.

Joy is often misunderstood as lack of seriousness or depth when it comes to Western spirituality, probably the influence of more Judeo-Christian approaches. Yet—when we go back to Buddhism—joy is the fourth factor of awakening, just behind energy.

Joko-san, the abbot of the meditation hall in Japan where I spent three weeks, kept repeating every time he saw: “just enjoy breathing, enjoy!” In other words: just breathe, clear your mind from anger and fear, and learn how to embody joy. For yourself and others. And if that sounds pretty much like the Reiki precepts, it’s not a coincidence: Buddhism is one of the roots of Reiki practice.

A few days ago, I spent a whole week with my teacher and mentor Frans Stiene. He is a very joyful teacher. He makes jokes all the time, dances, sings, pokes fun at the shy students. He’s never ashamed of being silly. But he is also one of the Reiki teachers with more knowledge, depth, and compassionate energy I’ve met. Joy makes his teaching approachable. It also makes it easy to sit for hours of training and feel safe to ask the most absurd questions.

Frans many times has said that to offer Reiki, you need to overflow with the energy. That the end goal of the practice is to integrate it into real life. Spreading joy is, in my opinion, a great way to do it.

So, next time you take a meditation class, get a Reiki session, or even a massage, smile and let me know if it made a difference.

Love and light,
Nathalie

Frans in New York.

We all wonder: how is Frans Stiene outside his classes? Is he serious? Does he levitate while sleeping? Does he snore? Does he cry while watching Netflix? And, most importantly, is he different from the way he behaves in class? The answer to all those questions is no (well, he didn’t have time to watch Netflix, and I have a feeling he may be a bit of a crier but don’t tell him). How do I know this? I was his host for a week, which gave me a great sneak peek at Frans’ behind the scene life. Secret info he has generously allowed to share with you.

Frans often highlights that we need to bring our practice into daily life. That the ultimate goal of Reiki is to shine our bright light 24/7. As Seigen Yamaoka explains in The Art and the Way of Hara, “A person of Hara is a person who lives the life of Hara in every aspect of their life. This way of life gives them confidence, direction, a sense of responsibility, meaning, and an awareness of the things in the world about them.”

One thing is to hear Frans talk about this or to read it in Japanese masters’ texts. To witness this... is an entirely different experience. One I was not quite ready for. So here are a few things I learned that may come in handy if you ever host him:

If there is a selfie happening nearby, he will photobomb it. Which means that if you are in a rush, avoid famous parks, buildings, or streets. Use alleyways, boring avenues (in New York, second, third, and seventh are highly recommended) and try to keep him entertained. If photobombing occurs, relax. The “selfie makers” will feel his hovering presence, give him the side eye first, and then melt and giggle. They will proceed to create a whole new series of happy selfies with Frans.

If you think the selfies incidents are a bit uncomfortable, that’s nothing. Frans loves taking photos. As his host, you will become his favorite photo prop, no matter how you look or what you wear. “Pose here, move there, strike a pose, higher, lower, change, more left hand...” As a future host, I highly recommend that you watch old episodes of Top Model with Tyra Banks. Mastering a few iconic poses will help you survive impromptu photo shoots.

He likes to sing. A lot. He will wake up and sing. He will move around the apartment and sing. He will walk the streets and sing. And not in a low voice, oh no! He will walk and sing the full precepts in Japanese like it was a Broadway musical (talk about taking your practice into daily life). As this happened in the West Village where every waiter wants to be a Broadway star, people didn’t stare at him. The few that did were probably wondering what lyrics was he singing (farewell my concubine?) If any of you is a composer or a musical producer, would you consider creating Mikao Usui the Musical? It would channel this curious passion of Frans and save us, his hosts, a lot of grief. Especially those who live in towns where waiters don’t dream of Broadway.

He believes in interconnection so much that he talks to everybody. People don’t talk to strangers in New York… unless they are drunk. But that didn’t stop Frans. Stressed out waiters? A little chat with Frans made them smile. Snarky uber drivers? Ditto. People walking on the street? They were not safe, either. We ended up being offered pot at the Vessel (a new experiential structure in Hudson Yards), discussing life with a blonde (and very chesty) millionaire who was on her way to Milan’s fashion week, and discovering that servers are not that happy at the new Little Spain market.

If there are cops nearby, run. No, Frans doesn’t carry anything weird, but he will find a way to come up with a prank. In my case, there was a plastic bag with something white inside on the street, and he started screaming, “Officer, officer, someone dropped his coke.” I wanted to die. This is New York: cops are not friendly. However, like all the other people, as soon as they saw him smiling, they went from grumpy to gooey and started joking, “No man, that’s my coke.” I am 100 percent sure that if I had made that joke, I would be in jail.

Breakfast with Frans is a very peaceful experience. You know all the emails we send him with questions or invitations? Well, he answers most of them during breakfast. Take advantage to do any essential reading, email answering, or showering. Feeding him fresh croissants and baguettes at this time is a good idea. His smile increases with each bite (Hum, now I wonder, are croissants the real secret behind his Reiki happiness?)

There is only one “person” immune to Frans’ Reiki-fueled charm. Her name is Alexa, and she refused to play music, tell the time or finding the right information when he asked her. He spent the whole week struggling with my beloved Amazon-powered little helper. I never said to him that the trick was leaving a pause between her name and the command so she would know he was talking to her. If you are reading this Frans, I am deeply sorry. But it was too entertaining to watch you struggle.

My last bit of advice: be prepared. Doing a little bit of homework beforehand can help genuinely embrace the experience of being a Frans host. I recommend watching the Borat movies, a few episodes of Absolutely Fabulous and, as I mentioned, Top Model. You will then be ready to laugh more in a week than you’ve laughed in months.

And Frans, Alexa says you are welcome to stay anytime. She will behave from now on.

My meditation pod (and bed!) is the one closer to the Buddha statue.

When I decided to take a trip to Japan to dig deeper into my Reiki practice, I was like, "I better get the best of this." I approached my stay at the Zendo like training. I wanted to learn, grow, heal… all those keywords we love to use in Western spirituality, keywords that make Reiki or meditation workshops so attractive.

Our abbot, who had been practicing Zen Buddhism for over 40 years, showed us our meditation pods (which also served as our beds), how to enter the Zendo (the monk’s meditation hall) and do Zazen (sitting meditation) the correct way (“no socks for Zazen Nathalie-san!) During long sits, he would suddenly start speaking very theatrically and share Zen teachings, all of them very simple but moving.

Yet every time another practitioner or I approached him with a question—” Why do I have pain in my heart area?” “Why do I feel pressure in my stomach?”,  etc.—he would answer, “You are trying too hard.” After days and days of “you are trying too hard,” seeing my nonplussed face, he kindly told me. “When we try too hard to heal, we lose our balance even further. And then we add more practices to try to regain our balance, becoming a never-ending cycle.”

The Dalai Lama said, “we have to take care of ourselves without selfishly taking care of ourselves.” At the Zendo, that meant sitting just to enjoy breathing. Sitting not for our own healing, but for all living beings. Sitting with a very firm posture, but an open mind, letting things happen the way they should.

Many people who practice Reiki tell me that they can share the relaxing benefits with others through sessions, but have a hard time benefiting from their own practice. I have heard the same from other spiritual or mindfulness practitioners. And to be honest, oftentimes it happens to me too.

But doing my practice with less emphasis on the concept of self-healing and more awareness of sitting together with every living being has helped me shed the layer of expectation that stood in the way of enjoying the beauty of Reiki regardless of results.

Priceless learning for a goal-oriented, over-achiever, efficiency-driven New Yorker.

So, just for today, just do your practice and let go.

Love and light,
Nathalie

I don’t know about you, but my family doesn’t really get the whole Reiki practice thing. My mom, who’s from Spain, thinks it’s some sort of Japanese santeria. She doesn’t say it in so many words, but her not-so-subtle eye-rolling every time I mention Reiki makes it evident. She was visiting me a few days ago, and we started chatting. When I said the word Reiki, boom, there it was: eye rolling.
—But Cotufa—Cotufa or popcorn is my nickname for her—it’s not santeria, it’s just breathing and connecting with your body.
The word breathing caught her attention. She has emphysema.
—What do you mean, breathing?
—Using your breath to align mind and body.
I left out the word energy on purpose to avoid the famous Cotufa eye rolling.
—Breathing into your body? That makes no sense. You can only breathe with your lungs.
—Think of breathing more in terms of awareness. You use your breath to bring your awareness to different parts of your body: hands, feet, skin.

Blank stare.

When we’ve been practicing for a long time, we start using terms like breathe with your whole body or create spaciousness. But these terms sometimes feel very vague and esoteric to people who have not practiced any mindfulness techniques.
In the case of my mom, simple facts caught her attention more than terms like non-duality or balancing energy systems. Her eyes came awake at the idea that they’re 100 million neurons in the gut and that, when you breathe and expand your belly, you relax that area. Or that creating spaciousness could be taken as using your whole nervous system versus just your brain.
I’m not saying that Reiki talk should become all about science. It’s, after all, a beautiful spiritual practice that goes beyond that. But there are many layers to this system. You can practice Joshin Kokyu Ho for years and still discover new depths to this meditation.
Simple, down to earth facts may prove appealing to some. For others, it may make the practice to sterile and be a complete turn off. It is up to us, as teachers to go deep enough into our practice that we can provide the right guidance.

I’m not good at movement. I’m that person in the Zumba class that always goes to the right when everyone goes left or lifts the wrong leg in yoga.

For the last two years, I’ve been practicing martial arts. It has helped a lot, but I still suck. What do I keep doing it? Because many of the limitations that hinder my movement at the dojo, also block me in life. 

Right now I have an issue with timing, and my sensei gave me some tough love about it yesterday: “Either you don’t know what you are doing, which is not your case. Or you have a problem with balance. Or you are so much in your head that you are your own worst enemy.”

The last point hit home. For the last few months I’ve been so intent on doing every step right, that timing and flow didn’t even cross my mind.

But I feel that is true of many of us in our daily lives as well, especially when we start new ventures. We focus so much on getting to a point where we feel confident and do things correctly that, sometimes, we let opportunities pass. We first drown in doubt, then, in regret. 

I remember listening to Oprah one day (yes, I confess I like her) and she said, "Prepare, prepare, prepare and then let go." My sensei had similar advice yesterday: "practice, practice, practice until it becomes part of you, so you don’t need to think."

The same happens with meditation, the more we practice, practice and practice, the more it percolates our daily lives and lets us go of anger and worry. The less we live in our heads, the more we flow with life. 

Love,
Nathalie

The Japanese deity Fudo Myoo is associated both with Iaido and Reiki practice.

As I prepare for my next Iaido test—a Japanese martial art based on the art of drawing the sword—part of the process is to par down my appearance. Colorful nail polish will give way to nude. Jewelry will be gone—all of it. My favorite berry lip color will give way to plain lip balm.

That’s because when you do an embu—performing a series of Iaido katas in front of others—the only thing that’s supposed to shine is your sword.

In Japanese martial arts, the sword represents wisdom.

As a practitioner of Iaido, you must let go of distractions and adornments, and just allow whatever wisdom you’ve acquired to shine through. Humbly yet without shame.

This week, it hit me: the same can apply to Reiki.

We may love crystals, rituals, and intentions. They may help us find ourselves in the “right space.” But in time, we need to let go not only of anger and worry, but also of spiritual crutches, adornments, and distractions.

In our Reiki practice—as in Iaido—the only thing that should shine is the bright light of our presence. Humbly yet without shame.

One of my favorite qualities of the fourth Symbol, Dai Komyo, is that it incorporates the sun and the moon to represent non-duality.

In the classes I’ve sat with my teacher, Frans Stiene, I love how he explains that we should stand openhearted like the Sun, emanating light without judgment. Every living being can take whatever it needs from the Sun… or hide from it.

The Sun is intimately linked to the concept of big bright light represented by this symbol—active, life-generating and energizing.

The center of life… and of attention.

Lately, however, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the “Moon side” of this symbol.

The Moon is not active; she does nothing: no crazy hydrogen combustion that creates life or gamma rays that accelerate mutations and diversity.

But just with her presence, she creates the tides.

The Moon has no ego. She’s happy to reflect the light of the Sun.

But her glow is no mere reflection of the Sun’s powerful light.

It has been transformed by her texture and qualities.

In a society where “doing,” being extroverted and active is rewarded continuously, the Moon is a gentle reminder that sometimes we need to sit back and be.

To just be present and let things come to us in their own time.

To not be afraid to let others shine and reflect their light.

So, just for today… shine your light like the Sun, but also be present like the Moon.

The other day I was reading in The New York Times an article about the impact of positive people. It mentioned that in Japan, women thrive until very old age because most are part of a "Moai,” a social group that forms to provide different kinds of support: social, financial, health, or spiritual.

And it made me think about us, New Yorkers.

Many of us have groups of close friends with whom we eat, party, share adventures, process our breakups, etc. But in a city where we all pride of being independent and fierce, how much emotional and spiritual support do we really take in? How open are we to being vulnerable?

The other day I was offering a Reiki session to one of my clients. It took her a long time to open up and receive energetic support. Once she did, she was able to let go of stress, relax and truly benefit from the session. But her first reaction was resistance.

Receiving support has never been my forte either. I still have to force myself to ask for help. But every time I do it, I’m like, “duh! It was so easy with someone else's help!”

One of the end goals of Reiki practice is to let go of anger and worry. In my experience, it is a lot easier to let go of something when you have the right kind of support. We worry less when we know someone has our back. Anger doesn't have such a firm hold on us when we feel loved, energized and accepted.

No matter how strong or independent, we all are interconnected. Which means that whenever life throws us down, there is a giant energetic net in which we can fall back. It just takes a little of awareness to feel it.
 

My practice to feel more connected to others:

I add a loving-kindness meditation twist to the Reiki meditation Joshin Kokyu Ho.

1. Sit with your back straight. Close your eyes and place your hands in your lap, palms facing upward.
2. Inhale and feel the energy coming in through the nose and moving down to the Hara (an energetic point 2 inches below your belly button.)
3. Pause, feeling the energy filling your entire body.
4. Exhale, expanding the energy out of the body through every pore,  creating a big bright sphere of light that surrounds you.
5. Repeat steps 3 to 5 as many times as you wish.
6. When you have this routine down, bring someone you love into your bubble. It can be a pet or a friend/family member that brings you joy. Notice the difference in your body, especially your heart area.
7. After a few breaths, let go of that pet/person and imagine your sphere getting bigger: filling the room, covering the neighborhood, the city, even the whole world. Notice any change in your feelings or body.
8. After a few minutes stop the visualization, and sit for a moment in the space you created breathing normally.

I'm a problem solver. Always been. My brain loves patterns, cross-referencing and finding ways to circumvent obstacles in the most efficient way.
Although this quality has helped me a lot in practical life, it's been the bane of many of my friends.
When they would want to vent about something, I would offer them a solution, which I served with a heavy-handed dose of "you see, no need to worry at all!"
Love trouble, work havoc, existential crisis...you name it, I had a solution.
It never occurred to me that my friends just wanted to be held, hugged, fed, etc. They didn't need me to fix their lives—they were completely able to do so. They just needed me to support them with love and acceptance of their process.
Ironically, holding space without the need to fix is something that comes quite naturally during hands-on healing. I don't channel or transfer energy, I just hold the space energetically and support my clients' own healing process. Offering sessions opened my eyes to my need to "help" my friends.
And I noticed that the need to solve people's problems originated in the fact that witnessing pain in others makes me deeply uncomfortable. I want all my friends to be happy.
Once I acknowledged that fact, the need to fix lessened. I won't lie, it stills shows up every now and then. But now, most times, I just breathe and let it go.
And this is what I love about having a simple, down to earth spiritual practice: it gives me the tools to heal physically, but also to grow emotionally. 
Are you a fixer or a holder? What gives you space to reflect on life? Would love to hear about it!
Love,
Nat

A few weeks ago, I took the subway to pick up the car in the garage and drive my family to Connecticut. I was carrying my dog, a freezer bag, and my regular bag, in which I had stowed my computer, wallet, phone, keys, etc.
I exited the train on Christopher Street with the dog in my arms, the freezer bag on my left shoulder… and no bag.

As I watched the number 1 train disappear with my bag in it, my heart almost stopped. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to do. I had no money, no phone, no keys and there were two nervous octogenarians waiting for me. 
I started spiraling down for a couple of minutes and then... I bounced back. I started breathing deeper and I felt certain things would work out.  And they did. I called my phone from the garage and a lovely voice picked up to tell me my bag was safe and I just needed to go and pick it up. 

I’m so grateful for this person's kindness. But I’m also deeply grateful for my practice and the fact that I didn’t completely break down (my first impulse when in this kind of situations is to cry while screaming, "Why me?").
 

When I started my spiritual practice,  I did it because I wanted a life where nothing ever went wrong and I always felt great. Instead, crap still hits the fan, but I've changed. Most times I can keep my center. And many times, what seems like disasters end up being my best stories.

Many of us have pondered on our life purpose. Mostly when we feel stuck, unhappy or empty. Are we meant to slave in our office in order to achieve corporate success or find our passion so everything falls into place (or so they tell us)?

Are we supposed to help, serve or inspire others? Or follow our inspiration and become athletes, artists, leaders?

Do love, family, marriage gives us a purpose?

But, do we really need a purpose to live a meaningful life?
Or do we just need to live meaningfully?

I actually like the idea of life purpose, but on the other hand, have I been narrowing my outlook by trying to define it?

I was discussing this with a friend the other day. We both kind of felt it was probably just semantics.

But the more I sit with these concepts of having a life purpose versus "just being"—and living every minute of our lives up to who we truly are—they feel different.

One feels narrower.

The other feels open, accepting and liberating.

So for now, I think I will just be. Taking life minute by minute.

Practicing Reiki, smiling at the lady who prepares my perfect green tea latte at Starbucks, and not being too hard on myself when I check Instagram a bit too much.

ps: would love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Leave a comment. 

Image: False Mirror, from Belgian painter René Magritte

Three years ago, I took a sabbatical from advertising to dive deeper into my Reiki practice. It was a priceless experience but one that let me with the certainty that, what I wanted, was to integrate my practice into everyday life.

Back in advertising, I get to practice Do not anger and Do not worry almost everyday. Many other times I get to feel the beauty of Be grateful. But until now, the precept of being compassionate to yourself and others was elusive. Sometimes I would feel compassion for others or for myself (ok, also indulgence.) But the two together? I didn’t even know there was such a thing and that it would feel so different.

So when my boss told me I was to travel to San Francisco for a meeting, I had no idea what was in store for me. I was just thinking, “Yes: Miles!”

My plane was overbooked and given that it was United (skull fracture, anyone?) I was a little worried. Boarding was very peaceful and cordial, if a bit messy. I got to my aisle seat on the last row, just next to the bathroom. Great!

People started to settle next to me. Mostly families with toddlers and babies. Excited. Scared. Screaming. Very, very loud. Not the most auspicious beginning. But it was a short flight: only 6 hours.

Well, not really. The engine had an issue, so we were delayed. And delayed. And delayed.

People were restless. Parents fretted. Toddlers pooped, screamed, cried, and pulled at each other’s hair. A young couple decided to break up next to me while waiting for the bathroom (really, people?). Groups were forming next to me and would hit my shoulder. The dad sitting next to me kept on making me stand up to go and check on his family. Then an “emotional support” dog wasn’t feeling well and the owners were desperate trying to get him to do number 2 in the bathroom, which he did on the floor after hours of stress and just before a woman walking barefoot came in.

The noise. The smell. The pushing.

I just wanted it to stop. I felt like crying and screaming, ‘Why me?’

Sniffing a bit, I put my earbuds on and started doing purifying breath (a Reiki-practice that’s grounding and calming).

And there amidst the chaos, I started to feel peaceful and light.

I was emotionally engineered by my upbringing to be a victim. It’s my default mode. But at that moment it dawned on me: I wasn’t one. We all were struggling. Parents were trying their best to manage their kids. Flight attendants were trying to remain calm and helpful.

We were all in the same boat.

The expression may be trite, but I felt the meaning with my whole body and spirit.

The lightness, warmth and peacefulness that ensued allowed me to survive the flight and, even better, actually enjoy it.

When the twin toddlers in front of me started blocking my screen with their tiny hands in the middle of a movie, I tickled them. Seeing the relief on the mom’s face (who probably was expecting me to scream) was worth missing a few minutes of what I had to admit was a very boring movie.

When the flight attendant brought me the wrong dinner, I just smiled and asked if there was any other choice left. There was and it ended up being complimentary (with United: absolutely flabbergasting).

I do have one confession: I loved when we hit pretty rough turbulence and people remained in their seat.

After almost ten hours in the crowded plane, I landed in San Francisco energized, content and ready for my journey there.

And inspired to keep on exploring the Reiki precept “Be compassionate to yourself and to others.”

As in many spiritual practices, Reiki has a list of precepts that act as guideposts towards enlightenment. Originally written in Japanese, there are many different ways to translate these in English. However, these days, when issues related to racism are constantly making the front page, one particular version of the first Reiki precept really calls to me: “Do not bear fear, for fear is an illusion."

If the root behind racism is fear, it’s then also an illusion. A matter of subjective perception. Of people wanting to see what they want to see (or fear) in others.

Take me, for example. I was born in Belgium but moved to Venezuela as a child. When the so called Bolivarian revolution started to get traction, people frequently harassed me. I was too white. Too skinny. An imperialist. I was part of the problem destroying the country. Soon, they hoped, when Chávez took power, I would be gone.

I was gone indeed. As soon as I finished my studies, I moved the the US, finally settling in New York, where I happily got lost in the most diverse city in the world.

Only a few years later the war with Iraq started during the Bush government. People who saw my European passport and discerned the slight French intonation in my mostly Spanish accent screamed at me: "Go home, Frenchy. Go back to your country, freedom hater.”

At the same time, I decided to stop attending the Belgian club meetings because members kept asking me, “Where are you from? You’re too dark to be Belgian.”

Other people also called me brown because of my Spanish accent. Often on the same day I was called a  treacherous Frenchy.

Later on, at a big multinational advertising agency (emphasis on multinational) I was told it was a pity that I spoke with the “stupid” accent. Spanish. The person who said it meant to be kind.  Other people would speak slowly to me, using 6th grade vocabulary, until they found out I was born in Belgium and then, like if nothing, started talking normally.  

Who’s right? Am I white? Brown? Smart? Stupid? Slow? Imperialist? Low class socialist? Sophisticated? Lowly educated?

Does racism make any rational sense?

It’s difficult for me to believe that it does given my personal experience.

It’s just a very convenient way to blame other people for our own problems as individuals and as societies.

So every time we feel anger towards someone, every time we feel a derogatory, racist, or sexist thought forming in our head, let’s pause and reflect on the why.

Why does this person trigger so much anger in us?

Why do we feel the need to hurt him or her?

Why do we need to feel superior, better or in the right versus the other person?

Are we just displacing self hate and self blame?

The more awareness and attention we pay to our feelings and our actions, the more we’ll understand our true nature, and the more at peace we will feel with ourselves.

Most of my journal is about feelings, sensations or ideas that come to me while meditating, but in this excerpt, I wanted to share a moment in which I was integrating the practice into my daily life.

This morning, I was on my way to a freelance job. One I usually like a lot, but not today. Although until now I had been pretty good at getting the right tone for the copy they wanted, in the last project I had failed miserably.

As I exited the subway and started walking towards the office, I felt very anxious. My heart was beating like crazy and my brain was going at like 2000 cps.

So I decided to sit down in a tiny little park between two giant buildings.

I put my headphones on, closed my eyes and started meditating on the precepts, specifically “Do not worry,” breathing deeply into my hara.

After a couple of minutes I could already feel the difference. My brain had slowed down. I could feel the fear moving though my whole body but with some distance. I kept breathing. And it came to me that fear was not allowing me to see beyond what I wanted. That I was defending my position instead of trying to understand the situation calmly. That I was taking a directions on writing as an attack to my person. I started breathing with a lot more ease. And suddenly I understood what was going wrong with the writing and how I could have a productive dialogue with my client from a more caring place.

So I went to the office, sat in the meeting room calmly, despite the uneasiness that was reigning and explained what I believed was the misunderstanding and how we could approach it. We all relaxed and after a couple of hours, we had the headlines and scripts right on point.

It wasn’t until today, really, that I “got” at all levels, that the precepts are a tool. I think in part my Judeo-Christian background made me view them as “commandments,” which made me resistant to practice with them. I would get angrier because I got angry and I was not supposed to. Or feel guilty about being worried. Shifting this POV to work with the precepts, observe anger and worry, and use these feeling as a teachers is helping me integrating my practice into every day life instead of leaving it behind on my tiny meditation corner.

With all the violence and hate dialogue that surrounds us in the news, It’s easy to feel like the world is collapsing. Most of us are scared, angry and frustrated.

Yet there is also goodness going around.

People who find your wallet or give you a smile that makes your day better.

Do we notice them? Or do we let these moments go because we’re overwhelmed?

Are we filled with so much worry that we have no space left for anything else?

That’s why it’s so important to have a personal practice that allows us to let go of negative feelings and create space—space will make us feel lighter. Space will give us more clarity.  Space will allow us to move things around and keep tidying up until we are left only with what works for us.

It can be meditation, tai chi or yoga. For me, it’s Reiki practice. Every time I practice, I free some precious inches of space. When I get a session, I free even more—a precious gift in a crowded inner world.

What is your practice? What creates space in your life?

I would love to hear about it,

Love,

Nathalie