I was always different

I was always different. I never quite fit in; I stood out. Maybe because my skin was darker. Maybe because I saw more.

Seeing more is neither a merit nor a miracle. It comes from who I am, what I inherited from my parents and how I grew up: close to nature and close to myself from early childhood. For a long time it felt like something that set me apart from other people. Today I know it’s exactly what led me to the work I do.

The world isn’t fair

One day I wrote in my journal: This world isn’t fair. And right away I understood why. The world is as our awareness is, and we build that awareness out of the prejudices and fears we carry, often without knowing they’re there.

Most of us only start working on ourselves when it hurts: in a crisis, in a time of suffering, when we can hardly bear to look at ourselves. It isn’t because we’re lazy. It’s more that we’ve lost touch with ourselves. We can’t tell a sensation in the body from the emotion rushing through it. We can’t name what we’re feeling right now.

Where are we, really?

Where are your thoughts right now? Often they aren’t here. The Dandelion, the part of us that flies away when it all gets too much, likes to carry us off to yesterday or tomorrow. It gives us distance and relief. But when we drift too far, we lose touch with our body and with what is happening now.

For me, self-discovery starts with a simple question: How do I feel? Not what I think about it, but what I actually feel. How far my awareness reaches. Whether I can be in silence, in my body, in the present moment.

Small ways back to yourself

When I want to come back to myself, I don’t need anything big. It’s enough to walk among people without my phone and just watch. To notice myself and what I feel. To create, write, paint, draw. To accept what comes. And to smile, at myself and at the world.

The world doesn’t change all at once. It changes one person at a time, each time someone comes back to themselves.

If you feel that connection with yourself is missing, you can start playfully. My three-minute game What is sprouting in me today? shows which part of you is leading right now.