A growing list of people, women and men, all ages, contact me wanting to know how I “do it”… meaning, “aging gracefully.” This is my way. This is a day with me.

In this time of crisis, more than ever, we need to be in touch with ourselves, take care of ourselves. For me the good thing about this crisis is it gives me free time just to be because of my current employment situation. This gives me the opportunity to open up to all of you.

“A day with me” is “your day with you.” At the end of the day when have you been able to say, “I really spent a day with me, for me” ? How could you satisfy your basics human needs everyday?

You may think that you need a many things to answer that question, but what I can tell you is that you only need real attention on yourself.

Live in Beauty and Love in the present moment.

This alone can make a tremendous change no matter your age because when you are in touch for once with that moment your body will never forget. Even if you momentarily forget, little things on your path will return you to that sense of being in touch, you just have to pay attention.

It is about self-discipline without guilt and without over challenging your body. No mountain to climb, just a step at a time, through simple daily things. It is a beautiful path. Be in touch with the wonders of what can seem an ordinary life. We forget we are wonders; often nobody told us, or taught us how we are amazing creatures, and how this is the most wonderful thing, that we are alive and able to have this journey on Earth in this body.

Yes, for me self-discipline is the key, as you will not rely on anybody else to satisfy your own needs. To succeed on this path you have to be your own Guru Master, because of your uniqueness, because no one else is like you, and no one else knows deep inside what you need. Often we just need to be informed; information is light and we need this as much as water to live fully and free. So we need people to accompany us for a while to help us with our own self-nurturing.

You will need help on the way to open closed doors or windows to make you discover other lands, which are already inside of you. We all have a body who speaks to us, we just don’t know how it does it, this language, and often simply that it is doing it without being taught it just does it.

I became aware of this process as a child alone with Nature.

My journey is made of a succession of small extraordinary moments in an ordinary life, and meeting with people who gave me a hand for a while on the path.

I lived separated from my parents, as a child, because of this resilience is one of my main strengths. When you discover that your difficulties are sources of gifts, without judgement, you grow in clarity and truth, and this makes you stronger, keeps you alive with young spirit free of victimization. Trust increases.

Just like the mud who is needed to make the lotus blooming.

What is the connection with the body you will ask me?

Simple … every time we “lie” to ourselves, almost often by being miss informed, we hold toxins in our body, which creates blockages, pain and illnesses, the flow of life is being blocked. When we face the “non-beautiful” the “non-conventional” in us and we don’t hide it we bring clarity and this shows in our body and face, in our whole being beyond the physical level. You can glow. The inside lightness can emanate outward, because there are wonderful treasures hidden in the dark caves and we reveal them in bringing light in the shadowed areas. For me Darkness doesn’t exist it is just a state where light has not arrived yet.

I see it like a metaphor of the fertile sacred black mud of the Nile necessary for the growth that makes all life possible.

The body is the Temple where this process is at work and it is about to take good care of Him, be in touch with Him as much as possible, through the daily tasks. Through pain is when you will learn the most about yourself, because He is telling you something in his own special way. It does not matter to know what; this will come later, eventually. What is important is to have been aware that He is telling you something for a better taking care of Him, of you as a wholeness. “Body and Soul” united, an opportunity is given to you for listening to your soul speaking to you through him, the body…you are your own channel…our mind observing and working positively to elevate your spirit.

We are all channels crossed by tremendous strong energies of our whole solar system and beyond, the Divine, and this is perpetually at work. When we experience pain it is time to stop and feel, time to stop a moment even tiny in our routine, listening, and make a change even tiny as well…just the fact to stop, to listen and noticed that there is something there that is speaking to you makes a tremendous difference. This small attention in noticing that something is here for a reason to listen,  re-insure the body as he feels on the way to be understood.

The body is like an animal, he does things for his survival, adapts to minimize the trauma because he is crossed by life and life is about healing.

Look when you cut your skin the miracle of the skin in repairing itself, even with no help from you.

For me creating Beauty has been the key, or maybe more “keeping” beauty. I did not like me when I was young, I hated my body, too tall for my age, too much breast at 10 years old, that I don’t have anymore. Periods at same age, very early, weird desire in my body did not know how to deal with that, nobody to talk to about it, shame, forbidden area, taboos etc. Like many people, I did not like this body that seemed so troublesome. I became shy, folded in on myself. Later, as I watched what society showed me in media as beautiful, this put extra pressure on me like so many of us. Since no one ever told me what wonder the body was in its perfect operation this is to cherish, this is the true beauty, the sacred, the magic, the wonder we are in every single moment of our life, I was not taking good care of my temple. Sure I was young but I was building a structure that would have aged ungracefully. In fact, one day after a stressful situation I had a sudden intense pain grow in my womb, so big that I ended up with a large hard belly as if I was five months pregnant. I ended up in the emergency room, doctors decided that they would open me up the next morning, saying I had an ectopic pregnancy that I did not know of, and I would stay there for three weeks.

From that moment, I knew that something was in a process in my body that I did not like. In the area of my femininity, there was something that I was unconsciously not embracing and not honoring, even after having two children at a very young age and being somewhat amazed by that phenomenon of life growing inside of me.

This moment changed my whole life…a true miracle.

In that moment of deep stress and kind of panic, all so sudden, I knew deep inside, with the same intensity as the situation, that I was not in danger that nothing was wrong, that my body was speaking to me and this was confirmed by all the examination done by the doctors. I just simply knew that it was not right that I would be opened up the next day.

I’m not saying not to go to the emergency room if necessary, I am just telling you to be present in the moment of pain because there is something primordial for you to see and an opportunity to be in touch with your deep self, your soul.

The only way is to go with the pain and not trying to avoid it, not be in resistance to it. Like when you give birth…it is a question of letting go by feeling the pain, going with the pain no resistances, wondering how it is working inside, in presence with every moment. The breath of life and that each moment is miracle we live on earth.

I signed a released the same evening for the surgery to be performed the next morning, but requested a series of more physical tests and said I would fully decide what I would do based on those tests.

From that time I knew, discovered that amazing process, language of the body and my whole life changed…

I started to be in touch with a different kind of medicine. One where listening to the language of the body and soul communication. As if by magic, I met people in what is natural or alternative medicine on my way. I have never taken any medical drugs since, I was 28 years old, and my life did a complete turnaround.

I started yoga, practiced for years, started eating organic, the beginning of it at that time. I was jogging, swimming, windsurfing in summer in Corsica where I grew up on a beach like a fish in water.

My body while aging became more alive, more graceful, more open, more flexible, as I always used to be stiff…just as much stiff physically as I was in my mind, full of intolerance and judgmental. I started modeling about the same time, almost 30 years old. My body was better than at 20, my hair salt and pepper since the first white hair appeared at 12 years old. I felt much better in my body than I ever had before…but was suffering of spring and sun allergies very severe and was wondering why?

I had pains through the years as I always suffered with a deep pain in my neck since I was a child. I was born back first, but I learned to work with my body, I found help with Craniosacral Therapy. I had the chance to be guided by a master of it, I had regular sessions that fascinated me and decided to follow his Body-Symbolism-Mythology classes for years. I have been corrected of scoliosis, helped as well in the realignment process by Bikram and Hatha yoga that I still do, and use in a special way if I have pain with no one to help me around. In going with the postures, in touch deeper with the pain, and discovering that always there is a deep release with tears, with an insight unexpected emerges from the process and like by magic the pain goes away.

Pain obliges you to stop and be present to your body, it is the “purpose” of it, it is not something bad, and it is just an alert to awake you, to make you connected with yourself.

If in that relation to yourself you give some time instead of immediately pop a painkiller and just said to your body that you noticed it and are open to the communication, often you don’t need the use of painkiller. The painkiller stops the process of communication from your soul and your body engaging.

This is a tricky part because to be in touch with that process you need to be aware of your fears, that come immediately, often having negative ideas crossing your mind making you think you may be very sick and will die. Fears are not bad, they are the ones who can actually protect you, for example make you get the medical examinations just to stop the stressful process of worrying and let your body know you are listening. Be free of those negative thoughts to be more in touch with yourself… how often you will realize that they “found” nothing at examination. In addition, if something is found, it is a gift as it is the right, perfect moment to cure what is affected and knowing what is affected shows you something of yourself. Often investigate when this started will give you an indication of what period  in your life you have been affected emotionally and it is a release of this through the pain and after that point get help from surgery or medicine is here for you.

Keeping this experience in mind more and more will create a bond between your body and your inner self-building trust, faith, and confidence. At that point, no rejection of the “medical” conventional world, but using it like an amazing tool humans created for their own good in our evolution. Release in conscience old patterns, blockages, and be free with a new space made inside ourselves for welcoming something new.

Our path is about enlightenment, and this happens through knowledge…when we are aware of things old patterns created by belief systems fall down and we can experience peace in the simple things.