Lessons from lucid dreaming — Consciousness is born in the pause. In an operative mode — washing dishes, checking a budget, driving, programming, shopping, house cleaning — , the brain is just trying to resolve every little task as it comes, glance at the situation, taking little decisions. In other words, just doing. It’s until…

Let’s talk about those days where you awake without alarms, headaches, nightmares, or after a night of insomnia. Those strange days where you just spontaneously awake from having a good and nice sleep. Let’s go to the moment you’re awakening. You’re only minutes, maybe seconds away from being unconscious. Completely…

How to find wisdom and happiness in times of quarantine and loneliness. “So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was broken in my engine. And as…

The myth of the marshmallow experiment or how to learn to forget the uncertain future and enjoy the tangible present — — Kid, you have two options. Eat this marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes and have 2 marshmallows instead of one. — Wait. What? — If you can wait, it means you are going to be a successful person in ten years, have a great SAT score, an ideal body…

It doesn’t matter how long you walk as much as how mindful you do it — I was walking as slow as I could, paying attention to every detail of my movements. It was a cold morning but the sun was rising and you could feel a very light heat on the uncovered skin of your body. I was on a meditation retreat and we had…

Because an emotion doesn’t need to give reasons or tell stories — I learned, a little late maybe, the key question anyone should answer in those situations — or any situation for that matter — to others or to ourselves. How do you feel about it? * I feel a mix of joy, nurturing and confidence when my three-year-old daughter keeps silent…

The most important question you can ask others or yourself — I don’t remember exactly why he started to tell me the story of how his dog has died recently. We were having a small talk while we were waiting for a loved one in common. He wasn’t a friend but an acquaintance. …

Or reinvent yourself as The Count of Monte Cristo. — Sometimes we need to lose everything to begin living everything. Edmundo Dantès is at the highest point of his life and career at the beginning of the novel The Count of Montecristo. He is successful, in every meaning the word has in modern life. Money, work, a fiancée, many and…

Or, how I learned that a sound is just a sound. — I heard the mosquito’s buzz just after I committed to staying quiet and still, meditating in semi-loto posture until I achieve enlightenment. Well, or at least, until I had a very decent meditation. It was a beautiful night, not cold, not warm. You could smell the grass and plants, and…

What this means for resilience, meditation and consciousness — Three seconds last the present, scientists say. Our brain considers the present instant from a second ago, the current second, the second to come. The rest is past or future. Deep down, anything other than those three seconds does not exist. It was or will be, but it is not. Eternal past, infinite future …

The ideas and emotions I was chasing during the day were chasing me — even hunting me sometimes — at night. — I never saw what was chasing me during my deepest dreams. I just knew I had to run away from it. The monsters were always changing depending on my age and fears. Some came at the time I was doing bad at school. Others appeared on the day I was…

Or how to learn to stop worrying about psychotherapy and love who you are — When I was a child whoever went into some form of mental therapy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychotherapy or psychology, was simply nuts. It didn’t matter the reason, the age, the genre, socioeconomic level, or the school level. If you were going to the shrink you were crazy. Some people went to…

How to experience the world like a baby — Contrary to what we usually think, consciousness has little to do with intelligence or reason and, instead, has much more to do with the body, breathing, emotions… Thinking, reasoning, mind wandering, no matter how logical or rational it may seem, or if we solve…