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If we make choices more consciously, and with greater self-awareness, we will find ourselves more closely aligned to our purpose in life, whatever it may be.
Life can be magical. But living it well takes work, focus, patience, compassion, determination, and discipline. Jealousy, or comparing yourself with anyone, is a toxic recipe. Jealousy only produces feelings of never being good enough. I believe we are—each of us—singular in our own way. We each have something unique to offer, which only we can give to the world.
The fourth step, humility, is especially important to me. If you’re clear, focused, and dedicated, and you end up succeeding at what you set out to do, you might believe you deserve special treatment. Well, you don’t! Most people don’t have an easy road to the top of any profession. We all face challenges along the way that force us to grow and learn. I know I am no exception.
“You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.” In my case, for whatever reasons I took on that authority starting when I was young. When I tell people I never wanted to let my parents down, that was true—it still is—but what I’m really saying is that I never wanted to fall short of my own expectations.
As I said, if I tell myself I’m going to meditate in the morning for thirty minutes but every day I get interrupted, the problem isn’t my children wanting their breakfast, or the dogs wanting to go outside; it’s me being unrealistic about what’s going on around me!
Remembering that helped steady my confidence. I believe that when you face a challenge, you have to rise up to meet it. Then the next challenge that appears is a little harder, but then you rise up to meet that one.
Our relationships help us grow because they mirror the best and worst of ourselves. When I reflect on my life, I can clearly see that the times that I’ve learned the most and made the most positive changes have also been the most difficult times.
But if I did that, I would have seen myself as a victim. And I’ve always believed that when you start seeing yourself as a victim, you surrender your power, and it can be hard to get it back. From the practice of yoga and meditation, I was able to see things from a different perspective. I began to ask myself: Gisele, why is this situation happening for you? There’s an opportunity here—what can you learn from this? What is the lesson here?
It was up to me now whether I wanted to “see” what life was showing me or to hop back on the hamster wheel. It felt like I was being called on to reject everything that wasn’t supporting or benefiting me and to embrace everything that was.
You have to take this opportunity while it’s here. You can rest later. In that culture’s “belief system,” everything has to lead to something else—money, possessions, getting ahead in the world. Yoga, by contrast, is about being rather than doing. It’s about being here right now, in this moment. Through yoga we learn we’re already everything we need to be.
A wise friend of mine once told me something I’ve never forgotten. Gisele, he said, you have to give people the dignity of their own process. I think about those words a lot. At the same time, it was my choice whether or not to keep someone in my life. The decision didn’t mean I didn’t love that person either. It meant only that I needed to love myself first and surround myself with only those things that would nourish me and those people whom I could trust.
That’s why whenever I feel weighted down by anger or fear, the first thing I do is accept my feelings. I see the turmoil as a visitor just passing through. Then, consciously, I say goodbye to it, knowing I was the one who allowed it to come in the first place. I don’t let go of those feelings because I’m an amazingly unselfish person either!
To my mind, there is nothing worse than reaching the end of your life and knowing you are responsible for hatred or division. I’ve heard it said that we’re born with the faces God gave us but we end up with the faces we deserve.
Kabballah, which is a philosophy I studied for a while, has a concept known as “Bread of Shame.” It says that people need to do the work of Transformation in order to earn the Light. If we are over-giving or doing something for a person that they have not earned, we are giving them Bread of Shame.
Along the way I learned another significant lesson: if you’re a person who gives and
gives—of your money, your apartment, your car, your clothes, your time, and your love—sometimes you’re the one who is out of balance.
A wise older friend once told me, “You need to give people the opportunity to do what they can and must do for themselves.” We all go through whatever it is we need to go through in order to evolve and gro...
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Still, if anyone isn’t treating me right, whether it’s a friend or one of my sisters, my response is always the same: I am only going to be in relationships that are loving and
respectful. When you are ready to resume a loving, respectful relationship, I am happy to talk to you. If you’re not ready yet, it’s okay. I will be here when you are.
Your words can become a part of their belief system, part of how they define themselves and you. What could be more dangerous than that? I tell my own children that their words are no different from spells. If love and kindness are behind those words, they become charged with positivity and can have a magical effect. But if their thoughts and words arise from anger or jealousy, they can do a lot of damage.
Only later did I understand that the bullies at my school only made fun of the kids who didn’t blend in with the crowd. The girl with the red hair. The boy with the freckles. And in my case, the tall, awkward, skinny girl. They must have been unhappy with themselves, or with their own lives, or maybe they just liked to tease vulnerable kids to make everyone laugh. Or maybe they were projecting their own hurt and suffering onto me as a way to feel less alone with their own pain. I find it hard to believe that anyone who is happy or loving would ever bully someone else for the sheer joy of
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Becoming a mother has stirred up vivid memories of my childhood. Benny and Vivi are still very young, but I have told them that the words other people use to describe them are only true if they accept them as true.
The next morning I sent Tom a brief email telling him I was only willing to be in a relationship that was based on love and respect, and that I looked forward to us talking whenever he was ready to speak to me in a loving and respectful way. A day later, we did just that.
Your inner voice is always there to remind you that you are not alone. Its goal isn’t to ensure we play it safe or never have fun. Sometimes, in fact, it pushes us to take risks. These days, before I make any decision, I check in with my inner voice. It needs to signal to me a quiet Yes, this is the right thing to do, before I move forward.
When you do something to satisfy yourself, something you really feel will make you happier, it’s a wonderful thing. But the moment you do something to just please other people, or society, or the culture, it can backfire on you, as I know very well.
This is worse than the kids who bullied me in middle school, because the number of people who make comments online is much larger. Happy people have better things to do.
My whole life I’ve thought of myself as a happy person. I’m fortunate; I have my husband and children to love, and work I still need to accomplish. If I gave all my attention to the internet or the latest breaking news, the quality of my life would change, and not for the better.
Focusing too much of your attention on the news, or on the internet, or on anything outside yourself, can consume you.
I thought, not for the first time, that darkness is nothing more than the absence of light. All my attention was now focused on trying to give off as much light, hope, and positive energy as possible—and to represent my country in the best way that I could.
the benefits that could come about as a result. The biggest successes in my life have all come about when I reached beyond my own comfort zone.
Nature was as tangible a presence as any one of my sisters. Whatever energy I was giving off seemed to vibrate in harmony with her. Nature wasn’t ever something other than me. She was me. She is all of us.
Once you taste the difference in local produce and can feel your own energy level rise, it’s hard to go back to eating any other way.
As the children get older, they take more and more pride in helping prepare their own food and meals. They understand that the vegetables and herbs we grow in our garden play an important part in nourishing their bodies.
My husband likes to say, Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing—and too much of a bad thing is just plain bad.
Now our family’s diet has evolved to be a whole-food, plant-based diet that ideally emphasizes organic and local ingredients, including raw or lightly steamed vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains, with the occasional small piece of meat or seafood added into the mix.
Whether I’m doing yoga, bands, or dancing, my approach has less to do with wanting to be the best and more with wanting to give my best.
If we don’t take care of our bodies, our bodies won’t take care of us. Our bodies are like vehicles. When I exercise and eat well, I’m helping maintain my vehicle so that it works well and doesn’t break down.
For example, when you practice yoga asanas with consistency and focus they can become a gateway to spiritual understanding. Once again, it’s about dedication: the more time and attention we give to something, the more we develop.
If you haven’t given your body the attention and nourishment it needs, it’s unlikely that it will give you back what you need.
Our taste buds are primed to love what we know and especially what we knew growing up.
We are what we eat! This won’t come as news to most people, but I take it a step further. We are also how we eat. It took me years to understand that it isn’t just what I put in my mouth that matters—it’s also how I am eating—how quickly, but also my emotional state.
Giving birth is such an everyday occurrence, but when it happens to you it’s magical and profound.
Before Tom and I were married, we talked a lot about how we wanted our relationship to develop, and I expressed that I wanted an interdependent relationship, not a codependent one.
More than that, I wanted a marriage of equals, one based on love, respect, and trust. I still believe that a marriage of equals—where two people are equally, simultaneously driven in their careers—is possible, but not as easy when the kids are little.
I believe women can do everything—just not all at the same time. We must prioritize.
Most men are focused on their outside lives and many women are, too. But for anyone to succeed and thrive in their outside life, they need to have a strong, stable inside life.
As I said earlier, I expressed to Tom that the last thing I wanted from our marriage was codependence. When you feel you need to save the other person. When you spend the whole time worrying about his needs to the point that they subsume or become your own. When you feel the need to rescue him or fix him. What could be more dangerous than being in a relationship where your partner can’t breathe without you, or when a partner needs you to make him whole, or when he’s responsible for filling in parts of yourself you lack, and you lose yourself and your own identity? No, our marriage not only had
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One partner doesn’t need to lean on, or crash into, or merge with the other. A strong pillar stands straight on its own.
So here’s a thought experiment: Imagine what would happen if each one of us knew ourselves as fully and deeply as possible. And that we led each day of our lives consciously
and compassionately, without projecting our emotions onto others, or allowing our egos to distort reality.
