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Being present and conscious of yourself and the world around you…

Rachael Nickel, yoga instructor, joins Julie Chan in the MouthMedia Network studios powered by Sennheiser.

Finding yoga and Reiki, a cellular biologist makes and impression, and when Nickel’s head explodes

Nickel discusses how she met Chan at gentle yoga session in Queens, NY, growing up without spirituality, the time she says Jesus Christ came to her, wanting to go into a Catholic church as a result, having a spiritual longing, a difficult time as a teen, being self destructive in the 1980s, and then finding yoga. Then meeting a predator yoga teacher, learning Reiki, assisting people during the dying process, learning from a nun who was an amazing healer, then Nickel had children and stopped healing, feeling as if perhaps she was not a legitimate healer. She recalls hearing from a cellular biologist who had a near death experience and went to the other side and heals at a cellular level, came home, cried, and stalked the healer—who then invited Nickel to train for a week—which has turned into three summers of training. What it is like when Nickel’s “head explodes”, hearing a rabbi talk about four ways of praying — one of which was a feeling of Wow.

Awesome Wonder, the concept of Wow, and reprogramming your mind

The space of Awesome Wonder, the incredible ways our bodies can move, telling your body you love it, the need to feel the joy and “wowness” of our own experience, we cannot heal as humans. Then hurting her back with yoga postures, resulting in the apparent inability to do yoga any more, then finding new ways to move her body. And the importance of remembering what we really are, the way out of the nightmares we live in, and we are all love embodied. The way animals are so present and joyful, “Wow” as a concept, and falling love with everything by saying you’re in love with everything. Reprogramming your mind by creating a mantra with new information.

System confinement, dogmas, and creating an awakening

Abuses of power, and how it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Why Nickel doesn’t want to be confined by any system, how it is not always about love, acceptance and equality, and it can be human nature. Why things shouldn’t be stagnant—as in “here’s how you’re supposed to do things”. Following one dogma or another, how traditions can be honored and allowing foundations, but different people need different systems. Plus, how it is in the cells that healing takes place, and creating an awakening.