How to find your voice in the symphony of life?

Valérie Cioloş-Villemin talks in her TEDX Brașov Women – Fill in the blanks speech, about the way people believe that, if she teaches stress reducing techniques, she is not stressed at all. When it comes to her speech, the stress did not come from the content, but from the way she looks, hoping to raise to the TEDx standards, while being 1.67 meters tall. With a big passion for singing, she wanted to share it with others, not just her friends, but behind the curtains, to get past the stress of the appearance. She decided though to give up that idea and sing for the public, because when music comes, everything changes, the music surrounds her, she feels the rhythm and her breath, her feet touch the ground, she is focused, and off she goes. It is a state in which the thoughts or the audience do not matter anymore, she feels good, a state called mindfulness, a state of being, without good or bad, just yourself and a dose of happiness. This state is always related with passions, like running, a time where the focus is on movement and breath, and this keeps the runner going. The good news is that this state of mindfulness can be reached through practice, as the brain can be trained. Valérie explains three mindfulness exercises, from paying attention to the breathing, to an exercise that makes us attentive to what we feel both physically and emotionally to another one where we pay attention to what we hear – all to be present in the now. She recommends to stop trying to be first violin, but by connecting to ourselves to play in harmony and find the unique instrument we represent. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx