One is a yoga teacher, the other a philosopher. Both are prominent in social networks where they develop self, connection, era… Optimistic and fruitful exchange of thoughts.
The first, Marie Robert, purified philosophy through her four bestsellers (published in fifteen languages) and her podcast.Philosophy is sexy. For more than five years, every morning, he has been sharing a sharp thought about our world and its transformations on his Instagram account. He just posted Year of Philosophy (1), where his daily need to write, as in breathing, lives every season of 2022. He also directs the Montessori schools he founded in Paris, Clichy and Marseille.
The second, Lily Barberi-Coulon, has also passed through several lives. A former journalist, in 2016 he discovered the practice of kundalini yoga (dynamic yoga of breath and repetition), of which he has become its most enthusiastic ambassador. During his imprisonment in 2020, he became known to a large audience. her Instagram account has 120,000 followers, and since then, her morning “warm up and meditation” sessions, a kind of meditative warm-up, have brought happiness to people. his followers. Lily also started her own podcast (Full presence), published two books and a box set, the oracle of mantras, illustrated by her husband Bastien (2). Accomplices of this unprecedented meeting (they immediately called each other acquaintances), these two women give the feeling of being two “old souls” who would understand everything, needs, oddities in our time.
Madame Figaro . – You teach classes, run schools, make podcasts, are very present on social networks, write books, raise children… How do you do it all at the same time?
Lili Barbery Coulon. –I may be busy, but I don’t feel overwhelmed because I’m aligned with my values. When I decided on the eve of my 40th birthday, after the attacks in 2015, to leave the press, where I no longer recognized myself, I was relieved of a huge weight. Today, even with a tight schedule, I reserve a wide range of freedom. That, I don’t necessarily show on Instagram.
Marie Robert. I agree with Lily. I don’t feel overwhelmed as long as I run four schools and a daycare center, write books, and take care of my 4-month-old baby. Because everything is consistent. My only criteria is to respect my needs and feel alive. We feel overwhelmed when we feed our Google calendar with a series of activities that are unlike us. I like this sentence from Montaigne. “By the way, you should learn to live.” The secret is finding the right cadence that works for us.
My only criteria is to respect my needs and feel alive.
Marie-Robert
Times invite us to slow down. Is this the new constraint or freedom?
I. BCNot everyone is interested in slowing down. Indeed, it still imposes a performance model on us. Some of us grow slowly, others grow quickly. I belong to the second family. I know women’s circles where they ask you to eat slowly. For some it is torture.
Mr – When I gave birth four months ago, I heard: “You have to be silent for forty days, to recover from fatigue.” Suffering. How can I survive forty days at home, hyperactive me? I’m back to work pretty quickly with my baby in tow and I’m in great shape.
The body is very present in your books. Is it the first compass in an increasingly virtual world?
I. BCIt’s a no brainer… that I learned the hard way. I grew up in a very traditional family and in the years when sports were still only a hygienic act to do to maintain physical health. I gradually detached myself from my body, I even fought against it, I hated myself physically. Then a friend told me about kundalini yoga. I went with lead feet, I, my intellectual… And I liked to move with “conscience”, that’s how I started my “reconciliation”. With the feeling of being in my rightful place.
Mr – Sport is much more than performance exercise, and movement is essential to exercising your mind. With my little James, I see every day how much he is mastering his motor skills in the first months of his life. Then it’s a different story, because from the beginning of kindergarten, children are forced to remain motionless on a chair. Merleau-Ponty wrote that we know the world only through our body. In the Montessori schools where I lead, students practice motor skills during class… Personally, I practice pilates or boxing. When I have a meeting in the morning, I wake up even earlier to save myself that time. It is a space of contemplation, a moment of gratitude towards our cells. And it is very beneficial for the mind.
I. BC For a long time I believed in psychoanalysis like God, I thought that it was the only one who had the authority to deal with us. And in the end I realized that it was through the body that I evolved. By practicing yoga, we observe what’s going on inside us: stretch, flexibility, tension… and realize how much more we are than feeling; “I’m angry, but I’m not angry”, “I feel. some sadness, but I’m not completely sad.” It is very important to be aware of this because we all vibrate outward and when we vibrate positively, those around us feel it and send it back to us. It is a virtuous period.
“Self-confidence is a permanent construct.”
Reading you, we find that you too lacked self-confidence.
I. BC – But I still don’t have self-confidence, no one gains self-confidence for life. It’s a constant build, some days confidence is crumbling, others it’s at an all-time high.
Mr –Let’s face it, self-confidence is a myth. Even political leaders or criminal lawyers create a strong voice from their vulnerability. I had a blessed childhood as a child. However, I was dyslexic, which forced me to develop other learning strategies and techniques. Or refer to others. I spent part of my schooling believing that I was less intelligent than others. Today I am happy to have an atypical profile. And yet, I approach tachycardia with every project, I work a thousand times more than I am asked to certify that it was worth contacting me. I still doubt. Even motherhood gave me cause for doubt. We never have all the cards in hand.
I. BC What you said reminds me of a documentary series never show it to anyone (on Prime Video, editor’s note), where rapper Orelsan is filmed by his brother, Clément Cotentin, who had the bright idea to grab a camera at a very young age. Orelsan tells about his childhood, youth, his music and above all his endless doubts. Orelsan could really think that he missed his profession when he is dazzling. I watched it with my 15 year old daughter to help her understand how uncertain we are.
Mr – As rabbi and philosopher Delphine Horvilour says and writes, we are built on our weaknesses, our wounds. The idea of a unified self that can be relied on is illusory. For Levinas, we are made up of three elements: “identity” (what will never change, our DNA, our iris, our birthplace…), indifference, (everything will change: career, spouse, our tastes). ), and the third brick is narrative identity, autobiography. It is the only unit of self to aspire to. For my part, I like to convey sincerity, which means positive as well as negative elements about me.
In social networks, your communities are superior: Lily and Marie, 118,000 and 163,000 subscribers. Have you ever set limits on these virtual links?
I. BC I post whenever I want, without daily commitment. Sometimes people take me to a travel agency, I have been asked for inconvenient services in the past. Did I have to thank you? Undoubtedly, at one time I enjoyed being in the role of “savior”. I changed the way I communicated, as if the strength I had gained through my yoga practice could now be read in my notes.
Mr – I’ve had a few requests for bibliography or philosophy dissertation methodology from high school students, and I thought it was kind of cute. I confess that I do not always respond to comments, which, moreover, often do not call for a response. Readers just want to convey an experience, an emotion. Every morning I write my 2200 characters on Insta. I post pictures of my baby but protect my privacy. Being familiar on Instagram probably promotes all sorts of excesses. I’m aware that Instagram can be toxic and time-consuming, I set myself limits every day without the need for regular “silence therapy.”
Undoubtedly, at one time I enjoyed being in the role of “savior”.
Lili Barbery Coulon
Are you passionate about any form of spirituality?
I. BC I believe, living it, in the power of prayer and intention. During a yoga class, while chanting a mantra, I happened to see my ascenders. However, I learned a little later that the mantra in question had the mission of connecting the worlds of the living and the dead. I was very worried about it. To try to better understand our universe, I regularly attend conferences organized by astrophysicist Christoph Galfard. I need this scientific requirement to feed my intellect and put my feet back on the ground.
How do you see your children’s generation? Do you have any advice for them?
I. BC –They don’t have much to learn from us. I am impressed by their ability to adapt to instruments or decipher timing inconsistencies. I find the teenagers of 2023 to be much more empathetic than my generation. They have the ability to profile, they are quick to measure situations, to understand problems. They know, for example, the toxicity of social media and know how to get rid of it much better than we do.
Mr –They educate us in their own way. Point out our inconsistencies. I fervently wish that they, after tasting the taste of personal development, now work for the sake of collective development: for ecology, economy, social justice, protection of minorities. I know they can do it, they will get there.
(1) A Year of Philosophy by Marie Robert, Editions Flammarion/Versilio.
(2) “Reconciliation. From Body Hatred to Self Love” and “The Oracle of Mantras” by Lily Barberi-Coulon, Éditions Marabout.
In the video: How can meditation make us happier?
Source: Le Figaro
