Eleni Michail
Eleni Michail is firstly a human being, nature lover, and in love with little details of life. She works as a Mindfulness teacher and Soul mentor.
When I was a kid I wanted to become a magician because I liked the magical way of how the magicians could transform for example a ball into a rabbit, I loved especially the ones with animals. I was just in love with this feeling of transformation, something is changed into something else. But when I tried to practice it I realized very soon that it doesn't happen so easily. However, years later I discovered that magic and transformation does happen, it just doesn't happen by itself. It happens with a lot of intention and effort - this is who I am - I am here to make people aware that they have this magic stick and that they can transform their lives. But when I say transform I am talking about them being more like themselves, more authentic, and more true so they live meaningful and soulful lives.
Something has been calling. It was so strong, and it started a long time ago. I was following this path, following this calling, and then one thing lead to another and I found myself at a certain moment in Brussels, being a project coordinator in a big organization, and I realized I was really unhappy in a way, everything was collapsing around me in my life. I thought at that moment were focused on how little we know about authentic happiness. Nobody teaches us this skill of how to be happy. By happy I am not saying consumer happiness, it's about authentic happiness like the little things like to appreciate something, to share, to say I'm sorry, to ask for forgiveness, these kinds of things. So when I was in that situation, I was very thirsty for this authentic happiness, so once I started looking into things I came across mindfulness and it resonated with who I am and where I want to go. The way I use mindfulness it's not just to be less stressful, but to raise this deep awareness and appreciation of who we are, and then when we are mindful of who we are, it's much easier to keep balance, to be at peace and be stress-free and so on.
The way I work with the SDGs is by remembering nature. When I say remembering, it is about becoming again a member of nature and our as well human nature. We are very much isolated from both natures, through the ability to connect, to share, to listen, to speak from the heart, to be compassionate, to do all these things. Especially now during the pandemic, we were pushed even more towards isolation and disconnection from human nature.
One way people can reconnect with the surrounding nature is by less screen-time and just go out in the wild nature. The park is good as well but maybey a little bit further than the park. Take a walk and observe around, and acknowledge what you have been given, and be mindful of how do you enter and exit the forest. I would say these little things help us reconnect with nature, of course, there are many different activities and processes in nature and ways to connect with it. Even this little thing of: "I am gonna go for a walk and just observe how am I and what am I bringing with me, like all this stress, and how am I leaving, what has nature given me and what have I offered to nature, so there is the bond of giving and receiving".
We don't understand that the water we are drinking or canned food is food from nature. We don't understand it, we can not see further than the box or the supermarket shelves. Some people think that everything is kinda self-made and don't know why. How to make people see beyond this box has been working me in my thoughts for some weeks now. This notion that everybody now is short-sighted.
Everybody now looks only at the short-term benefit and that is about the pandemic, what am I going to buy, eat, and so on. Even literally we are keeping our sight as close as possible, I mean the mobile phone is just a few centimeters from our eyes and when we walk outside we probably walk and look down on our feet and phone rather than look up at the sky. I think that's the first step, to start shifting our sight from very near to very far and start gazing at the horizon, at the stars, at the sunrise and dawn. And thinking what lies beyond me, this is a kind of mindfulness, to be mindful of what's around us other than this room. What is happening a few kilometers further or on another continent. Being mindful of what's happening around us.
I would say we need to start with the self first. We miss so much self-awareness, people don't understand that they are super stressed, that they are unhealthy, overwhelmed, holding a lot of anger, and so on. I think we need to start from the inside first and look around.
What SDG are you personally interested in?
I feel very connected to Good Health and Well-being (SDG3), well-being being mindfulness. Bur also Climate change (SDG13), Life on Land (SDG15), anything that is about nature.
In the current situation in Cyprus which SDG requires more action?
Clean water (SDG6). We are not taking good care of water here in Cyprus. There is much water scarcity and nobody is paying attention to that even when it is one of the major problems here. We have scar resources, we are drilling the underground water, we are polluting the underground water and we don't know that we are doing it. We are blocking all the rivers with dams, we think that this is good as we have water for later on but the biodiversity is dying in the rivers, in the sea, and in the seaside is so much waste from Cyprus. There is so much waste produced by the towers in Limassol, factories etc. I think we are not mindful of the water.
What’s your message to people about SDGs?
We humans need to understand that we are wonderful beings, which doesn't mean perfect. We are full of wonder, full of gifts, full of beauty, full of charisma, talent, everything. If we are able to notice these and embrace them, then SDGs will be a reality. When I love myself and I cherish who I am, I respect the other automatically. I don't need to prove myself to anyone else by squeezing, being violent, pushing, dirting, etc. if I just see how gorgeous I am on my own.
Are you interested in Eleni and her work on mindfulness? Check her website for more information!
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