Written Reflections in English

Hello, I'm Pascal Paquette of parlecoeur.com, and today I'm going to speak with you about our daily rebalancing tools. So, it's been more than 25 years now that I've accompanied people on their life path with various tools. And what I realize people need most, and what I myself have needed most throughout my life and still practice every day, are my daily balancing tools. So what makes me feel good? What makes me maintain that feeling of well-being? Or what throws me off balance, and how do I find my balance again?

Let's begin right away by saying there is no magic formula. We often look for the magic formula. It doesn't exist. It's a matter of constancy, of presence, and I would even say of fine presence to oneself. At times, for example, I love metaphors, so let's begin with one. When I'm hungry, my body needs something. It sends me a signal of hunger, but if I really listen to my cells properly, if I really listen to my hunger, it won't say it wants to eat just anything. It will give me an instruction, or at least a very specific feeling about what it wishes to eat, or at least where it will find what it needs. And so I'll be drawn to one type of food, and then suddenly another. I think everyone has experienced this at one moment or another. Suddenly I really love broccoli. At another point, I no longer think about it, I have less desire to eat broccoli. Or even at some point, broccoli, no, really not. And I feel like eating something else. So it's a little like, there are movements like that happening. There are transformations happening at the level of our tastes. And often it's connected to what our body needs.

And our body is a universal intelligence. It's a fine universal intelligence that conveys to us exactly what suits us. And if we eat something that doesn't meet our real needs, let's take an example: our body wishes to have a certain type of vitamins, minerals, nutrients, whatever it may be, and I instead follow the taste in my mouth rather than what my body is conveying to me. So I'll go and eat something that won't contain what it wants. And no matter how much I eat, and eat, and eat, at a certain point I'll still be hungry, because I'll have filled my stomach, but I'll still be hungry afterward, because even if I'm stuffed, imagine the scene, I'm stuffed with something, the fact remains I'm not nourished. So I haven't met the real need. And my body conveys it to me through a sensation of hunger that persists, that continues beyond the fact of having fed myself, or at least of having eaten something that isn't quite what it wished for.

So it's simple, it's a matter of complicity with oneself. And to reach that kind of complicity, we must be present, in contact, and listening. It's a little like when we have a partner or children. To have a certain degree of complicity, there must be presence, listening. Real listening, not the listening of a deaf person where I hear only myself speak, but truly a listening of the other, a deep listening of the other. The same is true for the relationship with oneself, within our cells. So what's important is to be one's own best friend. And when we have a best friend, we spend time with them. We enjoy exchanging with them, we enjoy hearing what they have to say, and we enjoy telling them things that concern us. Of course, there may be a few surface conversations here and there, but essentially, with a best friend it's more about deep conversations, conversations that make sense. And there's a complicity, we know each other, we know each other well, we feel the other well, we know what's happening in their life, we suddenly know when, if they don't tell us something, we know it, if they tell us something we sense isn't quite right, we know it, we can tell them, and there's a kind of exchange, but with sensation, connection, and depth. And in a way, that's what we need to have with ourselves.

And I would say that's perhaps what is most lacking in the lives of nearly everyone who consults me: this fine relationship with oneself. We know what kind of films we like, we know what kind of car we like, we know what kind of video game we like, yes. But deeply, things more connected to our real well-being, and not elements of compensation or surface dispersion, but truly in depth: do I really know myself? Do I know who I am? Am I able to answer the question "who am I?" I often ask people this. "But who are you, you?" It's nearly always silence, or the confusion that reigns after that question. We know ourselves very poorly as human beings and as universal beings.

So, to move toward our daily rebalancing tools, we must know ourselves. It's simple, we must spend time with ourselves, we must have presence to ourselves, an intimacy with ourselves, a complicity with ourselves. And from that complicity and that intimacy, we know what we need. So the tools are very simple. They are elements that generally cost nothing, that are accessible to all, regardless of our standard of living, regardless of our finances, regardless of where we are. So they are, by listening to oneself, by being present to oneself, by being in relationship with the beating of one's heart, by being in relationship with the movement of one's lungs, the joints that move, how I place my foot on the ground. So these are all elements that will make the difference between a walk where I'm conscious of perhaps 5 to 10% of myself, and a walk where I become conscious of perhaps 90% of myself. And so I'm present. I feel that I'm with myself. So that's the first element.

Second element: breathing. Breathing is accessible to everyone, all the time, everywhere. Whether we're standing, lying down, no matter, in a place with people or without people, whether we're at the top of a mountain or in the middle of the city, breathing is truly the principal tool of relationship to oneself and of presence to oneself. And it's the element that is most often lacking in people's lives. Breathing is truly fine presence to oneself, and it's the first thing that is influenced when we have emotions. For example, if I'm afraid, what happens? It goes "Ah!" So there's a kind of contraction that happens within. My breathing blocks and suddenly freezes. And as soon as the danger passes, there's a kind of release that's created. So if I constantly, constantly live in a state of stress, constantly in a state of tension, then at a certain point we no longer notice it. Stress becomes a way of life. There's no denying it, in our modern societies, stress is something truly omnipresent. At a certain point, we no longer notice it. And our breathing is affected.

It's certain that when I take a deep breath, even just one, where I'll inflate the belly deeply, like this, holding the breath one or two seconds and then letting go, it's certain that I feel a sensation of instant relaxation. I just did it as I was telling you, and I do indeed feel a sensation of instant relaxation. It brings us back to ourselves and it releases. Our nervous system calms and relaxes. So that's something accessible no matter where we are: conscious breathing. Without going into breathing techniques, keeping it simple, I share this with you: we breathe through the belly deeply, inflating the belly. We hold a second or two, and then we deflate the belly. Often, the breathing we see in people is a surface breathing in the upper chest, as if we were always in a state of tension at the level of the belly, partly from the fashion where it's frowned upon to have a little belly, so we often pull it in. For most people, that's what we see. It's about letting go of the belly muscles and bringing our breathing down to the deep lower belly. If you practice it a few times, you'll see it's truly an instant sensation.

Now, we have to agree on the word "instant." Earlier I said there's no magic solution, and there indeed isn't. There's constancy, perseverance, practice, daily application. Let's take an example. I often use this example with water because I find it illustrates things very well. Imagine I've practiced for several years a stressful behavior that blocks my breathing. It's a little as if I took a mass of water, a glass of water, a dish of water, whatever, that is at, let's say, 80 degrees Celsius, and I cool it, and cool it, and cool it, and when it reaches zero degrees, it freezes, and there I feel unwell, the crystallization of the water changes its state, I become tense, I become crystallized, and there, the water continues to cool, and cool, and cool. In fact, there's a change of state: above zero, it's liquid; below zero, it's solid, we agree, it's simple. And now I'm at minus 10, minus 15, minus 20 degrees. And suddenly I tell you, look, it's simple. You just have to turn on the oven or the stove, and your water, the ice that is water, will begin to warm. Well, you won't get a liquid mass in one second, or by heating for one breath. You won't feel the great relaxation and the great transformation in your life. If you've spent years freezing, and freezing, and freezing your water, it might be cold, and you might have to breathe several times over a period, to reach a certain level of relaxation and well-being. It might be that the breath, the single breath I took earlier, doesn't have an instantly felt impact. There is an impact, a little like the water: if I heat it and go from minus 15 degrees to minus 14 degrees, there's necessarily an impact, and it's measurable with a thermometer, but it's not visible. I won't see an instant change of state, that is, I won't go from ice to water. I'll have to heat minus 14, minus 13, minus 12, minus 11, and so on. I'll reach minus 1, then suddenly plus 1, and there, there's a kind of tipping point, "ah, there, I've just de-crystallized, I've just found a state of well-being again."

And that's the other element that's so important to grasp. There's no magic solution, and it takes persistence, perseverance, and constancy. Not to expect, to stop having excessive, unrealistic expectations of ourselves that lead us to lose confidence in a process. For example, there are people who tell me, "Yeah, well, I did what you said, I meditated 10 minutes today, and I don't feel better." Obviously. It's not something, it's not meditating 10 minutes that will make us feel better; I'd even say perhaps worse at first, because if it's only 10 minutes, we don't really have time to reach a state of deep relaxation. Thoughts are often still very present, there are still tensions in the body, so we don't reach that level of sought-after relaxation and well-being. So again, I insist, don't have excessive expectations of a technique, a process, or tools like these, but rather be in the awareness that it takes regularity, constancy, and perseverance.

I'm well aware that I'm repeating myself; I've been repeating myself for 25 years, and I'll continue to repeat myself, because these are such simple elements, yet so neglected. And I see this with nearly everyone who comes into my office, this kind of difficulty. And these are also the difficulties I encountered at the beginning of my own journey, obviously, like everyone. I'm no better than anyone; we're all there. But it allowed me to practice, and practice, and practice until I discovered tools. But the tools themselves are nothing, a little like I say: there's a nail sticking out of my floor and I have a hammer, but if I don't use it, the nail won't go back in, and it might not be one hammer blow, but perhaps 10, perhaps 20, that I have to give for the nail to find its place again so I no longer catch myself on it. We agree. These are simple things I share with you. There's nothing magical about it.

But it's something that, in our modern society where we seek quick satisfaction... "I'm in pain, doctor, give me a pill so I stop hurting." That's what most people seek. It's a quick satisfaction, an elimination of the symptom without having to make an effort. And, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you see it, when we speak of personal development, when we speak of changing one's life, it necessarily passes through, not effort, I'd say rather, letting go: letting go of efforts of performance, letting go of efforts of results, and instead letting go and relaxing and breathing calmly and deeply, rather than pressurizing ourselves, tensing up.

You see, in our modern society, yes, the search for instant satisfaction, and when we don't have it, we give up. It's like, I'm going to send an email, if it doesn't work, right away I become impatient, and there, something happens, it doesn't suit me and I have to change methods. You see, there's something of that order. The faster things go and the more quick results we get, the more we want it to be like that everywhere. I understand, I understand the idea very well, but in a process of rebalancing one's life or of change, that's not how it works, it's not possible. It's the law, it's not the rule, it's the universal rule. The universal rule, or the universal law, is truly that it takes, a little like water. We must heat until it becomes liquid. And when it's liquid, that's when we find our state of fluidity again, and even if we go further, we can even make steam of it. When we're in the form of steam, it's even better. There we say, "Wow, I feel so good. I have the impression nothing reaches me anymore. No matter what happens around, it's fine." Well, yes, an airplane travels very, very well through a cloud, which is water in suspension. It travels really well. But if we arrive in liquid water and then ice, forget it, you understand the image. So it's the same thing. The more we're in expansion, the more we're relaxed, the more we're open, the more we're in a state of well-being, the more, at that moment, we feel good and happy and in balance.

Other elements connected to daily rebalancing tools. So we've spoken of walking, we've spoken of breathing. Often, when we walk, we breathe, it brings us into contact with our breathing. So the two are really like the two principal tools. No matter what happens, go walk and breathe, those are the first two things to do. Now, there are other elements to consider. For example, posture. The structure of our being places us in an alignment. So this structure leads us to have a posture, a right posture. If I stand, and you can do it, you stand and you put all your weight forward. At a certain point, if you stay like that for long, you'll have sore toes, sore at the tips of your feet. We're not made for that, we're made to be in balance, the weight distributed equally on our feet. So not the head tilted forward. If you stay like that for long, it requires effort, it will create a state of tension. So an alignment and a right posture that favor the free circulation of energy.

Often, when we want to rest, supposedly, we sit down and watch TV, for example. And there, in what posture do we settle? Often it's in a posture sprawled on the couch. And that posture is not a posture of rest. Our body is under a state of stress. I know it's a little paradoxical, but the legs crossed, the arms crossed, the body all crooked, leaning right, leaning left, the head half to the side. That's not how we'll find a sensation of well-being. Of course, for a few minutes, it's fine. But if we look at it in a prolonged way, we won't feel better. So that too is paying attention to our posture. Whether I'm working at the office, at the computer, driving my car, talking to someone, no matter what I'm doing, being conscious of my posture and ensuring I have a right posture. "Right" doesn't mean "stiff." "Right" means "supple, in balance, but aligned." That's an element that will lead me to let go of tensions too, because a posture that isn't aligned brings me tensions.

Then, food. And it's clear that if I've eaten too heavily, if I've eaten elements that don't suit my body because I didn't listen to myself or I overdid it on the cake or the white bread or things like that, my body will necessarily give me signs, symptoms of fatigue, of congestion, of heaviness. And there, I'll be inclined to go toward foods to try to re-energize myself, stimulants, things like that. So that's not how we find balance. So a balancing tool is to be present to oneself and to choose food that is right. Right doesn't mean, careful, going to the other extreme: no more bread, nothing more, no. But it's choosing perhaps a bread that's good for oneself. Choosing light foods that truly nourish us. And when I finish a meal, I have the sensation of having more energy than when I began it.

So I'll give you an example. If I eat living foods, sprouts, salad, foods that are alive, that don't have pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, anything inside, so often we'll call them organic foods nowadays. If I eat that type of food, that is alive, that has enzymes, it gives me energy. Now, if I take foods that are processed, that contain artificial coloring, chemical products, preservatives, if I take foods that my body doesn't recognize as food, it stuffs it but doesn't nourish it, for example white bread, in that case my body doesn't know what to do with it and it congests it.

Often, we see this: people have a car and they want the best oil, the best gas to put in it, because they want it to perform and to last a long time so it doesn't cost them dearly. That's nearly everyone. It's rare for people to say, "Ah, anything in my car, it doesn't matter." It's very rare we hear that. We want to have the cleanest and purest gas possible. The cheapest, but the cleanest and purest. We wouldn't want to put molasses or sugar or strawberry juice in our car because we know very well it wouldn't work. The engine wouldn't work. There would be misfires, it would go badly. And from there, we know very well it would lead us, not necessarily instantly, but with time, to cost us dearly in repairs, and we'd experience inconveniences. We could no longer rely on our car, we'd be stuck on the side of the road. We couldn't reach our destination. But in a way, our body, it's exactly the same thing. If we put into that body elements... because if we imagine that within us, we're like an engine and we use energy, fuel that will be transformed into energy, then we must give that body foods that can be transformed into energy, and not foods that will demand energy from it, or even worse, that will congest it or weigh it down. It's the same for the car. We want to put in an oil that's good, that's clean, that's pure, we change it regularly. We want it to circulate well, and our oil is our blood, it's our lymph. And we want our blood to be light, to be pure. We don't want there to be deposits. We don't want to clog the little circuits in our body with deposits that will congest it, and afterward, have difficulties at the level of circulation.

So I'm giving you really obvious things, except: how do I consider my body versus how I consider my car? Often, the car becomes more important because we see it right away. If I do something that isn't good for my car, right away I'll have a result, an impact. Either I'll get stuck broken down, or the car won't give me performance. On the other hand, there are certain elements we also know have an effect over the long term. We want to preserve it from rust. We wouldn't want to have a car that rusts prematurely. We wouldn't want an engine that breaks at 50,000 km, that lets us down. But if I neglect the gas, the oil, all the fluids that go into the car, well, it will necessarily have an impact in the short, medium, and necessarily long term. Well, we have to see our body the same way. What I give it creates an impact in the short, medium, or long term. So what do I want? That's the question to ask oneself. What do I want, for myself, in the long term? Is it not serious, in 25 years, to be ill? Is it not serious, in 25 years, to create cancer in myself? Is it not serious, in 25 years, to have high blood pressure, blocked veins, and so on? If it is serious, and if I don't know what I wish for, well, I simply have to make choices today that are coherent and consistent with what I wish to obtain later. Because we know very well that what I do now has an effect on the long term. Like a glass of water fills with drops, well, it's the same thing.

We don't create illnesses by eating white bread once. Hear me well, I'm not an extremist either. The body is very well able to manage from time to time, as long as the "time" and the "to time" are well distributed over time. If you hear me well, from time to time, indeed, I can have a little more wine, a little more bread, a little, elements like that, our body is made to be able to transform all that. We have everything we need. We'll feel the effect, but it won't be permanent or lasting. We won't create permanent damage, because we're able to rebalance ourselves. If from time to time, over a period really well distributed in time, I go toward little foods like that that aren't necessarily perfect for my body, it will transform them very, very well, and it's not serious at all, there's really no effect. On the other hand, if I do that repeatedly, constantly, in a sustained way, and it's not from time to time but regularly, then a little like I put a drop, and a drop, and a drop into a glass, at a certain point I'll find myself with a full glass, and if I continue to put drops, it will overflow. So it's really that image to remember. What do I put in? Do I give my body the time, and also the chance, to process all that? Do I transform things?

Now, there are certain foods we don't even ask the question. It's even obvious that the impact is instantly destructive. There are things the body doesn't want and can't transform. A little like if, instead of gas, I put molasses in my car. Well, necessarily, my engine, I'll completely break it and I'll have to send it for repair. So it's the same thing for the human body. There are things that should never, ever be consumed. Now, there are other foods that aren't instantly destructive, but that aren't necessarily good, not necessarily 100% nutritious, that the body can manage with. And that's a matter of personal knowledge. And now, nowadays, with the Internet and all the information available, there's no reason to be in ignorance about this. You just have to inform yourself a little. And also, with listening to oneself, listening to one's cells, we know how to recognize the foods that are good and that aren't good for us. And obviously, it's not our ego that chooses, it's not our whims that choose, it's not the little voices that say, "Oh, a nice little piece of chocolate cake would be good," the whim of the capricious child that chooses, but rather the master within, the being who knows, the one who knows and who isn't subjected to a form of control through inner manipulations, associated with, "Ah yes, but it's good, ah yes, but it's good, ah yes, but it's so good, I don't want to give up such a habit because it's good in my mouth." So what I call emotional foods, which are often associated with programs from the past. So you see, that's what I often hear when I speak of a transformation at the level of food. It's, "Ah yes, but it's good. Yes, but I like it." I'm glad you like it, but it's destroying you. So at a certain point, we have to have awareness and make choices. So that's another element of rebalancing. Another daily rebalancing tool: self-awareness through food, a right food. And if I feel heavy, and if I understand it's because of what I ate the day before, the next day I'll have food all the lighter, all the easier for my body to transform, that will give it everything it needs to compensate, to transform the heaviness I created the day before. Obviously, it's a little easier.

I'll repeat once more, because I'll keep repeating myself for years: if I do that every day, my body, at a certain point, won't be able to transform anymore, and there will be a creation of illness by accumulation. Now, when we speak of food, we must speak of more than just the food, the items we give our body. We must look at nourishment in all its forms. With what do I nourish my eyes? Do I nourish them with beauty? Do I look at the beauty of life? Do I look at the sunrise, the sunset, the beauty of the clouds, the drops of rain? Do I look at the grass, the flowers? Do I take the time to look at the colors, the shapes, the shapes nature has conveyed to us, the trees, the bark, all those little details of life, the stones, the earth, the water, to contemplate? To look, to see the beauty and the wonder in what surrounds me. And if I'm more in the city, and there are fewer of these elements, the sky is always present, the sun is always present, the light, there are always people who put out flowers, there are always trees. But still, there are fewer. And so, if there are fewer, I can look at the creation that was made by humans. The city is still a creation of humankind. And we can look at all the creativity, all the inspiration with which humankind was infused, you could say, to be able to create such beautiful things. So everything is a matter of gaze. A rebalancing tool is how I look and with what I nourish myself at the level of my gaze. If I look at elements that are heavy, negative, I don't know, films for example that are dark, with dark emotions, films of fear, films of horror, films of extreme violence, films that aren't nourishing for the deep being that I am, at that moment I'm necessarily in a movement of disharmonization of my being, and I'll have to rebalance myself. So, as long as we're at it, why not stay in balance and nourish ourselves only on beautiful and good things? And so, to be able to find my balance again, with what do I nourish my eyes?

With what do I read? With what do I nourish my thoughts? Do I read inspiring things? Will I bring my gaze to readings that are inspiring, to photos, to images that are inspiring, to videos, to television shows, to films that are inspiring, that nourish me deeply and give me a sensation of augmentation of myself or of expansion of myself, rather than a sensation of reducing tension and stress? We have access to everything. We have access to absolutely everything in our society. As much elements of great deviance as elements of great consciousness and great expansion. And the only person who chooses is me.

When I hear people who call themselves victims of society because they were sold cigarettes for so many years, it's appalling that companies sell cigarettes, of course, it's appalling that companies sell cigarettes, but at the same time, there's someone who smokes those cigarettes, and everything works that way: if there's no one to smoke them, and if former smokers seek flowers, now the cigarette companies will have to transform into companies that sell flowers because they'll respond to demand. So for me, it's not about saying I'm a victim of a company that sells cigarettes, but rather, I choose not to put cigarettes in my mouth, in my lungs, because I know very well it's destructive. No one imposes that on me. So we can truly choose with what we nourish ourselves, and stop believing we're a victim.

The same thing when I go grocery shopping, I can choose foods that are unprocessed, foods that aren't made in a factory, foods that don't contain artificial coloring, chemical products, insecticides, herbicides, colorants, as I said, preservatives, foods that don't contain sugar or added sugar. Well, the sugars of fruits, the sugars of vegetables, all that, but I'm speaking of added sugar, that comes to completely, completely throw me off balance. You see where I'm going, don't you? The simplest foods, those nature created in their most natural state possible, and therefore in unprocessed form, untransformed by humankind. That's certainly good for me, because nature creates for me what I need. I'm a being of nature, and nature creates for me what I need. I don't need to transform, I don't need to add preservatives, I don't need to add coloring, I only have to nourish myself with what nature conveys to me, and it will be good.

As a metaphor, I share this with you: we know very well that for a baby, the mother's breast milk is perfectly right and balanced for them specifically. And if suddenly they're in contact with a virus or a bacteria, the mother's milk will transform to nourish the baby even more, to fortify their system. And so breast milk is the most natural thing for the baby. And breast milk is nature itself. And they don't need to speak to each other with words. There's a kind of energetic connection that exists between the mother and the baby. And the mother doesn't even need to know what the baby needs, but her body knows. And her body will produce a milk perfectly balanced for the infant, who needs that type of milk. Well, our Mother Earth gives us not milk, but foods adapted to a body that is also of the earth. And we don't need to go toward something else, we don't need this industrial food now. Why does it exist? It's because there are people who are rushed, who don't have time to cook, who don't have time to make food, who don't have time to take care of themselves, or who don't have time to take care of those they love, and who will choose ease. Ease isn't necessarily the right thing. Not ease in the sense of "we have to complicate our lives," no, but ease in the sense of saying, "ah, the meal is already made, I'll put it in the microwave." My goodness, forget it, I don't need to go further. I'll put it in the microwave, I'll bombard it with waves, and then I'll think I'm nourishing myself, but no. It's full of all sorts of things. Too much salt, too much fat, too much sugar, or artificial sweeteners, or foods that are absolutely not appropriate for my body, that therefore aren't foods.

In English, I hear, I think it isn't said in French, but in English it's well put: there is no junk food. There is junk and there is food. So if I translate it, there's no junk food, there's junk and there's food. And that's really it. There's food and there's junk. Now, what do I want to put in my body? Our children, we love them. We wouldn't want to put things that destroy them in their mouths. Yet we often do. And when we look at the impact, I feel like telling you this. Personally, when I was a child, I was fed, well, my mother didn't have all the knowledge, obviously, I was fed with a lot, a lot, a lot of red meat that contains all sorts of hormones I absolutely don't need. I was fed with sugars and sugar and sugar and sugar. I drank at least two liters a week, I do mean drink, of Crown Brand corn syrup. So maple syrup, white sugar, what we call maple spread, caramel spreads, chocolate spreads, and peanut butter sweetened with icing sugar. And that was all I ate, plus the cereals, you can't even imagine the number of grams of sugar. That was all I had to put in my body.

So imagine a small child, very small, 6 years old, 7, 8, 9 years old, and we stuff them with sugar, artificial coloring, chemical products like that, that alter their natural functioning. And afterward, we tell them, "Sit down and listen to the teacher all day." It's impossible. I had behavioral difficulties. I was always getting suspended. I couldn't manage to stay seated. I was full of sugar. That's a little the image I have. It's a little as if I were taken and sat down on a blazing fire, the embers of burning coals, and told, "sit down and listen to me while I speak to you." Within me, I'd been filled with sugar. So I'm a bomb. And it's not good energy. It's a bomb, more nervous than anything. So it's extremely difficult to stay focused. And today, nowadays, we look, there are so many children who have difficulties with concentration, difficulties with presence. And rather than first looking at what's on their plate, we sometimes seek other ways to compensate for a completely unbalanced food we give them. If we change the food of these children, I'm convinced we'd greatly reduce the difficulties of concentration, of overexcitation, of even difficulties at the academic level. Because our body needs a food that is right in order to function well. And the attention we have toward a teacher, or the capacity to understand even an exercise, or to integrate or memorize, is directly connected to our state. And if our state is altered by a food that isn't right, that is contaminated, well, necessarily, I'll have difficulty. A little like when I press the accelerator, if I have elements in the gas that are contaminants, that don't burn and only congest the system and my engine, well, I'll have misfires. It won't give the performance. And it's a little the same thing.

Now, the human body of a child, it's so small, a child, it's incredible, and we put so many things in it. Of course they have all sorts of whims, they want to eat candy, they want to eat chocolate, they want to eat chocolate cake, they want, of course, but as a parent, with the love we have for our children, we must tell them no, and offer them something in replacement, something that's good, something they enjoy. There are so, so, so many replacement elements now that have no negative effect on the body and that are absolutely delicious in taste. Because I always maintain, I love things that taste good. I don't want to eat things that don't taste good. And that's clear for me. And it's been 25 years that I've nourished myself essentially vegetarian, that I don't eat meat, I don't need it. I've even, at a certain point, trained quite intensely, I jog, I'm really there, I'm very, very, very active, I've never lacked protein, I've never had blood tests that were deficient in minerals, in vitamins, or anything. Everything is in balance. No need for meat, no need for artificial sugar, no need for all these products, these artificial colorings. I'm almost essentially raw in winter. It's not that I say you have to do that, it's just that I share a little of my lifestyle with you. I'll eat cooked things at times, of course, when I go to the restaurant, that's how it is. My body is able to take it, as I said earlier, because, on the other side, I offer it pure elements and water that truly nourish it.

So that's a little where I'm taking you. It's a daily rebalancing tool. The idea is not to throw ourselves off balance to begin with. That's why I share these elements with you a little. Obviously, we could go much further regarding food, and I'll do it in another conference. However, for this one, I'll stick to these elements that open a door and that will surely lead you to question yourself and perhaps even do research. Go educate yourself, go seek the information. And be careful with the sources of information. There are several sources of information that are, at times, transformed, that are according to what the person wishes. I always say, go with how you feel. Obviously, if you stop all forms of sugar overnight, you'll feel unwell at first. And then you'll say, "But come on, Pascal, it doesn't work. I feel unwell." But that has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of your body rebalancing itself. When I speak of sensation, I come back to what I was saying earlier, over the long term. It's always over the long term that we can observe the difference.

So there, another element of daily rebalancing, very important: sleep. If I have a good night's sleep, a good night's sleep doesn't mean a long night's sleep, a good night's sleep means a sleep where I fell asleep relaxed, where I'm in a deep relaxation. By the way, if you look at my website, I created a sleep accompaniment that brings you to release deeply before going toward sleep, to truly allow our spirit to fly off toward the universe and make its nocturnal journey, while the body is in a state of deep relaxation where it can truly do all its work of cleansing, of regeneration. And so it's not the length of the sleep, although a certain period is still necessary, but rather the quality. And so, to go toward the quality of sleep. And that's true for everyone. There's no one who could say, "Ah, well, I'm too busy this week, I won't sleep at all." On the other hand, there are plenty of people who'll say, "Ah, well, I'm too busy this week, I don't have time to eat, I don't have time to meditate, I don't have time to breathe, I don't have time." No one would think to say, "I'll stop sleeping, or I'll stop going to the bathroom," for example, because those are essential needs. We know very well that if we don't sleep, we'll find ourselves in difficulty very quickly. Very, very, very quickly. So having a quality of sleep, very important. Another daily rebalancing tool. Now, if our sleep is really, really in great difficulty, in that case there are also plants, herbs that can help us find a state of relaxation and calm before going to bed. We shouldn't fall asleep tired. Often, people wait until they're tired to go to bed. No, no, no, no. We should go to bed to sleep, to rest. I know it's a paradox. It's a little strange, what I'm telling you. But when I hear, "Ah yes, but I wasn't tired, so I didn't go to bed right away, finally I went to bed at 3 in the morning because I didn't feel tired," but the next day, I felt like I hadn't slept, that's certain. Even if we don't feel tired, and especially if we don't feel it, it's the right moment to go to bed. Because our body, when it's tired, it can't anymore, it needs energy, it needs rest. So we should rest before going to sleep, take a moment to breathe, drop the screens, drop the intellectual work, and not read either before going to bed, but rather go breathe, dim the lights so that a calm settles in before going to sleep. So I could develop at greater length on this too, but already, an important rebalancing element: sleep.

Another important element: meditation. Well, people will say, "we can very well live without meditating." Yes, indeed, we can. However, living with meditation, it's been at least 25 years that I've meditated, every day, it makes all the difference. Before those 25 years, there were several elements, but I had health problems, I had sleep problems, I wasn't doing very well. And when I began to meditate, not the first year, but progressively, I saw my time, my hours of sleep, diminish really drastically. I went from 8 to 10 hours a day to 4 to 5 hours, even at times 3 hours a night, but a good deep 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours, sometimes 6, but most of the time 5, and it's more than enough. I wake on my own, I'm in great form, full of energy. And that, it's meditation that brings me that. I'm in great form, full of energy. And at a certain point, since I teach it, I had to do a few tests with myself, I told myself, "I'm going to stop meditating for a week." And it takes a certain time to find a sensation of well-being again, and we have to stay there for a certain time. If you follow the guidance I created, you'll see, it takes a certain time to be able to find the meditative state. And from there, to truly feel the benefits. The benefits, there's a part of the benefits that are instant, a part of the benefits that arrive in the medium term, and another part of the benefits that arrive in the long term. So it's a matter, once again, of practice, of perseverance, of constancy every day.

And I tell you this, as long as we're speaking of meditation: there isn't a single day, even though it's been 25 years that I meditate, that I get up with the desire to meditate. We agree? The mind, the ego, the whims within don't want to go toward meditation. It's a moment where we let go of thoughts. It's a moment where we let go of tensions. It's a moment where we no longer nourish the ego, the earthly aspect, we're not in performance at all, we're in letting go. So it's certain we don't wake up with the desire to meditate. On the other hand, we can choose to meditate. I don't need to have the desire to meditate in order to meditate. I have to choose, decide, and do it. So I wake up. I sit and I meditate. As simple as that. I don't ask myself, "Ah, do I feel like it this morning?" Because it's certain I don't. So I begin to meditate. And what's fascinating is that after a minute or two, already, it's like, "Ah yes, it feels so good!" And there, the desire arrives. The desire arrives while meditating and not before meditating. So I share this with you because it's one of the main traps. If we rely only on what we feel like in life, we won't do much. Unless we have really healthy desires, but that's rare. I don't know many people who get up with the desire to meditate in the morning. I know rather people who have decided to meditate, even if they don't feel like it, and, "Oh no, I don't feel like it." You know, it's that little voice that says, "Oh no, I don't feel like it." Well, it's about not answering it and meditating anyway. And staying there the time it takes to be able to reach the meditative state. At times, we'll reach it in 10 minutes. At times, it can take 30 minutes. So I created a track, if I remember well, of 33 minutes, that can also be prolonged, you're not obliged to stop, but it's around that. It's not about meditating 6 hours a day either. We don't come to the earth for that. On the other hand, it's important to do it for a period long enough to go and seek the benefits.

I'd like to come back to an element regarding nourishment. Earlier, I spoke of the nourishment of the eyes, what we seek at the level of the eyes, the gaze. Emotional nourishment is important too. What type of emotion do I nourish myself with? When I speak of emotion, I speak of nourishing myself with fear. Do I nourish myself with elements I'll read that bring me toward sensations of fear, of betrayal, of anger, of resignation, of depression? That's important, because it affects all my digestive system, the liver, the pancreas, the spleen, the kidneys, the stomach. All that zone, all the zone of the plexus, is affected by the type of nourishment I'll take at the emotional level. So it's important to nourish myself with joy, with joy, with lightness, with gaiety, truly to be able to feel a lightness at the level of the plexus so that I feel good. So if I nourish myself with negative elements, heavy ones, with criticism, with judgments, with angers, I don't help myself at all, but really not at all, to feel better in my daily life. In fact, often criticism, anger, judgments are associated with elements outside of me. Well, I hope. I hope you don't judge yourself. I hope you don't criticize yourself. If you do, that's it immediately, recognize who you are. Recognize your inner beauties. It's important. So that's it, it's choosing our emotions. Choosing with what I nourish myself at the emotional level.

Another important element to maintain my state of balance, or at least to find it again, is my inner state. Am I in a state of calm, of peace, of lightness, of joy, whatever? Let's look at all the interesting states to create within oneself. And how can I find it again? Everyone in their life has known, at a certain point, a state, let's say, of expansion. Let's take the state of expansion. Imagine I climb a mountain, I arrive at the top, and there, suddenly, I can see, I can contemplate the magnificent landscape, and, "Wow, I have the impression it's vast, it's wide, and it goes to infinity." Where we've lived those moments, and to see them again, to relive them within oneself, so much that the state impregnates us. It's as if I were reliving it instantly. You know, we do it naturally with elements from the past. We return very easily toward contracted emotions, heavy emotions from the past. Fears, doubts, dreads, betrayals, insecurities, jealousies, and so on. So we also have the capacity, I tell you, to go toward states that are pleasant, not only unpleasant states. So, to find my state of balance again, I have to find again those moments in my life where I lived, for example, a great state of love, a love perhaps divine, a love of union to life, to the deep universe, and to recreate that state within me. Perhaps when my child came into the world, when I saw them smile for the first time, when they said their first word. So states like that, great deep joys, not little joys associated with, "well, I got a gift for Christmas." I speak of deep joy, a joy of being, a joy of existing. Perhaps a moment where I expressed myself, not expressed heavy elements, not expressed inner contractions, but an expression of self, I call it, that can be through art, through musicality, through a bodily expression, verbal, whatever. You follow me when I speak of expression. I don't necessarily speak of an expression of frustration or anger. That's not what I'm speaking of. I speak of the expression of the deep self of who we are, rather than the expression of our contracted emotions. It's not the same thing. So there's another element of rebalancing that's very important.

Also, when I go to bed at night, it's important that I understand that all night long, I continue to live and I continue to exist. So plenty of things happen. I have dreams, my spirit travels, I wander in all sorts of places, planes of consciousness, and then when I come back in the morning at waking, it's important to take the time to remember, to recall who I am, why I'm here on the earth, and if I don't know it, quickly, I must find it. It's important. And to find again my goals, my ideals, what do I want, for myself, in life, in my ideal of life, and to find that inner state again and that knowledge and that union, so that my life makes sense. Because when I know who I am, I know why I'm here, it will guide all my daily choices. Often, we don't really know what to choose. Do I take this? Do I choose this? Do I choose that? What do I do? Do I study in this or in that? We don't know. Whereas if we know ourselves deeply, it becomes very clear and very easy to choose, because we choose in coherence with what we know we are and what we know we want. So, finding again the consciousness of who I am, and actualizing that in my daily life.

Another important element: creation. "To create" doesn't mean "to draw," doesn't mean "to paint," doesn't mean "to sculpt." To paint is "to create," to sculpt is "to create," to draw is "to create." But when I speak of creation, I speak more broadly than that. A creation can be, for example, creating a conference. That's a creation. As long as for me, that type of creation makes sense, that is, I'm creating. There are certain people for whom it means nothing, it doesn't make them vibrate to give a conference. That's not their means of expression. For them, what they wish is to take a paintbrush, to play with colors, to create shapes. Not in performance, not for the result, but for the joy of doing it. No matter what it gives in the end. We're not in the evaluation of the result, we're in the process of creation. And creation, it brings us into a state of deep joy where we lose a little the sense of time.

I'll give you an example. I remember, several years ago, I had a dream. I wanted to build myself a recreational vehicle. I imagined that vehicle. You know, the kind you can sleep inside, that has a bed, a little stove, a little fridge, and so on. I wanted to build myself that, a recreational vehicle. And I didn't have the money to buy myself a new one. On the other hand, I could certainly build myself one. And it's a childhood dream. I don't know why, but when I was a small child, I saw myself perhaps even living in a recreational vehicle, or at least having one. I forgot to eat, I didn't see time pass, I was in a state of joyful creative effervescence. I felt, of course, a fatigue at the end of the day, but a deep, deep satisfaction at having followed my creative impulse. No matter the result. The result was very interesting too, but at least, it was the creative process that was for me a truly deep teaching of life. I said, "Wow! I have an impulse, I have an idea, I structure it, I put it into action, and there, I've invested myself in it totally." Not that in my life I have to build recreational vehicles, that's really not my essence, but the fact remains that I still used a creative process at that moment that allowed me to touch a sensation of realization of myself. I was realizing myself through the construction of that recreational vehicle. And what was I realizing? I was realizing my capacity to do it. Not so much the result, but my capacity. That's what I was realizing. I wasn't realizing the vehicle. I was realizing my capacity to create that vehicle. I was realizing my capacity to understand several technical, mechanical, electrical elements, because I really worked very hard at it, I learned, and learned, and learned about plenty of things. And for me, it was a month of my life that was very instructive in the deep spiritual sense. Now, it's not my creation from my essence, but it's at least a spiritual creation from my creative energy.

Creative energy, let's look at what it is for a few moments. If I look at the level of my belly, it's with the energy in my belly that we make babies. A woman will carry a baby in her belly and will create it, will manifest it. And it's that energy that is the power of life, the life force. The chi, we find it there, the energy of Kundalini, it takes its whole essence at the level of my hara, at the level of my belly. And that's an extremely powerful energy. It's the energy that makes us rise, that lifts us up. When I want to lift something heavy, it's not my arms that lift the heavy element, it's my belly, my belly that gives me the strength, that sends the strength to my arms, of course, but it's not a muscular strength, it's a life force, it's a power, an energy of life, and it's that same energy of life that serves creation. Creation, it's destruction. Those are two energies that coexist. So there are the intestines that are there to destroy, transform, and eliminate. And there's also the energy of the creative organs, the genital organs where we'll create babies. So it's the same thing. We'll create with that energy. So it's the same energy, creation-destruction, it's that one.

That's why, and here I make a parenthesis, we often see beings who are in states of internal frustration and who'll begin to destroy. Why? Because we don't give them the chance, or they don't see how they could create. So rather than going toward creation, they'll go toward destruction because the energy is too powerful within them. And that makes me think of adolescents, of our society, because in certain societies, it doesn't exist, the adolescent crisis. But the adolescent crisis is an extremely powerful impulse of creation. But in our society, we tell them, "Ah, you're still too young, you can't reflect, you can't think, you can't speak, keep studying, be quiet. And you'll speak to us when you have a diploma, when you can prove to us that you're intelligent and that you're capable of reflecting." That's essentially the message. So, "when you're 18, 21, 25, we'll listen to you. For now, you're too young." But yet, biology, from around 14 years old, 15 maximum, our body is 100% ready to create, to create babies, to create ideas, and we're there, we're in all our effervescence, the creative effervescence, but the way society is built, it keeps us still like children, really, we're not even adolescents, we are adolescents, but it doesn't mean much, we're kept children still, for a long period. And often we see frustrations when the creative energy isn't used. Fortunately, there are all sorts of courses, elements that exist to bring these adolescents to express themselves, to use their creative energy. And those don't have a major adolescent crisis. But those who have a major adolescent crisis, we'll ask the question: how is their creative energy being used or channeled? So there. There's another element at the level of rebalancing: using our creative energy to feel that we're a creator, and a creation, obviously, that is useful for oneself, for others, that isn't destructive. When I speak of usefulness, I speak of one that isn't destructive, that won't go. I can well create an atomic bomb that will go kill people, but that's not what I'm speaking of. I speak of the creative energy that will create something expansive, something that will serve others, and myself along the way.

Another important element to find one's daily balance: friends. Nearly everyone has a friend in their life, at least. I'm not speaking of acquaintances, I'm speaking truly of deep friendship. We have one or two friends in our life, generally. It's rare we have 25, I've never seen that. So we have 25, 100, 200, 300, 3,000 acquaintances. But deep friendship, generally, it's one or two people in our life with whom we'll be able to say, I truly have a deep friendship. And those friends, those friendships, are very, very, very precious. Because a friend is someone who really knows us. I often say, someone who really knows you and loves you anyway. Meaning, they know everything about you. They know all your flaws. They know all the things you've done, that you haven't done, your good moves, your bad moves. They know everything and they love you anyway. So it's precious, a friend. It's someone who has no judgment, who'll give you the honest truth, the honest look, and who'll truly tell you what they think of what you bring them, and who won't be afraid that you'll stop loving them, because you know that you love them anyway. You really know them and you love them, no matter what they say, what they've done, what they haven't done, no matter. And so it's a conversation that's completely clear, just, transparent, and direct. And so those friendships are very precious.

So when I want to rebalance myself, it can be interesting to call my friend. Obviously, if I never call them and I call them only when things are going badly, well, perhaps they'll tell me, "Listen, I'm not available." But if I take the time to listen to my friend, if I'm with them regularly, at the moment I'll need to speak to them, to be in contact with them, at that moment there'll truly be that availability, and we'll be able to go in depth. And that helps to rebalance and to find balance again. We often see this, people who don't feel well, who feel depressed, who call their friend, who speak for 15, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, the time that's there, the time that's available, but a real deep conversation, not a conversation of, "Ah, what did you do yesterday?" and "What will you eat tomorrow?" A deep conversation. And in a few minutes, we find a sensation of balance again. That too is very important, friendship, in that sense.

Acquaintances are important too, but it's not someone with whom we'll necessarily have a deep relationship, where we'll share deep elements. On the other hand, if I have acquaintances with whom I'll play tennis, for example, and I want to find my balance again, sometimes going to do a little exercise feels good, physical exercise. It recreates a hormonal balance within oneself. So it can be interesting to call people, to say, "Well, look, I won't stay home alone waiting for time to pass and brooding. I'll instead go play tennis. So I'll call the people I play tennis with and I'll propose we play together today." And also, it gives a goal. It gives a goal to my day, and I know I'll do that. So already, things are better. It's another rebalancing tool element. So even if I'm not in imbalance, I can also have goals like that. I can have moments where I know I'll have an interesting, pleasant encounter with someone. Going to the cinema, going to the restaurant, inviting someone to my home to eat, or going to eat at someone's place. Sharing time with a living, human person. And if it's on the phone, it'll be on the phone, but I obviously favor encounters where we have visual, physical contact with the other person, an energetic encounter, not only a virtual encounter, it doesn't have at all the same impact or the same depth.

And I'll finish, of course, by telling you that one of the last elements to convey to you is the importance of being accompanied in one's life. It can be by a friend, but having someone, a therapist, a psychologist, a coach, according to what we need, according to the moment, a massage therapist, an osteopath, whatever, but someone we can consult, with whom we'll be able to exchange, who'll give us a look at ourselves, at our life, or at what we bring them, who'll be detached. So not a person who has some interest of seduction, some interest at the level of being loved or wanting to love or anything, but rather someone who has a certain form of neutrality whom we can consult to be able to get, as we say, the honest truth. Someone with whom I can have a deep dialogue. So that too is an important rebalancing element. It's something I favor, it's something I offer too. It's my work, it's what I do professionally, accompanying people in their daily lives and having real deep conversations with them. So in that sense, it's a very important rebalancing tool.

So, if you wish to deepen whichever rebalancing tool I've conveyed to you, there will be other conferences available that will deepen several of these subjects. Or you can take a consultation, whether via Skype, if you're outside the region of Montreal or Laval in Quebec, or if you're local within this region, in that case, we can meet in my offices. And then, it will be a pleasure and a joy to share and exchange with you. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Pascal Paquette of parlecoeur.com, and today, with joy, I'm speaking with you once again about meditation. So why have I chosen to speak with you again about meditation? It's something I truly consider a pillar of life, as I've said before, a pillar of life upon which we can genuinely build, upon which we can build our lives. It's a foundational state that we create first, first of all, to relax, to relax deeply. Many trainings are given in companies whose main purpose is stress management, reducing tension, achieving a more balanced life, presence to oneself, contact with oneself. It allows us first to hear ourselves and to listen to ourselves.

So that's for a broader view. Everyone, really, you could say, everyone can benefit from meditation, because it is first a moment of relaxation and a contact with oneself. Then it is also a tool for personal evolution, a tool for spiritual evolution. A tool for personal evolution because we go and create silence within ourselves. Often there are thoughts, there are emotions, there are voices within, sometimes duality, the black wolf, the white wolf, the little angel, the little devil that pull at each other in our heads at times, and that can create emotions. And this duality can sometimes disturb us, create tension in the nervous system. We have difficulty making choices, aligning ourselves in life. So meditation is a moment where we take the time to settle within ourselves, to recenter ourselves. And then, with our eyes closed of course, to rise within ourselves to create a state of expansion, of openness, that brings a sensation of union, of unity, of unification with oneself, with others, with life.

So often people will tell me, "I meditate while walking, I meditate while running, I meditate while eating," or whatever. Or, "I relax watching television, that's one I really like." So the moment of relaxation we seek by watching a TV show, I have absolutely nothing against television, I enjoy it too. It's a different moment, a moment where we plug into something else, we watch a show, we're entertained, and it's a moment where we do have a sensation of relaxation, yes, but often, depending on what we watch, it can create new emotions, or new thoughts, or even a state of tension in our nervous system. Sometimes films are made to stimulate emotions. That is not a moment of relaxation as I mean it, as in meditation.

So contemplation, when we walk, when we run, is more contemplation than meditation. It's not so far from meditation, but it's still not meditation. Meditation is something done not lying down but seated, with the eyes closed and not open. We can begin with a moment of contemplation. Contemplation is a moment where I have my eyes open and I look at something, perhaps a tree, perhaps the sky, perhaps something from nature, and I look at it until I lose the very thing I'm looking at, to unite with it, to feel completely one with what I'm contemplating. And from there, if I close my eyes, I'm almost arrived at the meditative space.

So I do say "the meditative space." It's a place we propel ourselves into. I could almost say a plane parallel to our daily life, a plane parallel to everyday life in the third dimension, we often hear that, 3D, the third dimension. Yes, it happens elsewhere, it happens in another reality, or rather, I would say, a reality shared by all. Because when our eyes are open, we each have our own reality, according to our cultural origins, our religious beliefs, our opinions, our programming, our past life experiences, and so on. All of that creates an entity, a personality, a character. And this character, this personality, has opinions, ideas, beliefs, all these elements that often place us in duality with others, and we seek either confrontation or harmony. In both cases, these are elements not tied to the universal reality that all share, because there is one, truly beyond all beliefs, all opinions, truly beyond all that, and we can reach it through the meditative space.

So this space is a space of openness, of expansion, where we truly depersonalize, where we let go of all reference to life: what we believe, what we imagine, what we feel, all the lower-frequency elements like thoughts, emotions, and so on, tied to wounds, anguish, anxiety, stress. We go far beyond all that and propel ourselves into a space so vast and so... it's difficult to put into words too. It's a state of expansion, something that is lived. It can be explained, but words do not convey the state or the experience itself. It's as if I explained to you how to drive a car versus actually having you drive the car. These are two completely different experiences. Knowing how to drive a car is not the same as feeling what driving a car actually is. So it's truly an experience versus a knowledge. Very, very different.

So the experience of that vast space, which everyone touches the moment we close our eyes and rise beyond our personality, beyond our daily life, we touch this vast and universal reality that I call the reality shared by all. In the sense that we are no longer within the borders, the markers, all that we find in daily life, and we propel ourselves into spaces more of the spirit, therefore spiritual. That's why we often say meditation is a path of spiritual evolution or elevation: because we rise to that level of being and consciousness. So that's the first element I wanted to share with you, a little of what it's for and how it works.

Now, there are tools, techniques to reach it, there are several, many forms. Personally, I've studied around ten or so. Some I truly applied in depth for many years, others I surfed more lightly, you could say, but they were still very interesting. They allowed me to draw several elements from each path, elements that, not only for me, but that I see are tools of propulsion fairly universal, that serve everyone in their propulsion. And I gathered them and made what I called the meditative path of the heart, or simply a meditation training that allows one, with all these tools, to propel oneself into the meditative space. And from the experience of all the people I've been able to teach it to, all those who applied it, of course, because if you don't apply a training you can never reap its benefits, it's like anything, all those who apply it feel the benefits. All those who meditate daily certainly feel the benefits.

There, I just said daily meditation, and right away some people say, "My goodness, I already have so much to do, how do you expect me to add meditation?" And often it's, "How long do I have to meditate?" So when I tell them a minimum of 33 minutes a day, that's when we meet the resistances. So let me explain. Imagine you want to relax, you're experiencing stress, you're at work and you come home, you want to take a bath, a bath to relax. So you take the time to set the atmosphere, you dim the lights, perhaps light a candle, choose a scent, and you choose and monitor the water temperature so that, the moment you sink into the bath, you can truly savor the full effect of all these elements, the whole context you've created, and the warmth of the water and the bath and the water itself, will create within you the sensation of deep relaxation it induces. And you will voluntarily stop thinking about the things that stress you, stop thinking about work, and truly be in the present moment. You may be accompanied by music, soft music, music that reassures and comforts you, warm music. You'll probably choose tones that favor relaxation. And there, you'll stay for a certain time. If you stay two minutes, is that enough to get the full benefit? Obviously not. Is five minutes enough? Obviously not. From experience, from the baths I've taken in my life, I'd say perhaps 15 to 20 minutes minimum to truly benefit from the effect of the warmth, the environment, everything we've prepared. Minimum 15 to 20 minutes. And if I stay longer, at times I need to add a little hot water, of course, the water cools, and there, we can once again prolong the experience of well-being and relaxation. And at a certain point, we feel it, it's enough. Our body, we say, it's not our head saying, "Right, I have other things to do," it's our body sensing that it has benefited enough from the experience, and then we're ready to get out and move on to something else. We're relaxed, we've touched the state, and we move on.

So here's a little of the same element in meditation. Why do we speak of a minimum of 33 minutes? Why 33 and not 30? That's an answer I give in the training. You can come, and it would be my pleasure to answer it for you. You'll see, there's a little game there, very interesting, that I could tell you about. So, imagine 30 minutes or 33 minutes, it doesn't matter, just to present it to you. So you're relaxing, you enter the meditative space, and already it can take 5 to 10 minutes before even arriving at the space of relaxation necessary for propulsion into the meditative space. So the first 5 to 10 minutes, sometimes 15, we're not yet meditating. We say "I meditate 30 minutes," but we're not meditating for 30 minutes. At the beginning, we prepare, we settle into the meditative space, we allow our body to relax, we let go of our physical tensions, then we release at the level of emotions, we release at the level of thoughts, and then we can use visualization, and so on, to eventually propel ourselves into the meditative space. So all this preparation is very important, and if we short-circuit it, if we try to take shortcuts, we'll quickly realize that the meditative space, we haven't touched it, we haven't reached it.

So, a little like the image of the bath, the metaphor of the bath, when I take a good hot bath, it takes a certain time before I reach the level of well-being I'm seeking. And if I have a lot of stress, it might take a little more time, and with less stress, a little less time. The same for meditation. I find the metaphor fits very well.

So when I experience a state of stress or anxiety, I speak of this because often, for people, it's the entry door to meditation. It's not necessarily the path of spiritual elevation that is the entry door; more often it's stress or anxiety or difficulty or need. Almost an urgency. It's often, I'll say, "I have no choice but to start meditating, because if I don't, I'll have greater difficulty, I'll become more imbalanced." So often that's the entry door. Once we've entered, we see there are so many more interesting elements to meditation than just stress and anxiety management, but still, that's already a very good foundation, a fine entry door. So people enter through this door and right away they begin to taste it. And the more they use it daily, every day, without skipping a day, truly, they will slowly, and in fact very quickly, touch the benefits. I say slowly because there are different levels of benefits. Some benefits are instantaneous, and others come through repetition and through the daily use of meditation. These benefits are at a second, a third degree, you could say, and they come with practice, they come with time. Up to what I was telling you about, the universal reality, the reality shared by all, at a certain point we come to live that state in a much more permanent way, much more prolonged than only during the moment of meditation. It's a little as if the state you create in the deeply relaxing bath could follow you into your daily life afterward, and that despite experiencing stress in the car on the way to work, or encountering a difficult situation, there's a kind of underlying level of relaxation that remains, that becomes permanent. And that is a benefit obtained by practicing regularly.

So now, people will say, "Yes, but I don't have time to integrate this." A very interesting argument, and they're right. It's true, we already have very busy, very full, very loaded lives, you could say. And adding a moment of meditation can seem a little heavy. So here's a benefit. The idea is, first, we can look at what elements in my life are, I don't like to say the words "waste of time," but I'll say it just so we understand each other, time I use but that isn't a moment of creation or a moment of replenishment, that's a little like a kind of transition moment, more or less well used. For example, spending three quarters of an hour on Facebook scrolling the news feed, and finally I come out of it not really nourished, I have information I forget instantly because most of it is irrelevant. And there, a 45-minute block that could be recycled into a moment of meditation. So it's very easy to find moments like that. We simply need to look at ourselves honestly in our lives, and very quickly we find those moments.

Then, when we meditate, obviously not the first time, but when we practice meditation regularly, permanently, we reach a level of cellular regeneration, a regeneration very similar to what we touch during sleep. And what I've observed, from the moment I began meditating regularly, at the beginning it was twice 20 minutes a day, I was following a technique that suggested that, so I did it, and I noticed not only that the quality of my sleep was better, but that I had fewer drops in energy, fewer energy dips during the day, and that I maintained my energy level higher in a continuous and more permanent way. So quickly, well, I call it quickly, after a year or a year and a half, I realized that I was sleeping less and that my sleep was of much better quality. And with time, the more the practice continues, the more I notice I have less need to sleep long. And I truly attribute that to meditation, because the moment of meditation allows for deep regeneration.

As I speak with you, images come to me. One day I was in Morocco as a guide; I was a travel guide in Morocco, Egypt, Peru, Tibet, and so on, various places. And I was in Morocco, and suddenly I was ill, I think I'd caught a bacteria, so it was very difficult, I was fighting the bacteria, the fever, and so on. And I still had to be responsible for my group, to guide, to do all my work. Well, whenever I had the chance, I meditated: in transit, in moments of transition, when I arrived at my hotel room, everywhere I could take a moment of meditation, I took it, whether it was 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, even an hour, I took it. And that's what allowed me, I remember, it was a period of two months, almost two months, and the bacteria, I'd caught it at the very beginning. It allowed me, without medication, I won't go into the details, but I didn't have what was needed to treat it; I got that on my return to Canada. So the idea was that meditation truly allowed me to maintain a level, to maintain my state throughout the trip and to do what I had to do, to maintain my energy. And that's when I truly saw the use of it.

Obviously, if I didn't practice daily, and at a certain point I take the step and decide to meditate, I'll never have the same benefits as if I practice daily. That's obvious. Whereas by practicing regularly, I develop a kind of complicity with the meditative space, and that complicity brings me to another level of consciousness and another level of cellular regeneration. Now, am I shielded, is it a guarantee? Not at all. It's not at all a guarantee or a shield; it's more like favoring a process. I could speak about this at much greater length; I have many examples of people who took the meditation course, the training, and who lived those moments, those states of cellular regeneration.

So then, truly, the time it takes me to meditate, I regain it in less sleep I need. So I come out ahead. I often say 30 minutes of meditation replaces about 2 hours of sleep. So someone who meditates 30 minutes every day will slowly see their sleep, their sleep time, diminish, but the quality increase, by a great deal. So that at a certain point the body wakes refreshed and regenerated, and I didn't need to sleep longer; obviously, I integrate 30 minutes of meditation in that place. So you see, there are the moments that are a little of a waste of time, or time poorly used, that I can use for creation or regeneration, like the example I gave of the Facebook news feed, or others. And you can see in your own life where time slips away like that. And the moments where we actually gain time elsewhere allow us to integrate it with much more ease. And that, I'd say, after the beginning, perhaps the first two or three weeks, well, we have to find the place to insert it voluntarily into our schedule, and after that, suddenly, it becomes an element of daily life. In 21 days, we practice the same element, and suddenly, after 21 days, it's integrated into our reality, and it becomes our reality.

There, that's what I wanted to tell you about this element. I'm reading, I took a few notes. Personally, it's been 28 years that I've meditated at the moment of recording this video. And in those 28 years, I don't regret a single moment of meditation. What I regret instead are the moments when I didn't do it. There weren't many, but there were a few, at a few times. And it's those moments I regret, because I tell myself I should have, at that moment, perhaps taken the 30 minutes, the 10 minutes, even, when we take the habit, at a certain point we reach the state much more easily. So perhaps the 10 minutes, the 2 minutes, and I didn't do it that day, well, for all sorts of reasons. I'm not speaking of days with major emergencies to attend to, but of days when I could have integrated it. Those are the ones I regret, and not the others. The others that I integrated into my daily life, those are the ones I appreciate most. I say, "Ah, there, that's why I meditate, that's what I'm seeking, that's what I want."

So in the happiness index, we speak of a happiness index now, in the happiness index, this is a major factor, truly a major factor that contributes to happiness. Obviously, there are people who have, as we say, an easy happiness, they contemplate easily, they don't feel the need to meditate, and suddenly, when they come and take the course anyway, well, they reach another level they hadn't even been aware existed. And when we start from a little more imbalance, so we don't have easy happiness, let's say, it could be heavier thoughts, we can even go as far as suicidal thoughts, well, suddenly, meditation integrates as a tool, a tool of gathering, where we gather ourselves, we find ourselves, and we find our center, we find our balance, and we rise and we awaken.

So there, it's a tool of awakening, of consciousness, obviously, it's a tool where we come into contact with elements far beyond our daily reality. So we become aware of global reality, we think more globally, we see more globally, so it's truly a tool of evolution. Psychological, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual evolution, because all of that is included together. Let's say we take the image of the Russian dolls. So the Russian dolls that go together, there are dolls within dolls, and so on. The largest doll would be like the spiritual space. And within that doll, there is psychological reality, emotional reality, mental reality, and so on. So it's all included within one. So we cross all the layers to reach a certain level of expansion, and therefore a certain state.

Then I wanted to speak to you about, yes, why not, the statistics, a little. The statistics are quite interesting. I don't have a figure as such, a percentage. I say "statistic," it's a word, but meaning: our eyes, our ears, our skin, our senses capture only a tiny part of reality, a tiny part, really not much. When we look at the spectrum of light that exists, what our eye is roughly able to capture is tiny. We don't capture infrared or ultraviolet; certain animals capture them, but not humans. And then there's the whole spectrum that also exists, gamma rays, and so on. And our eye doesn't see that, yet these are realities that exist. And the same for hearing: we hear a certain sound level, a certain sound frequency, a certain level of waves. Well, the same when we have our eyes open, our ears alert, we're more in the third dimension, and that's what we capture as reality, and we believe that's the great reality, but no. So when we meditate, when we integrate meditation into our lives, we touch other levels of reality, and that too is what allows the expansion of consciousness.

So you see, these are all elements I present to you that serve a process, that serve the human being, that serve the evolution of the planet, spiritual evolution, personal and psychological evolution at all levels. So it's a very, very important element to bring into our lives; it's truly a foundation, a pillar. I know, I'm repeating myself, but I've been repeating myself about this for 28 years, and it will be my pleasure to continue, because it's not yet integrated into the masses. It's an element that still only a tiny part of the population integrates, a tiny, tiny part that integrates it into their daily lives, a small part that has knowledge of it, and a great majority who have no idea, or who even, at times, judge or reject it. So on the contrary, it is to be integrated, integrated, integrated, so I don't tire of speaking about it.

I spoke to you about what it's for. Ah yes, is it for me? Well, I consider meditation is for everyone. There's no one who cannot benefit from it, or who can say, "It doesn't suit me." Well, it's not that it doesn't suit us, it's perhaps that it creates resistances, perhaps we have resistances to overcome. But yes, it's for everyone, it's something universal, in the sense that everyone can benefit from it. Whom is it for, what is meditating? Yes, I answer these questions. In fact, I went ahead and told myself I'll speak and we'll see what questions remain to be answered afterward. Time, free time, integrating this, there.

So I think I've truly covered what I wanted to speak with you about, and the rest, well, whatever the form, the approach, the school you go to in order to learn to meditate, I strongly invite you to integrate this, to begin to take interest in it and then to integrate it into your life. It has applications beyond what one would suspect, that I could put into words now, but it would serve no purpose; it's lived in the experience. So there, if you'd like more information, you go to my website parlecoeur.com, you'll see, I regularly give meditation trainings and others. You can find all the information there. If there's a date posted and it's passed, or whatever, you can always write to me, info@parlecoeur.com. You leave me your contact information, you tell me you're interested in the meditation training, and I include you in the mailing list. And as soon as I put one on the calendar, on the agenda, you'll receive the information by email. That way, you'll be able to climb aboard, as we say, take the boat, and I'll be able to guide you in this passion, a passion of life for me, truly in this passion. So there, thank you very much for listening; if you've made it this far, it's because you're truly interested. Thank you very much for listening, and in the joy of guiding you there. Thank you.

In one way or another, all human beings, myself included, everyone, are searching for a sensation: a sensation of happiness, of joy, of pleasure. Generally, we seek pleasant sensations, or at least sensations we associate with something pleasant. So, in a sense, every human being is searching for sensations.

There are millions of ways to experience sensations. We know this today with virtual reality, but through the senses, we stimulate them to create sensations within ourselves, whether real or not. For example, when someone has a glass of wine or a glass of beer, it produces a sensation. It's not only about the taste; the taste is wonderful, of course, but there's also the sensation that comes with it. And the same goes, quite quickly, for those who take drugs, soft or hard, it doesn't matter, there's a sensation that comes with it.

So, in a sense, the human being is searching for sensations. Some sensations are more lasting, more permanent, what I call sensations of joy. Joy is a sensation that comes from the heart, something that delights us deeply and is not tied to the ephemeral. These are joys of the heart, joys of union, of feeling connected to others, connected to all, of being part of a whole.

These sensations come to us much more through certain situations. For example, when we meditate in a group, or even play a team sport together, there's a sensation of being part of the whole, part of a team. If I'm playing hockey, there's of course the whole sensation during the game, but even after the game is over, even outside of it, I still feel that I am connected, that I belong to a group, to a team. The same is true for any sport, or even a chess club: I feel I am part of a group. That is the sensation of union, the sensation of joy. And that sensation is deeply pleasant.

Then there are sensations that are far more fleeting, what I call sensations of pleasure. These are tied to the temporary excitement of the senses. For example, eating chips is certainly not about nourishment; it's about pleasure. We choose chips whose taste we enjoy, and that taste excites our taste buds and stirs waves in the brain that give us a sensation of pleasure, perhaps even releasing a few pleasure hormones along the way. And just like that, we've given ourselves a satisfaction.

These small daily pleasures are important too; we don't have to eliminate them. We simply need to understand that they are ephemeral. Because if we lack joy in our lives, we'll want more and more of these small pleasures to give ourselves a more continuous sensation of pleasure. And if it's chips, for example, that provide that pleasure, and we need a continuous sensation of it, well, unfortunately, there's also a downside. There aren't only benefits; there are also elements that work against our health. Not in small amounts, but when the need becomes prolonged.

Take alcohol, for example. I can have a glass of wine and feel good, everything's fine. But if pleasure is all I'm after, then the moment that pleasure fades a little, I find again the discomfort or the unease that lies beneath it, and I might need another glass, and another, and another, a bottle, two bottles, three. And over the long term, of course, this becomes a self-destructive behavior, one that creates damage within.

So when I meet my clients, in the context of Spiritual Life Coaching, what are we looking for? We're looking for the real, deep joys, the lasting ones, those that align more with a state of being than with a stimulation of the senses. For example, when I record a video like this one for you, it's a sensation of joy, of deep happiness, and it stays with me all day. It was with me yesterday, it will be with me tomorrow; it inhabits me constantly, and it delights me profoundly. It gives me a sensation of being connected with those I'm speaking to. And this joy is far deeper, because it's tied to my life's purpose, my reason for being here.

That's just one example, and it applies to every role a person may have in life. When something truly corresponds to who we are, to our frequency, there is an element tied to deep joy: the joy of being oneself. And that gives a permanent, continuous sensation of joy, as long as I stay aligned with it and my choices remain coherent with the central element of my life.

So through Spiritual Life Coaching, this is also what we move toward, what we set our gaze upon: what are the far deeper joys that stir my joy for life, my sensation of being alive, and that give my life meaning, as opposed to the pleasures that are there, that are pleasant, and that we don't have to reject? On the contrary, pleasures are very important. They simply cannot serve as the foundation of a life, because there's always a slightly self-destructive side the moment we exceed a certain amount or a certain limit. That's how we can look at pleasure to know: am I in joy, or in pleasure?

Pleasure is tied to the senses; joy is tied to the heart. So what makes the difference? Pleasure is ephemeral, while joy, tied to the heart, is something more permanent. It lasts over the long term, and I have less need to renew it often; it's there, more permanently. And when I do renew it, there's no negative effect attached; on the contrary, there are only benefits. Whereas with pleasures, tied to the senses, we must renew, we must repeat, and there's often a little side that isn't quite simple, for one aspect or another of our health.

So this was a small capsule I wanted to share with you today, about the difference between joys and pleasures, the importance of both, and the balance somewhere in all of it. It's always balance that prevails; no matter what we do in life, no matter our choices and decisions, balance is a vital element.

Thank you for listening. And in joy, I often say this, in joy, to record another video for my pleasure, for yours, and for the greatest joy of our hearts.

Host: Back to the show "The Keys to Perfect Health" on the airwaves of Radio Versace Steel, the first radio for the awakening of consciousness and personal development. So, today we're speaking of spirituality, and we're welcoming Pascal Paquette. Pascal Paquette was first trained in psychosocial intervention. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychosociology of communication as well as a master's in interpersonal communication obtained at the University of Quebec in Montreal. And he's also trained in various alternative approaches, such as energy care, cellular reprogramming, and the release and integration of memory, which are at the heart of his essential expression. A rich and colorful communicator with a thousand and one revealing metaphors, a teaching guide and energy practitioner, a specialist in change, health, and communications. So, without further delay, I present to you Pascal. Hello Pascal, thank you for being here with us.

Pascal: Hello Caroline, thank you very much for offering us such a beautiful platform.

Host: Ah, well, it's always a pleasure. I know my listeners will particularly appreciate your colorful language and your thousand and one images that will truly allow them to better know spirituality. So, to begin, I'd like to know how you came to this, what is a Coach of the Soul, and how did you arrive here, what is your path, your professional path, your life path that made you become a Coach of the Soul?

Pascal: Actually, let's begin perhaps with my personal path a little, just as an introduction. Often, people who come to help others, to offer the best of themselves, often had a slightly difficult path in their childhood, or various elements that had an impact on them, that led them to question themselves. And I indeed lived a childhood that was far from easy. And very, very young, very quickly, it led me to question myself, and more than to question myself, but truly to commit to a path, I'd say, of reunion with myself, because in a way, we lose sight of ourselves. I lost sight of myself throughout my childhood. We arrive, we're conscious of who we are, but after that, we lose sight of ourselves according to the context in which we're led to grow up. And then, around 20 years old, 20, 21 or so, I even questioned myself seriously. I told myself, "perhaps everything I lived truly had an impact on me. I didn't know myself at all. I had no idea what spirituality was." And then, slowly, by opening up, by meeting beings, by meeting people, obviously, I began like many with psychology. I really began by seeing a psychologist for seven years. And then, integrated psycho-corporal psychology, it's an approach that works a great deal through the body. So I began with that. And then one day, I'll never forget, it had been about 5 years that I was seeing him, his name was André. And one day, I always took a walk before going to see André, and we had sessions that lasted 2 hours. It was quite intense, sometimes 2 or 3 times a week, so I was really, really involved. There are two ways of seeing this: either I really needed it, or I really loved it. I think it's a little of both. And then one day, I'll never forget, I was walking before going to see him, and I looked at a tree, quite simply. And I looked at it long enough, so long that at a certain point, I lost consciousness of my individual self, I'd say, of who I believed I was. And for a fraction of a second, it wasn't very long, perhaps a microsecond, I became the tree. And I lost who I believed I was for a moment. So for me, it was a moment of panic. It was my first spiritual revelation, if we can say it that way. It's a moment of panic that truly led me. I came into André's office and I said, "André, André, what's happening?" So he told me, "Listen my boy," he always called me my boy, "listen my boy," he said, "you've reached the point of living a spiritual experience." He said, "We're speaking of the transpersonal." He said, "I've brought you as far as I could." He said, "Now, you'll have to go toward someone else. You'll have to go eventually toward another approach." So he offered me the best of himself. And despite everything, it was still two years where I continued with him to explore the whole psychological aspect. From time to time, we opened a little at the spiritual level, but that wasn't his principal quality, his principal strength. And, in a way, I was looking for a guide, I was looking for someone to bring me toward that, and it began with books. I read The Peaceful Warrior, which for me was an absolutely revealing book, incredible, by Dan Millman, indeed. And after that, I also read The Celestine Prophecy, I met Guy Corneau, after that I met Pierre Lessard, and so on. And my whole life path was created like that. In a way, I'd almost say beyond my will, and that's when I understood that I was guided from within by all sorts of outer encounters, like a whole phenomenon of electromagnetism that makes us meet, that brings people together. And our soul always guides us from within toward the encounters we're meant to have, toward the events, toward the life situations that will serve us, make us evolve, or in which we can help others and make them evolve too. So there were several encounters like that created over time that led me to do a training, as you so well said, in energy care, in memory release, in cellular reprogramming, and so on. But the precise form of Coaching of the Soul, as I practice it, isn't a training I followed. I'd say it's the whole of all the trainings I followed that I tried to manifest. It took years before I found a word, or rather a name, to express what I do as work with people. And there are life coaches, there are the coaches we know, we hear the word "coaching" a lot, a lot, and that's why for years I resisted using that word, because I didn't recognize myself as a coach, as a life coach or a coach as we hear about in everyday life. And at the same time, I didn't yet have a precise word to be able to say it. And then one day, through a meditation, I was inspired to that idea of coaching of the Soul. And we understand that it's not the soul that needs to be coached. We know well that the soul is there. And it's we who need to be coached to integrate everything our soul conveys to us. Obviously, there are resistances along the way. So what's the difference, let's begin like that, with a coach and, for example, a psychotherapist or a therapist or rather a companion? The coach, he'll take, let's take the example of a young person who wants to play hockey. He'll go see a coach; he won't be taken by the hand by the coach. He'll be stimulated, encouraged, propelled, oriented, always toward his own goal. Not toward the coach's goal, but toward the goal of the young person who's going to play hockey. He wants to become professional, or he just wants to have fun for the pleasure of it. So the way the coach will accompany him, will coach him, will be different according to his own goals. Whereas when we take a companion, for me the difference is, and both are important in life, it's not a criticism of companions that I'm making, far from it, because I needed that myself for a long time, the companion is someone much more nurturing, maternal, gentler, softer, no matter your rhythm, it doesn't matter. And I often use the image: the coach, when you arrive at the corner of the street and you want to cross, he'll explain to you how. He'll say, when the light turns green, you take your legs and you move forward. And the companion will take you by the hand and cross with you. So that's the difference. And then the Coach of the Soul, it's that our soul, in a way, is pure, is perfect, is everywhere, and we manifested on the earth, on this plane, on the earthly plane, and we therefore have a mission, a reason why we incarnated, why we manifest here. And often, through either an education, a culture, social contexts, we can lose sight of that. We become a little as if enveloped, I'd say, in a kind of cotton or wadding or a lampshade over us that makes us no longer know who we are within. And then, sometimes, we can take years to realize we're living in something false, a self-image. And after, when that image shatters, either through a depression, either through a shock, either through something major that happens in a life, often it's a trigger, but from there, our soul will speak to us even more, or at least always speaks to us, but there we'll be more available to listen to it and to hear it. And now, once we've become available to listen to it and to hear it, and we really want to apply what we receive and what we hear, that's when this coaching of the Soul manifests in a life, and I can truly accompany people who must first, obviously, be committed to themselves, have a certain rhythm in their evolution, who truly wish to unmask the aspects of themselves that are saboteurs or that contaminate them, that make them unhappy, and who truly wish to go toward what I call, and what many will call, let's say very broadly, happiness. Happiness being a global state of sensation that we're in our place, that we're doing what we have to do, that we're in a harmonious sensation within ourselves. There.

Host: Your role allows people to see a little the traps of the ego, of their personality, to allow the soul to express itself, is that it?

Pascal: Yes, it's one of the parts, to see the traps of the ego. Of course, we must look at the traps, but I try, and I really try not to place the emphasis on the traps, but rather on the qualities, the characteristics a person has, those qualities that make it so that, for example, someone who's a communicator, or a teacher, or a healer, no matter, someone who's a gatherer, there are natural qualities within them. And those qualities, they want to bring them to light, they want to actualize them. Now, perhaps their ego lived a trauma in their childhood that made the person afraid. In their childhood or in another life, we open very broadly, obviously. We're not just in this life. Some trauma, in one life or another, that makes the person afraid, for example, of expressing themselves. Which was my case for years. Believe it or not, I say it like that, a little parenthesis. Until the age of 20, I was terrified of speaking, even in a class. Forget it, I wanted to hide, I wanted to hide myself. It's not just a figure of speech. I hid behind the others. I didn't want the teacher to see me. I didn't want to be seen, to be recognized. Yet it's my most natural quality. It's, in an obvious way, but also from other lives, that led me to be completely closed in on myself and in a terror of speaking. So it took several situations to lead toward an unblocking at that level. And it's funny because, studying in psychosociology of communication, for me, I often say, it wasn't studies, it was a therapy. Because from the very first session I did, right away, the professors told me, "you, we want you as an assistant." So I came to teach with them facilitation, facilitating groups, all that. I mean, it took me completely out of my comfort zone. But that's how I discovered myself. And I had to accept going toward the zones of discomfort. Because in a way, when we stay in our comfort zone, we have the impression of being happy sometimes, but in fact, no. That's one of the great traps of comfort zones. So we have to recognize them and know how to transcend them. And after, to recognize who we really are and take all our qualities and put them into action. And necessarily, that's when we meet resistances, and that's where the coach is there to stimulate, to bring the person toward what they themselves want. Not what I want for them, but what they want. What their soul wishes for them.

Host: So, to make the person responsible for making choices and moving to action.

Pascal: Yes, indeed. The word "responsibilization" is the most important element. And there I make a kind of parallel, in fact I'll take a little detour to go toward the whole aspect of healing, because I also work in energy care, so self-healing, it's not me who heals people, but it's truly they who heal themselves, and that's important to say. Often, the people who do care, even chiropractic or whatever, often we're called healers; it's not us who heal, we stimulate healing in beings. So we bring a vibration, we bring either a listening, a stimulation, but it's always the person who heals themselves. So in that sense, the person must take responsibility for their life, their health, their orientation, and everything, and apply either outer elements we can teach, that apply, for example, food, posture, breathing, meditation, and so on. But above all, the responsibility to grasp that we're not victims. And that's something I repeat so often. I was a victim for the first 20 years of my life, believing the universe was all against me. And then one day, I discovered that I had the capacity to change my life. Obviously, it requires a presence, a constancy, and a regularity. And then, a little like I was telling you earlier, before we were on air, the image of water.

Host: A beautiful image.

Pascal: Yes, a beautiful image. Water, when it's in the form of, in a liquid state, let's call it a state, when it's in its liquid state, we can say everything is fluid, everything's fine, it's easy, water inserts itself everywhere, it flows, it glides, it's pleasant. When it's warm and liquid. On the other hand, when it begins to get colder and colder, we can see the temperature dropping and it becomes less and less comfortable if we bathe in it. And there, a moment arrives where we cross the bar of 0 degrees Celsius and the water becomes ice. It's always the same water, it's always H2O, but it changes state. It becomes in the form of ice. And that's a little what happens when we lose our state of well-being. It's a little the same thing. It's our vibratory rhythm that drops, and drops, and drops. We always have signs. We always have signs. So we're not victims. We can choose to wait, or choose, and I do mean choose to wait, or choose to act on the signs we receive. And it always begins very, very, very, very gently. And then eventually, it gets harder and harder. The signs become clearer and clearer, more and more obvious, and harder and harder. So the vibratory rhythm drops, and at a certain point, what I call crystallization arrives, a little like going from liquid to solid, ice, and there, there's a crystallization in the body or at the level of the psyche, so an illness that settles in. So to find health again, obviously, we must de-crystallize. And in the image of water, we must warm the ice. And if it's at minus 20 degrees, the ice, for example, we must gain 20 degrees. That means it's not because I heat for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, a day, that I've gained 20 degrees. I perhaps spent 30 years, 40 years of life lowering the temperature of my water until it became ice. Is it possible that it might take perhaps 5, 6 years, 10 years of personal investment with oneself to find a state truly of real well-being? It's entirely possible. So, yes?

Host: No, but I was going to say, that's where, sometimes, from what I see in my profession, which is a little different, that's where the danger lies for the person to fall into doubt, because the person isn't patient. Sometimes, people will abandon the work because it doesn't happen quickly enough. Whereas you explained it well, if it took, and I see it for the body, if it took 20 years for the body to reach that point, we mustn't think that in two or three sessions, the body will have healed itself. So it's the same thing, it's a very beautiful image you give. So to keep the patience and the discipline of the work afterward too.

Pascal: The discipline, yes. The discipline, it's interesting that you bring up that word, because it's a word that, I think, frightens people. I think you're going to lose about 200, 300 people who are avoiding us right now, who'll say, "ah no, not discipline, I'm leaving, I'm running away, I don't want to hear about that, it's frightening."

Host: It's unfortunately a word that's been a little overused and that has a bad connotation, because for many people, discipline was so hard in their childhood that they've cut out discipline.

Pascal: In fact, yes, that's it. In fact, it's like anything. A knife can wound us or can help us cook. So it all depends on how we use it. So, discipline, we'll add something important to it. It's self-love. And I'll take an image once again. When we have children, for those who are parents or for those who aren't yet, but who will understand very well, because we all have children in our environment, when we love a child, we're disciplined with them, we don't let them do what they want, how they want, when they want. And I'd even say it depends on the children, but very often, we're more often contradicting them in what they'd want than telling them yes. There are many children like that we'll tell no more often than tell yes. And yet, it's a loving discipline. Because if I love my child and they want to go to bed at 10 on a Sunday night when they leave the next morning, and they want to eat a big piece of chocolate cake, if I let them do it, that's not love. It's responding to a whim, and responding to a whim that will make the next day a completely terrible day at school. It won't make sense. They'll be put in detention. The school will call me. I'll have to leave my work, go get them. After that, it'll be the discipline, and so on. Discipline in the sense, yes, that's where we use it in the other sense. It can be discipline to reprimand. Whereas if I used a loving discipline before, that is, I told them no. I told them, "Listen, it's 8 o'clock, it's time you went to bed. The chocolate cake, I'm not telling you no. I'm telling you tomorrow. Tomorrow, coming back from school around 3 o'clock, I'll give you your piece of chocolate cake with pleasure." So we don't say no, a no that's final, closed, hard, mean, nasty. We say we'll postpone your pleasure a little later, and we'll put it in a moment where it won't harm anyone. It's a little like dessert after the meal. We know very quickly, we wait half an hour, an hour. At that point, there's no negative impact in our body. Whereas if we take it five minutes after finishing eating, it's truly devastating. So it's a little the same principle. Learning to postpone satisfaction, learning to postpone pleasure a little further, that's it. And I'll give an example. It's been 25 years that I meditate. It's been 25 years that, no, perhaps not 25 years, perhaps 15 years that I teach meditation. And it's been 25 years that every morning, when I wake up, there's a little voice in my head that says, "Ah no, I don't feel like it. We'll do something else. We'll check the emails. We'll look on the Internet. We'll do anything, but not meditate." And I sit, I choose, even if I have the little voice in my head telling me, "Ah no, it would be more fun to do something else." I choose to sit. And what's fascinating, Caroline, it's truly fascinating, after not even 30 seconds, it's like, "Ah, wow, yes, that's what I wanted." Because in a way, sometimes, we're looking for something. Everyone is looking for something in life. Everyone. But the way we go about finding it, often, that's the mistake, if we can speak of a mistake. So everyone, we all seek happiness, no matter who on the planet, when we speak of the most criminalized people, the most extremist we can imagine, that we hear on the news, like the people who do the most good in their lives and who are the most open and most generous, in both cases, everyone seeks happiness, but what is it that we associate with happiness? How do I see happiness? What is happiness for me? And that's where it comes into play. The whole of the Coaching of the Soul too, and the whole approach of energy care too, and so on. All these elements, cellular reprogramming, in fact, a little everything I do, revolves around bringing the person precisely to say, "okay, you associated your happiness with a piece of chocolate cake for years. Now, you have physical problems, okay, or even before having them. You realize that's not happiness. So what is happiness now for you?" So we'll attach, if we can imagine that happiness had a lasso behind it, then we'll attach the lasso to something else, so that this happiness, first, isn't destructive, and is creative, that creates well-being, joy, and health for the person. So we're speaking of a notion of happiness that's very different from responding to needs and desires. One day, I did Mount Kailash, 15 days doing the circumambulation of Mount Kailash, around May 26, 2002, if I remember well. And we expected, the group, we were about fifteen people, we expected it to be about 5 to 7 degrees at night, and perhaps 15 to 20 during the day, but we had minus 17 degrees at night. So we weren't at all equipped to meet that cold. Our water bottles, they're little plastic bottles that melted when we put hot water in them to try to keep it. You can imagine the scene, we ran out of water, and in the end, we realized that although all our needs and our desires weren't met, we were happy. Happy and very happy. So there's no correlation between the response to desire and need and happiness. And that's it, in a way. What is happiness? It's responding to the inner call of the soul. And that's what's to be learned to listen to. And to learn to listen to it, we must be present to ourselves. And to be present to ourselves, it takes appointments with oneself. And those appointments are daily appointments we give ourselves through meditation, and so on, and so on.

Host: Yes, because true happiness goes from the inside toward the outside, so we have to be able to come into contact with what is within, finally.

Pascal: Yes, and I even want to go further. I'd say happiness is a vibratory frequency. It has nothing to do with everything we can imagine. It's a state. And I take up the image of water. Imagine that water, when it's in the state of ice, we're deeply unhappy, we're ill, we're in depression, it's not going well. When we're in liquid form, the liquid state, we feel good, it flows, it's fluid. But imagine even further, steam. Water vapor, imagine a cloud. A Boeing passes through a cloud at 500 km per hour and it has no impact. That means the cloud is so, so, so subtle that everything passes through without there being a shock. If we speak of water, well, the Boeing will land, but it risks still being a shock. We follow. So our inner state makes it so that we meet life either with lightness or with difficulty. Does it make sense when I tell you that?

Host: Absolutely. So by resonance. What's going to happen will be in resonance with our inner state.

Pascal: Exactly. So it's the inner state that's to be chosen, to be established, and to be created. And for that, we have so many tools to do it. But, once again, I come back, it's a frequency. Happiness is a frequency. A frequency in which, when we're at that frequency, we feel happy, we feel good, whatever the reality around us.

Host: Pascal, it's super interesting what you're saying there. And I'd like, because time is advancing, we're due for a little break, but I'd like perhaps after the break that you could speak to us a little more, precisely, about vibratory frequencies and energy. You were speaking to us about vibratory rate, about happiness. Can you speak to us a little more about, precisely, what is the vibratory rate, what is energy exactly? We spoke of it a little over the last, in the first shows of the season, but explain to us what it is exactly?

Pascal: Yes. So, energy, let's begin by saying that everything is energy. Whether it's a piece of wood, a tree, whether it's water, air, light, everything is energy. Often, we have the impression that because it's dense, it's crystallized, it's dense. For example, I don't know, the table in front of me, or the piece of wood, the piece of metal in front of me, the lamp, we have the impression that it's dense, it's fixed, but no, it's alive, it moves, it has a frequency, and it's energy. By the way, without going into all the details, I think quantum physics has proven that for a very long time, that absolutely everything is energy. Now, everything is at different frequencies. And when we look at a human body, our physical body that vibrates in density, so there are the bones that are the densest part of our body, it still has a frequency, a bone. And it's alive, a bone. By the way, this morning, I was speaking to one of my friends who's a physiotherapist and energy practitioner, and she told me, "But yes, a bone, when it breaks, it hurts, so we feel it, it's alive, a bone." And, for example, the liver that has a certain frequency, and then we have liquids, the lymph, and so on, that's at another frequency. That's the physical body. Now, if we go further, there's the etheric body. I won't give a course on the subtle bodies, but I'll still mention names. The etheric body is a mirror of the physical body. And in the etheric body, we find, when I say mirror, we find the equivalent in energetic form of what we have in our physical body. So if I have a physical liver, I have an etheric liver. If I have a physical eye, I also have an eye in the etheric body. And so each element is found there. After that, we have our emotional body that's beyond that, in which all our emotions circulate. It's about, let's say, between 15 and 30 cm from our physical body. And beyond it, there's the mental body and all the other bodies, causal, buddhic, the companions. What's important, in any case, the ones that concern us most are the ones closest to us, because they're the ones we have the most ease in feeling. And if someone isn't convinced of that, it's very simple, we just have to say, when we approach someone, physically, if we're present to ourselves and we're conscious of what's happening within us, so close to our sensations, we'll feel the energetic bodies of the person, even before touching them, we'll feel something. We won't be able to say, like raw matter, "there, it stops there, it begins there," but we'll be able to say, it begins about there, and it ends about there. Because we're in the... So we can imagine around a person a first layer of clouds that will be about 15 cm beyond the physical body. We can imagine like a form of cloud around, or smoke. And that would be the etheric body. So all that is at different frequencies. There are structures, a little like in our physical body, there are structures, our bones, our ligaments, our tendons, they're our structures that make it so we hold ourselves up. Here, a bone breaks, we no longer hold ourselves up, and there, our muscles can no longer function. And it's the same thing in the subtle bodies. Here, at the emotional level, we lived a shock. There are structures in the emotional body that will break. Same thing at the mental level. And then, often, I don't know if you see that, sometimes, in your practice, but the person arrives with a physical element that's in imbalance. You work on it, it settles back, but after a few hours or a few days, it shifts out again. That's because in the energetic bodies, there, it's a shame, we don't have the video image, because I could show it, but imagine I take my shirt and I pull it to one side completely. There, it's completely off-center. And if I pull too hard, the buttons will break. The seams will break. And there, after, I may well want to put it back, but it won't hold because the buttons are broken. So I'll have to re-sew the threads. A little the same thing at the level of the energetic structures. We must recreate those structures. And then, after that, recenter the energetic bodies. So recentering is very important, and the energetic interventions too, to favor a state of well-being, because that's what we're seeking, in a way. So anyone who's had a physical shock or an emotional shock, or who goes to see, whether a physio, a chiro, an osteopath, an acupuncturist, no matter, it's very important to also have, in parallel, and it's not competitive one with the other, we truly work in parallel, an energy care that will recenter the energetic bodies and, at the same time, work at the level of the subtle structures. And that's very important. So all that is different vibratory frequencies. And to be able to have access to those frequencies, obviously, I, as a practitioner, must raise my own vibratory rhythm. I must be in a state of expansion so that all my subtle energy becomes almost dense, in the sense that everything I am takes on a certain intensity at the energetic level, and so after that, I can go intervene in the subtle bodies of the person in front of me. If I haven't done that beforehand, I'll make gestures that will have no impact. So it's truly the vibratory state, the vibratory frequency, that's most important.

Host: And so that too, when we feel, you were saying a little earlier, when we feel people, we can feel too, there are people who have an attraction, others who have a repulsion, that's energy too.

Pascal: It's energy too, well yes, exactly.

Host: It's an example for people to feel, those who are less, there are people, naturally, we're drawn toward, and the contrary will happen too, it's the same thing.

Pascal: After that, it's all about knowing how to decode too what we feel. Is it, for example, I meet someone and I have a natural repulsion, is it because it's indeed a very criminalized person and they have a bad intention toward me, or is it because I lived, in another life or even in this life, a memory in relation to them, and it triggers the memory I carry within me, and the other has no idea whatsoever. Sometimes, it's not always two-way, that is, it's not both people at the same time who feel the same thing. Ideally, for a love relationship, yes, we wish it to be both at the same time who feel that, but sometimes, again, it's not felt by both sides. So it's a reality. All that is energy. And the energetic, vibratory attractions and repulsions are caused by, or in fact come from, there, indeed.

Host: And another, we spoke of energy care so the person can free themselves from what is crystallized at the level of the different subtle bodies. Are there things at home that people can do to raise their vibratory rate, either states or tools they can use at home? What would you suggest, or tips you can give them at home that they can use? We've given them since the beginning of the season, but go ahead, what would you give?

Pascal: I'll begin with a metaphor. I have no choice when you open the door to me like that.

Host: Ah yes, go ahead, I love your metaphors, so go ahead.

Pascal: We are all of pure source. What makes the source contaminate itself along the way is what we add into it. So, to find purity again, we don't have to work on purifying the water. We stop contaminating it. So the first thing to do is to stop adding waste into our water, which is naturally pure, if we follow. It makes sense. So that's the first thing. To find a state of well-being again, so to find the sensation of that pure water again, it's to cease, and that, often people will say, "but it's difficult," but I'll still say it, to cease certain types of thoughts, certain patterns of thought we maintain, that we nourish, that we have within us. To cease that, to oppose that. We're able, we're not victims of our thoughts. We can choose our thoughts. To cease nourishing emotional states, to cease going to watch films of heart-wrenching hyper-emotionality, of tearings, of wounds, of this, of that, or of hyper-violence; that's what contaminates the pure source. Because as soon as I find myself in the woods, if we speak of a tool, going where there are woods, a wooded area, and going to walk in nature, being present with the trees. Notice, when we move through the middle of the city on concrete sidewalks, where there's traffic, there's noise, people don't greet each other on the street. But as soon as we go into an atmosphere where we're in nature, people greet each other and smile naturally.

Host: That's... Absolutely. I do a lot of walking outings, and it always struck me to see that people greet each other, whereas in the city, never, never do people greet each other, absolutely.

Pascal: It's because we're in the energy, and we're really at another frequency when we're in our natural state. We're like a tree. And in our natural state, we're connected to the earth, connected to the sky, we're open, and we know that trees speak among themselves, communicate among themselves, not with words of course, but with energy. But we too, human beings, we communicate among ourselves with waves, whether thoughts, intentions. So there, the first tool I feel like proposing is to go walk in nature, the second, breathing deeply, and the third, it's by choosing our thoughts, by choosing our emotions, and by choosing what we place our attention on in our daily life. So, three very simple tools that everyone can apply. Once again, it's no use having several tools. What's important is to apply them well.

Host: Absolutely.

Pascal: That's important.

Host: Too much is like not enough. I tend, with my patients, not to give too many exercises, because I know people will do it two, three, four days. And after that, well, the old habits return at a gallop. When people begin to feel better, the exercises tend to take a back seat, as we might say.

Pascal: Well, listen, if you'll allow me, I'll bring a little nuance to what you just said, you'll understand why. Me too, before, I always said, "let's chase out the natural and it returns at a gallop." I'd say rather, "let's chase out the programmings and they'll return at a gallop." Because often, it's our programmings. We're programmed in one direction and we want to apply something. And the person really wants to apply the exercise you give them because it does them good. But they're programmed to go toward the TV, to go toward a compensation or do something else. So that requires, it's a little like my story about meditation. We don't feel like meditating when we get up in the morning. It takes loving discipline. Does that make sense?

Host: Absolutely. So, listen, it's very interesting. I've just been told there are only a few minutes left in the show, so we have to stop here. Listen, it's been very fascinating to speak with you this afternoon. I'm sure the listeners have also extremely appreciated your presence and all your beautiful metaphors and all your beautiful images that you were able to give us today, and the little tips too that you gave us. So I want to thank you for your presence. Is there a place, if people would like to be able to reach you and perhaps make an appointment with you as a coach, do you have a telephone number, an email address, or a website where people can reach you? I know too that you've just released new meditation CDs. So if you want to tell us too how people can get them, you have about a little minute to make your presentation.

Pascal: Of course. So, my website, the address of my website, it's parlecoeur.com, par le cœur, P-A-R-L-E-C-O-E-U-R.com. And on the site, we can find, I created guidances, sleep accompaniments, meditation guidances to facilitate the meditation process, global relaxation. There's also a self-healing box set that contains a complete conference on self-healing, a workshop too, where the person, in question-and-answer form, I formulate the questions and the person goes to find the answers within themselves, in their body, in their life, and plenty of other tools that are on my site that I offer to people. And indeed, people can contact me to make appointments, whether by Skype or if people are local, I have an office in Laval and in Prévost in Canada, in Quebec, so if someone is local, that's fine, otherwise we can work with Skype, both for energy care, Spiritual Life Coaching, and all that. So, there, essentially, that's it.

Host: And your telephone number to reach you?

Pascal: Yes, it's 514-990-2699.

Host: Listen, for those who are interested, it's a beautiful encounter for our soul to go meet Pascal. So, once again, thank you for your presence.

Pascal: Thank you, Caroline. No problem.

Host: And so, that's all for today. We have to say goodbye.

Host: Welcome to our show, Beau Succès. And today, we're talking about living a fulfilled life. And today, I'm speaking with Pascal Paquette, an expert in this area, who's going to help us with strategies for living a fulfilled life. So, hello Pascal.

Pascal: Hello François, it's truly a pleasure that we can speak together today.

Host: Yes, thank you for agreeing to an interview with us at Beau-FM.

Pascal: With joy.

Host: So Pascal, today, as I mentioned, we'd like to give strategies to help young people live a fulfilled life. So where do we begin when we're an adolescent and we want to make sure we live a fulfilled life?

Pascal: First, I think it's important to be able to recognize what the fire is, the adolescent impulse. We often speak of an adolescent crisis in our society, and the adolescent crisis is something we really see only in our society. When we go out and look at other societies, other regions, it's not something that necessarily exists. So it's something particular to North American societies especially. It's connected a great deal to the fact that adolescents, when they arrive around the age of 12, 13, 14, there's a biological process. If we speak of biology first, there's a natural biological process that makes the body mature. The body has become mature. We're no longer children, we're adults. We're young adults, of course, at 14. But at the same time, our body is ready, our body, all the hormones are at their maximum. The body, remember, everyone has already been an adolescent, so we remember very well those moments where everything, everything, everything is on edge. And within us, there's like a fire, there's like a lion, there's a rage, a rage for life, life pushing within. So all our hormones, all our body is ready even to produce babies. But of course, in our society, at 14, that's not something desirable, given the way society is built. But still, the impulse is present. The impulse, the life force, biology tells us "you're ready." But the way society functions, the way it's currently built, when we're 14, we're still much too young to make decisions, to express ourselves; we can express ourselves, but it's not always taken into account. So what's truly important is to take the time to meet our young people, to meet our young adults, and I'd even remove the word adolescent, I'd say, we meet our young adults who are full of dreams, who are full of energy, who are full of life, of course they need to be guided, they don't necessarily have all the experience and wisdom an older adult might have, but still, they have the fire, the spirit, the strength within them, and that's what's to be welcomed, and that's what's to be received. So that, rather than seeking to silence them or to smother that impulse, instead, it's to recognize that fire, to use it, to orient it, to direct it, and to make use of it. So, to give them a place, to give them a voice, to give them projects, to involve them in projects, in quotation marks, of adults, truly social, community projects. They love that. They get involved, they express themselves, they'll flee all the elements of compensation, the ones we can sometimes see in young people associated perhaps with criminality, things like that. As soon as the human being, and here I go broader than just young people, but as soon as the human being feels useful, feels recognized, feels loved, that they have the capacity to express themselves, to make themselves useful, to feel that their energy is used for something good for them, good for others, there's no longer any reason to go toward compensations, toward deviances or anything. On the contrary, we feel like staying in what does us good, what is good, in which we feel loved, in which we love ourselves. So, where to begin when we want to live a fulfilled life? We have to begin by, if we're young, recognizing ourselves and truly being in relationship with ourselves. And if we're a little less young, we're always young but a bit older, in that case, it's important to find again within us the impulse, the fire of adolescence. What were my dreams, when I was young? What did I want? What drew me? What were the dreams, the elements of my life that made me feel like getting up in the morning? What did I feel like changing in the world? What did I feel like moving? What did I feel like creating? Is it music, the arts? Is it mathematics, the sciences, the stars? Is it chemistry that fascinated me, and medicine, or whatever, and to find again within oneself our deep impulses, to associate ourselves deeply with them and to make a place for them in our lives. There, for me, is the first step when we want to begin. We really have to begin by finding again within oneself: what makes us vibrate? What lights us up, as we say? What do we have in our gut, to use a popular expression? What do I have in my gut and what do I feel like expressing from that?

Host: I think you raise such a good point. People, we have, especially in adolescence, as you say, we feel it. We feel that energy, the desire to truly begin, to flourish, to go seek passions. And as you say, your first big suggestion is really to go find what we're passionate about, what lights us up, because it's so unique for each and every one.

Pascal: Yes, things that make us vibrate deeply, indeed.

Host: My next question for you would be, why do individuals often have a challenge with what we can really do in life? Why do we often deviate like that?

Pascal: It's a very broad question, I'll have to contain my answer in a few minutes, but let's go to the essential. Let's say first that what makes us deviate, I think everyone, no matter our culture, no matter where we come from, no matter the families in which we were raised, there isn't a single person in the world who doesn't want to be happy, who doesn't feel like living joy, happiness, and who doesn't feel like loving and being loved. I think that's truly something common to all humanity; I don't know anyone, and I've traveled a lot in my life, who doesn't seek happiness. So that's something that's the foundation. So what makes us deviate? After that, it's what we associate with happiness, what we associate with love. And often, when we grow up, we just have to remember when we were children, or even still now, often there are elements. We're told, as I say, I put it very broadly, society tells us, but our parents too, who are representatives of society, tell us, because they themselves were raised that way, "well no, that's not it, that's not interesting, you want to be a musician, you want to be an artist, you'll never earn your living with that. I see you as a lawyer, I see you as an accountant, I see you as a doctor." And all the impulse of the artist suddenly gets slightly deviated. You really have to be strong and really solid not to give in to that, because in fact, what we want, we love our parents and we want to please them. And they want the best for us. It's not a comment against parents that I'm making. I hope no parent worries about this if they recognize themselves in it. It's truly because we love our children and we want the best for them. And our children want to please us too, and they want to be loved by us. But sometimes we forget to tell them, "you know, no matter what you do in life, you'll never lose my love." And that's a message our young people often don't have. We love them for what they do and not for what they are. And that's truly important, that element. Everyone seeks to be recognized, to be loved for what they are and not for what they do. Unfortunately, the way, once again, that our society is built, for hundreds of years, and it's not millennia, it's often oriented toward what we do, what we produce, what we give as a result. For example, there's a child who arrives with their drawing, and they've put in hours, they've put in love, they want to offer an extraordinary drawing to their parents, they arrive, and right away, there's an evaluation of the drawing. "Ah, your drawing, it's very beautiful. Yes, well, your friend's, I find the little figure is a little more beautiful." So right away, there's a kind of comparison. So that's another element, the comparison between human beings, between their colors, their language, their beliefs, the results they'll give, their performance, their academic results or whatever. If you'll allow me, I'll just make a little incursion into an element I find super important. I'll take an image to illustrate it. If we have, for example, an elephant, a fish, and a monkey who show up for an exam. An exam. And the first element, we have to climb a tree to go get bananas and bring them back down, for example. Of course, the elephant looks at it, and tells himself, "well, I'll do the best I can." He'll rub against the tree, he'll strike it with his weight. A few bananas will fall. And there, we'll tell him, "well, we'll give you 3 out of 10 for effort." The monkey, who climbs the tree, comes back down with all the bananas, we give him 10 out of 10, we congratulate him, we give him stars, we tell him, you're extraordinary, you're good, all that. The fish looks at it and says, forget it. And him, we give him 0 out of 10, and we say, not very, very good, not very high-performing. And then we arrive at the next question in the exam. And there, we say, now we're going to pull a ton of bricks, or a ton of anything. Of course, the elephant gets 10 out of 10, he goes at it, he pulls it as if it were nothing. The monkey, putting in all his energy, manages to pull it barely a few centimeters. And the fish looks at it and says, "forget it." So, of course, the elephant, 10 out of 10, the monkey, 3 out of 10 for effort. And the fish, we say, "zero." The third exercise arrives, and there, we have to cross the lake swimming and come back. The elephant barely does a few meters, he nearly drowns, he backs up, and we tell him "3 out of 10 for effort, for trying." The monkey, he gets on his back, and he does a little stretch, but he comes back super out of breath, he returns very quickly, and the fish does it in a fraction of a second, comes back, and we give him 10 out of 10. So where are we going with this illustrated example? It's that for a human being, it's not as obvious to see our differences. So each human being, although our bodies nearly all resemble each other, we're very different in our essence and in our impulses within. The elephant, the monkey, the fish, it's obvious. The differences are very, very, very obvious, and we could never say the elephant is better than the fish or the monkey. They're different. And so it's important too, for human beings, rather than saying this one is better than that one, this one is less good than that one, and making comparisons, differences like that between beings, it's important to recognize them. What are we in our essence? And to recognize and to place all the importance on that. So, if each person is in their place, if each person does, in quotation marks, what they have to do in life, if we have one who's an artist, that we give them the instruments of an artist, it can be an artist who creates a book, it can be an artist who communicates, it can be an artist who draws. The artist isn't necessarily a drawing, it's very broad, it's music. It's the whole aspect of the artist within that has to be recognized, and we have to value them for it. And stop diminishing them because suddenly they're less high-performing in mathematics or whatever; it's normal. They're an artist. Whereas the one who is a born scientist and who vibrates in everything that touches science, he, of course, will be recognized in that, he'll have grades, he'll perform, he'll do doctorates, post-doctorates, and we'll say, "Ah, him, he's important." And that's what happens a little, often. We do things often because we were compared, to please, to be loved. And there, suddenly, we deviate. And we deviate. And finally we realize, at 20, 30, 40, 50, sometimes 75 years old, sometimes not at all, that there are 40 years behind us that have just passed, and we didn't do what we wanted, what made us vibrate, but we responded to a social order, or we responded to a need to be loved, or a need for a place.

Host: I so loved that analogy because it comes to the point we want to make today, that everyone is unique. To really take the trouble to put attention in the right place, on our strengths. The things that light us up are different for everyone. The next thing I'd like to address with you is, what does it mean for you to make one's place? What is it, often as a young person, as an adolescent, we have the impression that we have to make a place for ourselves in society. What do you think of that? What does it mean for you to make one's place?

Pascal: To make one's place means to compete. And to compete goes a little with what makes us deviate. We make the link with the previous question because we already have our whole place in society. We don't have to make it, precisely. We have rather to recognize that a baby already has its place in society, it's a baby. A little baby, a tiny little baby. After that, a young child has its whole place in society, it's a young child, and we recognize it, it's reached that point. And at a certain moment, it's ready to express itself in a life, to have its family, to work, all that. Its place is already there. We already have our place. We don't have to push the others aside. We don't have to elbow our way. On the contrary, we really have to be ourselves. To be oneself means, well, first, we take up everything I said before and we start from there. Imagine someone who recognizes who they are, then simply being themselves, that is, living, vibrating, and appreciating. If someone, I'll take the example of a musician, because I have one of my clients in my office, a young man of 22 who showed up a few months ago, and he was truly in a great, great doubt within himself. What do I do? I've studied in science until now. But there, I discovered music a few years ago. My dream is to create music that will inspire people, that I'll be able to put on films. He comes to see me saying, "I doubt myself." So I really guided him, and I said, "well, find again within yourself, what is your primary impulse?" And he said, "I'm going to help the world." I tell him, "perfect." So now, will your music be a tool to help the world? He says, "well, yes." I tell him, "okay, what is it, until now, that you've explored in life?" He told me, "well, the sciences." He'd studied in science and was heading toward a university path in science. So I told him, close no door, but apply everywhere. So that's what he did. He applied, I think, in this university to everything, including at Berklee, in Boston, if I'm not mistaken, the music university, and he was accepted everywhere. He was accepted at universities where there are thousands and thousands of people who want to get in. It's expensive, they're renowned universities. But he created a demo, as we say, to present a little of what his creation is, what he does. And right away, he was recognized. He was recognized and they told him, "among the thousands of submissions, we selected yours," and there are only a few that are selected. "Yours is extraordinary, it truly spoke to us, what you wrote too," because there's a little cover letter that accompanies it. So he arrived in my office after that, but the doubt was completely erased. At the same time, he was spoiled for choice. That was now his choice. He could still choose the sciences. He had the choice. He was accepted everywhere. And then, finally, with all his radiant sun, I can still see his image, he was so beautiful, so happy. At last, he's recognized. He knows where he's going in life. And there, suddenly, there's no more doubt. So he didn't have to make his place, he only had to present himself. Obviously, I suggested a little step before that. I told him, before going to do all that, go experiment a little to see whether music makes you vibrate or not, and whether your project makes you vibrate or not. So I suggested he go put up on boards little ads that say, "well, I offer to compose music for free for your various film projects." So he called people in communications at the universities, in media, and they took his services, and people loved it, and he loved it. And that's how he was able to recognize within himself that, although he'd taken a path in science, really to please, or at least to believe he was pleasing his parents that way. I know his father too, and it's not that at all. But sometimes the interpretation we have as a child, we believe that's what we have to do, and we believe our parents want that, whereas it's not necessarily the case. And then, he chose a path where he'll give himself totally. He'll invest himself. And it's already done. It's already, already done. So he doesn't need to make his place in society. He already has his place by being himself. And if ever we feel we have to push others, shove others aside, elbow our way, as the popular expression says, it's perhaps because we're not in our place. When we're in our place, we radiate and we feel happy, we feel ourselves vibrate. And when we do, or when we are somewhere that's not our place, we quickly feel, honestly, a fatigue settling in, there can even be a certain depression, a questioning. Of course, the mind is good at giving us back all the reasons why we chose that. And often it's very convincing, so we'll stay in that for 20, 25, 30 years. But sometimes, I'd even say it's a good thing when someone has a depression in their life. Often, we see it as an illness. For me, it's a sign of health. It's that the life within oneself can no longer bear being deviated into something that makes no sense. To make deep sense, I know it's an English expression, but I don't have a better one in French. It has to make sense, it must make sense, it must resonate, we must feel ourselves vibrate in what we do, it's super important.

Host: A big thank you, Pascal. You've shown us today simple but truly effective ways to live a fulfilled life. I know people are listening. I imagine there are several young people who would even like more information about you. We'll have good news to announce later this year when we'll invite you to New Brunswick with a great speaker as well, Line Bolduc, who will come and join you. So we'll be able to give the public this information when it becomes available. But in the meantime, if they want to stay in contact with you, how can they reach you?

Pascal: I have my website, which is parlecoeur.com, P-A-R-L-E-C-O-E-U-R.com. If people want to sign up for the mailing list, then by writing where they come from, the region, I, at that point, can inform them by email when we'll be passing through for workshops, conferences, whether in the community, in the corporate world, no matter, we go into all levels of society precisely to convey these messages and bring people to find again very simple things within themselves. So, parlecoeur.com. If people wish to write to me, there's my email too that's on there, info@parlecoeur.com. It will be my pleasure to be in relationship with each person who writes to me, who calls me.

Host: For the people listening to us, I'll also post this information on our website, our Facebook page. And so it will be very easy to find you.

Pascal: Thank you very much, François, for giving us a voice like this. I recognize in myself that I vibrate when I express myself this way. And it's truly what I feel I have to do in life. And it's a joy for me to offer and to communicate this.

Host: In any case, it's a beautiful message. And it really reaches us. I encourage you to continue sharing it. And I'm really looking forward to you coming to New Brunswick.

Pascal: Yes, looking forward to meeting again. Thank you.

Host: Well, thank you to all those who are listening to us. Come back next week between 7 and 8 p.m. for another episode of Beau Succès.