Wanting to justify your actions by blaming some circumstance or person is not a consistent excuse. You will react according to your education, your neuroses, fears, and expectations. To exemplify this, I created the following parable:

Once, a Hindu Master wanted to show that emotional reactions were not due to the events that triggered them, but rather to what each one already carried within themselves. He handpicked three disciples, whose personalities he knew well. He ordered the three to come to the front of the class and kneel before him. He gave each one a strong slap. The first one was indignant and withdrew in anger, saying that the Master had no right to assault him in front of the class. The second one became sad and cried. The third one said, “Thank you, Master!”
The stimulus had been the same: a slap. But the reactions of the three were different: anger, sadness, and gratitude. What is the explanation?
It is that each one responded with what they had within themselves. Whoever had anger, reacted with anger. Whoever had sadness, reacted with sadness. Whoever had gratitude, reacted with gratitude. The important thing is never the fact itself. It is the pretext, it is the excipient[1] to externalize what each one has in their character.

When someone bumps into you and spills your coffee, the primary cause of your coffee being spilled was not the bump, because if you were drinking tea, you wouldn't have spilled the coffee. Every time life gives you a bump, you will spill into the world whatever you have inside your mug.

[1] The excipient is a pharmacologically inactive substance used as a vehicle for the active ingredient.

From the book Change the World, Start with Yourself,
Professor DeRose, Egrégora Books.

Many times when I teach I think about how much easier it is for us to force than to relax. We understand much more clearly how to tense the muscles than how to ask the body to let go. And this applies to training and also to everyday life. Our body, by default, reacts to certain stimuli by generating tension, whether we are stressed about something or we are working under the air conditioning feeling cold and doing nothing about it. It is likely that the shoulders look for the ears as if they wanted to keep them warm and at night we are with a total contracture.

Learning to decontract is an incredible tool that in addition to making us rest better and feel better makes available an extra energy that was previously invested in tension. Let's get down to business, **how to channel relaxation?

1- Breathing is a great accomplice. It is interesting to concentrate (bring the attention) on that area that is perceived as tense and as we exhale, try to gradually release the muscles.

2- Observing our body habits also adds up: Do we breathe in an abdominal or high way? Are our shoulders relaxed or tense? Are our hands loose or tight? I don't know if you ever paid attention to that detail, when you clench your hands you tense your arms, neck and jaw. The jaw can't be left out of this journey; relaxing the mouth and the forehead also contributes a lot.

3- Register the situations of tension and generate a conscious change, in the environment if possible and, if not, in the breathing (making it deep) or in the body (decontracting the shoulders, hands, neck...).

There are infinite things to talk about and deepen on this subject, just the other day I was thinking about something specific that I would like to share: to the extent that one learns to decontract the body and therefore to relax when it is not necessary to generate tension, this can also be applied in life, start to keep track of the moments in which unnecessary tension is generated and try to let go a little, channel the relaxation.

In this day and age when we receive such a large and constant stream of stimuli and are thinking about so many things at once, it is sometimes difficult for our brains to understand what we want to have an idea about, insight or, the sometimes called, wow moment!

1➡ Define the issue and dial it in.
Which of all these thousands of things we are processing simultaneously are we most interested in? Once we have the answer it is a matter of giving it a priority place in our world, as if among all the thoughts this one is marked with a highlighter.How do you do that? With time, place, intensity and affection. That is, giving it priority and daily in our mental agenda, taking advantage of the moments of more vitality and lucidity to think about it. And finally approaching this idea with the energy of enthusiasm for something that matters to us.

2➡ Give room for the idea to emerge and write it down.
It is important to know that for an idea to emerge it is necessary, as DeRose would say, to reverse the flow of perception and stop bombarding information from the outside in. This can be done, for example, by training concentration on a simple image such as the image of a sun, for a few minutes, trying not to disperse ourselves. This also develops our ability to focus, in this case, allows new ideas to emerge, that is, to make room for them. And at that moment it is important to have a notebook at hand where to write them down (here an important detail, better a notebook than a cell phone, that just by opening it already proposes us a thousand new ways to disperse and probably leads us to lose that beautiful and incipient idea that was being born).

3➡ And finally, as Picasso used to say: Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

—I was breathless!

How many times do we hear that phrase in the face of a surprising situation or one that generates emotion and stress? A kind of popular saying that is repeated without taking into account the great truth it contains. The expression highlights a vital and organic process discovered thousands of years ago in an intuitive way: the relationship between emotion and breathing.

In the face of a contingency, emotionality shoots up. A wave of energy is released and the organism transforms it and uses it to respond to the stimuli that generate primary emotions: anger or fear. These are not the only ones, there are other varieties of emotions that derive from these two main ones and with which we deal with on a daily basis.

The automatic reading that our organism makes is that survival is at risk and we will need all the strength to perform two immediate physical actions linked to those emotions: basically, fight or flee. This is the synthesis of the well-known process called stress, that physiological reaction of the organism that brings into play various defense mechanisms to face a situation perceived as threatening or of increased demand.

What I am most interested in highlighting about this resource, which has automatically been occupied in keeping us alive for millennia, is the link that exists between breathing and emotion.

Since ancient times, human beings have found in breathing a key to managing their emotions and conquering more objectivity in decision-making. A mechanism to feel more free and self-sufficient.

Philosophical schools, religions, martial arts and other disciplines incorporated techniques and capitalized on that power. Respect for the power of air became present in almost all mythologies, in the form of attributes of deities and grandiose stories.

In Hindu mythology, Parjánya, a figure who represented the hurricane in Vedic times; in ancient Greece, Aeolus, the lord of the winds in the Odyssey and protector of Ulysses; in the Mayan empire, Kukulcán, a divinity friendly to men, who administered the winds; in Norse mythology, Njörd, god of the sea and wind, invoked in storms. And these are just a few examples.

Among the Hindus it is mentioned that we are born with a credit of breaths to consume during life. If we spend them breathing in a hurry, our life time will be shorter. With this belief they strengthen the idea that we should always breathe slowly, deeply, completely and consciously.

With its advances, science supports the claims of ancient philosophies about the need to manage breathing and use it as the baton with which we can conduct our organic harmony.

However -as Professor DeRose explains in the book Respira, the new science of a forgotten art when interviewed by the author, James Nestor-, the most important thing is not only the air: it is the energy, the prána. A force that we can define as any type of energy that manifests itself biologically. An immeasurable source of power that enhances our evolution and allows us to perceive the world and its phenomena with greater objectivity and clarity.

Maybe it's time to observe how you are breathing. Don't forget that every time you breathe in, an opportunity begins.

Translation of the chapter from the book Cosas que la vida me enseñño

Don't be under any illusions. Everything you say about a person will come to their knowledge. So, watch that tongue. After that, it's useless to feel upset about people's indiscretion. It's like this.

More than one person's secret is no longer a secret. The moment you tell your secret to someone you trust, that person also tells it to another person he or she trusts, and so on. In a short time, dozens of people will know your secret.

So why tell? Why this need to expose yourself? Whenever you need to comment on someone, only say good things. A good exercise is: when you start saying something bad or start spewing green exorcist criticism about someone, reverse the sentence and start praising them immediately. Doesn't this person have something good to be praised for? Take a good look. Everyone has something good.

Translation of the book Boas Manerias by Prof. DeRose

Many of the principles of good manners can be based on the theory of living space. This theory explains that every human being has a territorial space around him or her, which varies according to ethnicity, country and education of each person. As a general rule, the more sensitive and educated a person is, the more living space he or she appreciates being given; the less living space he or she occupies.

The living space theory was discovered when a group of scientists observed unseen several pairs of people standing inside an empty room with only two chairs to sit on. While waiting for the experiment to supposedly begin, the subjects would sit down and start talking. It was then discovered, for example, that the British sat at a good distance from each other and could carry on a pleasant conversation for hours. The Italians, however, placed the chairs so close together that their knees almost touched. They soon became excited and argued aggressively.

A person's territorial space is that which he reserves the right to enjoy and, within whose borders, any human being is a persona non-grata. Exceptions are eventually made for friends, relatives and loved ones, provided they know their limits and are restrained in this granted invasion.

Even a loved one, if they stay too long too close will generate discomfort. If this proximity is constant, quarrels arise, which can be triggered for very useless reasons.

Therefore, learn to respect and understand your spousal appendage's need to be alone. Institute conjugal vacations. Consider a Sartrean wedding, each at home. I guarantee you will love each other much more and respect each other much more.

The big problem is that when people are passionate they become attached to each other's lives. When the other is also going through a phase of momentary madness, they accept. Soon the problems start. It is the toothpaste that one likes to squeeze only at the end and the other squeezes carelessly in the middle; it is the bottle of water that one wants to close and the other sees nothing wrong in leaving it open; it is the volume of the music that one likes louder and the other likes it too low; it is the way of undressing and hanging the clothes neatly for one or dropping them inside out and throwing them any way the other can't help ...

None of these reasons would justify arguing with the delighted partner. But any one of them would be enough to motivate a divorce if it happened repeatedly inside your home, the place where you want things your way.

Keep in mind that much of what is called social etiquette is nothing more, nothing less than formal boundary setting. Cultural and ethnic clashes occur when one individual or group of individuals in some way encroaches on or jeopardizes the cultural identity of another.

If you want to preserve a friendship or an affectionate relationship, metabolize this golden rule: the only way to catch someone is to let them go; the best way to lose someone is to restrict their freedom or invade their privacy.

Have you ever heard the expression I want more? When you know the right time to leave, you let that feeling go and friends will tell you sincerely:

• But are you leaving already? It's early, stay a little longer.

Don't stay! Leave the taste of I want more. This way, you will always be welcome. Impose your presence and you will saturate the hosts who may not invite you again.

Translation of the chapter of the book Boas Maneiras by Prof. DeRose

More than half a century of life taught me to accept a human flaw as incurable: its dissatisfaction.

I went around the world countless times and met many, many people. I had intimate contact with a multitude of initiatory fraternities, cultural entities, professional colleges, sports academies, universities, schools, companies, federations, foundations .... In all of them, without exception, there was discontent.

In all human groups there is a cohesive force called egregore. According to the law of action and reaction, every force tends to generate an opposing force. Therefore, in these same groupings, small maladjustments constantly appear, which begin to take on dramatic contours through the refraction of an egocentric perspective that only takes into account the satisfaction of the expectations of an isolated individual who analyzes the facts according to his own convenience.

In other words, if the facts could be analyzed without the harmful interference of egos, it would be seen that there is nothing wrong with these facts except emotional instability. Instability that is congenital in all human beings since we are still in the process of evolution. After all, we are an extremely young species compared to other life forms on the planet. We are in the infancy of our evolution and, as such, we inevitably commit the natural immaturities of that phase.

Note that very few people are satisfied with their world. In general, everyone has complaints about their job, their subordinates and their superiors; their pay and recognition for their work; complaints about their parents, their children, their spouses, their condominium, the government of their country, their state, their city, the police, the justice system, the traffic department, taxes, rude neighbors, unqualified drivers, unruly pedestrians.... There is a lot to complain about, isn't there?

If we go down that road, we will conclude that the world is not a good place to live and we will continue to be bitter and make others bitter. Or we will commit suicide!

In ancient times, the Hindus observed this pandemic phenomenon of human dissatisfaction and taught how to resolve it:

If the floor has thorns, you don't want to cover the floor with leather. Cover your feet with shoes and walk on the thorns without worrying about them.

In other words, the solution is not to complain about people and circumstances and try to change them, but to educate oneself to adapt. The right attitude is to stop childishly wanting things to change to satisfy your ego, but to change yourself to adapt to reality. This is maturity. The other attitude is neurotic, for you will never be able to change people or institutions to suit your desires. Don't be a misfit.

So, enough of this. Let's accept people and things as they are. And let's try to like them. You will notice that they start to like you much more and that situations that seemed immovable before, now change spontaneously, without you having to complain to them. Try it, you will like the result!