By Nikki Nanos
“I’ll never give up on you, don’t you give up on you.”
These words from Mitra Manesh, Mindfulness Educator, Thought Leader, and my mentor, have stayed with me through my growth and journey into the world of mindfulness and meditation practices. In 2020, I sat in on a webinar with this teacher whom I had never heard of. Upon listening to her deep inner wisdom, I knew immediately I had to study with her.
All my life I’ve searched for answers, from self-help books, to videos on conquering self-limiting beliefs and power posing, to classes on finding your purpose. How do you get over not only your self-limiting beliefs, but change those other parts of you that seem to recycle the dis-ease of unhappiness, reactivity, and the feeling of always having to prove yourself to others? The list seemed endless from fear of success, to finding escapes in alcohol, gambling—I was looking for love in all the wrong things and people.
Knowing there was something bigger, greater, and magical that most never venture to find, I kept searching for it—whatever “it” was. How many of you are searching and keep trying new things? Some may work for a while, but then you find yourself right back into old, unfruitful patterns.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was 67 years young. The world paused. This in turn helped me pause and enter into a deeper search for inner peace, my search to find me. It was the beginning of that year when I found The School of Positive Transformation’s (SPT) Meditation & Mindfulness Teacher Training online and seriously started down this road. Without the “normal” daily distractions, I was very focused in my studies.
When thinking back on my many first attempts at meditation, I couldn’t meditate for even one minute without my monkey mind hopping from tree to tree. Finally, with patience and perseverance, I learned to calm my thinking mind, which gave way to deeper experiences in meditation.
The combination of Mitra’s and SPT’s trainings brought me to that magical world I always knew existed. The magic happens when you tap into your inner wisdom—your heart and soul. Like a child discovering something new for the first time … the discoveries, those aha moments, are just as exciting today as they were when I first started. The depth of this training has been the most fascinating, beneficial, and life changing experience.
During the pandemic years, I pulled out my old journals, and though I had the knowledge of all the dis-ease in my life, I had never reached the inner knowings of it. Looking back, what I wrote in my journals was a cry for the help that no one knew how to give me. I didn’t know how to heal myself.
I recall decades ago, going to a psychologist just so I’d have someone to talk to, and her saying, after sharing some of my journal writings back in the 80’s, “You don’t need me, you are your own psychologist.” Yes, writing down my inner most thoughts and feelings was helpful. Yet, we are rarely taught how to stop the ruminating and worrying. These habits hurt us, but mindfulness gave me the tools to stop.
It was a few years before 2020 that I felt myself being pulled into this spiritual journey. When that nagging in my gut got loud and shouted, “You need to change. The time is now.” I could either stay in the same unhealthy patterns, or as was obvious in my journals, get my shit together and find the me inside of me.
Once I started on the journey, I could feel my consciousness growing. I was stumbling forward instead of being stuck in the past thoughts of, “I’m not good enough; I don’t have the money; I am worth less than others.” The mindfulness practices led me to a huge breakthrough in all these areas.
One major breakthrough came while looking at my feminine and masculine energies. We all have feminine and masculine energy in us, and mine were so out of balance. My masculine energy was very dominant—he thought he was protecting my feminine inner child. He tried to speak up on my behalf when I was bullied in school. It was his voice that spoke through me when I made jokes about myself, so no one could see my real pain. This self-deprecation, along with the fact that I grew up in a Greek family where the boys were revered, made me think that if I did “boy” things, like playing all kinds of sports, I would finally get some attention. My masculine energy always got me back on my feet as I learned to just tough things out. Mindfulness brought to my attention, that I needed to get in touch with my feminine energy to build more balance in my life.
The first inner child I met was my little girl self who I named Rawly (Raw Awakening Work Loving Yourself). She was in a cave, cold, lonely, and dirty, in a little red dress with white lace and black patent leather Mary Janes. Our first meeting (which took place while meditating) went like this:
Rawly slowly walked out of the cave, head down.
“Hi,” I said gently to this injured child.
Very shyly, softly, and with a little fear, she replied, “Hi.” We stayed in silence for a moment then she began to cry. “I’m sorry I messed up your life.”
My heart sank. Tears welled up in my eyes. “You didn’t mess up my life, I did. I’m the adult here.” I reached with open arms to Rawly, and we tightly held each other with love and sobbed.
It took time to work with this inner child. I had to build the trust that she would always be a part of me, and together we could overcome this feeling of worth-less-ness to grow together.
I finally found the right teacher, and the right tools, and I am forever grateful to my teacher who never gave up on me, even through all of my mis-takes. Her support allowed me to hold compassionate space for myself and others. It allowed me to accept and truly understand the phrase, “You are not broken.” The pieces are all there in us… just sometimes in the wrong place.
While people around me were struggling with the pandemic, I was having the best healing time of my life. Does it matter where you are at in life or how old you are? Never—it’s never too late to change. It’s simply a choice.
All of this brought me to wanting to serve others on their journey to grow. My teaching and coaching are from a heart-centered, intuitive, creative, and energetic perspective. If you want fast answers, sure I can help, but if you want a life changing experience, to let go of self-limiting beliefs, to get in touch with who you really are, to begin healing from childhood dis-ease, and let go of the fear, that is the journey that lights me up. To give a client, a group, not the answers, but the space to find their own inner wisdom, the trust and confidence that will expand their growth in consciousness through self-awareness and compassion, is not only what I’m about, it’s my “why” in life.
Nikki Nanos is a Mindfulness & Meditation Teacher/Trainer, coach, and speaker with over 750 hours of mindfulness studies. Her certified MIndfulness Teacher/Training comes from both The School of Positive Transformation and The Dallas Yoga Studio. Nanos’s credentials as a Mindfulness Coach are from the Mindful Attentionist Coaching Program (MAC) with her mentor and teacher Mitra Manesh. She has certification in Integrative Coaching from The School of Positive Transformation and Somatic Mindful Coaching from Mindful Coach Method. Nanos lives in Waterford, MI. Learn more about Nanos at nikkinanos.com.
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