asane

The unpredictable ways they changed me

Online Niel November 2, 2024

AUSTIN, Texas — About 20 miles from where Matthew McConaughey greet the beloved longhorns at the University of Texas football stadium, towering tree branches rooted on both sides of the road leading to Miraval Austin Resort and Spa they grew together, mirroring arms that would catch you in a trusting fall, as if to say, “You’re safe here.”

I arrive on a warm Friday in October for Making Space: A Wellness Weekend with Hoda Kotbhosted by departing anchor and “Today” and sponsored by Miraval. Visits to Austin, where I went to college, can make me feel homesick. I remember the year 2005, when my heart was so full of possibility I could have levitated. The city also serves as the backdrop for my first real, deep relationship, when my heart loved fiercely without knowing the pain of a break.

Driving through the hill country, I think about how different my life looks at 37 than I predicted 20 years ago. I did not find my person. There are no kids throwing Cheerios in the back of my SUV. I wonder what the weekend will bring and what I will get out of it. Reflecting on it a few days later, I realize that it gave me what I didn’t know I needed. That’s exactly how Kotb defines wellness as “the missing piece” in an interview before the event began. There’s “a heavy backpack and it goes everywhere with you,” says Kotb. “Slowly, it’s like dropping stones from your backpack and you feel lighter.”

I feel this shift for the first time at the Saturday morning breathing session led by practitioner Anthony Abbagnano. For the class, participants are in pairs. Kotb and her good friend Maria Shriver are also in the class. Each exercise requires a different coupling that involves looking into a stranger’s eyes, really seeing them, and (harder for me) letting yourself be seen, all while focusing on your breath.

For one of the exercises, we are asked to practice forgiveness, and I immediately think of myself. Who has wronged me more than me? In the choices I’ve made about who deserves my time and love, or for all the times I’ve criticized my looks. I think about how many times I have considered myself unworthy. I cry about the ways I failed to take care of myself.

A practitioner notices my reaction and places her hand on my heart. I cry harder.

Kotb witnessed the whole thing, she tells me on a call recapping the weekend. “When I saw you at that breathing class, I was dying,” Kotb says. “She got her hands on you and that’s what you needed.”

When it’s time to hug our partners at the end of the exercise, I let my guard down. In previous exercises my intention was to be a weak point for others to land on and embrace. But in this case, I allow myself to be nurtured and embrace the warmth of a stranger’s embrace. After a while, I start to pull away, aware that I might linger too long in the arms of a stranger, but my partner won’t let me. He takes my head in his hand and brings it to his shoulder, which I don’t think anyone has ever done before.

There are several things I’ll take away from the weekend, like singer Rachel Platten encouraging concertgoers on Friday not to give up on their dreams because no one cared about her hit “Fight Song” until a year after release. But it’s the breath and words class IT Cosmetics co-founder Jamie Kern Lima deliver on sunday which are the most transformative.

Kern Lima is vulnerable in front of the public. She shares that she was turned down by a potential investor who told her, “I just don’t think women are going to buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight.”

“I felt this life of body doubt and self doubt almost flood my body,” says Kern Lima. “I almost felt like I was looking my own fear right in the eye.” But Kern Lima knew at that moment that the investor was wrong and sold his company for $1.2 billion in 2016.

“When we start listening to all the new stuff,” Kern Lima tells the crowd, “what happens is we end up living our lives hidden in plain sight.”

It asks us to identify the ways in which we have hidden ourselves. I hide my heart, her ambitions and her softness, I decide. Kern Lima asks us to contemplate what hiding has cost us. A more authentic life, joy, connection. And then Kern Lima guides us to find a way to stop hiding in plain sight today. I decide that I will start communicating authentically, being brave enough to share what I feel. And I get a chance to act on that notion shortly after Kern Lima’s talk, when I’m interviewing him and Kotb walks in.

In this moment with Kotb and Kern Lima, having absorbed their wisdom, along with that of Platten, Shriver, and several presenters, I give myself permission to ask for what I want most at that moment: a picture that to capture the magic of this weekend with two women who lit the fire in me.

I don’t normally ask celebrities for pictures. Some might think it’s an unprofessional move as a journalist. I am more affected by the internal belief that I must make myself as small and unimposing as possible. Who am I to take up space in their busy schedules? But on that day, after an inspiring weekend, I give myself permission to ask for the photo I’ve since called my “dream sandwich.” I don’t know if they will hang it in the Louvre, but I will display it proudly in my office.