This article is a synthesis of the Yoga Anatman session of October 31, 2026, live from Saint-Nexans, on the final morning of the last retreat of the year in France.
An autumn Saturday morning. The light hesitates behind the windows, the scent of hot chai drifts through the room, and a first sound rises. An OM that instantly opens an inner door. ✨
It is the last day of the retreat. Since Tuesday, each morning has settled upon the one before it like a fine layer of gold. Alexandre says it with a smile: there is a cumulative effect. The body remembers. So does the heart. 🌅
And this morning, something weeps. Gently at first, then in floods. Ancient tears, lodged in corners long kept secret: beneath the ears, in the hollow of the jaw, in the folds of a life lived too well-behaved.
What Weeps, What Sets Free
Have you noticed how many emotions you put away “for later”? An annoyance here, a sadness there, slipped into the body like sealed letters. And sometimes that “later” lasts for months. For years.
This session is an invitation to change systems. To welcome each emotion the moment it arrives. To dare to be fully yourself: original, eccentric, sovereign. To discover that loving, at its heart, is simply an invitation to feel. 💖
Let yourself be guided. The blindfold is ready over your eyes. The chai is steaming in the cup. And somewhere within you, a very ancient yogi has just woken up… with ambitions. 🦋
The Morning’s Teaching
Seated, back straight, blindfold still over the eyes, a cup of hot chai between the hands: coconut milk, chestnut, hazelnut. “There’s no stopping progress,” Alexandre smiles. Today there is time: the elixir will be shaped from the day’s realizations. 🌿
It all begins with a simple observation. When I let everything go, when I align with peace and stillness, emotions surge up. They release themselves. As if they had been waiting, stored somewhere, for a space to open at last.
The Great Warehouse of Emotions
Alexandre describes a mechanism everyone recognizes: whenever something was unpleasant, it got set aside “for later.” Tensions, emotions, resistances, all piled up in the body. And that “later” can last for months, for years.
Then comes the question that changes everything: what if I changed systems? What if I lived whatever arises, moment by moment? What if I chose to live my emotions as they come? 🌱
The cup receives its first mantras: “I lovingly release all that makes me store my emotions,” all that would have me believe I am too fragile to live them, all that whispers they will destroy me. Then the answer, upright as a pillar: “I am stronger than I believe.” Invincible. Unbreakable. Unalterable. The consciousness at play, formless, non-localized, outside the game. 💫
Everything Was Created to Be Lived
Next comes the central realization. “I am the creator of the world.” The consciousness that creates this video game, your life, can surely welcome all of its creations. If an event occurs, if it brings an emotion, then it was created from scratch, down to the last millimeter. And what is created is created to be lived.
Even the unpleasant. Even what hurts. Nothing in the universe springs up by chance, outside all consciousness: consciousness underlies everything. So when life takes you through an ordeal, a bereavement 🕊️, a loss, something horrible, it means there is something to understand, to realize. As simple as that.
And here is the key. Every experience carries a kind of vibrational key, an emotion attached to it. If I live it fully, the experience has done its work; it can close. To live fully what is difficult is to give yourself the gift of living it only once.
Alexandre admits it with humor and tenderness: this is easier to channel than to live. “That’s the theory… good luck!” Gratitude, already, for having the technical documentation of the universe. 🙏
The Strength of the Tribe
To live what is intense, the tribe is here. The elixir grows richer with gratitude: for allies, for mutual support, for the We. Gratitude for seeing better together. Gratitude for being stronger with your friends.
The mantra comes of its own accord: “I lovingly release all that isolates me and all that keeps me from asking for help.” I dare to ask for help. I dare to help. I dare to share. When the impulse comes from the heart, helping and being helped become one and the same movement. 💞
Gratitude for being welcomed just as I am. Gratitude for welcoming others just as they are, without judgment, for letting them be whatever they wish to be.
The Elixir of Sovereignty
Then the cup receives words that feel like a crown: “I own all my eccentricities,” I own my originality, my communication, my expression. I say what I think. I allow myself to call out what rings false, with love, kindness and goodwill.
A new paradigm. I am what I am, I express myself, and I watch my reality transform. Some people will leave, others will arrive. And it will be my life, rather than the life of my parents or my programs.
The more I free myself from the conditioning that speaks in my place, the more it is the real me who is living. The more interesting life becomes. The more meaning it takes on. A made-to-measure life, personalized in every detail, freed from off-the-peg systems of thinking and living. 🌟
This is exactly the opposite of what family and school taught us: to normalize ourselves, to standardize ourselves. Here, we learn to be original, to own it, to communicate it. A joyful countercurrent, which some will love and others less so. And that is perfectly right.
“I did not come to please. I came to be myself.”
So we drink the magic potion: an elixir of sovereignty, of freedom, of originality, of permission. The heart laughs, the heart says yes. “I create my life my own way… what an incredible thrill!” ✨
Realizations During Yoga Anatman
🎁 This 10-minute excerpt from the session’s realizations (in French) is offered to you by ANATMAN TV.
It all begins with sound. An individual OM, then a first mantra: “I welcome all emotions.” Simply making this sound, or even hearing it, is enough to tip you at once into an altered state of consciousness. An inner space opens, vast and silent. ✨
Then comes the phrase that will be the golden thread of the whole morning: “I surrender to my inner yogi.” We stand up. We get the blindfold ready. We feel our feet on the mat, and we open our eyes, nothing more.
The Body of a Goddess, the Body of a God
From the very first stretches, warmth rises from the lower back. Alexandre invites us to welcome all the pleasure in the world into the body, and he names it plainly: this is tantra. Welcoming all the senses, all the pleasure in the world, into this body of a goddess, of a god. 🌟
For those who have been practicing since Tuesday, the cumulative effect makes itself felt. The body becomes a tuned instrument, ready to vibrate. Gratitude to tantra.
Inhale: we rise onto our toes, as if suspended by the hands, in a mountain pose on tiptoe (Tadasana — alignment and grounding). Calves, thighs, glutes and abs contract. The body becomes a plank. And here comes the realization, paradoxical and luminous: “The stiffer I am, the easier it is.” When everything is engaged, the balance holds perfectly. Shoulders, shoulder blades and spine stretch. It’s heating up. 🔥
The Inner Yogi’s Ambitions
Thumbs hooked behind the back, gaze toward the sky, we gently lean backward (Anuvittasana — opening the rib cage). The blindfold comes down over the eyes: visual reality fades away. Only sensations remain.
The mantras flow one after another: “I surrender to pleasure,” “I surrender to tantra,” “I choose a life filled with pleasure.” Then an older utterance, a Christic one: “Thy will be done, not mine.” Surrender becomes prayer. 🙏
Alexandre laughs: this morning the inner yogi has slept well… and has ambitions. It thinks it has been a great yogi for fifty years! Bending forward, clasped hands rising behind the back (Uttanasana with clasped arms — stretching the shoulders and hamstrings), a mantra bursts forth, like a memory of the soul: “I remember all my lives as a yogi.” 💫
The hands reach the mat, the knees bend if needed, then with the exhale the legs straighten, a little more each day (Uttanasana — stretching the posterior chain). The invitation is gentle: adapt each posture, do what you can. Then the right angle, hands on the knees, back flat (Ardha Uttanasana — lengthening the spine), and the exhale that lets it all go.
The Inner Shiatsu Master
The right arm rises and keeps rising, until it stretches the top of the buttock and the lower back. We lean to the left, the right heel lifts (Parsva Urdhva Hastasana — lateral stretch of the side body). And the right hand massages the nape of the neck and the back of the head in circular movements.
Under the thumb, slight tensions appear. We press, we massage, and within seconds they melt. The mantra brings a smile: “I surrender to my shiatsu master.” The body knows exactly where to press. All you have to do is let it. 🌿 Then on the other side, the left hand in turn dissolves the tensions in the neck.
Next comes a grounding through the feet. You imagine you are a tree, roots plunging deep into the earth (Tadasana — rootedness and stability). Solid. Alive.
The Secret Point of the Jaw
Then comes the most overwhelming moment of the practice. We massage the jaws and the cheeks, we open the mouth wide. And suddenly a new posture is born live: the thumbs find a precise point, just beneath the ears, where the neck meets the jaw.
“Oh my, now that’s new…” A point untouched by any attention until now, intense, almost painful. And naturally, new points release a great many emotions, as if they had been waiting there for a very long time. 💧
“As if emotions had been stored there for a long time.”
“Now there’s weeping everywhere.” Like a discharge. We press gently, we inhale, we let it all go. A deep relaxation settles in, with an almost soothing taste. Alexandre announces it: there are points everywhere, and we will discover them as we go. Face yoga is coming soon. 🦋
The head tips back, the chin draws circles (Greeva Sanchalana — mobility and relaxation of the neck). Everyone is smiling. “I feel good in my body.” Consciousness feels all sorts of things everywhere, as if I were at last fully embodying my body.
The Declaration to the Universe
The arms rise, cross, stretch to the left and to the right (Urdhva Hastasana — stretching the spine and side body), then gently go back along with the head. And Alexandre offers a declaration to the universe, spoken together, out loud:
“I love you. I am sorry. Forgive me. I forgive you everything and I forgive myself everything. All is forgiven. I am life. We are life.”
Hands on the lower back, legs straight, glutes and abs engaged, we lean backward (Anuvittasana — extension of the spine). The lower body stays toned, the back stretches, and with each exhale we send love into the lower back. 💖 Then the right angle again, hands on the floor, legs straightening, and the rise back up in gratitude.
The pelvis draws circles, bigger and bigger, in one direction and then the other. We feel each muscle at work. We surrender to the inner yogi, to presence.
The Frog and the Fire
Squatting in the frog, hands in namaste, gaze straight ahead (Malasana — opening the hips), we practice the breath of fire: brisk exhales, belly drawing in, each at their own pace (Kapalabhati — energizing the body). Blocks under the feet for beginners: everything can be adapted, everything is done gently. Then freedom: keep going, sit down, do some push-ups, or choose your favorite posture.
The Threshold of Sleep
Lying on the belly (Advasana — total release), we inhale fully, and let go. We feel the pleasure of surrendering, of letting everything go, even of disappearing. Alexandre finds an image of striking accuracy: it is the same instant as the one in which we fall asleep. That precise moment when everything settles. 🌙
“Nothing resists life anymore.” Peaceful. Well. Simply there.
What the Elixir Revealed About Love
Seated for the elixir, back straight (Sukhasana — stability and grounding of the pelvis), after the gratitudes for the tribe, for the chestnut chai, for this little organization and the week’s wonderful cast, a series of mantras opens the heart: “I dare to say I love you,” I allow myself to love, I allow myself to be loved. I have the right.
Gratitude for being a luminous mirror. Gratitude for daring to name the beauty in each person. Gratitude for creating fantastic goddesses and gods. Gratitude, finally, for a place where we are loved for who we are. ✨
Then an essential realization bursts through: loving commits you to nothing. You can love a person, a dish, a chai. And in loving, the real question becomes: what does loving do to me? How far can I love, surrender, to what ecstasy, what euphoria? The soul answers, aligned: this is why I am writing all of this, so that you can love it.
Then everything changes. Love stops filling gaps; it becomes an experience to live. 💞
And from there an equation of disarming simplicity is born: living = what does this do to me. If I feel what it does to me, I am living. If I forget to listen, I stay in my head. This yoga, this chai, a hug, this voice speaking: what does it do to me? “I choose to live fully. I choose to love fully.”
A final revelation, offered for the first time: mantras are vibrational and energetic commands addressed to the coders of reality. That is why this technology has worked so well for thousands of years. The question becomes: who is uttering the mantra, and from where? From the heart, it vibrates, it transcends, it inspires. And hidden in every mantra, a message of love. An I love you. 🤍
Walking Without an I
The last movement brings the altered state of consciousness into daily life. Barefoot, eyes still blindfolded, we roll up our mat: what does it do to me, this mat under my hands? We discover that we can do everything, even without sight. The temperature of the floor changes underfoot.
Back and head pressed against a wall or a window, we grow taller, suspended from the crown of the head. Keyword: “memorize.” Then: “walk.” Walking in slow motion breaks down each gesture; walking backward, from toes to heel, stretches the lower back. No more thought, no more mind, no more game, no more me: only sensations. 🌿 And if you come across someone, you can offer them a hug.
On the count of three, the eyes open. Visual reality activated. And yet consciousness stays in the feet. The observer receives images, and the walking carries on all by itself. Without an I. Without a me. A taste of the Non-Self, simple and tender.
It receives emotions without taking them personally. Like a baby: it cries, it laughs, it’s angry, it’s sad, no matter. The sponge stops storing everything. It lives ten times more, it takes the time to look at the landscape, at the beauty all around. If someone speaks, it is consciousness that listens, in place of the programs. We still decide, choose and weigh things up, but the first step, what does this do to me, is lived. And that changes everything. 🌅
The Postures of the Session
🧘 Mountain on Tiptoe — Tadasana (variation)
The posture: Standing, rise onto your toes as you inhale, arms suspended upward, back and head very straight, shoulders slightly back. Calves, thighs, glutes and abs contract to turn the body into a stiff plank.
Benefits for the body: Strengthens the calves, thighs and abdominal wall; stretches the shoulders, shoulder blades and spine; develops balance.
🧘 Backbend with Hooked Thumbs — Anuvittasana
The posture: Hands behind the back, thumbs hooked, draw the shoulders well back and gently lean backward while looking up, without forcing, breathing fully.
Benefits for the body: Opens the rib cage and shoulders, stretches the front of the body, makes the spine more supple.
🧘 Standing Forward Fold with Clasped Arms — Uttanasana (clasped-arms variation)
The posture: Hands still clasped behind the back, bend forward as you inhale while the arms rise behind you, thighs engaged, head relaxed.
Benefits for the body: Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings and lower back; encourages circulation toward the head.
🧘 Standing Forward Fold with Hands on the Floor — Uttanasana
The posture: The hands reach the mat, the knees may bend to begin with; press into the mat and gradually straighten the legs as you exhale, inhaling through the nose, exhaling through the mouth.
Benefits for the body: Stretches the whole posterior chain, from the calves to the back; relaxes the nape of the neck; calms the breath.
🧘 The Right Angle — Ardha Uttanasana
The posture: Hands resting on the knees, the back lengthens to horizontal; on the exhale, release everything, then come back up slowly, unrolling from the lower back.
Benefits for the body: Lengthens the spine, stretches the calves and the backs of the thighs, tones the back muscles.
🧘 Side Stretch with Neck Massage — Parsva Urdhva Hastasana
The posture: One arm rises until it stretches the top of the buttock and the lower back, you lean to the opposite side, the heel lifts; the hand of the raised arm then massages the nape and the back of the head in circles, and you change sides.
Benefits for the body: Stretches the side body, the quadratus lumborum and the upper glutes; relaxes the muscles of the neck and nape.
🧘 The Rooted Tree — Tadasana (grounding)
The posture: Standing, feet planted firmly on the floor, imagine roots plunging into the earth, your breath calm and deep.
Benefits for the body: Improves posture and stability, distributes weight across the feet, invites a calm breath.
🧘 Jaw Point Massage — Anatman movement
The posture: Massage the cheeks and jaws while opening the mouth wide, then press the thumbs gently into the point beneath the ears, where the neck meets the jaw, inhaling and then releasing everything.
Benefits for the body: Releases the chewing muscles, relaxes the jaw and upper neck, brings a soothing sensation.
🧘 Chin Circles — Greeva Sanchalana
The posture: The head tips back, the chin draws slow circles, the opposite heel lifts; inhale, release, then change direction.
Benefits for the body: Mobilizes the cervical spine, stretches the neck muscles, releases tension in the shoulders.
🧘 Crossed Raised Arms — Urdhva Hastasana
The posture: The arms rise and cross, pull to the left and then to the right, then arms, hands and head gently go back during the declaration to the universe.
Benefits for the body: Stretches the spine, side body and shoulders; opens the chest breath.
🧘 Backbend with Hands on the Lower Back — Anuvittasana
The posture: Hands on the lower back, legs straight, glutes and abs engaged, lean backward with the lower body toned, sending love into the lower back with each exhale.
Benefits for the body: Makes the spine more supple in extension, strengthens the glutes and abdominals, opens the chest.
🧘 Pelvic Circles — Anatman movement
The posture: Standing, the pelvis draws bigger and bigger circles, in one direction and then the other, with deep breathing.
Benefits for the body: Mobilizes the hips and lower back, activates the abdominal girdle, encourages circulation in the pelvis.
🧘 The Frog with Breath of Fire — Malasana and Kapalabhati
The posture: Squatting, with blocks under the feet if needed, hands in namaste, gaze forward; perform a series of brisk exhales while drawing in the belly, each at their own pace.
Benefits for the body: Opens the hips and groin, strengthens the legs, tones the abdominals and invigorates the breath.
🧘 Relaxation on the Belly — Advasana
The posture: Lying flat on the belly, inhale fully and then release everything, as at the moment of falling asleep.
Benefits for the body: Relaxes all the muscles, releases the back, slows the breathing rate.
🧘 The Elixir Seat — Sukhasana
The posture: Seated, back very straight, head upright, blindfold over the eyes, a cup of chai between the hands, observing the breath at the nose.
Benefits for the body: Stabilizes the pelvis, tones the back muscles, encourages a calm breath.
🧘 Posture Against the Wall — Tadasana (against the wall)
The posture: Back and head pressed against a wall or a window, grow taller as if suspended from the crown of the head, then memorize this alignment.
Benefits for the body: Corrects and memorizes postural alignment, lengthens the spine, opens the shoulders.
🧘 Conscious Walking — Chankramana
The posture: Barefoot, first with eyes closed and then open, walk in slow motion, breaking down each step; walking backward, the toes touch down first and the heel last.
Benefits for the body: Refines proprioception and balance, stretches the lower back when walking backward, gently mobilizes the feet and ankles.
I did not come to please, I came to be myself
love is no longer here to fill gaps, love is here to live something
mantras are simply vibrational and energetic commands for the coders of reality
Voices from the We
A Bereavement Welcomed in Tears 🕊️
“thank you so much Alexandre for this session which made me cry non stop and feel good at the same time..i accept the passing of my 🐕 with whom i would so have loved to go to St Nexans..gratitude” — Françoise
Gratitude and Shared Love 💖
- “Thank youuu, Gratitude, have a beautiful day” — Cécile
- “Thank you so much, have a good day all of you, I love you” — Valérie
- “have an excellent day, kisses!!!” — Rafaël
- “I lovvve you” — Ramda
The Momentum for What Comes Next 🌱
- “I’ll do the laughter yoga next week” — Valérie
Themes: emotions · sovereignty · originality · mutual support · love · tantra · presence · conscious walking
This article was originally written in French: Yoga Anatman : Le secret pour vivre chaque émotion et oser être soi
