You hold a Bachelor in Molecular Biology and a Master in Neuroscience. Would you tell us more about your background?
As
a little child, I always knew what I wanted to study. I was fascinated
by the perfection of nature and felt driven to study more about how it
originates all, hence my degrees in molecular biology and genetics.
Later on in my career, I had the opportunity to collaborate on a
research project on Fragile X Syndrome with the MIND Institute in
Sacramento and the National Fragile X Syndrome Foundation in Guatemala.
As I was completing the research project, I knew I wanted to expand my
knowledge and understanding on the brain and molecular neurobiology.
In
2012, I received a scholarship from the Neurasmus program to study
neuroscience and made my way back to Europe. Now that I look back, that
time of my life has probably been the most transformative and
life-changing period so far. I loved every second of it, even when I was
at my lowest. I love neuroscience and the program made me fall deeper
in love with that curiosity of wanting to know and experience “the mind”
at its fullest. In 2014, I graduated from the University of Bordeaux
and University of Coimbra as a MSc in Neuroscience.
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Left: Carlos Salguero / Right: World Peace Initiative Foundation
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While
I was in the middle of my master’s degree I suffered a major breakdown.
I was suffering from depression, severe anxiety episodes, paranoid
events, adrenal fatigue, dysregulations on the whole endocrine system
and on the way to a hypothyroidism, just to name a few. In a matter of
months, my health and mostly my mental health had deteriorated as never
before. As ironic or serendipitous as life is, while I was being
diagnosed with these disorders, I was also studying them at university. I
went to several physicians and none of them offered me a holistic
solution that would get to the root of the problem. From the little
understanding of myself that I had back then, I deeply knew the problem
was in my mind.
As
a result and with the guidance of a wonderful team of experts in
California, I started to dive deep into yoga, meditation and mindfulness
practices, hand in hand with making some necessary lifestyle changes.
In a matter of weeks, I could notice the benefits of strengthening the
mind-body connection and my conditions started to subside. I felt deeply
relieved and somewhat astonished by the awareness I was gaining from
simply sitting with myself and observing my thoughts. I was truly amazed
by the incredible potential of these practices that invite you to
experience life from within and I wondered how come there was so little
scientific research on the topic. From that point on, I have been deeply
involved in the study of yoga, meditation and mindfulness, traveling to
different countries and learning from different teachers and schools of
thought.
When
my health started to improve, I felt more alive, utterly happy, deeply
empowered and enjoyed a vitality never experienced before. I was able to
perform better in less time, all my relationships improved, I felt an
overflowing sense of peace and stillness and I had just discovered a
highly improved quality of life. I always sensed there was more to life,
and I guess I finally felt like this was a life worth living.
"I had found “wellness gold” – it had to be shared"
Don’t
get me wrong, I lived a wonderful life. I had lived in 5 different
countries in 8 years, spoke 5 languages, had a supportive loving family
and a global network of friends and I was on the way of what promised to
be a successful career – yet
I felt as empty as ever. I used to live with the constant chatter on my
mind, chasing worldly pleasures and instant gratification, such as
titles, success stories, material things, social status, the next big
party and any other cue of social success – and while it was all great, I just could not care less about any of it anymore.
At
that time, I thought I had just gone through a small crisis and my life
would finally resume to finish my last year of university. Little did I
know that it had only been the beginning of the transformation. The
next year of my life I underwent a major transformation, on a physical,
emotional and mostly on a mental level. It had been as if the very basis
of my whole existence had been deeply questioned, restructured and I
was now rediscovering the nature of the self, now with a deeper
understanding of the mind.
I
love neuroscience and I highly enjoyed all the years in the field, I
just did not feel the same drive to pursue a career in research now that
I had found what it felt to me like “wellness gold”. I personally had
undergone a major crisis, where using mostly mind-body practices I had
been able to restructure and rewire my brain into a more healthy,
fulfilling, joyful and plentiful life. This had to be shared. It was as
if the purpose of my life had been challenged and redefined to what I do
now. I could no longer devote myself to my lab work and spend years on a
research project. I felt driven to go out there and go deeper into the
experience of the mind and share with the world the very known but
untapped benefits of these millennial practices.
"The purpose of my life had been redefined"
Soon
after my graduation, I took a long journey to the Indian Himalayas and
Thailand, where I studied different meditation traditions, attended
teachings of the Dalai Lama and studied yoga at Ashrams in different
parts of India. Nowadays, I continue to enrich my practice under the
study of different teachers. The experience of my disciplined and deep
meditation and yoga practices never ceases to amaze me. I feel deeply
inspired and motivated to continue to share the long list of benefits of
these millennial practices all around the world.
Yes
and no. Yes, the fear was always present. The mind chatter was
constant: "what if you fail?", "you are committing career suicide", "you
will regret it, you will never be able to come back to science again",
etc. But I had now gained a deeper understanding of the self and the way
the mind works. I stood strong by a deep resilient conviction that this
was the path I was supposed to take and so I did. With time, this
resilient and empowered knowing has only become stronger, finding myself
revered and constantly revitalized, energized and empowered by what I
do every day. I sleep less, enjoy a wealth of well-being, wake up every
day looking forward to what I call my job and I feel so grateful to have
found a new and more suitable lifestyle and career for me.
Two
years ago I co-founded a foundation called Mindful Guatemala, in which
we teach children, teenagers and adults how to use practical
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques to assist
behavioral, emotional and physical issues and to generally improve their
quality of life.
We
are now on the way to becoming a for-purpose organization, raising
awareness of the potential therapeutic benefits of these standardized
techniques, implementing them in national and regional companies,
organizations, schools and foundations as a way to empower individuals
to prevent stress-related conditions and to help them navigate through
difficult situations. In the near future, we aim to support the 8-week
MBSR interventions with scientific evidence.
In
addition, I have been collaborating with an institution that provides
higher education for teens and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders,
where I have been teaching mindfulness, yoga and meditation techniques
for the last 3 years, and observing amazing results in participants with
Autism, Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, among
others. We are now collaborating with a group of psychologists and
physical therapists developing a curriculum on how to teach the
different populations different techniques according to their needs and
our experience in these past years.
My
deepest wish is to be of assistance to bringing forth this convergence
we have been seeing in the last years between Western scientific
research methods and Eastern millennial practices. Why only settle for
one world when we can combine the best of both?
by Stephanie Bianchi
MSc in Neuroscience / Mindful Guatemala
This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science
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