A Cup of Tea Anyone?

What a pleasure to host a podcast with VoiceAmerica. I joined in December 2022 and started “Tea Break with” podcast in January 2023. Best Christmas gift I gave myself. Never thought I would enjoy it so much. Thanks to VoiceAmerica, I discovered that I love interviewing people, sharing ideas, getting their stories, thoughts, and learning with them a great way to transmit complex ideas as simply as possible to a public eager to learn about the new consciousness. After all, life is simple. Only our dualistic minds make things complicated.

Who is Viviane Casimir? I am the founder and coach of Myoku, a Zen mind-body alignment for inner peace and self-transformation with meditation and martial arts movements. I am 2^nd dan in Kyokushin karate (IKO); I have a certificate in Tai chi Chuan from NY Shaolin Center, and I am a member of the Kwan Um School of Zen. But, beyond all of that, I am passionate about what I do and am pleased to contribute to raising consciousness on the planet in any way I can.

Why such a title “Tea Break with” for a Podcast? VoiceAmerica invited me to join the category “Empowerment & Leadership.” I was already doing a Myoku Zoom interview series entitled “Tea-Break with…” It was about inspiring people in my international community with great stories to tell. Tea is just an icon symbolizing a friendly discussion. When I had to pick a title for the podcast, it dawned on me that the same title would be very à propos since, from a Zen perspective, it refers to Zen stories and koans. In many Zen stories you find masters sharing tea, challenging their disciples with tea koans, and making references to “tea.” And we often read in Zen books about a master replying, “Go drink tea!” in situations where more awareness is required. Then, my slogan for the podcast became: “If coffee wakes you up, tea awakens you.” Yes, of course, I drink oolong tea and Ayurvedic herbal tea. But I also drink coffee occasionally.

Why “new consciousness” as the subject of my podcast? Simple answer: In this beginning of the 21st century, something huge is happening to the planet and humanity. There is an “awakening” on a spiritual level that is obvious to some, less obvious to others, and even less, less obvious to those who resist it. Some call it “chaos,” “transition,” “evolution,” etc. No matter the expression, the concept, the metaphor, or the euphemism we are using, it comes down to a deep shift of consciousness that we must align with if we want to move humanity forward to a better place. It is a difficult, serious, and empowering phase we are going through socially, politically, economically, culturally, philosophically, and environmentally. It has become an existential question. Let’s be real: any big shift of paradigm/consciousness takes time to settle in societies. Quantum theory is from the turn of the 20^th century and yet it is only now that we, culturally, are open to it. Quantum theory may not change your daily life directly, but it opened a new window for scientists and philosophers to approach reality, the cosmos, medicine, technology, and the mind-body evolution (epigenetics, neuroscience, etc.). In a similar context, the apple may fall from the tree (force of attraction by gravity), but if we want to travel in the cosmos, we will have to shift our understanding of gravity to a distortion of space-time (quantum view) and not simply as a force of attraction. In sum, in today’s reality of chaos in our limited understanding of reality, we need to shift our consciousness to face what is.

“New consciousness” is about shifting our mind from duality to “oneness” and all that it implies at all levels of human societies. The concept “oneness” is not new per se. Oneness is at the core of Eastern spiritualities. But it is new in the sense that it is no longer exclusive to spirituality. It is becoming the new “standard” in modern Western way of life affecting business (conscious business), management (conscious leadership), etc. We are still at dawn of this new consciousness movement. However, the awakening in people’s lives is slowly happening. To face what is and will be on the planet, we need to transform ourselves not through fear and anger, but with simplicity, compassion, and awareness if we want humanity to evolve for the better.

“Tea Break with” is a monthly podcast to address the core aspect of the new consciousness, the self-transformation and self-realization, and aims at offering tools, reflections, directions, and suggestions from different fields of expertise to help people understand, open their minds, empower themselves and be aligned with their true nature and life mission.”