In a short three years, Lili Barbery-Coulon, a former journalist for beauty and well-being at Vogue magazine and M le Monde, has become a well-known author and yoga kundalini professor who is committed to ecology.
Since the beginning of the confinement she has shared her thoughts by live Insta-streaming. The thousands of women and men who follow her Instagram account admire her transformation, brought on by her radical awareness.
She shares with us her thoughts on an accelerated change in behavior and consciousness that is required for any type of change.
Sandrine Maggiani: You are already very active on Instagram, especially in “stories”. Is live-streaming currently changing our relationship with the experience of “remote real time” and our relationship to sharing and self-image?
Lili Barbery: Yes and I’m thrilled with this momentum for helping each other that is emerging on social networks. People are lending a hand everywhere. We “spontaneously” make our talents available collectively. This unprecedented situation gives rise to new spaces for dialogue, new voices.
These novel times let many people free themselves from their limits to their own existence that are often more alienating than the confinement we are currently experiencing.
SM: As a professor of Kundalini yoga, but also an entrepreneur in the wellness area, what are the rapid – and potentially long-lasting – changes you perceive in how we consume?
LB: Currently, three billion of us are confined at the same time. Whatever our confinement conditions, we must adapt. This quarantine, never seen before in History, is helping us to be conscious of what’s essential in our existence.
Our needs in terms of what we consume have also been overturned. Nothing can be more precious than our health or that of those close to us. Reducing one’ s consumption, re-creating physical connection and being in contact with nature…as soon as possible.
Image: JULIE ANSIAU
SM: Do these changes predict a lasting surge of solidarity and generosity that is digitized indeed, but real?
LB: I hope that we will pass from an individual to a collective era in all mediums. Priorities are now being seen in a new light.
The most striking example is our collective awareness that our health impacts the rest of the world. Besides preventing us from getting sick, good gestures of hygiene let us protect others as well as those who are more fragile.
SM: After a journalistic career as a beauty, what enduring signs do your perceive, in the beauty and wellness areas?
LB: I don’t know if one could refer to me now as a beauty expert since my big shift distances me from the cosmetic obsessions I used to have. My daily rituals are minimal now and 100% natural. In my practice, many women want to get back to the essential.
I would say that in all consumer sectors, only the brands who have become conscious of the era’s essential needs and know how to adapt will be tomorrow’s winners. This means to take action.
Sincerely committing yourself to making a positive impact on :
- individual and collective health
- everything that is alive (the planet and everything that lives on its surface)
- respecting humans (being ethical in manufacturing and the value and production chain, respecting clients …).
I believe that the underlying trend known as “body positive”, that advocates being authentic when representing each body’s diversity, is here to last.
Image: JULIE ANSIAU
SM: How do you explain this multigenerational openness to spirituality?
LB: When all the foundations on which our internal and external security was built collapse, we need to find meaning in our existence. Thanks to the democratisation of individual and collective teachings such as yoga and meditation, spirituality is freed from religious and sectarian clichés…
Today even more so, spirituality responds to a need to reweave the links and rituals that unite us. Connecting with our consciousness to transform our lives in order to be aligned with our individual and universal values.
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