“Creativity, Mindfulness, and Meditation are Sister Practices” -An Interview With Mariana Orkenyi

Growing up in Brazil with parents who practiced Spiritualism Teachings, Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Mariana Orkenyi has forever been drawn to spiritual practices. “At our house, there was time for breathing, a prayer, and a circle, we would read parts of different books, and we would regularly talk about spirituality,” she told Mindful Feminism.

As Mariana got older, she began doing some exploring of her own, dabbling in practices like breathing awareness and Kundalini yoga. She felt attracted to embodied disciplines that reinforced a mind-body connection. And when she left her home country for Mexico and then Barcelona, she regularly incorporated these into her life.

During her 20’s, she got a Masters in Cultural and Arts Management, and in her words, pretty much “flowed” through this second decade of her life.

Mariana’s thirties, however, coincided with a big move to Los Angeles that brought on important changes and trials. “When I moved to LA, I hit a bottom that was really hard for me,” she recalled. “In this bottom, I shut down all the things I’d been doing my whole life, and I was completely disconnected, so I really had to see how I would reshape myself.”