Nkechi Njaka - The Integrated Lifestylist
Nkechi Njaka - The Integrated Lifestylist
Nkechi Njaka is a neuroscientist, choreographer and meditation guide in SF. She is the founder of NDN lifestyle studio, co-founder of Sitting Matters, a 2017 YBCA Truth Fellow and an upcoming 2020 Kennedy Center Artist in Residence. Nkechi Njaka is also an SF lululemon ambassador for my work in mindfulness. Nkechi Njaka has spent the majority of her life investigating the relationship between the brain and the body and has always felt the significance of their integration.
What is your definition of freedom? What does it look and feel like to you? And how do you cultivate it daily?
My definition of freedom is the luxury of spaciousness. Freedom feels easy and expansive.
How have your thoughts, perception, and understanding of freedom evolved with time? What was it before and what is it now?
I have always been on a path to freedom. Always seeking freedom, at age 2, I attempted to fly. I jumped off a fireplace only to end up in the hospital in a straight jacket. It was shortly after that I demanded to be in a dance class even though I was too young. They made an exception and I learned how to find my freedom on the ground. I’ve been dancing ever since, and still see movement as a way to dream, heal, self express, and process.
In high school, I began a long and challenging relationship with my own mental health and wellness when I started getting panic attacks. I had my first of many episodes of depression, and I was deeply aware of how my anxiety was negatively affecting my physical body, my ability to be present, and the quality of my life. I arrived at Scripps very interested in understanding how fear and anxiety prevented me from living a fully expressed life in certain circumstances while simultaneously knowing that participatory arts, like my lifelong pursuit of dance, gave me the freedom for self expression.
I attended Scripps College in Claremont, CA where I majored in neuroscience and dance and went on to complete an MSc. in Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh.
Mindfulness meditation and Dance-making are the threads that tie all of my life’s challenges, experiences, feelings, ideas, inquiry, investigations and dreams cohesively. My practice and creative process is my journey to self realization. It is the bridge that embodies my vision to reality and that is where we all belong.
I love creating site-specific work in order to contextualize myself as an artist in space— it feels important and interesting to me that dance can be and is created and viewed publicly. The work is a tangible declaration that I exist no matter what.
We are all on a long journey, collecting information about our identity as we go. This work is about varying complex perspectives and the journey required to find them and integrate them. This work symbolizes the effort, trust and dreaming that makes up our visions. As well as the importance of being seen in that no matter where in the journey we are at that point.
Freedom can feel like something we’re all seeking, but may have trouble grasping. What's one piece of advice or some words of wisdom you can offer to this community as they look to "get free"?
In the practice of mindfulness, we each have the opportunity to create more freedom for ourselves— in our minds, hearts and bodies. Our task is to TRUST the process of the practice. This specific practice is beautifully designed to create more space to be with what is, which reveals to us our very nature— all that is wonderfully complex. When we start to see ourselves, our relationships and our environment as they are, we increase our capacity to be with more, to hold more and to ultimately transform.
Share an anecdote, memory, or practice in your life that embodies freedom in every way.
Both sitting in stillness and expressive movement are the two things in my life that embody my freedom entirely and holistically.
You mention that mindfulness and creativity are crucial for sustaining individual and global wellbeing. what steps did you take to integrate your creative endeavors in your everyday life? And how did it impact you? What advice can you offer to the members of our community struggling to achieve this synergy in their lives?
Yes, I do believe that! The steps I took and continue to take to integrate my creativity is simply honoring that it exists, that it is an expression of who I am and it matters. The more space I have to my creativity, the most honest I felt. In very practical ways, I chose to believe in the things that make me uniquely me are the things that are going to have the greatest impact for my community.
Move towards what feels like an honest expression of yourself and do it. Do it often! Release yourself from feeling time constraints and just chose your art. Whether it’s dance, song, writing, painting, cooking, gardening— there’s a way in which we all express beauty. Even if it’s for 5 minutes. And if your access to it feels out of reach, I invite you to visit a space of beauty— a gallery, museum, nature. Take it all in, be present with what is beautiful.
What is one song that helps you get free?
There are many! Kerala by Bonobo. I wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston. Free by Cat Power, The Greatest by Cat Power.
What is one book that has helped you claim your freedom?
The Artist Way by Julia Cameron
How to Be an Adult in Relationships by David Riccho
The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach