Finding Your 12 Minutes by Tania del Rio

If you're raising a family in Paris, you know that June can feel like a sprint. End-of-year performances and festivities. Final exams, deadlines, the race to secure next year's activities before spaces fill. And somewhere in between, the get-togethers where we all wish each other a relaxing summer. The inner pressure is real. The mental space, at full capacity.

The June Pact

I've been a member of Message Paris for seventeen years, and I've had my share of June Sprints. This week, over lunch with a close friend I met at a Message play group nearly seventeen years ago, we found ourselves remembering The September & June Pact we did years ago. Early in the elementary school years, we realized those two months needed something different: protected space, attention, and energy. Our pact was simple: "Let's always remind each other that September and June need to be treated differently." We still do.

Yoga During Life Sprints

Through every transition I've navigated, I've returned to my yoga practice. That space belongs only to me, on my yoga mat. Where each movement, each breath, each pause is my decision. My home practice has never been about performance. It's simply a place to return to myself. To land in my body.

It wasn't always like this. Over twenty years ago, I was a doctoral student running experiments, analyzing DNA sequences, and quietly accumulating anxiety. People kept suggesting yoga. I kept resisting until one afternoon I stepped out of the lab and into a nearby studio. I ran away even before the first class started. It felt intimidating. Two weeks later, I went back and told myself: Just one class.

I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right teacher.

Yoga offered me something I hadn't experienced before: the ability to gain distance from my thoughts, to use breath to regulate my nervous system, and to understand that it was about the journey, not the destination. I brought that quality of attention back into the lab. Life started to feel more manageable. My research began to move.

I completed my thesis, graduated, and despite some hesitation from people around me, I enrolled into my first yoga teacher training a few months after graduation. I planted the seeds that have led me here.

The 12-Minute Framework

In 2018, I started waking up earlier to fit in a 12-minute meditation before my family woke up. I started paying attention to what was crossing my mind in those 12 minutes: creative ideas, emotions, patterns, worries. So I started journaling. Then I noticed that I was craving movement.

That's how the trilogy took shape: A home practice that included movement, meditation, and journaling.

What made it sustainable was keeping it flexible and gentle. It became my anchor through multiple life transitions, especially during the busier months. The only question I ask on the mat is: What does my body need today?

What the Workshop Offers

I'd like to extend that invitation to you.

This two-hour Reset Workshop on Saturday, May 30 is designed to help you find your own 12 minutes. It is shaped around your life, your rhythm, your needs this month. We'll breathe together, practice together, and you'll have space to think about what small ritual might actually feel inviting. Not one more thing to do, but a space you are looking forward to having.

The shift from I have to to I want to is where everything changes.

You'll leave with practical tools, community support, and a framework for protecting your attention at least 12-minutes a day. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Just today, with an open invitation to repeat it throughout June.

To sign up for this workshop, please click : https://www.messageparis.org/event-details/reset-before-june