Returning Home to Stillness

A conversation with Elena Brower on connection, calm, and the quiet confidence found within

Interview by Elif Köse for Confidence Magazine

Elif: Elena, it’s such a joy to have you here. You have this way of teaching through presence through calm. I’d love to start with something simple but profound: what’s the real difference between calm and being connected?

Elena: Thank you, Elif. I don’t believe I’ve ever thought of them as separate. When I am doing my best to connect inwardly, whether on my yoga mat, on my meditation cushion, or even sitting in silence with tea, calm always follows. The two arise together. Connection creates calm, calm creates connection. When I disappear into practice, only the breath remains, a symptom of both.

Elif: I love that. I’ve noticed many people are searching for peace but don’t realise it’s born from presence, not from trying to fix themselves.

“Calm isn’t something you find, it’s what remains when you stop forcing and start listening.”

Elena: Exactly. I come to the mat, but my mind is elsewhere. The practice of presence is the bridge, and the breath is the way across. When I stop manipulating the breath, stop forcing, striving, performing, I can connect. That’s when calm becomes who I am and what I bring.

Elif: You speak so much about intuition. Many women say, “I don’t feel ready yet.” I always tell them, readiness isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision. How do we start listening to that inner whisper again?

Elena: First, know that there’s nothing missing in you. The whisper is already there. We tend to cover it with layers: responsibilities, identities, addictions, busyness, the noise of doing. The practice is about letting those layers drop.

When you feel the whisper, that tug that keeps coming back, give it space. Don’t rush. Let weeks or months pass, but begin to make small movements toward it. Every whisper you honour builds trust.

And if you can’t hear it yet, practice. Yoga, breathwork, stillness. These aren’t luxuries; they’re tools that attune us to the frequency of intuition until we can’t ignore it.

Elif: You mentioned leaving Italy after that moment of awakening, realising you weren’t living the life that was true for you. That takes courage.

Elena: It was terrifying. I had no idea if I could make a living teaching yoga back then. But I knew I had to follow it… I left my beautiful apartment by the river, the comfort, and moved back to New York to begin again, first teaching art to children, then training to teach yoga.

I keep reminding myself, even now, 30 years later… follow your spirit, what will happen next is what will heal your heart. That keeps being true, even when it takes time to become obvious to me. 

“Connection creates calm. When I disappear into the practice, only the breath remains.”

Elif: Your new book, Hold Nothing, feels like a culmination of your work and life. What do you hope readers will find within its pages?

Elena: Tenderness. It’s a series of stories, small moments of humility, parenting, partnership, loss, work, art, followed by gentle prompts. A friend who read it early on reported back, “It’s like a series of permission slips to be tender with yourself.” Which is precisely what I’d hoped for. It’s not a manual–it’s an invitation to soften, to let the unnecessary fall away, and to return to the intimacy of being with yourself.

Elif: You’ve written about losing your mother, and how that helped you learn to trust yourself more deeply.

“Follow your spirit; what happens next is what heals your heart.”

Elena: Yes. In the moment she passed, I didn’t understand what was happening, but later I realised it was a sort of transmission, the passing on of a lineage–a trust, a knowing. And a not-knowing too. Grief can feel like breaking, but sometimes it’s a doorway into strength. These moments teach us that we’re responsible for how we meet life, even when it hurts.

Elif: So, as we close this year, a season of reflection, resolutions, and love, what would you say to a woman standing at the edge of change, scared but hopeful?

Elena: Be gentle. No need to rush your becoming. Take one breath, one choice, one moment at a time. Everything you need is already within you. The practice,  whether breath, stillness, or creativity, is the way home.