The Art of Letting Go
When Mariko Hiyama thinks of wellness, she doesn’t imagine cold-pressed green juices. For her, it all begins with her grandmother’s hands. “As a child, whenever I had body pains, my grandmother would place her hands on me,” she recalls. “She didn’t call it anything—just healing through touch. Today, of course, people know it as Reiki.” Hiyama, a Japanese-born wellness expert who has lived in more than 10 countries and now resides in Hong Kong, embodies the quiet power of Japanese traditions reshaping global ideas about wellbeing. “I carry Japanese ways of thinking, but living abroad has allowed me to integrate them into a broader framework,” she says. If there’s one thread running through Hiyama’s philosophy, it’s danshari. “On the surface, it’s about discarding clutter,” Hiyama explains. “But deeper than that, it’s spiritual. Letting go of attachments—objects, emotions, habits—creates room for growth.” Her nomadic life has been a living laboratory for this idea. “I had to leave things behind. But in shedding what I thought I needed, I discovered energy and clarity.”
She’s not alone in this cultural fusion. Momoyo Nishikami once wore business suits as a saleswoman in Japan, but a personal crisis turned her life around. “After struggling with depression, I discovered yoga,” she says. She opened a yoga studio in Japan, then eventually shut it down to travel to India. “I fell in love—with the country and the people.” For her, Zen wasn’t just a philosophy but a lifeline through depression. “One of the most powerful lessons for me was: don’t just think about others. First be kind to yourself, face yourself, and then offer your kindness to the world.”
Even outside Japan, these ideas are gaining traction. Ankit Jain, a businessman from Delhi, credits them with shifting his mindset. “In India, we cling to chaos,” he laughs. “Japan taught me the art of letting go—of drama, stress, and even emotions that steal your peace.”
AloJapan.com