'Uketamo', learning to embrace life just as it comes

BarcelonaWhat can you do when you are climbing a five-thousand-meter-high mountain, in the cold, with a lot of fear, and without oxygen? Ana found herself in this situation when she was about to summit Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. A sensation that disappeared when she decided to stop controlling everything she felt and return her attention to her body, to the present. Then, only calm remained. She did not know, however, that the most important discovery would come later, upon returning home: her worries continued, but they no longer ruled her life.

To understand that rewarding sensation, she decided to travel to Japan to meet the yamabushi, ascetics who live in contact with nature in the mountains of Dewa Sanzan. For three days, she shared their way of life: without electronic devices, in silence, and with a single word as a response to everything: uketamo. This experience is the starting point of a journey from the north to the south of the country that allowed her to delve into a philosophy that invites receiving life as it comes. Ana Galeote explains this in the book Uketamo. Abrazar la vida tal cual viene (Penguin, 2026).

“During those three days I didn’t even know when I would eat, or when I would sleep, or what challenge we would do or which mountain we would go to. I had no idea about anything. I could only say that one word,” she recalls. Upon ending the stay, she spoke with one of the masters and both reached the conclusion that uketamo was not so much a concept as a sensation: “It is the sensation you find in nature, that of feeling at home. It is feeling, within you, that everything will be fine,” she reflects.

For her, it also means “that whatever happens you are fine, that you are accompanied by a nature greater than you, that you are very small and that your life is too.” A sensation of calm, gratitude, and acceptance that she recognized as the same one she had experienced on Kilimanjaro. “My master told me that there was no need to go to Japan to experience uketamo. What you need is to return to nature to rediscover that sensation you have inside and that makes you feel at home,” she adds.

The word comes from the Japanese verb ukeru, which means to receive. The yamabushi give it the meaning of “accepting unconditionally, with humility and an open heart”. Galeote, however, clarifies that it is not about observing circumstances from the outside or resigning oneself to them. “I receive, but I am in the world, I am part of the circumstances. I do not look at it from the outside, but rather I am here, living what is happening, and the only thing I can do is embrace it. But I do not judge it, I do not resign myself to it. I live it”, he clarifies.

Living with emotions

Throughout the trip, Galeote wanted to discover how this philosophy could be applied to more extreme situations. In Fukushima, where she went to talk to people who had suffered the 2011 nuclear catastrophe, she found an idea that impressed her: “One of them explained to me that in Japan they are deeply rooted in the idea that nature can take everything from us in a second, but it also gives us everything. When there is a catastrophe of these dimensions, you are aware that it can happen and that the only thing you have is others. We have to help each other,” she continues.

The community, she explains, is fundamental in these moments. Although they acknowledged that giving more importance to the group than to the individual can also lead to mental health problems, they considered that, in the face of a tragedy, “what sustains us is the strength of the group, being able to find support in neighbors and family,” Galeote explains.

In Tokyo, on the other hand, she wanted to explore how this philosophy fit into a big city and the contemporary pace of life. There, she discovered Morita therapy, a psychotherapy born in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century that is based on a different conception of emotions. “In the West, when we talk about nature, we usually think of animals and trees, but we don't include the human being. For them, however, we are also part of it,” she explains.

From this perspective, emotions follow the same natural laws as rain, sun, and the seasons. We cannot control them, just as we cannot control it raining. Therefore, instead of trying to manage or eliminate them, Morita therapy proposes continuing to live despite what we feel: “If you have anxiety, you can continue going to work with anxiety, living your life, cooking, or learning. You can continue living with your emotions.”

The proposal is to shift the focus from the problem to everyday experiences and contact with the world. “Even if we are talking about making a coffee, taking a shower, or taking care of plants, these experiences make the attention move away from the problem. You focus on gaining life,” explains Galeote, who highlights an idea that summarizes this way of understanding well-being: “Living is the therapy itself.” Instead of focusing on correcting the emotions that make us uncomfortable, it is about asking ourselves what we can do and continuing to participate in reality.

Making peace with mortality

The Japanese journey also took her to Hiroshima, where she had the opportunity to speak with a survivor of the atomic bomb. The woman had been able to transform that devastating experience into a purpose that gave her reasons to carry on: now she is a peace activist. "She had processed and accepted what she had lived through, and had turned it into strength to move forward, even in her old age," she says with emotion.

The final stop was Okinawa, where Galeote wanted to address one of the most difficult questions of all: can we accept our own death? There she discovered a family practice where relatives gather every year around a meal at the graves of their ancestors. Death, in this conception, does not represent a separation, but a continuity of humanity: each person is part of something greater than themselves.

After the entire journey, Galeote's conclusion is that the best way to accept one's own mortality is to live fully. "That when that last day arrives, you can say: how well I have lived, how I have enjoyed this life," concludes the author, who says goodbye with one word: uketamo.