What She Said and What She Didn't Say

Before we tear her apart, let's take a closer look at ourselves.

It is easy to forget that each and everyone of us walks through life wearing a thick pair of glasses and a heavy set of blinders.

We each have our own story. We each have had life experiences that have brought us to the place we are standing today.

Broken families, lost loved ones, discrimination.

Ignorance, anger, loneliness.

Passion, love, determination.

There is no doubt that we often wish we could erase some of those dreadful memories from our minds. But if we did, we would not be where we stand today.

There is also a reason we stand here today- because we care. We have felt these feelings of grief and we want to be the ones who do something about it.

Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, first elected female head of state of Africa, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and current President of Liberia visited campus (University for Peace, El Rodeo, Costa Rica) today.

Like at any political appearance, the room was full of curious eyes and vigilant ears.  At a University mandated by the United Nations, with passionate students from 47 different countries around the world, the playing field intensifies.

When you listen to someone speak, anyone speak, you often forget to take off your glasses. Subconsciously, memories are conjured up from your past- experiences that have marked your life, as the limits of the human mind desperately try to grasp what the speaker is saying and make sense of it all. You don't even know it is happening. But, suddenly, you have an opinion based on what you think you heard and how it relates to your life.

Fortunately, you are not alone. We all suffer from these unfortunate human tendencies. We have been so diligently trained to think with our minds and not with our hearts.

There was much that can be analyzed that went wrong today...as with everyday...

Personally, I had a really moving experience. And, while sometimes I would like to have felt otherwise, it would be silly for me not to be completely honest with my own personal experience.

At first, I enjoyed the President's speech. I felt that she spoke from a place in her heart. I felt her words were a reflection of her life experiences and personal truths.

Her Excellency spoke of the importance to demonstrate confidence in oneself. And with that comes strength and courage. Courage to sustain the course that one believes in...so that every obstacle becomes a stepping stone to move onto the next level of success. She asked us to be strong in our convictions.

She told us she was a Grandma.

She also poked fun at the US, saying that Africa and other nations have lead the way for female leaders, "now we're just waiting on the US". She joked that women need to be equal "and greater" than men. And she opinionated that "the greater comes in that we surpass the men in kindness and compassion- maybe, because we are mothers..."I think it is important to not take life so seriously all the time...

Her Excellency asked that we search for inner peace.

As she reflected on moments in her life where she was held captive, she reminded us that the human to human connection is the most important of all.

I felt moved by her words. I could not relate to each and everything she said, but I felt her strong will and her passion and above all, I felt her strength. I felt her inviting us to find our path and walk it: fearlessly.

Some of my classmates had different experiences.

It is very unique to be able to experience such a passionate speech in a room of such intimacy, diverse backgrounds and passionate souls.

I watched classmates who were proud and intrigued to be in such close presence with the President of their own country. I watched females connecting and smiling. I felt students from Costa Rica and from parts of Africa sharing pride over accomplishments.

I also saw sadness and disappointment over awkward silence and direct avoidance. I watched frustration and even the seeds of anger being planted.

My inspiration quickly turned into compassion...and then confusion.

I started writing this note right now, because I felt I needed to be with my feelings. I know they are trying to tell me something.

I realize that the second I take off my glasses, the story in front of me changes. I can easily put on a few different pairs, too. I can put on a pair of LGBT glasses. I can put on a pair of female glasses. I can put on a pair of male glasses. I can put on a pair of African Union glasses. I can put on a pair of Grandma glasses. And the story is suddenly completely different.

I am so grateful to be where I am right here today. And to share in an experience where there can be so much story-sharing and so much growth.

It can also be a little scary. Because suddenly the truth as I know it, as I think it has been, may not actually be the truth at all.

And I wonder how many people out there will actually ever consider removing their glasses at all.

I guess we're all human beings, huh? And we all make mistakes. We all have histories. We all have past conditionings.

Her Excellency is a Grandma.

I spoke with my Grandma yesterday. She makes a lot of mistakes. She says things that embarrass me. She offends people. She is 94. She has lived a life that I know nothing of. She also loves me and teaches me in a way that no one else has the ability to. She is my Grandma. She has her strengths and weaknesses; she, too, is a human being. I learn from the way she loves me and I also learn from the ways things have changed over time.


I could be wrong, but I think sometimes we see people as their positions, and not as another human being. We have those thick glasses on and we forget that the President before us is also a Grandma. I am not defending her or her words. I am just trying to see a bit more of the picture.

There was a point today, where I was upset by what happened. But before I got angry, I started to ask myself some questions.

If anger arises, we can be with it for a moment, because I am sure it is trying to tell us something. But I don't think it is saying "stay angry for long" because I'm sure you will get a belly ache. Picking up a hot coal to throw at someone, you will surely burn yourself first.

I'm not sure judgment is the way to go either, because I have learned from my own past that every time I point a finger at someone, one is pointing back at me.

Figuratively, I think about Her Excellency and I: Let us remove our glasses and take a minute to walk together. We each have our own story, but we all belong to the same humanity. I suppose there are many things we would not agree on. But I am sure I can learn from her story. She may do many things wrong, but she may have done a lot of right along the way also. That does not mean we have to support the wrong. But we can ask ourselves, letting go of the anger "what can I do?"

We can use those feelings, of being angry, or upset, or confused, to compel us to move forward on our path. Use the obstacles as stepping stones towards transformation.

Just don't cling to the anger or judgment for long...

Let us make change from a place of peace.

I Love My Grandma

“I’m right here sitting on my @$$ where the hell do you think I am?”

That was my Grandma in the background of the Skype session I was having with my older sister today.

At one point, she fell asleep sitting up. She does that sometimes. But don’t let her fool you. If you challenge her to a game of shuffle board, ping pong, arm wrestling or Rummi Kub- she is likely to kick your asno (that’s Spanish for a bad word).

And I’m not kidding either. She legitimately beat me in all of those games last summer. I miss her. A lot.

While I was Skyping with my sister and Grams, they were doing an art project. My Grandma used to be a fashion designer. She’s still an artist and if you give her a pencil at the dinner table she will draw you up a nice little sketch on a white napkin. Doesn’t matter if it’s those fancy cloth napkins either- she will curse the waiter right outta there. (unless, of course, he is young and cute and can dance).

Danielle said maybe Grandma was tired today because they went mini-golfing in the morning. Perhaps there’s a bit of short-term memory loss, because Grandma insisted they had only done 2 holes by the time the sign said 18, so, Danielle quickly purchased another round.

Grandma has been golfing for years.

And I mean years. She is 94. I write/talk about her a lot. Actually, I brag. Because she is awesome and she inspires me everyday. More importantly, she makes me smile and laugh until I am crying and she also loves me even in spite of the fact that I do not yet have a rich, cute Italian man.

I’ve been travelling a lot the past few years, so I wondered if Grandma knew where I was this time.

She said, “Sure I do. But where the hell is Cambodia anyways?”

I lived for 2 years in El Salvador and she used to ask me how Guatemala and Africa were all the time. It took until I moved back to NYC for her to ask me if I was still in El Salvador. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Danielle and I keep talking. I watch them sitting around my Aunt’s pretty backyard, painting peacefully.

I hear Grandma in the background. “This dog’s face looks like someone I know.”

She was the one who

painted the dog.

I wonder who she had in mind.

Danielle says that she still has the photo-card that I made for her five years ago posted on her wall downstairs.

That makes me smile.

How Can I Be in Nairobi?

I’m praying for lost souls this morning. 

After a peaceful weekend in nature, I come back to “civil”ization. The News is brimming with death statistics and I ask myself to be, instead, with the souls.

The Navy Yard. The United States. 13.

Nairobi, Kenya. Africa. 68.

The numbers hurt. But they don’t mean anything. The value of one life lost is just as tragic as the value of many. 

S/he was a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a friend.

I have never walked in Kenya, but my mind and heart travel there often. My sister was there last month. Our friend lives in Nairobi. The same friend who captured much of the footage of the Westgate incident with her husband.

This month, I met 3 students from Kenya. One of those students has shared with me many stories of his life.

He did not grow up in Nairobi, but Westgate happened often where he did grow up- we just don’t really hear about it. The News sometimes chooses what we get to hear, especially if we don’t go out looking for more- if we don't talk to real-life people. Sometimes, you don’t even have to go out looking- you just have to stop and listen.

Nature taught me that this weekend. At first, it’s a cloud forest... But when you step inside and you become the rainforest, the rainforest enters you. Suddenly, it’s not a “cloud forest”, it is vibrant greens, bright purple leaves, turquoise blue waters, howling animals, and vibrations of love- all that you did not know existed before. But then you feel it. And you know it is the only truth. This is what is not captured in a statistic of the number of species that exists in a rainforest. It makes me wonder about the same truth that is not captured in the statistics of Westgate.

My friend’s story of growing up in an indigenous community, following a blessed herd of animals and defending himself against warring tribes- that is not captured in the statistics.

I’m praying for lost souls this morning. Not just the ones we lost in the Navy Yard and in Westgate. I am praying for all those who have lost their lives and their story is not heard. I am praying for those young boys in El Salvador, who sometimes don’t have a choice when a man in the form of symbolic letters knocks on their door. I am praying for the children in Ciudad Colon, who have become distracted from their beautiful meaning of existence and taken their own lives. I am praying for my friend’s community in Northern Kenya, who also knows tragedy, warfare, and discrimination.

I am praying for the lost souls who did this. 

I am praying for all of us. 

We are all part of the Navy Yard and Westgate.

We have all lost a loved one. We have all acted out of hate. We have all repented for forgiveness.

As we read the News, let us keep in mind the souls, rather than the statistics. Let us take a moment to be with them.

And as we move forward in our day, let us carry with us compassion.

Ignorance, ego, anger, attachment and fear- they exist within all of us. These are the things that are responsible for the tragedies of the world. These are the things that have stolen our souls.

Let us remember that. In that sense, we know that “Navy Yard” and “Westgate” are labels for incidents that happened in specific locations, but the matter is a world matter. We are all souls seeking love. We all have the capacity for ignorance and anger- the very distractions of the mind that caused these tragedies.

As we move forward, let us ask ourselves what we can do today to cultivate compassion, friendliness and goodwill, so that our mind does not feed into the temptations of the distractions.

I’m praying for those lost souls this morning. I am taking some time to be with them.

More importantly, I am praying for myself. I am turning within and asking myself to find the strength to be who I need to be everyday to cultivate peace and love and not war- in all the forms that it emerges. 

I am not anxiety. I am not jealously. I am not competition.

I am love.

I cannot go to Westgate today. My soul is crying to hug those children. But I know that is not my place today.

What I can do today is be love for those around me. That’s all we can really do at the end of the day, after all, isn’t it? 

Thank God I'm Breathing

Sometimes I lay under the moon and thank God I'm breathing. 

Ever go snorkeling? I love the calming hissing sound of my heart and lungs working for me, as I glide weightlessly through silky cool water; my breath a beautiful rhythm of vibrations.

Sometimes, I wonder if we would all relax a little bit more if we could just hear ourselves breathing.

I think I ended up in the Environmental Program at the University for Peace down here in Costa Rica because I realized, one day, that I don't know what I'd do without the rainbow of colors that exists silently beneath the sea, or the vibrant greens that paint the mountainside and fill my airways with euphoria, or the ability to see up to the Universe of sparkling stars dancing around an elegant moon.

...To lay in the pitch black beneath the moon and give thanks for breathing: a moment that sends chills throughout my spine just thinking about it.

Then I pray, don't take me soon, 'cause I am here for a reason. 

We start class every day with an active listening exercise. To actively listen means to sit and do nothing. You don't talk, you don't ask questions, you don't nod your head. You just sit and listen to your partner's story. You be there with them. This is the most important part. The majority of our lives we spend within our own heads. "We're here but we're really gone," as Alanis Morsette so eloquently put it. It may seem like an easy task to sit and do nothing (unless you meditate, then you know). To be, means to really listen. To hear their words. To feel their feelings. To walk with them.

That was one of the greatest things I've ever learned in life. To walk with people. To become them.

These bodies, this flesh and bones, they create the illusion of separation. The beauty is in the connection.

To actively listen coaxes all of the blessings of the world to emerge.

Patience.
         
        Gratitude.
               
                  Compassion.

We are all here for a reason. When we start to see that, feel that...know it and live it: We become alive.

Sometimes in my tears I drown, but I never let it get me down. 

I listened to my partner's story today. He opened his heart, I looked into his eyes and I stepped into his soul. Together we walked along the northern border of Kenya. We followed the herds of animals. We left our children behind in school yards. We were wounded by warfare with neighboring tribes. We returned for our young ones. We watched as the distances became shorter. We felt the walls of modern structures creating frames around our open pastures. We wondered about the future, about our history, about our right now.

So when negativity surrounds, I know someday it'll all turn around. 

There is hate and destruction, fear and sadness, longing and despair in the world. It surrounds us. Yet for every left, there is also a right. Before we drown, we have the opportunity to swim towards the light. Every stroke in that direction counts.

All my life I've been waiting for, I've been praying for, for the people to say, 
that we don't want to fight no more, there'll be no more wars
and our children will play. 

Sitting silently, I listened as he spoke. I was cross legged with my hands resting in my lap, slightly bend forward. Resting and comfortable. He looked at me, almost smiling, naturally, and spoke in a calm rhythm. His eyes connected with mine and, sometimes, I saw his lips moving, but other times I was in Kenya watching the animals graze.

He told me that with children we can bring people together. One boy will run after another boy, no matter which tribe they belong to. At what age do we lose this ability?

One day. 

         One day. 
          
                   One day

Is it this "one day" that we are waiting for? Is that 'one day' out of reach? Or is it right now? And is it all we have? I often wonder who guarantees me tomorrow.

It's all one day.

What will you do with it?

Look around at all that is alive. Stop searching for something. Take steps... and arrive each moment. Just see the blessings that are all around us right now and be with them.

This is your one day. How will you live it?

"Actively listening".

There is so much constant sound around us, and usually we don't even hear it- just the parts we want to.  

The world can be an ocean waiting to drown you, if you see it that way. It may also be a vast water of cool heaven that flutters with vibrant colors of life and helps you to hear your own breathing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl9voSKJmEU
"One Day" Matisyahu.

Falling In Love

I fell in love this weekend in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. And it was on more than one occasion.

All the love culminated in one embrace with Jorge, the wrinkley old Tico who sold me my pure cacao and pure coconut oil treasures. The smell of dirty rum on his breath felt savory in my nostrils and through his sunburnt skin I read his story. Every day he stands in that same spot, selling fresh fruit and super foods to passerbyers and tourists- mostly tourists. Everyday he is there. All, but one. He missed one day in the past year. It was yesterday. Yesterday, he went to visit his mother- hi 84 year old mother who lives on the other side of the country. He hadn’t seen her in a year, he tells me, but he calls her every single day. He giggles with a twinkle in his eyes. For a moment, they become the eyes of his mother and I can feel the warmth that she passed on to him.

And then gets back to telling me about the healing properties of cacao and coconut. I realize that maybe I already read about this all before, but it sounds new and beautiful, with the sweet sound of his native tongue, sung from passionate soul.

I fell in love with the painted landscape of vibrant greens and thirst-quenching blues- the white sand that created a blanket for my body to rest between a joyful jungle and a serene sea.

Deep laughter with friends. Fun conversations with dreadlocked visionaries.

Swimming dogs and island jumping.

Paddle boards and blessed bike rides.

Ping pong and yoga, volleyball and naps in the shade.

Hammocks.

To fall in love with the sloth may be the most simplest feat of all. The slow and deliberate movements, the careful reaching and careless dangling: tell me how not to love in their presence?

The bliss of salt water than stings at your eyes and a sunburnt forehead.

A mama monkey carrying her baby, looking down at you in concern. For what do we come into their world? Such curiosity. Such compassion. Such concern.

How often do we take a moment to breathe and look into our surroundings?

To breathe and embrace the greatness that is offered to us everyday.

To feel life. To be it.

Sometimes we see what we have come to see. And, oh, how that inhibits the potential of all that the world has to offer us.

Listening to little old Jorge speak with such love, compassion and laughter brought me back to El Salvador- where lovely old ladies taught me how to make tortillas. His voice brought me back to Thailand, where guys on the beach fetched me fresh cocos. His twinkling eyes showed the image of my Grandma and all the ways she showed me how to love life.

I loved that little old man.

And I love to continue falling in love.  To re-live my most beautiful memories. To feel it all over again.

It is the most revitalizing power.

And the beauty of love is that to experience it, it must be shared… with someone or something. So, when we love, we spread the love.

Be a kid again. Feel the wind on your skin. Peddle fast on a bike. Climb a tree. Swim underwater. Listen to the birds. Talk to a stranger.

Keep an open mind. Embrace what is before you.

Love exists everywhere. You just need to be open to it. 

Whose Peace? Whose Poverty?

Graduate School sucks (1).

It's been awhile since my last post and I felt I needed to be totally honest about a few things...so let me start with that.

Actually, wait. More importantly: Let's take care of administrative stuff first, as that is the first thing I learned in Graduate School...

You may have noticed I changed the name of my blog from "Live by Happiness" to something else that has quite a different ring to it. After a long personal quest for happiness, which included interviews in foreign lands (and by that I mean conversations) and many hours of consultations with the higher power (and by that I mean meditation) I became more and more uncomfortable with the title of my blog; It just didn't resonate with me anymore.

Hold on, that brings me to an important issue of mine that I want to say something about, so, actually, let me start there: Resonate. For the past few years, on this quest for happiness, I have really decided to listen to my heart, my intuition, the things that resonate with me. This has made for quite a remarkable journey as it allows me to be my most true self and I really do appreciate that, because when I have tried to be something other than me (i.e. an intern in Finance) I found the uniform quite uncomfortable.

And so, when I came to changing the title of my blog, I began to ask myself, "well why am I really writing here?" And so, then, in an effort to be my most true self and uphold a vow to honesty that I had bamboo-d into my back a few months ago, I realized that perhaps why I started this blog is not the same reason I am writing today.

So, before I go anywhere, let me be honest about why I started this blog.

I started this blog in 2009, when I was packing up to head out to West Africa to serve as a development volunteer (or some may say "peace keeper") for the United States Peace Corps. The purpose of the blog was merely a place I could post short stories about my life to keep family and friends updated, since I was informed that my internet connection and cell service would be quite limited.

I did not, in fact, ever make it to Africa, as the Peace Corps program was deemed "unsafe" conveniently one month after I quite my job as the finance intern.

And so, the blog finally became live in 2010, when eventually some US Government Official evaluated the safety of a gang-ridden-resourcepoor-economically-and-politically-unstable-but-more-importantly-extremely-violent country to be perfect for Peace Corps and so I landed happily in El Salvador.

I did, in fact, live there happily for 2 fine years in the countryside, pooping (only when infected with parasites, of course, because otherwise I am a dainty female who frequently pedicures and rarely cusses) outdoors, playing soccer with kiddies and doing my best to speak a spanish-lingo I often tried to assimilate back into New York City (with much less success than I had with my Thai yoga pants).

It was, then, in El Salvador, albeit the gun-to-my-head experiences, that I learned the true meaning (for me) of happiness. Which I can take a minute to define, for those who did not follow allow during the pre-'Peace and Poverty' era. Happiness:

• licking sticky mango fingers with neighborhood cuties
• making tortillas with wrinkly old ladies
• bathing beneath a waterfall
• hand washing clothes with a little bicho by your side singing "mi nina bonita"
• the freedom to be whoever it is you want to be
• dirty clothes, gross toe nails, sweaty armpits
• frijoles borrachos 
• living life: feeling. experiencing. laughing. loving. crying. caring.

I made a promise one day, as I walked out my house early at 5am one morning. I'll never forget that promise because I could never really get over that ear-piercing sound of the first morning rooster. That, and the fact that I was so sick (literally) of nearly not making it to the outhouse. Anyways, the misty mountains enveloping the countryside took my breath away and I felt the world stop spinning and every cell in my body stop moving and I wanted that feeling to last forever. And it did and it did not- for that is the nonduality of life. You can't have one without the other. 

Point being, I knew I was where I was meant to be and I wanted to be just perfectly as I was in that moment forever. 

It did not matter my clothes. It did not matter my stomach infection. It did not matter what I thought I knew or what I thought I was going to do. 

The only thing that mattered was that moment. It was all I had.

So, I made a promise, that whenever I had a moment like that, I would hold on to it. If something resonated with me, it was my inner truth speaking to me, and I needed to roll with it. 

And so, I get back to one of my lesser important points of the overall point of this blog (which is that Graduate School sucks). The lesser point, is that I started this blog to share my story, and I named it Live By Happiness because I was writing about my quest for the "new" kind of happiness, which I discovered living in El Salvador.

But, as times change, so my ongoing experiments with happiness have lead me on a deeper quest. For, I came to realize that happiness is a label which, for some, is ephemeral. In fact, perhaps some do not seek happiness at all, and definitions of happiness there are many. 

I have since replaced the quest for happiness, with the quest for inner peace and wellbeing...as 'wellbeing' is a more measurable statistic that takes into account many factors of an individual's life that could, some say, create lasting happiness. While the importance and weight of each factor may vary, it is safe to say that these essential elements, namely Financial, Career, Physical Health, Social and Community engagement (Gallup), are all things that contribute to an individual's state of optimal wellbeing. 

And, so, for a person who is passionate about peace work, I started to become extremely interested in talking to individuals, to get a sense of their overall wellbeing.

This came from a very personal space.

You see, as a "white" girl from the US living in rural El Salvador, I noticed many young women talking to me as if they envied me.

And, yet, when the doors closed at the end of the night to my tiny lonely hut, I so wished to live a life much more simply as my Salvadoran neighbors. I wished to have family and friends constantly around. I longed to have the time to say "hello, how are you?" to each person I passed by on the street and actually listen to their response. I wanted to live more than just two years, without a pounding heart and without racing the clock. I actually waited for the moment that my best-Salvadoran-friend's family would curse each other (as we did quite regularly in my New York home)... And that moment never happened. 

So, why is it that these so-called "developed nations" are so revered in the statistics, in the media, in the minds of the masses? What message are we sending the world when we compare each other's "successes" by GDP and statistics that don't tell the story of our suicidal citizens? When did human feelings and experience (what some may call life)- when did those things become less important than the numbers? 

And so, while I stand by the original purpose of my blog- to share my story- to speak my mind- to create a space for thought- I also would like to open the arena to something I am quite passionate about: digging deeper into the meanings of peace and poverty. 

But that forces me to ask the question: whose peace are we talking about? Because what peace means to me, is quite different than peace for you. And, while my Peace Corps work may lead you to believe that I set foot in the world of poverty, let me tell you that the poverty I lived and experienced and felt and saw in the United States was much more extreme that the poverty I lived for two years in El Salvador.

My prior life in New York, I was living a poverty of the human soul; Sacrificing my happiness, my love, my inner talents and gifts in the name of financial gain, competition and stress. To be honest, I'm not sure how often I stopped to recognize that I was even truly alive- and is that not the greatest sin of all? Not to appreciate life? 

Between 2010-2012 I had the privilege to work alongside some of the most beautiful, humble, skillful, eloquent, grounded, fun-loving, endearing, compassionate, resource-poor people in the world in El Salvador. I learned more there than any other era of my life and I can honestly say, that almost everyday in El Salvador I took a moment to appreciate life.

So, when we think about poverty...violence... development- whose are we talking about? What do "you" know about "them", and since when can "one" define the "other"?

And, so, that brings me to my point:

Graduate School sucks (2).

Because I have to think about things like this. 

And I often find myself ending up much like this blog- right back where I started.

____________________________________
Footnotes
(1) Graduate school does not actually suck.
(2) Whose suck?