Category: Self-Love Page 1 of 11

In the beginning of the year, I noticed a critical voice in my head. It wasn’t my inner critic—this voice repeated a phrase a supervisor used to refer to colleagues, indirectly referring to me. It may or may not surprise you that it had been over three years since the event happened. Yet, the thought of that phrase lingered and became louder. After feeling stuck, not good enough, and letting it stop me from moving forward on a few projects, I came up with a creative solution. Through meditation and writing prompts, I decided to rewrite my experience with a different ending. I wrote a story about a fictional character, Hayla, who faced the same situation.

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“If I think of you as somehow different from me, if I think that I'm Tibetan, I'm Buddhist, an Easterner, I'm a monk or even something grand like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, this kind of thinking automatically creates a gap between us. It results in a sense of unease. On the other hand, if I consider you as another human being, just like me, then that source of anxiety disappears.” Dalai Lama (Retrieved from Facebook post on July 4^th 2020)

My heart, together with hearts all around the world, feels for all Black Lives. How they are treated, and how the system is set up to hinder their opportunities from birth,  [NY Times article]; how police have at times been trained to treat humans differently based on skin color; and how laws, and policies have not been enough to protect their rights. It is also alarming how the Coronavirus is further demonstrating racial inequalities in Black and Latinx communities [NY Times article].

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Here is a creative activity to do on your own, with roommates, with the kids, or even virtually with a friend. I often write about my adventures painting shoes and clothes, and I thought it would be fun to share my process with you.

Ingredients:

• Fabric ink or silkscreen paint – available at local art shops. If they are closed, check if you could buy from them online. I believe at least Michaels is still shipping products.
• A piece of thick cardboard
• Clips
• A T-shirt you don’t mind painting on
• Paint brushes
• A plastic container with water (mine had ice cream once)
• A sketchbook or pad
• A pencil
• Uplifting music
• This paint dries quickly, make sure to wear an apron and/or clothes you don’t mind getting paint on.

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Before the year ends, how about taking a moment to reflect on all the joyful moments you had throughout the year? A few days ago, I was talking to a friend, who said that he was ready for the year to end. There were several worrisome things happening throughout the year, and he was hoping the new year would be different. When I asked about a few serious concerns from the previous year, he mentioned that all is well, and acknowledged that there were some blessings this year. I don’t think my friend is alone in focusing on the things that were hard, and when adding them up, it becomes even more painful.

Throughout the year, I thought about what brings me joy, as things got tough for different reasons: health, life, work, stress, loud inner critic, etc., and I wanted to add joy to my heart and soul. I reminded myself of what one of my teachers Robert Baker (RIP), used to say: energy follows attention. If we are giving attention to what’s not working, there will be more energy going that way, and it will likely grow.

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I attended the 10-day silent Vipassana retreat last December in Shelburne Falls, MA. It was an incredibly hard and wonderful experience. If you don’t know about it, and would like to learn more, I recommend you visit their website at dhamma.org.

The meditation and Vipassana teachings are provided through recordings of the teacher S. N. Goenka. And one of the phrases he repeats and reminds us of, is that “This will also change”. Everything in life, or within us is impermanent.

Although there were many lessons, transformational experiences, and stories, the one I’m feeling most compelled to share is about nature.

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My sister and I went on a guided tour in Cappadocia, Turkey. The group included tourists from Turkey, from Canada, from Chile, and us from Brazil/US. After visiting several ancient cave sites, we stopped in Avanos, at a pottery business. The set-up is to hear about the business and their pottery making tradition, watch a demonstration, and then shop. During the initial presentation, we learned that the business was 200 years old.

Since I teach Family Business courses, I asked more questions: What generation did he belong to? 6th. Does he have children? Three and the oldest is 14. Are they being trained already to join the business? He said that he wasn’t sure what will happen with the business, since the next generation wants to make money fast, and there isn’t anything fast about this one. Each product is handmade, and some of the designs may take weeks to complete the painting.

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During the last class of the spring semester, I told the students “don’t be afraid to paint your own shoes”. Many of the students were graduating then, or will by the end of the year. It was my way of encouraging them to be authentic, to keep learning, to continue growing and pursuing their chosen careers and passions, and to be themselves. I was wearing the shoes I painted last year, and wrote about here.

When I first started wearing those shoes, part of me was concerned about what others would think. There have been some disapproving comments: “one side looks much better than the other” or “but they’re different!” To which, I’d answer: “they are not different, they are a full painting – you can’t have a garden without the sun, right?” And they would leave me alone. As I felt more at peace with my own artwork, I got more reassuring and supportive responses. Several people said that I should sell them. While I’m not there yet, I may start with a T-shirt collection. In the meantime, I do like the idea of expressing my creativity this way.

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I’ve been reflecting on the experiences I learned and lived in 2016, and in this article I'm sharing a few lessons I’ve known for years, which I was able to experience and embody more fully last year:

1. You only feel judged by someone if you judge your own self.

Although this lesson made a lot of sense to me, I didn’t know how not to feel judged. Every time I felt judged, I started to practice going inward, and checking in. Am I judging myself? Is it something truly relevant here that need to be judged? More often than not I felt judged when others judged me, until this happened…

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Towards the end of 2015 I decided that 2016 would simply be better. There were no rules, no expectations, and no resolutions. I owe many of the decisions I made, trips I took, family I visited, courses I purchased, adventures I got myself into, people I connected with, paintings I created, and retreats I attended, to it.

I also committed myself to sending a hand written card a day for the first 100 days of the year, to people who had impacted my life in small or big ways. I’d like to share the details of this journey with you, in case you’d like to commit to acknowledging others in your life, and to spread joy in a similar way or in your own unique way.

I kept going until the 120^th day of the year, and then I slowed it down. As I write this post I can share that, since January 1^st 2016, I mailed “approximately” (I’ll explain it later) 202 hand written and hand-made cards. After sending the first ten greeting cards, I started hand drawing something on cardstock paper with words that represented the person I was sending the card too. They were personalized, and it brought me great joy to hear that one person had framed the card, while a few others told me they placed it on their fridge, or sent me pictures of it on their walls or altars.

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If you are experiencing pain in this moment, be it towards someone else in your life, towards a loss, towards yourself, towards the past, or towards something you haven’t achieved or become, consider giving it a voice through art. As I’ve shared before, when I started writing Mending a Broken Heart: Lili’s Magic Journey, the goal was to help with my own healing process. I chose the written form as it is my way of expressing myself and healing. I decided to publish it because it would be great for its lessons to be a source of healing for its readers. Another motivation was to encourage people to create art from their pain.

The drawing in this post is my expression of a pain within that was brought up again yesterday. The pain of not fully expressing my needs, of allowing others to behave in a way that is not respectful or kind, of giving others chance after chance to change, while getting the same results. And then, having them make me wrong. No, I’m not wrong to say no more.

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