Inspiration
Articles to inspire authentic living on the topics of resilience, spirituality, and self-growth with touches of storytelling, depth, and humor.
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The gift of learning how to be authentic
My cousin’s birthday was the perfect excuse. We met in New York City for a weekend of celebrations, including eating, dancing, stories, and laughs. As several of my cousins and their significant others were laughing in the middle of a nightclub, I felt my eyes swelling up. No, I wasn’t sad. I just felt this incredible expansion on my chest and immense gratitude for the more than four decades of shared moments with this group of people that I am honored to call family.
The Connection Jackpot
With my heart as complete as it was, feeling extremely lucky for the beautiful relationships that surround me, I got to reflect on the kind of connections that feed my soul. Because let’s be honest, we may have tons of friends, but not every tie makes our heart swell. So, what are the criteria? What makes an acquaintance move from “yes-you-are-fun” to “I-am-a-different-person-because-of-you”? What makes us want to go the distance to cultivate a relationship?
Maybe this will be the theme of this year for me, but I want to spend more time with meaningful people. I just don’t have as much energy to stay in places that don’t elevate me or support me.
How do I define who those people are worth keeping close to?
Don’t Assume: a Prelude To The (Usually) Right Answers
Nothing like being a “why” kind of child to annoy a parent. It is a bottomless well: the more answers you get, the more questions arise. I was that kind of child, and it has taken me hours of therapy and self-help books to understand the effects of that in one’s psyche.
When we are always curious for answers, we are never satisfied with a statement. We need to know where that came from. Why did someone acted that way? Why did we reacted like that? Why that look? Why, why, why….
When I was in my early thirties, I was going through a very difficult time. My head could not get around to understand why someone had hurt me so cruelly. I played different scenarios, tried to put myself in that person’s shoes, questioned if I was in fact the one that was at fault. Through all my years of practicing the “let’s-find-the-reasons” game, I thought that there was always a motive for people’s behavior and even when I did not agree with it, understanding it made it easier to process and let go of any hurt. Was it healthy? I don’t know, but it certainly became a way to understand - and also justify - people’s actions.
While I was in that questioning process, a wise woman taught me a phrase that would become a sort of mantra for me: “don’t fill in the blanks.” It took a lot of repetition until it became second nature. If I did not have all of the absolute information, preferably from its source rather than somebody else’s recount, then I was not going to fill in the black with information I could not prove. I understood that in relationships, as in anything else, we could never take for granted we know the truth or that the other person has understood us unless we talk clearly about it. So, I practiced asking WHY to the people that had me on the dark. (continue)
The Heroic Gardener
Nonno Mario was the first and one of the most important storytellers of my life. He taught me to play domino and chess and whenever he stayed for lunch or dinner I refused to eat so that we could stay at the table while he fed me long after everyone had left. It was our alone time. Afterwards, inevitable, came the stories.
Rules of friendship
There is a cure for every disease, sometimes it arrives too late or not strong enough but independently of the results, we know there is something else that could have be done differently. In the world of heartaches there seems to be an infallible cure: the contact with true friends. For some time now I had questioned a lot the meaning of friendships, especially since I tend to gravitate to fewer meaningful relationships rather than a tide of social acquaintances.
Being forced to redefine my “amigos” (something I am very thankful for), I started asking myself what is that makes a true friend, one of those that we call in time of crisis and are the first ones to hear our great news, those that call you the moment you are thinking about them and those for whom you drop whatever you are doing to run to their sides when they need you. Because life sometimes has very strange ways to teach us, in my moment of greatest doubts in this topic, I have had the opportunity to spend time either in person or by phone with those handful of friends who belong to the inner circle or my trust, most of them traveling thousands of miles to generously give me the wonderful chance of a share wine, dinner or even a few days of great company.
Of Science vs Magic and tribal encounters
There is a saying that states “find your tribe, and love them hard.” If they make me think deeply, raise my spirit and make me laugh, they are my kind of people. I do not take for granted each of our encounters. This was a weekend full of beautiful get-togethers. Last night, our very diverse “tribe” got together for our annual Christmas celebration. I won’t deny that a few Tito’s and homemade coquitos later we were having lots of fun. I know it because my eyes started crying the way they do when I am laughing hard. In this particular group there are doctors, lawyers, artists, agnostics, religious followers and low-key “witches”, which helps transform every conversation into a diverse ground of interesting ideas and points of view. In a split of a second, the conversation turned from rules for our gift exchange to a deep topic: Science vs. Magic.
Being raised in a house by doctors, researchers and a self-taught computer coder, science was discussed regularly. However, my parents could discuss medical findings during Sunday lunch with the same passion that they shared holistic techniques and the power of believing in the extraordinary. That was a perfect ground to allow my analytical brain to reconcile with my highly intuitive, artistic soul. In other words, growing up we never had to favor one above the other, something I am beyond grateful for.
The Ephemeral Line with Eternal Repercussion
Maybe because I have always liked stories, or because I always enjoyed reading or maybe just because I was raised watching soap operas, but I always see life in chapters. There are plots, and subplots, beginnings and ends, and a hundred chapters that accumulate stories of one single theme. As if life was a collection of short essays. Lately, among the several topics that have been amalgamating in my brain, there has been one that keeps circling back. Today while I was listening to the radio, the host was talking about smiles. Bingo!!!! That was my call to go deep in the subject since so many conversations and thoughts kept going back to it.
On the radio, they were discussing if showing teeth in a big grin is actually a sign of aggressiveness. My first instinct is that is the most ridiculous idea ever. But the fact is that the first time that I had to face that idea was almost 15 years ago and since then I had revisited the discussion in an infinitive number of brain deliberations. At that time, I was working as a documentary photographer and I had the wonderful opportunity to take a workshop with my all-time, absolutely favorite role model in the arena and undoubtedly one of the best legendary photographers alive at the time.
Happy valentine’s day!
Thinking today that in this era of fact checking, google, wikipedia, bias media, even Alexa, there is only one place where the facts are not as important as the perceived truths: relationships. In every relationship bonded by love and/or affection what we do and what we say does not hold most value if is not aligned with how it is perceived. We can be as good as we think we are, as loyal as we strive for, as affectionate as a teddy bear, but if the other end does not perceive it as that, then the message gets lost in translation. So for all the lovers out there, don’t be content with sending the right message. Make sure it arrives safely to your intended destination.
The Premise of Unconditional Love
For several weeks now there has been a topic circling in my head: unconditional love.
I have jotted several ideas, go back and forth in arguments and it has been hard to come up with an answer to my question: does loving unconditionally means supporting every single decision our loved ones make? Where is the line that divides unconditional from self-love?
If I put the mom’s hat on, I have to admit there seems to be no purer form of love than the one we profess our children, partly because it comes with the innate desire to protect like a lioness with all of our jaws and hoofs; to support and to encourage; to wanting to keep them away from suffering but to incite them to fly on their own.
The spouse’s hat is peculiar because it also means “I love you because we are a team and I promise to renew our vote everyday while keeping my ego as tamed as possible." Your heart swells because besides many other things, the sum is better than the parts.
I have always envisioned the friend’s hat as a steel helmet. I want to put my whole armor to fight with them whatever battle they are facing, regardless if I think there is a chance of winning or if the fight makes sense. That is the time when I know that a friendship is held by love and respect rather than circumstances.
But what happens when we don’t agree with our loved ones' decisions or opinions? Should our love pick up the pieces of our discordancies? Or should our love stand tall beside the tree of honesty?
Things that happen in a commuter train....
Rush hour train from New York City to Connecticut. I am lucky enough to find a comfortable seat on a busy ride. Commuters are carrying their briefcases, their coats, hats, umbrellas, laptops and tablets. Lots of noise cancelling headphones.
I decide to write for a while until I get distracted by a fellow passenger. In front of me, three people share a bench, their elbows and knees touching. In the middle, a man probably reaching his 70s is on his phone, what is left of his white hair carefully arranged. It is not that I am curious, but his phone is held high on plain sight, so I read as I always do.
He is on a dating app, don’t ask me which because that is not a domain I am familiar with. Now he has my full attention.
He goes to see his daily matches. A full list of women come up. I find myself judging along: “this one seems trustworthy,” “too much plastic surgery,” “too young for him.”
Analogies between painting and life
Maybe it is because of the rainy, melancholic day but I have been thinking a lot today about our reasons for quitting either be a painting, a goal, a team, a relationship.
Artists get asked often how do they know a painting is done. In my case, I can put my brushes away the moment I feel the painting breathes on its own, it looks back and me and I change (even if is slightly) every time I look at it. Being that the standard, it is very easy to know when a painting is not done as well.