Inspiration
Articles to inspire authentic living on the topics of resilience, spirituality, and self-growth with touches of storytelling, depth, and humor.
You can browse themes below
Do you want to explore other resources? Check my favorite books and podcasts
Alexa, who am I?
We live in an era where we no longer have to take the time to type a question. We say it aloud to Alexa, Siri, or AI, and in a moment, we receive answers with apparent accuracy. So our minds have gotten used to relying on one source without going deeper.
2022: Time To Unleash my Inner Child
Sometimes we have plans that can dissolve like sand in our hands in a second. 2021 has been a trying year in so many aspects. Experience has shown me that we always experience a year of constant challenges in our lives' cycles, followed by a time of appreciated growth. I don't know how we ended up with two years back-to-back of continuous blows. I guess I can only speak of myself, but I am exhausted. I have been exhausted for a while, numb, and at times hopeless.
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.
Of Finding Our Purpose and Calling on Magic
I always joke that I have a Librarian Complex. Not only because I obviously love books - the actual physical books, not just reading – but also because I love to organize and categorize everything: information, ideas, feelings, facial features, personality types…you name it! Maybe it was because my brain worked that way that from a very young age I started seeing my life as a series of puzzle pieces, each representing things I was either good at or that I loved to do. One piece, for example, was my passion to create constantly. Another one was my interest in building communities. I was the child always organizing groups, bringing people together through common interests. Later on, when I had a short stint doing theater, I discovered that I really loved creating experiences where people felt transported. As I started growing up and all these pieces started fitting into each other I realized they contain my purpose. What a great feeling to start discovering what we came to do in this world! I feel my “Purpose Puzzle” is still evolving and I can identify pieces that still haven’t fit there, but I know they eventually will.
The last couple of years have offered me the opportunity of immense growth, although sometimes they have come like axes that have as well left me terribly bruised. The beauty of it is that it has brought me closer to find my purpose, and I am grateful for that.
Back in December an opportunity came for me out of the blue.
Living Authentically, with open wings
Blame it on my artist’s heart but here has always been a certainty in me that the only road to happiness comes from living as authentically as we can. Hiding behind a more acceptable persona seems like an incredibly expensive prison. But sometimes honesty and transparency come with a very high price tag as well. I used to believe that those who live portraying an image of who they are not, to be liked by a group of people who don’t even like themselves, had to be in constant anguish. The fear of someone holding a mirror in front of them should be terrifying. And then there are all the lies and all the schemes that need to be strategized in order to support that unstable structure. Nope, too much work for me!
But then I realized how much courage, how much strength it takes to live authentically and I discovered that veracity was not exactly an easy road either. There are internal voices, society rules and expectation, unspoken commitments to keep connections no longer valid, and then our own insecurities that make living in full honesty an unsurmountable task.
Owning Our Wingspan
As a child I tended to be one of the biggest girls of my class. When the nuns at school insisted we walked on a line by height order, I always knew my place was about three spots from the end of the line. I hit puberty too early, so at ten I had almost reached my current, average height of 5’ 5”. Looking older than what I was became the norm. In fact, when I was twelve years-old people assumed my sister and I were twins when in reality she is five years older.
Being naturally shy, I did not like the attention. Adults will comment how much I was growing, as if I had any responsibility on it. So I came out with a solution to my desire to become invisible: slouching. Bending my upper back, moving my neck forward actually made me look a few inches shorter. What I did not anticipate is how that was going to damage my posture. But becoming somewhat invisible seemed more important at the moment. As a consequence, It has taken me so many years of constant workouts and yoga to improve my stance slightly.
As I was scanning old photographs recently, I realized how much older than my friends I looked back then. Seeing it with the perspective that maturity gives, I could not find a reason why did it matter so much then. Why did I try to look smaller then? What did I try to become invisible? Why being higher than my friends did even bothered me?
I love myself and other truths worth learning
One of my goals as a parent has always been to raise kids with healthy self-esteem. Our daughter Isa taught me that we can perfectly love ourselves and accept us with our greatest parts and our areas of improvements without arrogance. When she was four-years-old I found her in front of the mirror looking at herself and saying "I love myself, I love myself.." It was not an affirmation, but rather a casual comment of someone who holds a truth between her hands. That was an enlightening moment for me that made me reflect on my own self-esteem.
Thirteen years later, I found her four-year-old bother, Leo, playing with his toy cars. He was recreating imaginary conversations between the three cars he had in his hands when I heard him say, "I am very smart and I am very good at drawing."
As parents we are bound to make tons of mistakes. It is unavoidable. Today, however, I realized the self esteem lesson is coming across clearly. Or maybe it is the fact that they are both Leos (like in the zodiac sign). Who knows?
Bleeding to life
A warm blanket over my shoulders could not dissipate the angst for waiting for a doctor that was taking forever to show up. A thousand things in my to-do list, my mind going in circles planning how was I going to make the best out of the little time I had left to address my responsibilities of the day. A nurse with apologetic eyes kept coming in and out of the cold room. Finally, the doctor came in. I needed to get a contrast injected into my knee. The catheter was much larger than I expected but I was as collaborative as possible so that I could leave out of there as soon as possible.
The doctor was tall and thin, the kind of person that makes jokes without any inflection of his face muscles in a effort to keep you wondering if he was throwing a joke or filing a complaint. After the third “joke” I was laughing. We discussed politics, kids’ age differences, country of origin, why the doctor had sent me there among a variety of topics. After he removed the catheter he pressed the site and looked at me with a very serious face, or with his regular face, I should say.
“You have very thin blood,” he stated.
I thought for a second. “Is that good or bad?” I asked.
“It all depends,” he mentioned. “If you go to war and get stabbed, that is not good.”
I consider my options for a second. I have no plans of going to war.
“But if you worry about things like blood clots,” he continued, “Then it is really good. It can go either way.”
The Wizard of Us
How do you react when somebody mentions one of your favorite books of all times in the most random circumstances? Where does your mind go considering that is one of the most spiritual enlightening books you have ever read? What if this story let’s you confront your own ideas about magic?
I am not talking about potions and bewitching spells. Rather, I am referring to the magical encounters that give us goosebumps, to the synchronicities, to the sparks that begin with a kiss, in the rejoice found in the perfection of watching a baby sleep, in a stranger’s smile in the moment you must need it. I have always believed in magic and cherish it, not as a way to avoid reality but to elevate our existence by believing there is something greater than ourselves that we can’t explain and that its only mission could be to make ours lives brighter and fuller.
So came the casual reference today to the Wizard of Oz. It was not about the search for courage, heart, brain or home; it was about the moment the curtains opened up and revealed the big Wizard of Oz, the one expected to solve everybody’s problems with his gigantic, powerful skills, was actually a big fraud.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you want to be when you grow up? I have to admit I always enjoyed that question. The thing is that I was a weird kid. I just knew from a very young age what I wanted to be. Since I was 4, I would always have an adult ask me “so, what do you want to be when you grow up?” and I would say in my serious 4 going-on-forty’s voice “I want to be a painter and a writer” And they would say “You are cute. Do you mean like a teacher, or a mom, an astronaut. “No, I want to be a painter and a writer.”
I knew it in my heart, the same way I also knew that there are things I really, really wanted but they were not in my destiny. Like ballet, for example.
Today I was driving when a memory hit me like lighting. I was probably a sophomore or junior in college and as every Sunday we stayed for hours at the dining table talking about our weeks, our lives, our dreams. At that moment I was expressing my life plan: what I was going to study, where, timing to reach my goals, how I was going to make a living, what I was going to do in order to sustain my creative endeavors, etc. I had such a determined plan and I was proud of myself, I felt I was on a roll.
About honesty and pain and watching angels sleep
A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a friend about how sometimes people choose not to tell truths to their loved ones because they are afraid of hurting them. For some reason, some words came through me and I expelled them without filter. The weight of them did not hit me until later. At that moment I told her: “We all have a different level of tolerance for the truth.”
That sank in me….deep.
Yesterday, I stayed a few seconds observing my three-year-old son while he was still asleep. That peaceful face, his cute lips, the way he puts his hands as if he was praying, the glow of innocence. My heart swelled while I rejoiced in the moment, thinking how much I love him and how I want to protect him from pain for the rest of his life. I did the same thing with my daughters too when they were younger but now they had grown and if they find me looking at them while they are sleeping they would probably scream, “moooom, creepy!” So I don’t do it anymore. However that desire to protect them has not evaporated. They have had their shares of pain, and for the most part, I had been completely unable to shield their hearts.
About truths and lies
When the truth steps out to the light for the first time, it is usuallly mistaken with a lie. But only the truth perseveres the pass of time, becoming trees that grow taller and stronger everyday.Lies on the other hand are like weed that reproduce quickly but only become annoyances. When you decide to stick with the truth you are free to enjoy the forest, but when you decide to follow the lies, you are bound to walk looking down in a pasture full of nothing worth enjoying.