Je vois la vie en rose

Inside not outside. I make this distinction because i don’t reffer to optimism. I ran into a quote today that explained me better what i mean “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Je vois la vie en rose doesn’t mean that everything i see has a pinkish shadow to it, everything is as it is red, yellow, brown, grey. Covey was saying in his 7 Habits book that the quality of life stand in how one manages the space between perception and reaction to that perception. There are moments when i realize that almost anything we can perceive as an enemy can be transformed into a friend if one has the strength to see beyond his Ego.

If i were to pray, i’d pray to develop the capacity to manage this space with patience, empathy, wisdom and service. Seing things as they are, and processing them as they can be. Surrender and control rolled into one. Maybe that was my chaordic that Lotfi was referring to.

Ina, live learn love. love. love

 

Hide and seek

Last weekend i had a very meaningful conversation with a very inspiring friend. He told me a lot of things that blew my mind, but at one point something he saidresonated deeply within myself  “By denying your emotions, you let go of your intuition to your instinct.”

It’s been on the back of my mind for a week now, repeating over and over in the background. I knew that by denying my emotions i can get sick but i never looked at it from this angle. I wonder how many times in my life i must have mistaken intuition for instict. How many times have i kept myself away from this source of intuition just because i was not brave enough to face my fears?

My mind doesn’t like fears, when i feel things i don’t like feeling my mind will feel threatened and will do anything it can in order to make them go away. I will crawl away from the emotions, hang on to my thoughts and hope everything will go away. Pretty reactive of me. What the repetition of this pattern taught me is that being spared is way different than being saved.

Choosing not to smell the trash under the carpet when it’s there an you know it, it’s like playing hide and seek with yourself. The winner is always also the looser. Easy to talk though and not so easy to manage it when you’re in the grip of it. Emotions are not easy to handle because they involve letting go of the ground of thought where we feel safe and flowing into the sea.  It involves flow not control, understanding not judgement. It’s frightning, more than it’s risky. It makes no sense for the mind, but there is a certain calling from the soul to get in, since it’s anyways there already.

And until that calling is strong enough, i hide in my mind and seek for answers about my emotions while we have no idea what i’m rationalizing about. I wonder if real self awareness require thoughts or just conscious awareness.

Ina, dreaming of intuition 🙂

 

This is home

I was thinking a few years ago if one can have wings and roots in the same time and with a very radical approach i was concluding that you can only have one of the 2, and i was always up for the wings. I have been away from Romania for over an year now, and it’s  interesting to see how i perceive my own culture now, how i relate to my roots and my wings.

If i were to analyze the culture as detached as i could, i would say it’s a culture of HEART, with all emotions that a heart contains. I was talking with a friend that also lives abroad that our culture holds a certain amount of pain and sadness inside it.  It is culture of effort, of striving and of being challenged. It is a culture of rebirth and growth, not self- sustained and not with a long term perspective, nevertheless it has a potential to grow that deserves to be acknowledged.  It is a culture of compassion,  with plenty of opportunities that enable you to grow in compassion  and serve. It is a culture of risk and courage, where one can and will risk security for freedom.

I think there are no good or bad cultures, nor good or bad traits of a culture. There are environments where, in behavior terms, some traits can be your best friends, and other environments where they can be your worst enemies.

I don’t want to underestimate the power of the culture i grew up in when it comes to the effect it had on my patterns and behaviors, there are specific traits that seem to be market in my DNA, and there are a lot of others that i was so scripted in that at times, it seems mission impossible to reverse that. But behaviors can change, and so can mindsets. With concentration and determination patterns can be broken, and eventually one can look at life from the other side of the glass.

What one can’t reverse is the emotional legacy that these roots left. I think now that at a deeper level, the content doesn’t matter much, what matters is the structure of this legacy and how one deals with it.  The energy of all this pain, effort, courage, compassion, risk, rebirth all expressed through my family that got to me, and i am made of this energy. Like the pith of a plant, it makes no difference for the plant what that pith is made of, nevertheless that’s all that matters. A plant couldn’t look at the sun if it wasn’t for the pith that flows through it because it wouldn’t exist anymore. And i couldn’t dream and grow wings, if it wasn’t one with this energy.

I feel like a kid that has no judgement over what and why and it’s just grateful to have been the result of this combination, of having been given the chance to be and to become. That’s where i feel my roots.

http://www.trilulilu.ro/maroelva/0827ac9fdd653d

Ina, i don’t know how to explain it. i just feel it

 

Lapse of reason

It took me an year to start writing again, and as i started i realized it’s way harder for me to write now than before. In the past, i used writing and words, to explain to myself the world, to attach meaning, to state some points. What happens now, is that i realized it’s hard for me to write without letting my ego self interfere in the process.

If i would write like before, and often that’s the tendency, i feel like the feminine version of John Cage, from Ally Mcbeal: i have a point, i state it wisely, but in the end, i’m just joggling with the truth.

The last time i stated something with conviction was last week, and what i realized is that by being so opiniated on the issue, my ego transformed it into a mental possesion that i had to defend in front of anyone that didn’t agree with it.  There was no difference between me and a kid that’s holding on to his toy just because it’s his.

I know i am smart, i think  it’s the first thing i’m recognized for but even if that’s the case it doesn’t justify my need to project my mind everywhere. I feel at times like i try to collect the reality and put it into boxes with labels on it so that i feel safe. I  always seem to have needed meaning, and i still do. The question is how can i get meaning without the judgement of my ego?

A couple of years ago, at my Hypnosys formation, i managed to get into a trance that was actually  induced to a colleague of mine. When i realized i’m slipping into the trance, i thought i should use that space to focus better on goals and practical things (i had a huge workload in that period) so i was trying to remember my agenda for the week, and when the image appeared, the words were being erased from the page. My mind was just blank. Unlimited space with no meaning attached to it. It was the most relaxing moment i have lived in the last years.

One day this content will leave space out. There is a place inside me where, as Blaga was saying, nu strivesc corola de minuni a lumii si nu ucid cu mintea tainele ce le intalnesc in ea.

Ina, ultimate freedom of inner space

 

Heaven can(‘t) wait

Heaven because this is how it feels like.  Most if not all countries have to be experienced in order to be seen how they are, but i feel that in the case of Switzerland that’s even more necessary, as it’s indeed a very personalized country. It’s enough to take a glimpse at it’s history, and this statement of individuality will just blow in your face.

One of the great things about Switzerland is that everything works. Everything is in place, at the right time,  doing what it should do. You can always relax and know that everything will work according to the schedule. And it will, surprises are few and are usually compensated.

Another great thing about Switzerland is that everyone that works here has a cool life. Yes, the prices are unbelievable, but so are the salaries. No matter where you choose to take or not your career, the money you’ll get will be enough to live a cozy life. Very few people strive from one day to another, and those usually have too many kids to handle.

Switzerland is a country that can get you complexed, and there are facts for that. People here talk at least 3 languages fluent, kids take sailing classes when they are 8, and until 25 most of the swiss have been on holidays on all continents. There are a lot of economical reasons to back up this achevements, but that doesn’t matter. Switzerland is a labour market where you enter as an expert or to work in services. Exceptions are few.

The system is quite socialist, the benefits one gets just inside his medical insurance for example are amazing. And the tax system makes some of the richest people in the world choose Switzerland as their home. One of 5 people is international. Swiss love or hate this, and you can see that by the refferendums that they vote opening markets for foreigners for example. 48% will say no, 52 will% say yes. The precentag varies, but it’s pretty balanced. The second generation of immigrants seem pretty comfortable and rooted here.

I love Switzerland because it rain soften  in the summer but not excesively. You have sun, wind and rain. It’s like the nature knows it has to deliver in order to raise up to the swiss standards. I love it because i hear all languages on the street, but regardless the number of cultures that exist, there is always the swiss way underneath, and you can’t alter it. I love Switzerland because i look on the window and i see the French Alps on the other side of Lac Leman. I love it because it respects my space, it gives me air and silence. For a lot of times i felt as if the time stand still just for me. I love it because it’s an amazing beautiful country, it makes me respect nature more, maybe because it’s green everywhere. I love the sunsets on Lac Leman, the birds, the river that flows behind our apartment. I love the fact that 70 km away from here they speak German, and 200 down they speak Italian. I love how nice and respectful people are on the street, in shops. I love the cheese. I love the small cities that have a lot to offer.

Ina, i’m simply loving it 🙂

 

One

One life, you gotta do what you should.  And you should be who you are.

A couple of years ago, someone asked me in an interview a standard question : what’s your biggest minus? And i remember i answered  that i just can’t not be myself. I was not reffering to behavior, i was reffering to my essence. Today i realized it’s still true. Of course, i can fool myself, i can tell myself stories to justify mistakes, i can voluntarily forget things, i can play with my own mind. But i can’t not be who i am. When it comes to my core, i can maybe call it soul, that i have no control over.

For a couple of years now, i’m consciously growing up.  don’t find it easy to define an adult life in this times, mainly because the majority of models out there bring more confusion to me than direction. I fell in traps and i started to believe in what i have to do just because it’s time, i approached compromises with a so called maturity and called it negotiation. I re-considered some never again sort of decisions just because circumstantially they made more sense.

Today i was talking with a friend about the business environment and she as telling me that the business environment is rational and cold and that we have to accept that and adapt to it. And while i can accept that and respect its way, i couldn’t adapt to it, it just isn’t me. Maybe for 1-2 years, for money, for whatever reasons, but i will always consider that like a parenthesis in my life.

Some people would call that imaturity, lack of adaptability to the world as it is, there are several judgement that one can have on this and while i agree that there are mature and imature ways to behave and approach certain situations, i don’t agree that maturity is a label to be attached to a decision that comes from the essence of who you are.

I don’t think growing up means adapting to society, i think it’s the best moment when you can get closer to who you are and have the courage to express that in a constructive way. When a tree grows, no one tell it needs to become a flower, as a duck doesn’t need to become a horse. What would i need to become anyone but myself?

I realized that regardless of what i might do, until i’m capable of living a sustainable life based on who i am, i’m just playing small. And when i’m really honest to myself, i know it.

Ina, one life you gotta do what you should

 

Girl in the mirror: friend.

I have read an interesting quote of Deepak Chopra on his twitter a couple of days ago, he was saying ” To be authentic, you have to be everything that you are, omitting nothing. Within everyone there is light/shadow, good/evil, love/hate.” It  really made me think.

There is tons of literature out there that encourages us to think positively, to control our thoughts, to switch to happiness when we feel sad, all bunch of things. Basically, at every corner we are told we should fight our dark side and then we are being given several tips on how we go about doing that. And then you have this fellow showing up and telling his twitter followers that in order to be authentic you should be yourself, with all good and bad.

I have spent all my life trying to avoid feeling bad, denying emotions, and most often exagerrating them because of my fear to live with them. I successfully managed to fight my own self, hate parts of me that i considered made me weak, live in denial. I was in my own eyes and in the eyes of others the Dancer in the Dark (cool movie with Bjork btw) and i remember i use to be proud of myself for being able to fight the dark.

What i have discovered just recently is that i was running my own battle there. By not accepting what was, i was creating a lot of dark or i was exaggerating the existent one. I was fighting against the curve and the only prize i was getting when i was arriving up hill was nothing more than my own grratitude that i finally made it. Like small kids that play with imaginary characters, i was fighting withg my imaginary enemies, losing for a while and then winning in the end. No matter from what perspective i look at it now, it was  just me fighting my own self, no winners, no loosers.  What was i defending and whom was i fighting against in the end?

This pattern keep coming back to me, in various ways, to try to get me again in the realm of bad things that need to be fought, and there are times when i fall into it again. But somehow, i feel this ride is not working for me anymore, i’m sick of the same ride over and over. I don’t say it’s easy to get out of it, but what if i’ll take myself exactly as i am, accept and recognize every part of me, and live with it for a while? What if i try at least? What if i don’t judge myself if i don’t manage to do so? What if i take myself easy? Would it be the end of the world? In which ways will the awareness over the whole thing enable me to act differently?

What if just the thought of it will make it happen?