What is true well-being? I think we all have asked ourselves this question. I'd like to share my experience with you regarding this topic.
I have always believed in the magic of stars. Since I was a little girl, as a mother, and now, with my grandchildren, when we catch that first star at dusk. .
. . .
. some seconds before the second one appears in the sky, we close our eyes and with all our strength we make a wish, hoping, with genuine consciousness, it will come true. Stars can truly transform lives.
Just think about - when you were in Kindergarten: We all went home with a big star stuck on our foreheads. That sensation of the dried glue and the feeling of knowing that we are good. it's just as if the beauty of the stars in space suddenly could resonate with your own beauty the moment you stuck one on your forehead.
The other day, my two-year old granddaughter, Valentina, did't want to take a bath. She came home that afternoon with a star on her forehead and she told her mother: "Mom, it will peel off. .
. " and that reminded me of [the time] when I was a little girl. When I wanted that star-on-the-forehead feeling to stay forever.
It didn't last forever - just during Kindergarten. Once I started elementary school, I turned out to be a terrible student. I was always among the last, or the last one in my class.
. . I was a dreadful sportswoman.
. . I was even terrible at mother's day crafts.
. . I was the last one.
My self esteem during elementary school was very poor. I felt I was non-existent, transparent. .
. and the worst part was when I was in fifth grade. I got my report card and saw a red "X" on the document, and it said: "Failed".
I was extremely ashamed to be the only one that didn't pass in addition to the fear of having to show that document to my parents. Those two things made me hide the report card for a few days, until Sunday, 9 p. m.
and then I had no choice but to hand it over. I went to my dad's music studio, and with my stomach in my throat I put the report card on the table. Dad stopped doing whatever he was doing and looked at it.
He put his glasses away, he stared at me and said: "Why Gaby? You can do that and more. I want to tell you grades are not important in life, the only thing that matters is that you put all your heart in everything you do.
" The person who said this had no education and managed to support a family, and give us all a decent life. He then asked me to walk around his desk. I stood before him, he took me in his arms, and said to me: "Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you, and never forget it, you were born with a star".
I was feeling overwhelmed in the middle of a sea of confusion. First because I was relieved he didn't scold me. Secondly because I was very thankful because he believed in me.
Third, because I was feeling such a weight on my shoulders. I thought: "I already have enough problems, and now I have a star - how do I manage that! ?
" And of top of all, an enormous committment of having to. . .
not having to - [but] *wanting* - to give him back all that trust. I didn't know how I was going to do it at the moment. The only thing I knew is I couldn't fail.
Finally I thought: "If I was born with a star, where has it been? " Where has it been? I've never seen it!
I will never forget my first day in fifth grade, standing in a row to enter the classroom - in the fifth-grade line, and beside me, in the sixth-grade line, were my ex-classmates. Boy, did I feel bad. I felt like dying!
And I remembered the big star made out of words my dad had glued on my forehead some weeks before. And from that moment on, I began to be born again. I started growing, I started to feel secure of myself, I started getting better grades, and I even started to win swimming competitions.
When I realized I had all those achievements, I also realized I had my dad's attention, recognition, and approval. So I said: "This is the right way". To accomplish things is the way.
Later on, time passes by, I got married at 19, and by the age of 25 I have three kids. . .
suddenly my two daughters are off to Kindergarten, the baby on the crib and food on the stove, a clean house, . . .
and I was there, with an enormously repressed and contained energy that wanted to emerge. I knew I could be doing something else besides this. But how could I focus my energy on that if I did not have a professional career?
I had never been a good student. And also, I got married at 19. So I imagined myself being asked at a job interview "What can you do?
". Well, nothing. .
. I can speak in English. .
. that's all I know. That question caused me insomnia for four months, I don't wish it on anybody else.
With three small children and a husband in his thirties, it was very hard to endure. Suddenly and casually, -I think causalities come straight from "up there"- I find a way to canalize all my energy. From that moment on, I became a voraciously self-taught person.
I started reading everything. I signed up for seminars, classes, courses. I travelled around the world looking for conferences.
. . It was a true hunger for knowledge.
So I transformed my career into a path filled with achievements and respect. . .
. I continued to pay on that debit account I had with my dad. Success seemed like the only possible answer and solution.
So I devoted myself to get it. All throughout my twenties, my thirties and part of my fourties. .
. I was so busy I could not even look at myself. That full agenda was some sort of an emotional "Diazepam".
Plus it made me feel important while adrenaline made me feel alive. I said: "My worth depends on what I do". So I became a workaholic.
I'm still recovering from that addiction, by the way. Being a workaholic during that period, I wrote 10 books in ten years. .
. at the same time I wrote for newspapers, magazines, appeared on the radio, TV shows, travelled throughout the country on conference tours at least twice a week, plus taking care of my house, my children and my husband. I thought that exhaustion, that: "I can't take it anymore", made me feel good.
I thought I was being reciprocal with that star my dad once aspired for me. I thought: "This is what I must do". Oh, was I wrong!
It wasn't too long until life shook me from head to toe. Two people I thought invincible and immortal passed away. First, Pachela, one of my best friends, died in an accident.
. . she was perfect.
Some time later, my brother, Adrian, who was 41, died in another accident. the youngest brother, the one everybody could feel identified with. .
. we'd laugh and have fun together. .
. Those two deaths were shocking. They were eye-opening; more like a slap on the back of the head.
I learned a lot of things: I realized how final and non-negotiable life is. Those happy and shared moments that I thought would last forever were long gone. I couldn't understand why.
They weren't there anymore. Gone. Number 2 - Seeing how many people attended the funerals and masses made me realize, [at] Pachela's and Adrian's [funerals].
. . when a lot of people came, truly so many people, -and some people here that were there can verify the information- many people were shocked, moved, by their departure, and I realized why people love you.
People love you not because of what you have, what you do, or because of your achievements. . .
nor for your job, or the amount of money in your account. People love you because of how you make them feel. And I asked myself how I made people feel.
Therefore, I started a serious interrogation with myself regarding success. Facing death, does all of this really matter? What is this desire to construct a facade good for?
What does it serve? There's a saying: "You need to send your funeral invitations". I hadn't distributed my funeral invitations.
I remember I said to Ernesto, my brother, at Adrian's funeral: "The day I die, please, bring the 'hired help' with you because nobody else will come! " And he said: "Promise me that, too. " I had neglected my family, my friends, my husband, my kids, all for success.
What was it good for? I also faced something very important in my life. Pain leads you to the darkest basement, the lonelier and darker it gets, the more light you find.
A pathway full of light that fills you with peace and inexplicable serenity as you walk it through. I would have never found that door from up here, because I realized it was the first time I "visited" myself. I then remembered about a metaphor I had read about - The "Thai Buddha".
It was perfect. Fifty years ago, a group of buddhist monks in Thailand, decided to move a terracotta Buddha statue, [located] inside of a 800-year-old temple which was almost destroyed, so moving it could destroy the statue of Buddha also. So they decided to use wedges in order to carry the Buddha, and while they were doing it, they realized, the terracotta statue started to crumble.
. . so they decided to wait for the specialists to do it first.
One of the monks, driven by curiosity, took a lantern and inspected the figure, and realized the light he aimed shined blindingly back on him, so he decided to grab a chisel and a hammer and began to open up the crack - and saw he had one of the greatest treasures right before his very own eyes: a 2-meter-tall Buddha made of pure gold. When I read that metaphor I thought: 800 years had to pass by and nobody - nobody? - noticed that under that terracotta Buddha that a treasure of pure gold was hidden.
How many times do we go through the same? Birth, life and death, all without even noticing it. When I think of today's childen, when I think of the adults, in their pursuit of things so ephemeral, when I look at the WHO's statistics where 121 million people live with depression today, and 5 million -excuse me- where more than 1 million people commit suicide, I think that maybe, perhaps, they never had someone that could look at them in the eye; nobody ever glued a star on their foreheads and nobody ever said: "I believe in you".
Because when that happens, *that's* where the star begins to do its magic. When you sit next to a child, look them in the eye and say: "I believe in you", you begin to transform them - that's when the word "namaste" starts making sense. I've used that word so many times after my Yoga lessons, without knowing what it really meant.
The meaning of the word "namaste" is: "I honor that place in you where the universe lies. . .
" "I honor that place full of light, peace and serenity, and when you find yourself in that place, and when I am in that place within myself, we both become one. " There! That's the exact place where true well-being lies.
You and I are the ones who can glue a star on those little children. They are waiting, hoping to receive a star. If each one of us, adults, glue a star in one child, I can assure you, world statistics would be very different.
Ask yourself: Who will I glue this star on so the magic begins? In the meantime, I commit myself to glue a star on Valentina, my granddaughter so it sticks with her forever, so she can take as many showers as necessary without worrying about it getting unglued. I ask you all: Who will you glue it on?
Thank you very much.
