To React or Not?

Today I practiced reacting slowly and intentionally without emotion attached to the reaction in response to events.

I practiced explaining my thoughts and considered the other person’s point of view as equal to mine. I considered  and acknowledged their intentions before reacting with mine. I created space for connections and didn’t overthink and flowed with what came our way. By not reacting and adding fuel to possible conflict, there wasn’t any conflict. I was part of the solution. a-ha.

This was a good, a-ha moment! I want to continue to practice this one. It’s harder than it sounds, especially when I want to be right. Don’t we all?

nAMaste

Share Your Sweets

I found the solution to world peace and creating One Love.  We must come together and share our sweets and taste each other’s different versions and interpretations and show up at our communal table.

People across religions and continents bake sweets and cookies and cakes to celebrate life, whether it be a birth, an anniversary, a celebratory dinner or holiday.  We love the smells and creating something good to give and share with our friends and family.  We enjoy our grandmothers’ recipes and repeating what was once good.  Celebrations revolve around sharing food and traditions and creating memories.

Think about it. We share sweets and break bread together and we create intimacy and joy.  We create memories as we practice our traditions and invite others in.  Will you be making Christmas sugar cookies this year?

christmas-cookies

How about the traditional Jewish chocolate covered Matzo?

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Sharing sweets is like a sacred sacrament.

Two stories of humanity caught my attention this week and I want to share them with you, if you haven’t read them already. Both touched me, because fear caused discomfort and yet sharing baklava and mamool brought people together and helped them to smile and see one another.

Image source: http://images.mediaallrecipes.com/userphotos/720×405/21460.jpg

Maher Kahlil is an American citizen who was speaking Arabic at an airport and was profiled and detained and treated as a terrorist. He was questioned and embarrassed, however once he was allowed on the plane and people asked him what was in his white box, he opened it up and shared his baklava.

Image source: https://louanneskitchen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/c2adc-baklava.jpg

Hopefully by sharing sweets, passengers could see he was just like them.  Here are the details from his story:

Maher Khalil Story

Another story is about a woman who understood Arabic and was able to help a troubled, hysterical, older Palestinian woman who didn’t understand English when their flight was delayed: Naomi Shihab Nye Story . The American woman reached out and not only communicated and comforted the Palestinian woman, but also kept her company and helped her to communicate with her family, sharing her phone while they waited and making calls to other friends who shared the same language. As they waited, the Palestenian woman opened her bag and shared her powdered sugar covered mamool cookies. Every woman she offered them to, took one and thus she created a connection between strangers. It was as if she was apologizing for her tears and offering peace to those around her. And everyone chose to share communion in that sacred space.

The world is good. There are good people all around us. Let’s share our sweets and create this one sweet love. One love. No Fear.

If you like these stories of humanity, Frank Somerville KTVU is a great person to follow on Facebook. He is a local news reporter and chooses to share stories like these all the time. I absolutely love his perspective and love reading the comments and reactions from around the world even more.

He’s a lot like Brandon, from Humans of New York that you can also follow on Facebook or on his website:  Humans Of New York. He shares real stories of our humanity by showcasing strangers and sharing their stories, to which we can always relate. Again, reading the stories and seeing the pictures are powerful and reading the comments from his 8 million followers makes the world feel a lot smaller.

So what’s for dessert?  I like chocolate whatever. 😉

Life is Sweet.

nAMaste

 

 

The Best Gift

 I love surprises and unexpected attention.

Tonight I was sitting at my computer around 10 pm and Juliana was getting ready for bed. She came to me with a really hot wash cloth that had been warmed in the microwave to wash my face. She knows how much I love this ritual and how I don’t usually take the time to care for my skin the way I should. I’ve taught her to wash her face, but I don’t do such a good job of modeling this behavior.  When I do heat up a wash cloth and put it on my face, it brings such great and simple joy and I melt into the comfort of the moment of the warmth, taking my breathe away.

When she unexpectedly brought me this gift tonight for no reason other than she loves me, I felt like it was my birthday. I felt cherished and was so happy that she surprised me and took care of me, knowing how much I would appreciate this simple gesture. She knows I’m tired and she took a moment to connect and to pamper me before going off to her room.

Thank you, Juliana. I’m the luckiest mama!

If you’ve never heated up a wet washcloth in the microwave and enjoyed the steam on your face, you’ll want to try it. I think you’ll love it too.

Wishing you love and sweet, simple, connections and comforts.

nAMaste

 

 

My New “Daughter”

I feel like I have another child, in a good way.

Akie has become part of our family now. She is comfortable asking for what she wants and shares in our activities.  She is loving and kind and polite and I adore her.

Today when I picked my girls up from school (I always wanted Juliana to have a sister!), they both wanted to go to a birthday party for their Japanese friend at the park.

We have a google group between the parents of host families and I had read about the party invitation from the host mom this morning. She was bringing chocolate cake and drinks and all were invited to attend. I was happy for our family to be part of the celebration and so we brought a gift and some food to share and off we went.  I love kids of all ages. I especially loved walking up to the park and seeing small Japanese children under the age of 5, playing with and teasing our students. At first, I wondered if they were siblings of one of the host families. I quickly realized that there were young, Japanese moms playing with their little kids at the park, and the little kids made a connection with our “real” Japanese teenagers. There was a natural connection for them and the little kids and big kids were all playing and having fun together, chasing and tagging and running around together. I loved this moment and realized that there is a natural comfort in the familiar that we all share.

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We sang “Happy Birthday” and the birthday girl blew out her candles. I hope she enjoyed celebrating with us today as much as we did celebrating with her.

After the birthday party, I dropped off Charlie at his practice and brought the girls to Daiso, so that Akie could compare the Daiso in Cupertino to the Daiso in Japan. They were both relatively the same, of course. We also drove by the Apple Headquarters campus that is being built and tried to use English words to describe headquarters.  What words would you use? I think she understood.

Tonight I decided I didn’t want to cook and clean again, especially because we had a very busy day. I hosted a tea party for several friends this morning and had been busy all day, with no time to cook. We decided to go out for American fast food at Taco Bell, instead of eating left overs. She picked what looked good from the picture menu displayed and we ordered a couple other things for her to try. She really liked her steak burrito and the nachos. She tried the mild sauce and it was pretty spicy for her. This is why we chose Taco Bell over Chipotle, because she doesn’t care for spicy food. It was fun to see Taco Bell through the eyes of someone new. Even the girl working behind the counter was intrigued by our new “daughter.”

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The girl behind the counter came over to my side of the counter to ask me a question. She wanted to know if she could give Akie a hug, because she had never met a Japanese girl before and she was so curious and happy to see her. I told her that in Japan, there isn’t a lot of hugging and kissing and that this would be uncomfortable for her.  Having a stranger ask for a hug would be weird in any culture, but I could tell that she genuinely was wanting to see her and connect with her. As we ate, I told Akie about the strange request. As we left the establishment, I introduced Akie to the girl and they bowed to one another. This was a really cool moment. I wish you could have seen it. Love sees no color.

Today was busy and rewarding. I learned a lot again, even in Taco Bell.

How was your day?