to my twins

A mis mellizas...quiero poder transmitirles tantas cosas....

Quiero que puedan vivir con la fuerza de un águila.
que nunca sientan que el miedo las paraliza.
que la vida se puede enfrentar por mas que las rodillas nos tiemblen.
que miren hacia adelante sin preocuparse por las cosas que puedan interponerse en el camino.
que luchen por un mundo mejor, viviendo cada día con las manos abiertas listas para recibir las bendiciones del cielo.
que puedan limpiarse el polvo de las caídas como si fuera una simple evidencia de la lucha.
que nunca tengan miedo de ser ellas mismas...que acepten sus errores y trabajen cada día por mejorar su propio ser para iluminar el mundo y controlar su destino.
Que no dejen que el dolor las detenga de intentar algo nuevo, y que aprendan que los golpes son incentivos para el crecimiento y no para la resignación.
Que nunca pierdan la esperanza de un mundo mejor.
que se amen a si mismas como Dios las ama....
que no dejen que los demás las definan....
que no se dejen definir por sus propios malos pensamientos.
Que aprendan que la vida es mas bella cuando el objetivo es amar a los demás y no buscar ser amado.
Que lo que mas cuesta es vencer el miedo a la vulnerabilidad para lograr los encuentros...pero es lo que trae mejor recompensa.
Que la mente es mas poderosa que la realidad... y con solo cambiar la perspectiva uno puedo construir una vida mejor.
que no pierdan la sensibilidad...que es la clave para poder interpretar la vida.
que nunca tengan miedo de mostrarse tal cual son, porque la imperfección hace la belleza.


Ojalá algún día pueda ser la mama que se merecen.

Dos.
Tejiéndose por dentro.
Tu alma y la mia combinadas en perfección.
eterna compañía,
los miedos se transforman en propósitos,
si algún día no llegaría haber nada....
siempre habría todo.
todo lo tuyo y lo mío...  todo lo nuestro.
la lucha, el futuro, nuevos horizontes.
puñado de esperanza mia.
ya no importa lo que pase.
alma mia... respira en paz.
nunca mas estarás sola.

10 Things I Know To Be True #29

1. The hardest moments of your life will soon be summarized in one phrase. It'll be a phrase that will encapsulate so much pain...so many stories and details that have changed you as a person. But when people ask... it all comes down to one simple phrase that might mean nothing to them. So simple... yet so profoundly meaningful in your life.... "I finished my Master's".... "I got a divorce".... "I started therapy"... "We decided to do it"... "We did a treatment"... "We lost two babies".... "I moved".... "We broke up".... so many phrases that people say everyday that encapsulate so much stress...pain, growth. 

2. Growth doesn't just happen. It's not an accident or a result of many experiences or years of life. Some people decide to grow and others don't even think about it. The pain that we go through can only be useful if we voluntarily decide to use it for growth. I find it obvious to welcome life's hard experiences as opportunities of growth...but not everyone sees them that way. 

3. I can't expect people to actually learn from their own mistakes. As we go through life we will encounter difficulties and problems... some of them will be due to the people we have around...our job...or mere chance. But others... we create ourselves by making choices without thinking on the outcome (or maybe not caring of it). If we don't actually exercise our mind to revise our bad choices we won't learn how to avoid making them again. Sadly, many people don't do this... and I have learned that if I expect them to I will just be constantly frustrated. 

4. The root of most relationship problems is the inability to accept one's imperfections. Yes... the most important aspect of any relationship is the relationship that the individuals have with themselves. If I can't accept my imperfections and understand that is inevitable for me to fail at times, I won't be able to understand and forgive the people around me. The concept of "mercy" starts with ourselves. We can't fully live our lives without accepting God's mercy, and we can't love others and grant them mercy if we aren't able to do that for our own selves. The process of forgiveness to others starts with the process of forgiving our own shortcomings and accepting ourselves fully. I can't give something I don't have so I need to cut myself some slack to be able to understand that other people are struggling the same way that I am and they are trying to do the best they can. 

5. Most of the unconditional love that exists in this world is the love from children to their parents not the other way around. This one is hard to say and even grasp, but if I learned something this year is that adults are selfish sometimes and even though as parents we will like to think that everything we do is for our children's sake, sometimes that's not the case. We need to exercise a constant attitude of evaluating our motives and desires when we treat our children, specially when we discipline them. But the children....they will love no matter what. Their love and need of acceptance from their parents is never ending and it will never change. Even the kids who don't have parents present still yearn to get their approval or their love...even when they reach adulthood. Sadly...there are some parents that don't love their children unconditionally... some parents are selfish and don't really measure the consequences of their actions. I know it sounds horrible, but I guess sometimes we learn bits of the reality that aren't pleasant.  

6. Transparency is the only way. Being genuine and transparent most times will hurt you.... but I will stand by this forever (I think). Being honest and vulnerable... talking openly about our feelings of pain, hurt, loneliness, confusion and mistakes are key to having healthy relationships. In my book that is the only way to go. 

7. We all need mercy. Most of us don't even understand it.... Mercy: when you get what you need rather than what you deserve. We all need something we don't deserve. God gives us His mercy every day and we don't even realize it until we have failed in a major scale (or what we consider to be a major fail...) but the truth is that we get it every day...with the little things we do...the flaws and imperfections. God gives it to us and also expects us to be humble enough to understand that we should do the same. To give mercy to others because they are just as fragile as we are. We don't deserve forgiveness and salvation but we still have it through Jesus...therefore, giving mercy to everyone around shouldn't be hard to do considering that we are just as imperfect and undeserving. 

8. Humans have the ability to have opposite qualities simultaneously. I can be a victim while simultaneously be an aggressor. I can be bullied while bullying my bullies. I can make a decision out of love but have selfish motives behind it... or I can make selfish decisions that actually come from a place of love. I can love and really dislike someone and I can feel like the most unimportant and horrible person yet love myself enough to make good decisions in the midst of internal chaos. Just like the East becomes the West at some point we can be extremely broken and perfectly beautiful at the same time. Human beings have that ability, our relationships have that quality. It can be a beautiful disaster.. our own beautiful disaster...and people can love it and hate it. Can understand it or criticize it and they could all be right at the same time. 

9. There are many layers to reality.  Each layer is a different perspective.... a different person with a different story looking at it from their own point of view. There are motivations, situations, contexts, beliefs, information, feelings and personalities that all combined form a reality. Someones's reality... that is shared with other people who live under their own particular stories with their own lenses on. Reality is created and shared and no-one can truly know if their own reality is the most real one of all.... So every time you want to pass a judgment remember that you are limited to your own understanding and just like they are limited to theirs...and without connection and true communication we are just people living our own lives standing together but without truly being together. 

10. We can't stop change. Change is bigger than us... more powerful. Things change all the time...we change all the time, weather we like it or not. We can try to fight it... but the more we try the more insane we get because we are meant to change constantly. Everything changes all the time so we truly have one option: to accept it/embrace it/get on board with it... because if we don't we will  die trying to control it. The real superheroes aren't the ones that fight evil with forces or magical superpowers .... the real superheroes are the ones that use whatever they have in front of them as a tool to achieve their goals. The real superheroes are the ones that understand that life will through you really bad things and the only way of surviving is waiting for them with arms wide open and using them for good... for growth...for experience and for sources of wisdom. Change will come... we will get stressed...we will think we have lost it all...but we can also choose to rebuild ourselves...we can choose to embrace the change and we can choose to rise above. We can choose to grow and we can wear our experiences like badges of wisdom hanging in our chest. We can decide what to do with the change and we can be reinvented by it.