1 Language, 1000 Meanings

Life is challenging, everybody knows that. I've known that for a long time but I didn't realise it as much as I do now that I speak more than one language. Actually, when I think about it, I notice humans have always used more than one language to communicate with each other. There are so many languages available, as animals populate the earth. We feel this need of sharing our perspectives about life, and I found 'that' tricky. Languages are about sharing meanings but... what is a meaning? It is an idea about something, of course. Usually, it's related to a feeling or a perspective that we want to express in some way. To me, that is one of the most difficult things to achieve in the world.

When you choose a language to explain what you mean, you're putting a barrier in front of you, but you're also building a bridge to be able to connect with others in some way. The problem with this is that you never know if people really understood what you meant when you were trying to express something, especially if it was something related to your feelings or abstract subjects.

My first language is Spanish, and I could say that people understand what I mean when I try to explain something in my own language. However, I have experienced moments in which I have communicated my ideas in Spanish and people were not able to fully understand them. Why? Because they might have assigned different meanings to certain phrases or expressions I have used to explain something.

Not only verbal communication is the problem but also nonverbal communication... things related to intonation, facial expressions and lack of attention are some of the key factors in relation to misunderstandings. It's all about what we think, and verbal communication is not easy to use to express our own meanings. Animals, however, have proved it's possible to communicate effectively with each other without using any kind of words (at least not human words). Amazing!

I'm writing about this because I have been living in Ireland for about 3 years and I still get confused about some expressions, phrasal verbs, and tricks of the language in general. English42.com *The home of online English* has helped me a lot with these issues, though. English42 provides online tools and lessons for students, foreign people like me, who need to improve their English skills every day. This is something I feel passionate about.

Culture is another factor that influences meanings, and although I feel more adapted to the Irish culture now, I still feel like another person when I'm communicating my thoughts in English. It's like another part of me has been born and it's growing every day, even while I write this post and try to communicate this particular meaning!

I recently decided to learn a little bit more about computer programming, and now I see clearly how we communicate with computers using another type of language: java, php, c++, phyton, etc are some of the coding variations. These languages are very complex! Humans care too much about meanings, on the contrary, machines do not care about what you mean... They care only about what you type in, and they expect "black or white" instructions/meanings. That's why developers tend to be so picky about the requests we make. They need to "talk" to the computer and ask her to do A or B using a weird kind of language.

Sometimes humans hide what we really mean using nice words. We mask our thoughts because we judge them, and we use certain words to make them sound better, but we don't even know if people got the message we wanted to (not even if they told us they did). However, sometimes we mean to say something positive, and people interpret it the other way around. It's crazy! Those sort of things are the ones that make this subject so complicated to me.

Despite all these "negative" facts about languages, I feel profoundly in love with them. I believe life is about understanding our own meanings and connecting with each other. It's also important to realise that everybody is trying to figure out the true meanings hidden behind verbal and nonverbal communication.

Published originally at - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/1-language-1000-meanings-lady-jerez

Life goes on along with your identity...

I came to Ireland almost 3 years ago! I've spent 3 winter seasons here and this experience has turned my life around. I'm not longer involve with my birthplace problems as much as I was when I was living there. Now I can only hear what they tell me on Skype calls about it; read the news and pray for my family. I know Venezuelans are living a terrible experience with the current government ruling the country. Sadly, I can't do anything about it.

It hasn't been easy for me, though, living here I mean... Many people think I was courageous because I made the decision to emigrate my country to come to an unknown place like Ireland, more than 10 hours away from my loved ones. What they don't know is that I had always dreamt living abroad... However I've noticed that living your life so far away from home does change you. I've changed a lot. I certainly feel different about myself. I'm a 27-year-old lady who came to Ireland eager to explore the country and live this amazing European experience I had always heard of. I became an immigrant, which is nice at the beginning when you feel like a tourist. After that period of excitement something else comes. I can't describe it entirely, I'm not sure if it would be easy to write it down (even in Spanish). The thing is that I want to express my feelings from my new perspective in English. Have I changed? Am I someone different when I speak in English? Maybe... I'm not sure if I'm gonna get to the point where I feel as comfortable as when I speak/write in Spanish. I have several friends with whom I communicate in English, and of course being able of doing that is a wonderful experience. Beyond that, I have thousands of philosophical questions about my life here or anywhere else.

Sometimes I feel that my identity is not longer defined by my country ideals or anything related to my "Latin personality". The Venezuelan people I know here are leaving the country looking for new opportunities. Laws for Latin American immigrants are not as friendly as you might think. My connection to Venezuelans is slowly reducing to online chats and phone calls. So I have ended up making new European friends instead.

I'm still figuring things out. Nevertheless, I think life is a unique journey from which I still have a lot to learn from. My true identity seems to be more related to my essence than to my personality after all. Moreover, my spiritual beliefs are the ones shaping the new way I define my true self now .

Small Things that Define the Course of your Life

There certain kind of things that have impacted my life. I'm writing about this because I don't want to forget those things. I want to remember them forever. I want to be proud of the life I have had and the learnings I've achieved.

There  are so many things that leave a mark in your life that you barely notice them. In my case, the first one I remember is the idea of a God. 90% of my family is catholic so I adopted this idea since I was a child, then I changed it radically and things began to make more sense. I've already spoken about this topic in one of my first posts, but right now I want to talk about those smalls things that change your life little by little.

I'm not an old woman who wants to teach what life has taught her. I'm not a young lady either, even if I look like one. I'm a person who likes to know more about life. To me, every day is a mystery; breathing is a mystery as well as speaking and thinking. But why? Why do I find mystery in everything? Why do I see everything like a piece of magic? I don't know, but I like it. I like (in some way) to know that I'm living on a planet where nobody can really answer why we are here... There are so many theories about it but none of them are 100% certain. We are blind in relation to the truth but we have the privilege to live here and figure it out by ourselves; maybe through cultures, religions, philosophies, job positions etc. In my opinion, the truth can only be found in our heart... that's my path.

Now I'm just gonna list some of the things that have helped me to do that (not all of them are strictly spiritual but have served their purpose in my life as well):

1. - Guardian angel contact
2. - Flying in dreams
3. - New Age readings
4. - Practising meditation
5. - Advertising/Marketing
6. - Social Media
7. - Online Marketing
8. - Fundraising for charities
9. - TEDx Talks
10. - Hoponopono
11. - Zen philosophy
12. - Tao philosophy
13. - Iching
14. - Ireland
15. - English learning
16. - Spirituality in my dreams
17. - El Ser Uno
18. - Gnostic learnings
19. - Massage
20. - People: Jodorosky, Sergi Torres, Matías de Stefano, Drunvalo, Enrique Barrios, Alejandra Casado, Montse Hurtado, Claudia Estrella Muñoz, Realidades Alternas, Emilio Carrillo

 and I'm sure I could keep counting!

Some special quotes from special people I have met:

- Love is the only rule that guaranty happiness.

- Your consciousness can take control of your own mind.

- It's ok to make mistakes because we're gathering experience.

- We're afraid of not knowing why we are alive and try to avoid the true.

- The problem is our interpretation of things using only our language.

- Kindness is the most important thing to learn in life.

- Dance and sing in spite of your problems.

What is the flame? (exercise)

It seems like a stupid question, but in fact the question is not as important as it appears... I'm going to ask you a few more questions:
- Can you focus on the flame and the question for a few minutes without thinking about other things?
- Have you noticed that you're always thinking about something and that is almost impossible stop it?
- Do you realise that you're thinking about the past/future most of the time without being aware of it?

We believe this the way we are: people who is meant to think all the time... but the reality is that we are not really in charge of our thoughts (that doesn't mean we can't be in charge)... otherwise we would be able to stop our thoughts whenever we want. On the contrary, we live our lives in automatic, until we die and have to start all over again. At some point we need to wake up; and when we discover that, we need to train. We need to remain awake. We need to be able to master our thoughts from our consciousness (inner-self or presence). This topic is not related to any kind of religion, but it's about what almost every religion and philosophy have been trying to understand through several masters from all over the world. Our consciousness is the path to elevate ourselves to another (better) dimension; and the only way to awaken it is to be in contact with it.

This starts practising meditation. This starts observing the candle and asking yourself: What is the flame? Do this without thinking about anything else; but don't worry if you get lost in your thoughts while doing it, just come back to the presence as soon as you notice you're not aware of the moment. This is a gnostic exercise you can practice everyday for around 10 minutes and then you can adjust it as long as you want to. It will give you peace of mind and more control over your thoughts without blocking them. Remember thoughts are just a tool of the soul; we need to learn how to use them from our own consciousness and not from our egos.

If you want to understand more please read my article: Observing beyond our minds
Please share this post if you find it useful; feel free to leave your comments as well :)

Observing Beyond Our Minds

Recommended Book

We have no clue of who we are... We pretend to know though... Personally, I can't understand when we forgot who we really are. There are so many philosophies and religions trying to figure all out. I'm sure I haven't explored all of them, but each one is trying to convince you of something. That's why there are so many atheists in the world. I guess they are tired of believing (even of themselves). Anyway, the questions remain... Who are we? Why are we here? Everybody has to create its own theory; others just live in autopilot without thinking too much about it; without being conscious of themselves (almost like zombies) until they die and the cycle starts again in another body.

At least we know that energy can't be destroyed; and that we are made of energy... For me there's no doubt about it!

I've discovered that meditation is not a religion, in fact it is just a way of connecting with your inner-self. So it works even for atheists! I believe that this is the only way to discover the true about ourselves. If we have been living for so many years in different bodies, learning and doing the same things over and over and over... I believe it's time to break the cycle understanding that We Are Not Our Minds, we are someone or something else behind them. What is it? I definitely want to learn more about this mystery; and I invite you to do the same if you want to be free of your own desires and suffering.

First step, observe yourself everyday and each time you can. You can have the power of conciousness if you like; but you have to train hard. It's not going to be easy but I think it is going to be worth it.

Good luck traveller!

Things you may have never imagined about friendship

Friends: Those people with whom we've been sharing moments in our life; they come and go. Some of them stay for a long time; some of them don't. You know when it's a true friendship when even though they are not sharing everyday with you, they stay in your mind, in your memories, and in your heart as well.

I mean, these people have been part of your life; and you've been part of theirs (circumstantially but for real). You're both human beings and understand each other (at least most of the time). However this is something we should develop with every human being, isn't it? We are sharing the planet; we're sharing the oxygen, the oceans and everything that surround us; but we choose a group of friends or a specific person. I don't know why. Maybe we're not totally integrated as human beings.  Maybe we have big egos and we carefully choose our friends. We don't want to get hurt; we know it could happen; we know we've been hurt; we know we could hurt them.

In a way, I think this is a signal of the lack of evolution we're passing as human beings. We're full of envy, jealousy, sadness, arrogance, so many negative things. However, I know that deep inside of us we're only afraid. We forgot to love unconditionally. We're afraid of getting hurt. We started to wish for power and we forgot about our humans brothers and sisters. We forgot even our environment as part of our home. The nature around us is falling apart because of the contamination, the globalisation and the wars we invent to gain power.

What's wrong with us? I know this is a difficult question to answer when we're the first ones imposing our wishes to others; wanting to be better than others; and still we call ourselves "social" beings. I think is not the same to have social relationships that to care about the people around us. We should care more about everyone, but we know that not everyone care about us. So we do the same; we classify people; we choose the "best" ones etc. It's understandable but I believe it could be better than that you know? We could develop honest love between each other. We could have a better society.

I'm writing about this because when you're living abroad, your closest friends are not longer physically with you; and you see everybody trying to make new friends. I'm in the same spot; but I've been thinking about it and I'll do my best to find goodness in all the people, including those who doesn't seem to cover the expectations of my ego. That doesn't mean I'm going to stay with negative people but I'm going to care more about humans in general, even those who I don't know and probably never will.

7 Tips to Overcome Sadness

Sometimes I wonder what about the things that keep us alive. From the things that distract us to the things that we believe are the reason of our life... Do we have to have a reason to keep going? Well, we need to have it, if not our life would turn out meaningless I guess.

We as human beings have always had dreams. Dreams that are commonly related to money, love, sex, entertainment, etc. However if we don't have the things we wish for, we end up angry or depressed. So the only thing we want is to be happy through any of our desires. The problem is that it's not that easy because the mind doesn't seem to be pleased enough with anything. It's always wishing new things over and over and over. Happiness seems so ephemera sometimes, but I want so share seven things I do to overcome this strange feeling:


1- Training your mind by observing its thoughts as (only) symbols created by our society.
2- Breathing and stretching your body through yoga or any other type of exercise (even walking).
3- Listening to the type of music you enjoy the most. Preferably a positive one.
4- Watching a touching movie or profound documentary.
5-  Helping someone; perhaps listening to someone who needs it.
6- Feeling the feelings, let them pass without getting attached to them.
7- Sharing with the people you love. Tell them how much you love them.

According to the Toltec wisdom we are the creators of our own life (dream). Us as a society contribute to live in the same dream. I believe that all of this is just a cosmic excuse to develop our inner self; because at the end, our body dies and we have nothing more that our own energy or soul, travelling around the universe as part of it.

Issues with our job, family and friends are just short term creations; but we worry so much about them. That's the way humans have decided to dream since a long time ago. I feel that the time has come. We need to wake up and change the dream (Changing Hell for Heaven)

However it is so difficult to explain this with words, as they are only symbols created by artists (human beings) practising. The truth doesn't have any language. The truth is pure mystery; and sooner or later we'll have to discover it inside of us.

Once again I recommend reading the book: The Fifth Agreement by Don MiguelRuiz. Read my previews post to understand why - http://lewrl.blogspot.ie/2014/06/the-truth-about-truth.html

Thanks for reading; and leave a comment if you want.