A new Age begins today

A new age begins today. It is not because the day I am writing this it is the first day of Spring in the Northern hemisphere, although maybe also for that reason, but mostly because any moment is actually a beginning and right now, due to many different reasons, I am very aware of this possibility.

Let me start by sharing that I feel much better, still with an ileostomy and bag attached to my body while I wait for the second surgery (which will bring a new age of its own), but much better: energized and happy to be alive. I cannot do a lot of physical exercise yet and it may be pitiful for many to see me so skinny, but I'm already running four days a week. I feel so good that the frantic pace of things has started to catch up with me and has kept me away from this blog for a few weeks. This is a meeting space for myself, a place of authenticity, and a place where I hope with all my heart that you, the reader, find elements that may be helpful in your own search.

But no, absolutely not, I have not survived three episodes of cancer in order to do... what?, in order to continue to race? I refuse. I am not alive, not me and neither you, to be racing. Maybe we can run sometimes, but we do not live for a race. The true beginning is that I'm very aware of this intention. I can only make it real by changing very slowly habits I have learned during my life time, cultural traits and those that are part of my civilization, and even inherited predispositions. The intention becomes reality by changing one action at the time, one moment at the time. "Isn't that too much work?", a student in a recent course I'm teaching asked. What is the alternative then? Continuing to race? What else do we have to do in life in addition to learning to live?

I have been trying to live a more peaceful life for years, sometimes making progress and sometimes mistakes. I've done this very deliberately since 2007, when I had my first cancer episode. I continue to learn and feel and I do it a little bit better each time, with a lot to learn and accomplish still. Fortunately, I am still alive. I cannot stop the frantic race but only set my intention over and over again. I can also pay attention to every step of the way, every action, to decide whether I am winning or I am learning. If it's the later, I can rectify or try again. I plan to do all this with joy and without becoming obsessed, to avoid the risk of creating my own personal race to achieve such a goal. I am not Superman nor I wish to be. I cannot do it alone, I cannot do it all. I count on the support of an army of loved ones, their army of mistakes, and the army of their experience.

Empowering and not alienating this army and myself is the reason why my plan is to share whatever I learn in my search, which is yours the same as yours is mine. However, I'm going to do this in a different way from what I've been doing until now. Enough of reflections, essays, enough of this epistolary style which many of us enjoy but is making me tired and which effectiveness I've started to question. Why? It may seem impersonal and my driven desire is to share each other. Enough also of "inspiring" memes, great phrases or articles promoting health and positivity, pretty daily images. I won't pay attention to them unless I know their personal context, the reasons and the state of the soul of whomever is sending them. It won't matter whether or not the author is somebody well known or extraordinarily famous. I don't want more empty lessons, empty of a soul. I will receive from whomever has the intention to share themselves with me and I will try my best to share only with those who want me to share myself.

This idea comes strongly today after having reviewed videos of my own classes and presentations to share a sample of them with participants of the CBCT instructor certification program, the mindfulness and compassion meditation protocol that I practice and teach. There are not too many but I realized that I may be contributing to the noise and race I'm fighting precisely. That does not mean that I'm going to stop teaching, much less writing, or giving up this space and opportunity to continue the search for myself and others.

This new age signals my intention to do it a different way. As far as this blog is concerned, in addition to stop advertising it, I plan now to write tales with characters, events, contexts, based on the reality that I know. These will be short stories, personal but also fictional to protect everybody's confidentiality and to make them less threatening, which will incarnate in "real" human beings the ideas that I've been wanting to transmit since 2007. The thread of all of them will become apparent at some point and then, perhaps, I may publish it in a book format if fortune aligns and if I find an editorial interested enough.

I desire to allow others to get to know me, who I am rather than what I think, what I feel rather than this or that opinion. I hope, dear reader, that you also continue to communicate with me, somehow, at your own pace.

Today, a new age begins.

Photo courtesy of my dear sister, Josefina Fernández Carriba, from the city of Santander, in Cantabria (Northern Spain)