Tag: personal growth

Where would your bundle go?

leaving something for others to take

After most christening or wedding parties there is a custom of preparing something for the guests to take home with them. Usually it’s a small bundle of sweets or cakes, sometimes accompanied by a quote or a thankful message, to let the guests know that their presence was welcomed and appreciated. It’s a symbolic way of sharing with them the goods of the feast.

Throughout the last year I have been trying to cultivate a giving heart. I have supported various charities and community events. I was trying to resist buying new items for myself and my son in order to support humanitarian, rather than consumerist, objectives. While I was doing this project I was observing myself and others around me and one observation struck me very hard: being able to give, in many cases, does not really depend on the state of people’s bank account but on their perceived lack of capacity to share. I observed people who refused to support causes because they say they don’t earn enough to be charitable, and then I saw the very same people discarding goods that they had bought the previous week. How is it that we don’t earn enough to give but we earn enough to throw?

There are people in the world for whom what we spend and consume every day would constitute a lavish feast. In every form. The electricity we use. The food we eat. The many pairs of shoes we wear. The books we read. The clothes we have. It is likely that we are feasting in one area or another, or in all those areas.

The Nothing New Project made me realise that I feast in quite a few areas of my life, but for one of them I am particularly grateful: healthcare. Last year I was diagnosed with a life-long illness but because I live in the UK my medicine is for free. Through the Nothing New Project I was able to support many charities, but Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the charity that heals those who would otherwise be left without treatment, was my priority. The charity deals with challenging situations and extraordinary tasks, the Ebola crisis among them. Could you imagine yourself being in Liberia right now? Being a patient or trying to help? Doctors Without Borders are uncommon people whose courage is not of this earth. They deserve our respect, our support and certainly my feast bundle.

Where would your bundle go?

May we grow

growth - Copy

I have started this year strong and vibrant, with a head full of ideas and projects to implement. This would probably not happen if it wasn’t for my visit to Poland and the kind heart of my mum who has really helped me to reset my brain and energy levels. She did pretty much all the cooking and that was such a blessing. She gave me time and thus granted a lot of mental space that I happily filled with dreams and ideas for this new year.

I have got a friend in Poland who I love visiting. She’s a very beautiful and a very independent woman who has this fabulous ability to make things happen. Like a magical fairy with some secret golden powder that she scatters around, invisible to ordinary mortals, she creates beautiful things around her. Wherever she goes, wherever she’s present, she carries that charm with her. When you talk to her, it’s just a matter of seconds before you start noticing a change within yourself. You feel that you are surrounded with positive energy that gives you the confidence to do things yourself.

I hope that this new year will give you all this magical powder to work with. May you see growth and beauty in all areas of your life and in all your pursuits. I hope this year we will blossom together.

Happy New Year Friends!

Finding yourself

green _grass

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Nothing New: moving forward

mountain_flowers

My Nothing New Project has come to a standstill over the summer. I came across a few situations where I didn’t have a choice but to buy something new for myself and my son. Things like that always happen when you think you can relax, don’t they? For example, when you simply forget to pack that essential jacket you need because the place where you’re staying in the mountains drops to 6°C or when your child’s feet grow almost overnight and you realise that he will not make many steps in the old ones any more. I’m forgiving myself these small departures from the nothing new project as they really are justifiable but there is something else too… my little weakness that I indulged in while in Poland. I love Polish children’s’ songs and stories (written and spoken). I tried to say no to them, but I do see them as an essential part of my son’s childhood. And not just my son’s. They will also be used by a number of children because I am starting a group for Polish kids in my town which will focus on popularising Polish rhymes and stories among the expat children. So it turns out that those books have become a bit of an investment into community building and I’m happy I am making use of this investment.

So all in all, what’s the status of my nothing new project? I’ve slipped but I am carrying on, being mindful of what and where I buy or what I don’t buy. It’s almost the end of September and pre-Christmas shopping madness is about to start – I am sticking to the nothing new project just for the sole purpose of staying true to the message of the Christmas period – that new is born and not bought… that a true and long-lasting regeneration and renovation comes from effort, time and nourishment. So for these next few months I’ll carry on learning how to be patient, more hard-working and nurturing. I hope you’ll stay with me to see to it. ;)

Curiosity builds community

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Hundreds of emotions run through my body every time when my friends are telling me about leaving the UK and moving back to Poland. The longing for my country, the nostalgia for its customs and landscape, the love for my family and their way of life. Time has not been able to change those emotions, but what I am very grateful for is that it has managed to add new ones too.

I was travelling today through one of the busiest and most multicultural areas in my town. I was looking at people of different ethnic origins and cultures shopping for fruit and vegetables together, chatting and greeting each other at the street and on the bus stops. Immigrants, locals and newcomers all in one place. I looked at them and felt deep love for all of them. They’ve been forming me for the last ten years, letting me get to know them in everyday situations. They’ve been enriching me beyond measure. They’ve been educating me beyond measure and been stretching my identity beyond the borders of my Polish upringing. In so many ways I am them now and they are me.

On Saturday I took my son to a local hardresser. He was a young man, probably not even in his thirties, originally from Iraq. To my astonishment he started speaking to us in fluent Polish. To me this confirms that we are reaching out towards each other and that we like to learn of each other’s cultures. People have been always curious about people… and if that curiosity is removed, through whatever means, we will lose our ability to evolve as a society. We must remain curious of each other. We must want to get to know each other.

The other day I heard someone saying on the radio: “I wasn’t born in Scotland; but Scotland was born in me.” I think I can easily use those words to say: I wasn’t born multcultural, but multiculturalism was born in me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmTV62mE1PA”>