Where is home?

The definition of home is a question that has been posed to me by others rather than by myself. My nomadic genes determine that there is not a physical place for home.

What home is, varies from person to person depending on their life experience as much as their inherited traits. It also depends on what life stage you are in. When you are single and childfree, home can be yourself. Wherever you go could be home. 

Most recently we have come across the rather playful definition of home as "the place where your phone is already connected to the WiFi". You then find yourself at home when you go to the local cafe or to a dear friend's house. 

As the years pass by and, if you have the joy of having a family, your home is where you create memories with your loved ones. In my case, my nest is still full. Nesting has been a need I've been fulfilling in the aftermath of a giant elephant stepping near my nest and shaking it to its core. 

I have learned that home is where my children are happy. They are young enough to benefit from motherly support. They have led me to my real home after I almost fell from the nest. They have taught me that I can cling on to our nest and that the nomadic lifestyle is not always the answer to my problems. 

Sometimes we have to fight for our home. When your nest is attractive to predators they will come and attack. It is up to you to be attentive and willing to fight back. Protect your chicks and keep the nest clean and filled with love for them to come back even after they have flown away. 

This is my conclusion on this matter. 

Where is home? Home is where you feel most loved. This love starts from within, for who can receive love from others if not able to open a clean heart to them? 

I thank the elephant who shook my nest, for now, I have a prettier, happier nest. 

Writing anonymously: how to start a new community of followers when pain strikes

There are situations in life when it is better to write only for those who will not judge you or tell you what to do. There are challenges you face that require empathy and unconditional support. Not all your readers will be able to offer this if you disclose too much from the other parties involved.

Writing anonymously is a great way to drain anger, disappointment and publish that letter you will never send. It is in a way similar to writing about those feelings of pain and grief that involve people in your family or close friends and then destroying what you wrote. In publishing anonymously you have the advantage of the input from others who are going through the same challenges. It is also a way to feel that the way you deal with your suffering can help in the recovery of your readers.

How do you start a new community of readers 

A fantastic place to start the community of readers that will benefit from your writing is Twitter. Create a handle that is relevant to the challenge you are facing. For example @SingleDad or @DivorcedAndAngry. Search for a relevant hashtag and start following and retweeting from those whose content resonates with you.

It is impressive how much support you can find. There are communities for every life challenge you might be facing. #Autism #Unemployed #DivorceSucks #SingleParent

Some people will have a personal profile with their real names but they will follow you back if they see you are a real person behind a pen name and a saying profile photo.

Create a new blog

Creating a new blog here on Google's Blogger is as easy as 1,2,3. Just find an available domain name, related to your Twitter handle and start writing and sharing your articles on your anonymous Twitter account. I wouldn't call it fake, it is a pen name to protect your identity, aka your sanity and the reputation of those you love. 

Important: Make sure the template you choose for your anonymous blog doesn't reveal your Google profile. 

Happy Writing Anonymously to Heal!

V.

Clara Thinks to Us: Q&As

Three years have passed since I published my first book: Clara Thinks to Us, a novel of hope from the memories of an old lady. It's based on my life experience with optimistic twists to painful experiences. It was a way to overcome my fear of death, amongst many other cathartic benefits.

I am grateful for all the feedback and readers who have been interested in finding out more about this old woman. She lived in four different countries and ended up thinking, almost at random, about her past. Our current present is in the novel's past because it is set in 2055. You can download the ebook from Amazon.

Without further ado, here are six questions and answers about Clara Thinks to Us.

Q2: What was Clara’s most powerful provocation when moving to Cyprus.

A2: The sedentary ways of the locals, their attachment to the land of their ancestors and the sentimental value they attached to trees.

Q3: How did she walk away from her dream after 3 years of working so hard on becoming an online marketing consultant? How did she find her real truth and let go without grudges or feeling like a failure?

A3: She used the knowledge and experience for her true calling of defending homemaking as a valid and valuable choice for modern women, spreading the truth about holistic medicine and finding her tribe. She admitted failure as an entrepreneur on digital marketing and then embraced public speaking and her private practice of The Wave. Admitting failure provided the leverage to turn the page and start fresh. She followed her gut feeling to find her truth by admitting what was not in line with her values.

Q4: How did she successfully integrate into Cyprus, I.e what was her turning point. ?

A4: once she surpassed the longest period of time she had ever Lived in one place and she was truthful to her desire of belonging, a feeling she never had the chance to develop due to the nomadic lifestyle of her parents. Integration came as a result of establishing connections with people on her same “wavelength”, members of her tribe. She knew that wherever she’d go, true friends were always scarce but they were so valuable. Also, her children who didn’t inherit her ability to adapt to changing environments as quickly as she did, made her realize the importance of settling down in one place and making it home. 

Q5: If Clara could do it all again. Would she, in all honesty, change anything?

A5: No. Clara is the author’s best case scenario.

Q6: If Clara could name three things in order of what made her happiest in her life what were they?

A6: 1 Diego, Rose and George. 
2 Alexis
3 Music 

Thank you for such great questions. You’ve all made my day

You REALLY attract what your fear: Write to overcome it

Three years after writing my autobiographical novel, the reason WHY I wrote the book has become clearer: I was afraid of dying so I killed myself in the novel, at 88.

Once I completed my first book, Clara Thinks to Us, I created this blog as a way to explain my incursion into authorship. Heal by Writing was a title right on target. I was indeed healing from an autoimmune condition, expressed as food intolerances. I was intolerant to so many kinds of food that I thought "If I don't heal, I will surely starve to death".

I am now free from food intolerances. I know I have ONE intolerance that will be impossible to overcome because it is determined by my genes, so I avoid it and I can manage all the other limitations to have a balanced and healthy diet. I am now sure I will not die in the short term from starvation due to intolerances.

You truly attract what you fear

I have recently experienced what I feared most: infidelity first hand. I am a child of an unfaithful spouse and I went through all the counselling that came with overcoming such an ordeal. I thought I had it all worked out. I had a plan B for when it happened. I had warned my spouse since before we committed that I wouldn't be able to overcome such betrayal. And we took measures to prevent it. But if you FEAR it you ATTRACT it. Law of Attraction, they call it. 

It hit me today when I thought of how I'm not afraid of having a car accident. I'm always placing myself in the percentage of the population who always manages to avoid clashes. And I haven't had an accident since someone bumped into me when I stopped suddenly at a red light in my birth country, Venezuela. I was 18. It's been over 30 years since then and I haven't had another car accident. 

I also placed myself in the minority who succeed in a developing, corrupted country like Venezuela. I placed myself in the minority who manages to marry a foreigner and never return to chaos. But I didn't place myself in the subset of the population where there are no infidelities. I just feared it would happen to me. So, once I discovered writing as a means to HEAL, I wrote different scenarios about my fear. 

Creating scenarios

• My best case scenario was my Novel of Hope in which infidelity did not happen. Alexis was faithful to Clara for over 27 years. 
• I created happy endings for friends whose marriages were breaking previous to my own infidelity experience. I wrote a series of books in Spanish, Mejor Sola. 
• I imagined what I would do in case the infidelity symptoms I was experiencing at home corresponded to the pathology. I wrote a book in my head.

Facing reality: facing your FEAR 

Once I had unequivocal proof that I was facing infidelity as a spouse, after I had experienced it as a child, I proceeded to implement Plan B. Everything happened very fast because I had already considered all the possible options in my head. 

Even though my fear had become a reality, I was prepared to face it. I knew I could find a hopeful outcome in ways I had imagined in my books. But I had not imagined the turn of events that could occur in the face of reality. 

Writing truly helped me face my fear and process it in an efficient way. I might even write a book about it one day. Do you think it could help you or others? Let me know in the comments.

Left home long ago? Seek connectedness in writing

Today’s concept of home can be blurry for some of us. In some cases, home is a place far away from your birth country. In today’s world, you can be displaced voluntarily or against your will from what you considered home until the time you decided to leave or were forced to do so.

It takes time to assume that you have been adopted into a new land. It involves learning from your new countrymen some of their customs and traditions. You do it out of respect and to be able to join in their celebrations. Meanwhile, your past rituals on anything from cooking to spending time with the extended family are left behind.

The novelty of your adoptive homeland at the beginning might fulfil your social and personal needs. As time passes by, though, it is very satisfactory to reconnect with your roots. One way in which you can achieve this is by remembering stories that reflect the happiness of your past. Make a list of what your birth country or previous homeland offered you. Writing a gratitude letter to the friends and relatives you left behind has a very powerful effect on your wellbeing.

Ripples from creative writing

I was very happy to learn that my first cousins - with whom I haven’t met in 15 years because I have refrained myself from visiting my birth country due to insecurity - were talking about my books during a family gathering. This was one of the many family gatherings I haven’t been able to attend due to being away from my previous home.

One of my first cousins I had not heard from in YEARS sent me a direct message commenting on how hooked she was with a book that I wrote three years ago. She said another one of my cousins had given her the book. She was pleasantly surprised and wanted to read more of my books. 

Three times a winner

It is the third time that a close member of my extended family connects with me again after years of being disconnected, after reading my first book. Somehow reading my autobiographical novel brought them close to me again or for the first time. Maybe the fact that I opened myself up in a book allowed them to discover the real me, and any misunderstanding was forgiven.

Your takeaway

If you are living away from home, I invite you to write about the happy moments you lived there. Share them with the people who are part of your story. And let their reading do the rest.

Editing is also cathartic: Let it out, then delete

Writing is cathartic without a doubt. Creative writing is a valuable tool for healing and self-help. Sometimes it is wise not to publish what you have written during those sessions in which you let it all out. Once the 15-20 minutes have passed you stop writing, then you read what you've written and lastly, you must decide what to do with it. You can throw it away, burn it, or change it.

Editing is necessary before publishing a hurtful piece or sending an angry email. Especially when it can cost you your job or the affection of someone you love. In spite of removing the aggressive part, that bit that felt so good releasing from within you as you wrote, once it's on the paper it remains there only if you decide on that option.

What else can you do? You can:

• change it into a more polite form
• delete it and leave only the expectation you wish to communicate
• disguise it by swapping genders of characters or changing the context

Either way, you will have taken it out of your mind and body. Writing your mind to an annoying colleague is cathartic and there is no need to let them know how you really feel about them. Have you tried this? 

Surrendering has worked its magic once again

It is not the first time that I surrender my need to hustle. When it feels like I'm trying too hard, I pause, breathe and wait. And every time I've done it the Universe responds.

It's been a few days that I feel like I'm wasting my time in keeping my twitter feed full, programming book promotions, thinking of meaningful hashtags for my Instagram photos and commenting on other people's posts. My honest purpose is to connect with like-minded people and to grow my audience so that I will have an incentive to continue writing. After all, what's the point of publishing if no one will read your work?

It's Valentine's Day 2018 and I got a message request from a stranger. It's a note in Spanish, my mother tongue. Another Latina American woman living in Cyprus. She read my blogs and one of my books that resonated with her. She liked it! Suddenly my empty social feeds start to feel hopeful. I might continue to keep them alive and kicking, sharing articles that resonate with me in the hope that I will connect with like-minded people.

Remaining still allows you to listen and receive. Today I have received a new connection request from a person who felt identified with my writings. It also happened a while ago (September 2017) when I had decided not to have a writing project on the table. I was having a break and one of my ex-students (from my time as a Science teacher in Nicosia) called in with her mother, who had been featured as one of the top 100 successful women on this island. They both wanted to talk to me about my autobiographical novel. At that moment I felt that my novel had been worth writing.

What defines success?

If writing allows me to connect with members of my tribe, I have succeeded. I am the owner of my own definition of success. I just have to surrender the need to do more in order to fulfil the preconception that success is measured by the number of books you've sold or the number of interviews that have been published about them or you.

What makes it so hard to let things simply happen

A lifetime in school with a grading scheme that rewarded compliance, a working environment that pays salaries to follow a job description, a very underrated role of being the available person in the family, are some of the reasons why people today cannot enjoy the moment. We tend to always plan for what's next. We forget that we will die one day and that it could happen right now or tomorrow or next week, next month or next year. Even worse, a dear family member could die at any moment. Have we taken the time to simply BE with them?

Things can be taken away from us

Cyprus is the perfect example of how lives can change from one day to the next. Half the population of this beautiful island were forced to flee their homes, never suspecting they wouldn't be able to return to inhabit their villages ever again. Even if they solve the problem, those villages don't exist anymore. We all live unique experiences that can be more or less stable. 

The potential dangers have expanded from this ever troubled Middle East to the whole world. Terrorism's tentacles don't make it safe for anyone to count on personal security like they used to before September 11, 2001. Even a virgin territory like my birth country, where so many war refugees sought refuge during the past 100 years, is plagued with terrorist cells waiting in latency or simply growing quietly.

My intention is not to create more anxiety but to put things into perspective. Why hustle to achieve some predetermined equivalent to a golden trophy while neglecting our family, friends and not enjoying the beauty of our surroundings? 

Beware of the ego

Is my ego pushing me to have a social media presence? Is it my ego that drives me to write stories or blog articles?
I hope to be winning the battle over my ego and to use writing as a means to an end that will not resemble narcissism but rather connectedness. I DO want to connect with like-minded people. I believe it keeps me alive and happy. It is more a matter of living in happiness mode and improving my state of wellbeing. I don't want to live feeling miserable instead of grateful for what has been given to me. It is the only way to be able to make those around me happy.

Self-love is not selfish

In order to be able to give love to those around us, we need to have nurtured our feminine side. One way to nurture it is to spend time with our tribe. I hope you are doing so. I'm certainly enjoying welcoming new members to mine through the effect of having shared my drafts with the world.