Last week I received a call from my friend, Colena, who I have known for the past 10 years through playing basketball together and as a graduate of the RCB parenting course. She asked me if I would come and be a guest speaker to this group of Women. This, however, was no ordinary group of Women.
As it turns out, my friend had gotten involved in a Women’s Leadership Program at UCSD. This particular program was housing approximately 14 Women Community Leaders from within several Latin American Countries. The US Embassy’s in each Country had recognized and chosen them to partake in this one week Women Empowerment Leadership retreat. I was honored that Colena had thought of me and I graciously accepted her invitation. Shortly after accepting the speaking engagement, she informed me that out that out of 14 women with whom I would be speaking to, none of them spoke English. Needless to say, I would be speaking via an interpreter.
I spent almost a full day with these women. The majority of them had traveled from their indigenous villages in countries like Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia and Mexico. I watched carefully as each Woman shared their story. As I simultaneously listened to our interpreter and his slightly delayed translations through my earpiece, I noticed that despite their stories of repression, abuse and lack of access to formal education, these women showed intelligence, power and compassion.
They talked about things such as oneness and how all of us our connected. One woman went on to explain that “race” is only something that we as a society have developed in order to discriminate and distinguish among people of different color. She ended by saying that the only true race is the human race and we must all come together if we want to make a difference in this world.
It was easy to see why these women had been chosen. Each of them possessed an incredible amount of courage and ability to speak from their hearts. As each woman stood and shared their unique story, none of them held back the raw emotion that accompanied their life experiences. Even for someone like me, whose Spanish vocabulary is very limited could connect with and appreciate the display of humanness right in front of me. This rawness of human emotion is what made it possible for each and every one of us to immediately open and connect through our hearts. I didn’t need an interpreter to understand what these women had gone through to get here. It was clear that they all had a story, a purpose and a passion.
When I got up to speak, I told them about my own journey with my family, my sons and the impact I had hoped to make in this world. Though the barriers of our two languages were clearly present, it was also clear that the same barriers didn’t apply when we spoke through our hearts. No matter what language you speak, or what part of the world you come from, everyone and anyone was able to recognize this heart-centered, universal language.
At the end of the day, I went to bed thinking about what it means to speak from your heart. I realized that for most of us, this would probably be one of the most uncomfortable things you can think of. Yet these women, amongst their peers and a couple of strangers, demonstrated this with ease and grace.
It was one of the most powerful things I had ever seen. There were no worries about what other people thought, no second-guessing themselves, just emotion in its truest form. It was if they had found freedom in the ability to feel, to connect and for a few of them to love again. I would like to think that these women learned as much from me as I did from them that day. It was incredibly inspiring to experience them having a voice and being vulnerable and trusting enough to share their story.
May each of you reading this take the time to consciously share this universal language with someone you come in contact with today.
