On Passion and Competence

We can’t make someone care about something they don’t care about and we can’t unmake someone care about something that they care about. There isn’t a “your passion,” there is just passion. There isn’t a person living “their passion,” there are passionate people. There aren’t people who “love what they do” there are people that love. There aren’t people who “love what they do” there are people who are well practiced at what they do and feel competent and fluid while doing it. The things we don’t “love, like or enjoy” are the things we don’t feel competent in. The things we need more practice with. Those who seem the most passionate about what they do are just people who have specialized at it and achieve a high degree of competence. We tend to specialize in the things we are good fits for. What makes something “hard” is that we are not yet fluently capable of it.

I Am An Actor Of Color

I am not black but I am a person of color. The platform that is available now for me to speak because of the spirit of now “white people listen” while “people of color speak,” is an opportunity that I will gladly take.

Let me take you back to when I started going to college way back in 2003. My auditor to get into college was a white woman. She did not accept me into the music program.

One day later I went back (we, POC usually have to work twice as hard or more to get equal treatment.) A woman with some Italian blood and skin, by the name of Laura Wallace (RIP) accepted me into the program and even offered me a partial scholarship due to my “great talent.”

Back then I was blind about race and privilege. My dad is a heterosexual white Jewish male and my mom is a heterosexual Christian Dominican woman (with not much melanin but plenty of African blood) so I’ve always been ambiguous about who I am in the racial continuum.

Ask my friend, Julianne B. Merrill what my original response to her calling me a “person of color” for the first time was. This was less than a year ago. When she called me a “person of color,” I laughed in disbelief. I even told my best friend (who is a brown Dominican woman) about this. She thought it was hilarious too. That is how unaware of my identity as a person of color I was. I am not anymore. I am no longer blind to my own color. Thanks Julianne for identifying me. It has helped me so much. I was so confused as to how to identify.

Anyway, back to the distant past... when 19 year old me got denied the first time he auditioned, 19 year old me thought that maybe he wasn’t talented or worthy enough to go to college for singing and acting. Today, 36 year old me sees that there had to be some sort of racial bias (conscious or unconscious) at play.

When my black friends would hint at any disappointment they had around being treated as less than because of the color of their skin, I wasn’t really sure what to think.

Though it was pretty obvious that my black friends were as talented and working as hard as my white friends and peers. What wasn’t so obvious, but now is very obvious is that all the theater faculty at this time was white.

In theater there’s this cliché, “the director hires himself.” The director of our musicals was a white man. He mostly hired white people. Early 20s me just knew to use the phrase “favoriticism.” 36 year old me is seeing that I was putting the incorrect prefix ahead of that ism. The word that really belonged there was the word RACE.

But young, naive, ethnically ambiguous early twenties me did not want to believe that people in the arts could be affected by something as primitive as racism. Thankfully, 36 year old me can now see things with a lot more clarity. Sadly, this was clear to my black friends the whole time. Luckily, my psyche must have been protecting me from the ugly reality that green and young me couldn’t bear. So my psyche kept me in a bubble.

I remember working so much harder than my white counterparts. I remember feeling relieved to see that there was the role for an Italian character (because role distribution in most musical theater material is disproportionately uneven in favor of white people.) I remember the auditions being open to the entire theater department and I remember many of my peers telling me “You rocked that audition, that part is yours.” And I remember getting my hopes up and going to sleep excited to read the casting list the day after. The role of ethnic Vittorio Vidal will be played by... you guessed it! A caucasian!

To this day, my biggest heartbreak in my theatrical career was not getting the role of The Prince/Wolf in my college’s production of Into The Woods... because... you guessed it, this role will be played by... Another caucasian! (As it’s “supposed to be” even though this is fantasy and fiction. Remember a POC playing Ariel?)

Just like they did to my closest friends La'Nette, Nieves, Aprilmarie and Kyle!

The only way we would get a role was if there were no other roles left to give us. Or, in my black friend’s cases, if they were the “token black person.”

And all these years my friends were clearer about and resigned to the racist reality they were living in. Meanwhile naive, ethnically ambiguous, “could pass for white” me (but ONLY IF I neutralize my “Spanish accent”) is here in a gaslight of confusion thinking that I’m just not talented enough. I’m buying new outfits for my auditions, going to the gym, crash dieting, buying accent reduction programs and lessons, taking voice lessons outside of college, etc.

To make matters even more cringey, when I went and auditioned and booked leading roles in community theaters outside of school, the director of the musical theater program at college called me out on it. He told me that I was “arrogant” and that I had a “star complex” and that I wasn’t going to “stop until I saw everybody applauding me while I was at the center of the stage.” Well, about that last part he was right. I won’t stop, not so much until I see everybody “applauding me at center stage,” but until I satiate the need in my soul to get treated with respect and dignity. Not like he did by being racist, making fun of my accent, my heritage, my background and my story. Not like he did by sexually harassing me. Not like he did by unconsciously trying to erase me out of the world of theater. I am not a usable toy for people to use and discard as they please. That is why I became self-employed and continue to hone my craft and pursue my dreams and create my own opportunities by setting goals and meeting them.

If I had left it up to the white woman who first auditioned me, I may not have had a college education. If I would have left it to the firstdirector of musical theater, my resume would have contained zero leading roles.*

(*To be honest, I did get two or three leading roles in college but usually because they had no one else to play these roles and/or because we had a change in staff and a professor that had graduated from a college in NYC replaced the professor that went to college in Illinois.)

As much as these things I’ve shared about have sucked, racism has made and continues to make me stronger. I don’t wish it on my worst enemy, but it can be framed as an ill that can make us stronger.

I am so sorry that I couldn’t see things this clearly before. Not for me, but for my black friends who would occasionally bring this up only to be shut down and gaslit by me to one degree or another. I am sorry.

One of my favorite things to see these days is to see my black actor friends thriving and growing in spite of all that is stacked against them. Sadly, many of the white alumni are now far removed from theater and the arts. Happily, the black and brown alumni, myself included, keep creating our art and awaiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. And we won’t stop. I know it. Because we are talented, we are skilled, we are passionate, we are resilient and we are worth it!

Love to all,

Gabriel Weiner Jáquez

Caring

I saw this happen with me and I see it happen all the time with so many people. The minute we stop feeling cared for, for whatever reason it is (usually because we seem self-sufficient enough to others), we start to get cold.

For me and many others, it happened when our parents met another lover that wasn't our parent. Many times by then, we are bigger and more able to take care of ourselves and some of our parents tend to forget to prioritize us and care for us because they are crazy with a hormone called oxytocin along with a mindset that makes them regress into a teenage like state where they subconsciously go "It's MY turn, I did enough for these boogers - I tried hard enough - I'm going to give myself a chance to be happy with this man - they're old enough."

Notice I said subconsciously, not intentionally. And believe me, this story is SO common, you wouldn't believe it. Basically it happens in at least half the cases where the parents end up getting divorced.

The kids somehow get a message of "you don't matter so much" and then the kids go into a state of apathy and coldness as a defense mechanism to survive. All of this happens, again, subconsciously.

The only reason why I can see this and illustrate so simply is because, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. And the reason why I write it is because I think talking about this is very important.

Parenting is no easy feat, and no parent neglects their child when they are in their right mind. But it is very difficult to be in your right mind when you gave birth to kids of a person that was also not cared for and has patterns of coldness and apathy way beyond their conscious awareness. And no easy feat to run on fantasy for the first few years of your marriage and then wake up hungover from all that fantasy seeing the aloof, absent and detached person that you married and bore kids to.

The human condition can get very dicey and complicated and our wiring doesn't care about any of these stories. It's a lot more simple: don't receive care, you get cold and apathetic and start to think in very distorted and strange ways.

Being cared for is as important as food, education, clothing, shelter, water, sleep and sunlight. Not receiving adequate amounts of care lead to all sorts of strange thinking, behaving and self-destructive patterns that become adaptations.

Our bodies depend on certain needs, not all of which we readily understand. The need to be cared for, understood, validated, heard, appreciated, included and accepted are a lot bigger than we realize. The catch is if we aren't receiving those things, we aren't learning how to give them. And when people give them, many times we are skeptical and incapable of receiving them.

So the solution is not easy. Many times genuinely caring people get misconstrued as people with agendas - an idea we often internalized when a step parent or a new lover of our parents came in. And sometimes these strangers that we perceive as invaders of the family mean well and sometimes they don't. To a kid who is missing the warmth and attention of their parent, it usually doesn't look good no matter what.

So parents, be careful with how you introduce and transition a new step parent or lover into the life of your children and adult children, consider these principles and seek therapy and support groups. The goal is to end up with at least one or two truly caring people in your life. People that easily and willingly care about you and people that you easily and willingly care for.

In city cultures, like in NYC, this is not easy to find. I have met and spent time with so many people who have a severe deficit of caring. I know, because I am one myself. But the good news is that seeing I am not alone has really inspired me to take the first step and be there for someone else as best as I can. Often times I am received with great skepticism or if the people are gay they assume there's a sexual agenda behind my friendship. It's really sad what's happening with us humans.

The other thing is this: clicking like on a post, commenting your condolences with a black heart emoji or using that stupid new feature where you react to a person's text - none of those go deep enough to establish a true connection with anyone. People need to feel like they matter a little bit more than getting a double tap on their Instragram post or a star emoji. That's like giving someone a spoonful of fluff or icing when they need a three course meal.

Call a friend, make a date to hangout with them, listen to them when they talk, surprise them at their job, connect with people with all the sense and not just sight and sound.

And for God's sake, don't fall into this infinitely reductive digital screen fluff of connection where the most you can do is hold the text down and pick a reaction from a list that pops up. Nothing irritates this caring deprived hopeless human race lover more!

How To Be Secure In Your Views And Knowledge

I don't know about you, but the thinkers I respect the most are the ones that are very secure in the knowledge they posses and in the views they hold. Of course I'm not talking about obstinate and closed-minded know-it-alls. I'm talking about thinkers who have views and information that are rooted in something much greater than speculation, emotion or shaky sourcing.

As a strong and deep thinker myself, I have found myself in countless debates with people who get highly triggered by the confidence and security behind the positions and perspectives I hold. And even though I hold less and less of these as I mature more and more, the few that remain and I hold on dearly to are just as threatening to those who don’t seem to feel as certain and secure in their personal convictions.

And here's the thing. Well, let me give you this analogy - since I love analogies. Not many days ago, I was putting shelves in my closet. To put them on, I had to find the places in the wall that are supported by what's called a stud. A stud, for those of you that don't know, is a part of the foundation of the wall that is solid and keeps that wall in place. It's like the skeleton of the wall.

Anyway, in a few misses, I drilled a hole and put a screw into the parts of the wall that had no stud, these screws where not supported by much more than the plaster the wall was made of, in other words, there was nothing solid or substantial behind it. Any shelf I would try to hang on that would eventually collapse, as plaster alone could not secure much.

So just like that, if we're going to have a belief, opinion, view or idea that we're going to feel secure about, we're going to have to base it on a stud that can support and have something quite substantial and solid in place. Here are some things that are not substantial or solid enough to allow us to be secure or confident in our view:

1. Emotion.
2. Speculation.
3. Superstition.
4. Assumption.
5. Fear.

Although any or all of these could work with someone who is not a strong thinker, they will never work with someone who has spent a great deal of time "stud finding" (to go on with my metaphor). None of these things could ever trump the following:

1. Awareness.
2. Experience.
3. Experimentation.
4. Evidence.
5. Testing.

To arrive at information, views and knowledge that have something solid behind it, we have to do more than just spew out our inherited, passed down, unquestioned beliefs and assumptions. It takes actual work and deep digging to find views that we're not going to feel insecure about.

The way to know if we're secure and have arrived at a view that is holistic is when we don't easily feel triggered when somebody challenges our point of view. When our point of view is in alignment with the powerful force of reality, it is pretty much in place as securely as a view can be.

That's the nice thing about it, reality is self-confirming because we are wired to feel in harmony and balance when we are aligned with it. All half-baked beliefs and views come with an immense amount of insecurity in them. That is why people get so emotional and "passionate" about their views - because they feel they have to campaign for them with all their might in order to keep feeling like how they see things is actually true.

And lest anyone reading this misconstrue my point: I am not saying that feeling very secure in what you believe is evidence that the belief is accurate - our capacity to be deluded and out of alignment is obviously monumental. What I am saying is that if our views bring us a sense of harmony, simplicity, peace and relaxation along with a feeling of warmth, clarity and love, that is how we know that we are in alignment with reality.

When we feel insecure, defensive, reactive and emotional, we can be pretty sure that something is out of whack.

I love how we are wired to reflect our state of mind. Any misinformation or out-of-whack belief will cause a state of insecurity and anxiety. The truth and sound and solid views don't have to attack, defend, react or go into crisis in order to make their point known.

So if you find yourself getting threatened by someone expressing their view or position that doesn't align with yours (or lack of yours) - use this as a gauge that there is more work to be done in the investigation department. Of course, if security and confidence are things you value. I have never seen someone becoming non-defensive and secure in their views without using their intelligence in a very pointed way to arrive at a place of clarity.

Maybe sometimes people do get there by virtue of aging, but I am of the bias that getting clear and straight in your mind, heart and gut does take some pointed and intentional work. Especially in a world that is full of folks that get by with very shaky foundations. If they survive and get away with it, then why bother? My answer: because paying the price of living in a state of psycho-emotional insecurity is no fun at all. And it leads to a lot of craziness. Invest a little, dig deeper and find some good instruction and guidance, I think it's worth it. It will make you more secure in yourself and way more confident. Of course this is assuming you haven't yet signed up to go on this ride. It's a long one, but it's a fun one. And it's totally worth it.

There Is No[t So Much Of A] Self

Through my spiritual journey, one of the teachings that has been the most intriguing and perplexing has been the statement that "there is no self." I'm happy to report that all these years into it, I have found a way to make sense of it for myself. Here's how I've done it...

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of staying with my brother, his wife and their 11 and 4 year-old. During my stay, my mother came to visit from the Dominican Republic and I got the opportunity to observe how all this self stuff works. I feel so lucky and grateful.

Here's what I saw... so my nephew who was then 3, but is now 4 seems to prefer junk food over whole foods. Now his father, mother and my mother (his grandmother) all obviously prefer that he eat wholesome foods because as grown-ups we understand whole foods are more nutritious and nourishing. Of course my nephew doesn't understand nor care about that. He's a 4 year-old.

Anyway, here's what I saw and how it clicked for me that there isn't nearly as much of a self as most of us seem to believe... My mother, with all her good intentions is trying to get him to eat actual food... but he's still being stubborn and throwing a tantrum that he wants the sugary and unhealthy stuff.

And it was around this time when mom turns to me and tells me something to the effect of: "He doesn't like real food, he only likes junk."

Something about when she said this made it very clear to me that what she was referring to as "He" was his supposed "self," but really, "he" is just a human with a tongue and a brain that are susceptible to addiction. Processed sugar is a highly addictive drug - when we give it to very young humans, their taste buds and digestive and biochemical systems trigger a chain of effects that sooner or later become cravings for the substance.

So is it that "He" (his "self") prefers processed sugar over wholesome foods or is it that his body is addicted to a substance completely unbeknownst to him? And here's where excessive "selfing" begins. His parents and peers tell him "YOU only like junk food" (When the fact really is: your body has been repeatedly exposed to an addictive substance and now it is craving more of it). Repeat and drill the idea that it is "YOU" (whatever that is) that loves junk food, and now we have a self that actually believes that "he" is a junk-food lover.

And the same goes with so many other things. "YOU" like this cartoon. "YOU" like this color. "YOU" like to drive me crazy. "YOU" like to manipulate. "YOU" don't like to read. "YOU" don't listen. "YOU" are... "YOU" aren't...

Before you know it, these messages get repeated and reinforced so many thousands of times and it all starts so early that it just keeps piling up and being recorded in a way that creates a seemingly solid self that was never real to begin with. And all I keep thinking about is all of the years of meditation and self-inquiry that are necessary to get dismantle this innocently created mess.

For me, when I was a kid, my mom and my dad used to look at me and tell me stuff about "myself" that to this day baffle me. And maybe that is how I was able to remember and see this innocent process happening. Because I would see the baffled face on my nephew when he would be told certain things. Kind of like "huh?" Followed by "I have no idea what you're saying, but you sure do sound really convinced and you're an adult, so you must know what you're talking about."

And that power differential is what tends to get the young child to buy and accept and embrace these false aspects of themselves. And as anyone who has looked at human development and psychology enough knows, it won't be long until the child actually starts to play that role to fit in with the family. A role that more often than not becomes a self for a long time.

Hopefully that little vignette is clear on how I've made sense of the "there is no self" teaching. Basically we are all just animals who are assigned names and then these names become the containers of a bunch of aspects of ourselves, none of which are ultimately real. Just like our name isn't actually who or what we are, neither are such acquired conditioned aspects of the "self." They are all just adaptations.

At some point, if we're lucky, we start to look at all this stuff and try to get to the bottom of what is actually so for us in a more organic way. I haven't found we ever completely get rid off all the stuff that was given to us by others who were and are there as we grow and develop, but I have found it is possible to get by with a lot less than was given to us. Especially the heavy stuff. And boy was I given some heavy shit to carry. Thank God, I don't feel I have to carry those heavy loads anymore.

By the way, the picture I posted is a Dominican doll that is faceless - it points to how the Dominican people don't have a specific face because they were colonized and populated by so many different races and cultures. In a way, I thought it went along with the no-self theme.

Lastly, I still do feel and think there is SOMEWHAT of a self, just one that is a lot more rudimentary and simple than we realize. I believe every animal, cell, tree, human has somewhat of a self - that self is what makes it an individual. And I believe that is what most humans are disconnected from, their basic, more real and true rudimentary self. I think that's what deep spirituality is trying to take us to. To that primordial, essential, basic self. And I believe we all share the same self, except we all are unique expressions of it. To get there, we either first have to realize that universal Self or we have to see through enough of the false created self. It takes a degree of maturity and interest in really getting the the bottom of who am I really - which is an interest that doesn't arise until one is ready. :)

Gassho (this expression represents two hands coming together in front of the chest, each hand representing a heart. "My heart and your heart are one" - that is what the meeting of the hands represents)

Namasté (this expression means the light of the universal Self in me honors the light of the universal Self in you. Or you could say God - I replaced the word "God" for universal Self this time.)

Best wishes.

Forgive Yourself

We all screw up. A lot. It'd be great if we knew that we were screwing up in the midst of our screwing up, but it just doesn't work that way. And would it be great? Would we ever really learn if we didn't fall hard? I don't know.

 A part of my fantasy has always been that we all just "know better" - but would that really be ideal? Or is it better that we, in fact, don't know better, think we do and then fall on our faces and learn?

Is there a designer to the way this all works? A God that intentionally planned for all of this to be this way? A God that decided that we would get cocky, act in ignorance thinking we were fully aware and then look back and feel like an ass?

I don't know - and I don't think it matters. I think that what matters more is that when we wake up out of an ignorant phase where we thought we knew what we were doing, we act with great compassion and kindness towards ourselves.

And I know this is very hard to do when we have a long history of being shamed when we made a mistake. We really don't need to keep doing that. So you royally screwed up (acted a fool, said yet another big fat lie, sabotaged a great relationship, made a dumb investment, treated someone like crap or whatever other dumb thing you did) - OK. It's true, it hurts. It's true, you feel like a total ass. But do you need to beat yourself up and keep perpetuating the shame? Do you really need to keep telling yourself that you're such an idiot and that you should have known better?

You didn't know better. Now you have the opportunity to learn what you didn't know then. But you can only harvest the fruit of that hard-won learning experience if you're able to get past the self-hatred and ongoing shock and disbelief you have about having been such a fool.

We are all fools. And that's the thing that is so hard for us to get. We keep lying to ourselves telling ourselves that someone out there that we respect and look up to a lot is not a fool. And we tell ourselves that we should and could be like them. The thing is... that person you look up to and admire is also a fool. You just don't want to let yourself know that because then you won't be able to keep fantasizing about one day not being a fool. If they're also a fool, you can no longer keep buying time to hopefully one day be no longer a fool like them.

I know this for two reasons. One, I happen to keep on falling for the sticky trap of idolizing and idealizing certain people. I swear up and down they are not fools like me. I swear up and down that if I could just be them I would no longer be a fool. I project a highness onto them and I fall for it over and over again. Two, I happen to be aware that some people look up to and idealize and idolize me. They swear up and down I am not and cannot be a fool like them. They are wrong. But they won't allow themselves to know that. Again, because that takes away their naive hope that they so deeply and desperately cling to. The hope that not being a fool is actually possible.

The day that you or me won't be a fool won't come. The day that your or my idols won't be fools won't come. That's true because we are all fools.

The only way one can successfully not be a fool is by being an idea in someone's head. But hang out with that person long enough (move in with them) and the reality will replace the idea and you will see a foolish human sooner rather than later. I repeat, the only way to not be a fool is to be an idea or an image in someone's head. And the only way to maintain that image is by having very limited contact and closeness with the real human person that this wishful thinking idea represents.

Idols are just that, idols. Not real people. And all real people have foolishness as a component of their humanity. All kinds of foolishness.

As crushing as this is for the naive little child inside of us, it is very important that we come to terms with that truth. And I am not saying it is easy. We have invested a lot of energy into fantasizing about being extraordinary or believing in extraordinary people. We have put a lot of our eggs into that basket. But the truth is that people are just people. And all people have many flaws.

Now, this is not to excuse any of your shitty, stupid or dumb behavior. And it's also not to give you a pass into not paying attention to your way of moving through life. This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It is far from that.

This is more an invitation to forgive yourself and accept the shitty actions, attitudes and beliefs and opinions you've held in the past and to see them as natural waves in the development of a human, for the sake of continuing to develop and grow as a human.

Just because we are all fools and just because we will always be fools doesn't mean we can't continue evolving and growing and becoming more conscious, appreciative and humble people as the process of maturity keeps taking place. It's just that this process of maturity literally cannot happen as long as we continue being unforgiving and self-shaming of our inherent fallibility.

And again, just because we'll never be fully perfect, doesn't mean we can't be earnest and sincere in our desire to continue to grow and evolve as much a possible. Just because "nobody's perfect," doesn't mean we can't tap into our deep desire to every day be a more honest, humble, kind, sincere, empathetic, compassionate and reliable person. Sure, none of us will ever get perfect at it, but all of us can grow, one baby step at a time. We can all move more and more into the side of the spectrum that represents the values that through many generations we have come to know as goodness.

Is it easy to transform and grow in this direction? Not necessarily. Does it get easier with practice? Yes, over time. Can we do it alone? To a certain extent, but like with anything else, doing it with proper support makes it more effective. Can we forgive ourselves for our past transgressions? When we're ready, yes, just not before we get over the fact that we have all been and continue to be vulnerable to being an ass.

I write this because I know many of us struggle with self-forgiveness. And I write this because I know it is possible to make this struggle a little less difficult. The key is wanting to be compassionate and gentle with oneself more than wanting to be self-condemning and vindictive with ourselves.

The nice bonus is that the more magnanimous we get with ourselves, the more magnanimous we get with others. Over the years I've learned that we can only be as forgiving and understanding of others as we can be forgiving and understanding of ourselves. And I've learned that self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others is always completely worth it. You won't get cash and prizes for it. Not at all. Life and other people will be as challenging as always - but at least you'll live the rest of your time on this planet with less of a burden on your shoulders, with less pressure in your head, with less of a burden in your body, with less of a monkey on your back.

So give it a try, forgive yourself.

Her Creativity And Mystery

When an infinitely curious and inquisitive mind and a sensitive and emotional heart like mine meet life, there is great potential to live in a combination of infinite wonder, torment and faith and doubt.

Questions like does perception create life or does life create perception circle round and round at times giving rise to creative stress that leads to burnout and at times leading to creative tension that leads to openings that satisfy the insatiable thirst of an infinite philosopher.

Inquiries like these make the chicken or the egg conundrum seem trivial. They make the notion of sanity and insanity seem arbitrarily subjective.

Sometimes I wonder if life is living me or I am living life. Sometimes I wonder if I am in a waking state or if I am inside of a dream. Sometimes I wonder if this is the afterlife. Sometimes I wonder if I am even me at all.

And how could I not have these questions in the midst of the bottomless creative mystery that life is? How could I not be constantly sniffing beneath every manifestation if they all exude a scent of the universal essence that my heart has always been longing for?

I am quietly, calmly and intensely desperate to realize the eternal in a way that satiates the existential angst that lives in my gut. I am secretly crossing beyond the threshold of the supposed known into the depths of the timeless divinity that permeates all that is.

And how could I not be? After all this unrest. After all this unease. After all this longing.

I would write that I am ready. But I don't know who I am. So I'll just write that I am here. Willing.

What's The Point Anyway?

Somehow at some point in my life I decided that I was going to pretend like I was always doing well and living my life with a sense of meaning and purpose. It seemed like a good marketing strategy as a voice teacher living in a very competitive and capitalistic world.

How will I present myself to the world if I want to seem attractive and compelling? Well, by coming off as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. A guy that always has a passionate fire burning within and is always enthralled and in love with his life and his life's work. A guy that is always lit up and happy to be alive. It was a good plan, wouldn't you say? I mean, who wants to study voice, acting or work on their self-esteem with a miserable dud. How will I put food on the table if I don't figure out how to appeal to my prospective students?

So yeah, I've always been that strategic planner that does things with attention to detail and with awareness of the implications of his choices. Well, not always, but you know what I mean - after I grew up and stuff.

As a teenager I was always embarrassed to have friends over. I always thought my house needed to be repainted, cleaned up and organized. Somehow, I always felt like the disheveled state that I perceived my house to be in said something about me.

Truth be told, and contrary to my boyfriend's belief. I take tremendous pride in the way that I present to the world. It is utterly important to me that my house, my car, my body, my, my clothes and even my spelling and social media don't elicit the idea that I am some sort of unaware hot mess.

And like many people, I made the mistake of linking my pride in myself with an outrageous sense of entitlement.

In other words, I felt that if I was educated, fit, clean, organized and presented myself in a professional, skilled and well refined fashion, I would automatically be granted success in whichever endeavors I pursued with sincere intention. Because after all, isn't that what is drilled into our brains from the second we come out of the womb? (Or should I say from the second we are conceived?)

"You are the master of your own destiny" - do this, this and this and you'll get this, this and this. But it's just not true is it?

So there, that's where the "what's the point?" title of this post comes from. When you feel like you're doing your best, when you feel like you're being earnest and sincere, when you feel like you are working really hard and paying attention to just about every angle but are just not seeing the expected results. What happens?

I don't know about you, but for me it's a state of helplessness and despair. And then a story starts to deeply embed itself in the fabric of my unconscious. "It's pointless" - I won't get recognized or rewarded for my efforts anyway. "What's the point of working and trying so hard if I can't even pay my bills?" "Better to stay on the couch and stay on my phone."

This is what in psychology is known as learned helplessness. It's a pattern and cycle that becomes extremely difficult to become conscious of in oneself. And it can happen to us in any area of our lives.

For me, it usually gets me with career stuff. For others it gets them with relationships. For others it gets them with health and fitness. For others it gets them with life as a whole. For my students, it can get them with vocalizing.

Giving up is doesn't always happen because we're lazy and because we want things to be easy. Giving up can also happen because we are literally burned out and tired of attempting to achieve something without any measure of success that we can account for. It happens because life can be hard, society can be unfair, people can be cruel and stuff can just suck sometimes.

But the hardest thing to get past is the idea that we are in control and that we are entitled to something. And the other hard thing to get past is giving up on our familiar persistent desires and wishes. Another thing our culture drills into our head to NEVER give up on no matter what. Another piece of shitty advice that we can thank the delusional world we live in for. And come at me with your rebuttals, because I am ready.

The point of my sharing this is not to be negative, although it will inevitably appear that way to anyone who is still in the phase of ardently trying or anyone who is in the phase of enjoying the illusion of having created their own success. But the point of me sharing this is for creating awareness around how real life can work sometimes and letting you know that if you're burned out and feeling hopeless and tired of the "same old shit" - that you know that you are not alone and that you are not crazy or lazy or stupid. Because you are not. You are just experiencing some very justified exhaustion and weariness that is part of being alive.

Regardless of what privileged people say, life is really, really hard sometimes and it's okay to admit that and to wonder what the point of all of this is. Sometimes, asking that question is perfectly reasonable and normal. Sometimes feeling like a victim that has not been lucky and who the gods must be playing a joke on is a natural result of walking on this earth. And in my book, that is totally normal, natural and even acceptable.

So there. Maybe there isn't a point. Maybe it's okay that you're fed up and tired. Maybe you just need to know that someone knows how you feel and understands you. Maybe you just need to know that it's natural to feel the way you feel sometimes. Maybe you just need to know that you are OK. Maybe you just need to know that there is nothing wrong with you.

Maybe you just need to hear that the way you feel makes sense. Maybe you just need a hug.

And here is my hug to you.

Me Too

Usually when I'm going to write something, I write it from what feels to be a spontaneous and unplanned place. This one is different. To be honest, I feel my heart pounding a little faster and I honestly feel scared to write what I am about to write.

Since the Weinstein horrors have been surfacing I have kind of been undesirably forced to look at the parts of my past that resonate with the sour notes being played by these public revelations on some of the realities of the world of show business.

What I am mostly scared about, is not about telling the truth about some of the resonating things that I have been through, but what I am more scared about is the lack of caring and the negative reactions that I might get for publicly divulging how I have been a victim of sleazeballs that were not respectful of my naive and youthful mind, brain and body.

Lucky for me, I've always had the makings of a strong and self-protective soul that for whatever reason knows its worth and value. Unlucky for me, that was only a latent potential that wasn't always as realized as it is now.

Normally, I am of the folks that chooses to go with the classic deep denial line of "I don't care what people think about me" style of portraying myself, but the consideration of even writing this note is challenging that protective layer of denial. Again, I am scared of what people will think about me when they read this. Even worse, I am scared that people won't even read this.

And that's a clue into one of my primary fears. The fear that no one really cares about me. The fear that people will call me a drama queen. The fear that people will tell me that I am only sharing this because I have nothing else going on in my life and that I am doing it for attention. The fear of people thinking that I am just doing this to jump on the hip #metoo wagon. The fear that I'll be blamed or punished in any way for revealing what I am about to reveal. The fear that I am going to be accused of writing in a way in which I believe myself to be more important than I am and that I am just manipulating people into caring about me. And believe me, I cold go on with the list of fears. But I won't. I won't thanks to Anthony Rapp daring to go forth in sharing his story.

I will, however, explain a little bit of why I feel so afraid: First, because I am thoroughly trained in expecting people to belittle the pain of most of my vulnerable confessions, especially when they are not seen as a "good enough" reason to be stirred by the event. Second, because for whatever reason I feel that people only care about popular or renowned people. Regular folks like me have no business publicly sharing stuff like this because it doesn't serve anything other than playing a victim and making everyone around uncomfortable. That kind of public confession should be reserved to celebrities, because underneath it all, we regular people just don't matter enough.

Well today I am deciding, as I have been deciding little by little for all of my life, that I matter enough to share my story. And here it is...

Pardon the redundancy, but due to a large combination of events, along with my temperament, personality and life experiences, I was a teenager that arrived at the point of profoundly feeling like I really didn't matter. It's a long story, which I am open to talking about, and in fact have been for most of my life, but without much success in creating many significant and mature dialogues about it.

I always loved to sing. It was one of the few things that made me feel important and like I mattered at least a little bit. Whenever I would sing as a kid on my family summer vacations, my uncles and cousins would praise my voice. Not so much because it was great, but because they just thought everything that their visiting cousin did was cool. But it didn't matter, I loved to sing and I wanted to believe that I was good. Which honestly, I kind of was, except I couldn't keep up with the singing stars of my youth, my voice would horribly crack when I attempted to sing the really high and loud notes. But again, it didn't matter, I was still celebrated.

Those summer vacations, and a handful of oohs and aaahs as a reaction from strangers hearing me sing, made me feel like I had a gift. But even beyond that, I really, really just loved to sing and I kind of liked the way I made myself feel when I would sing my favorite songs as a child.

Long story short, the combination of my love of singing and my idea that few others thought I was good along with my feeling of not mattering because I was nobody, led me to a path of pursuing a career in which I believed I was going to be an important international singing superstar. I decided that to matter I had to be famous and that to be famous I had to study singing and acting in college.

So I did.

Come to find out, I really wasn't as good as I thought. I mean, I was, but I was not experienced enough and lacked the confidence in the face of reality. I went from being one of the only people who could sing in a small suburb in the Dominican Republic, to being one among many who had been playing the leading roles in their high school musicals. Something that the pretty much none of the high schools I had attended down in the Dominican Republic had.

So I went from being a big fish in a little pond, to being a small fish in a much bigger pond. And I didn't even go to a big or well-known school. In fact, I ended up going to a school that very few people know and that to this day has a relatively small theater and music department.

My first audition to get in the musical was horrendous. I was so nervous, clueless and insecure that I basically screamed the whole song, rolled my eyes to myself the whole time and was incredibly awkward in my entrance and exit. There was nothing I gave that said "promising," at least in my eyes.

But I'm not the type of person that tanks something and then goes "oh well, this must not be for me." Fortunately I have a little more perseverance than that. And I also have days when I can admit that I am responsible for my failures. And this was one of those days. I knew I had tanked my audition and I didn't really expect to get a part in the musical of my freshman semester. I had a feeling my name would not be on the callback or casting list on the days to come.

I accepted my defeat gracefully and when the musical went on, I of course went to see it. I loved it so much I wrote a great review for it. It had been so nice to see all these people up there doing what I always wanted to be doing. Singing for an applause. Singing for recognition. Singing for the sake of loving singing. I wanted to do that so bad. And I was so proud and happy for them to have done that for themselves.

Fast forward to my second semester in college, and I had already made some progress, definitely not enough to be in these musicals either, but enough to be in the ensemble of the children's musicals, which I didn't even make. To this day, I don't know if it had anything to do with my horrendous first impression or if it had to do with there not being enough room for me. The point is, I was involved in the shows as a stage hand and although I was dying to be a member of the performing cast, I was happy to be so up and close with the whole cast. I was a silent, yet also often vocal cheerleader wishing all the performers the best and admiring the work they did as actors, dancers and singers. I was fully collaborating and participating in the productions, but still silently struggled with my sense of not mattering, especially since I was nothing but a stage hand. So I know how it feels for people who have jobs that people consider menial. Especially when it's paired with the level of low self-worth and self-esteem that I was silently struggling with. It's not pretty, but you push through it and "you do for the love of others what you wouldn't do for yourself" as someone I respect very much says.

Now it's next year, I'm a sophomore now - I've had a whole summer to get better, a whole summer to work on my singing, my acting, not much on my dancing, because I never though that was going to happen for me so I didn't bother much, but it didn't matter, because many leading roles, which were what I wanted did not require dancing. Well, many except the one that we put on that year which was a heavy tap dancing show. Needless to say, I didn't get a lead. But guess what? I made it into the tap-dancing ensemble because they didn't have enough men! Something that any small theater school attendee knows all about. Most of these people are women. And the guys either don't sing, don't dance at all or don't really strive to get into musicals.

So there I was, tap dancing through rehearsals, scared shitless, half dissociated, and extremely uncomfortable trying to push through my total inability to tap dance. It was embarrassing. Not that many people noticed, because if the school I went to was good at something, it was at reinforcing my sense of loneliness and not-matteringness that I had already been going through. Like many theater youngsters, most of these people where fixated on themselves. If I have more than three stories in the banks of my memory of a fellow thespian noticing my struggles and offering me help, I'd be shocked. But maybe they were there and I missed them in my cloud of self-loathing and phony confidence. I don't know.

At this time, my school had three major theater authorities, Laura, who was my favorite. Milton, who was the Academy Award Winning celebrity professor of acting, and Phil who was in charge of the musicals. There was also Christy, from the music department. At the time, she played the piano for auditions. And incidentally, she had rejected me in my entry audition for the school, on the basis of me not even knowing the most basic of music notation. By the way, Laura was the one who accepted me into the school as an Acting student, she even got me a partial scholarship based on my talent.

I hate this part in writing, when I feel like I am about to get to the meat of what I want to share, and I find myself meandering and losing steam. But I am doing my best here to push through. The inner saboteur keeps telling me to scrap all of this and just go for that walk that I intended to go on before I stopped on the way out to start writing this. But I know this aspect of me too well, and I will push through and get what I need to off my chest. Because I matter, dammit.

If my memory doesn't fail me, it is now the second semester of my sophomore year, around the time of auditions for the season's shows. Milton, the one that gets away with telling me in front of the whole class that I look like a bum, that is asking me what the fuck I am doing, gets in the bathroom where I am going to pee and locks the door behind him. This creepy, intimidating, namedropping and crass figure is now directly behind me, slides his hand across my chest through the inside of the top of my shirt and says "Oh Gabriel!" in the creepiest possible way. I can't remember if he kissed my neck or not, but I am pretty sure he did. I had no clue of what to do. I wasn't as scared as I was paralyzed and shocked. I had no idea what to do other than to say "Milton! What are you doing?" to which he reacted with a smile first, and then by stepping back when he saw how unwelcome he was. I was grossed out. I told some of my peers and they had not much more of a reaction than "Really? What the fuck?" which was pretty much all I wanted at the time. So it was all good. Or so I thought. But I don't think so. I don't think I'm OK with what happened that day. I can tell because as I wrote that, I feel my body flooded with adrenaline and disdain and anger. I was violated that day and that was not OK.

Was I an adult? Yes. Did I keep it from going further? Yes. Was this still assault and violation? Yes. I wasn't consenting. I was a vulnerable student and this man took advantage. I am disgusted as I write this, because I would never want something like this to happen to anyone else under similar circumstances. It's abuse of power, it's crossing a boundary and it's not OK.

And I wish I could stop there. But Phil, the married man, who I hope is now healthier and more mature also made a pass at me. In some ways even worse because he kissed me on the lips in the small costume room by the black box theater in which the first musical that I wrote the review for took place. This other creep, who I hope with all my heart is now reformed, used to make inappropriate remarks into my ear about details of my sex life that I would regrettably share with a peer with a big mouth at the time and then he would disgustingly lick the inside of my ear. He did this once or twice, I can't really remember, but he did it once and that was bad enough.

The incident in the costume room happened shortly before auditions took place too. I don't know if that was just a coincidence or these power abusers just knew that the students were more vulnerable around that time because they wanted to get in the shows so bad or what the case was, but whatever the case was. He made some inappropriate remark, he was married and had introduced all of us to his husband whom he "loved" and would tell sweet jokes about, he knew I had a girlfriend and he still took advantage of a time when we were alone and he reached in to kiss me. I kissed him back out of feeling cornered and also dying to get a leading role and I immediately realized what I had done and retreated. Remorse set in instantly and I felt cheap and horrible for longer than I suspect I allowed myself to admit to myself.

I survived most of my teens and twenties by way of dissociation and denial. And I know I am not alone in this which is part of why I am sharing these experiences with all of you. I thought I wasn't impacted but again, I feel a rush of adrenaline and what I suspect to be a cocktail of brain chemicals releasing the suppressed trauma. So in that way, I hope this ends up to be a healing experience and not one of further trauma.

I ask that if you are helped or relate to this story or know anyone who would, that you share that with me and that you share it with anyone else. And if you went to school with me and went through anything similar, that you be brave and share with me either in public or in private so that I can feel less alone in these things. This really wasn't fun and although I wouldn't say this is the reason why I've backed off tremendously from pursuing a career as an actor and singer in show business, I have to admit that these experiences have had a negative impact on my view of the industry. Especially now with all the Weinstein stuff.

It's a power abuse issue, it's a corruption issue, it's pervasive in all fields where humans are involved. And I know that. I hate that I constantly feel like I have to defend my right to express what I've been through by working really hard for not wanting to come off as a victim. "I know I am not alone in this," "I know this issue is pervasive in all industries," "I know that fill in the blank with a statement that makes me sound like less of a victim and makes me sound like my sharing is not just for the service of my own ego." All of those caveats and statement qualifiers are stemming from the same issue that I began talking about in all of this. That feeling of not mattering, of not being important, of not being worthy. It's a horrible disease that I know most of us struggle through, and this time I don't say that to soften the blow that I might be giving to those who feel uncomfortable by my sharing, but more because I know it to be true now that I am in the position of being a teacher who has power. A power that I respect and treat with great caution because I know how prone to abuse it we are. And that is why I tread very cautiously with my students and I do everything I can to make them feel safe, seen, important and respected. So if there is a silver lining to all of this, it might be that. I don't know.

Lastly, at the risk of sounding contradictory, I wouldn't want to pretend like I have never made anyone feel uncomfortable or hurt anybody or been abusive of any power I might have in any given circumstance, but I do want to say that I find it extremely important that we all share with loved ones the things that we go through and the things that we feel we put each other through. People can't read our minds and unless we share what is happening in there, no one can know.

That is why I do this too. So that people can know. And sometimes it’s not easy. These two accounts I shared happened well over a decade ago. So I understand all these actors and actresses coming out now sharing their stories on the heels of the bravery of each other. Another reason why I think it's important to share your story. You never know who you might be inspiring.

OK, I think it's time for that walk now. I need it.

Thanks for listening.

Thank You Old World

As Kermit the frog likes to say, it's not easy being green. And I would know because I've spent pretty much all of my life being a green little knucklehead that has had no clue about life and how it works.

Which is why I want to take a minute to say thank you to all the old world teachers, like monks, priests and zen masters that came from Japan and the old world to bring their wisdom teachings to this very green and immature country filled with self-indulgent magical thinkers and trinket addicts.

Thank you to all the old wise men and women who have left their trail of breadcrumbs to guide the dumb, naive and stubborn folk like me.

Thank you to all the teachers, professors and mature and wise men and women who have truly emotionally grown up and have put their money where they mouth is. To those patient, persevering stand up people who didn't cower and stuck it out through thick and thin.

To those who didn't bail and run out and avoided facing the relational hardships in their lives. To those old souls, the old school, the ones who don't go into the childish "fuck its" that most emotionally grown children do.

To the men and women that have known how to cry and face their fears and given up their ego addiction to make way for love and taking responsibility.

Thank you to those who haven't fallen into the momentum of endless trends and fashions. Thank you to those old school souls that have been able to adapt and remain in balance. In spirit, mind and body.

To those who are able to look past the myriad of distractions and have been able to keep it simple and to the point.

Thank you wisdom teachers, awake beings, present folk, men and women of good. Men and women of heart. Men and women of truth.

Thank you sincere, responsible, caring and engaged and open hearts and souls who push past their own victim identities and become self-realized and actualized.

Thank you to those who didn't silo themselves and acted like aliens or islands unto themselves.

Thank you Africa, thank you Japan, thank you India, thank you Europe, thank you Old World, thank you conscious and wise grandmas and grandpas. Thank you masters, thank you teachers, thank you mature and truthful, simple and honest, common sense grown up souls.

Gassho. Namaste. Gratias Tibi.

Pros And Cons Of My Eastern Spirituality (Nonduality) Path

When I was a kid, I focused on nothing but on getting my immediate needs met from my environment. At times I succeeded and at times I failed. When I succeeded I was happy, when I failed, I was hurt. And boy was I a sensitive and stubborn little one.

When I became a teenager, I focused on nothing more than on my list of endless disappointments through my childhood. All my happy memories had disappeared and all my unhappy ones had become the focal point of my angry teen-aged existence. I blamed people, I pointed fingers, I held grudges and I was eternally disappointed.

It was then when I decided "fuck them," I'm going to detach from everyone and make my own life the way I want it. I promised myself that I would become the next international super star, conquering both the Spanish and English speaking parts of the globe. I was the best singer in the world, so it wasn't going to be that difficult. All I had to do was believe hard enough and work on it until I got discovered. So I went to college for singing. LOL.

When I saw how little success I was having at getting all the leading roles in school, my confidence (or should I say arrogance) started to break. By the time I was in my junior year, the list of failures at being the star of a small private college was starting to show me that maybe I wasn't going to break through in the way I had previously envisioned.

That's when all my work at personal development (back then called self-help) was not the whole key to my liberation. And that's when I stumbled across eastern spirituality teachings that focused on living in the now and becoming enlightened.

"This whole being a super star that's going to conquer the whole world is not working out so well, let me give this spiritual enlightenment thing a shot" my ego thought.

And so I did. I gave the enlightenment thing a shot and pretty much ditched the whole personal development thing altogether. Now, my life wasn't about self-improvement, it was about spiritual enlightenment.

This switch confused everyone around me. "What happened? Gabriel was so driven and determined and now he's given up. What the heck is going on?"

I stopped going to the gym, I stopped going to therapy, I stopped caring about how I looked, I stopped working, I stopped tending to my relationships, I stopped setting and pursuing goals, I stopped everything.

All I focused on was on self-inquiry, spirituality and enlightenment.

I did it so hard that I precipitated an awakening experience that took place in my basement apartment in the summer of 2007. It went something like this:

I was laying in my bed and I was thinking to myself: "How do I know that I am thinking?" to which I answered, "Who just asked that question?" to which I answered "Who just asked who asked that question?" and so on.

Apparently, the intensity and depth of my self-inquiry triggered a cataclysmic experience in which awareness became aware of itself. And since this was seemingly my first time experiencing that consciously, my whole world shifted in an instant. Since then I have never been able to be anywhere near the guy I used to be.

As you could imagine, this awakening was another pivotal turning point for me. Now, I have "awakened." Now, I am "enlightened." And boy was this a trip. Ten years later, I sit here and am shocked at how intensely deluded I became after that life-changing experience.

I wish I could say that every day after that experience I was a much better person, but I am sad to say that this was not the case. If anything I became more arrogant, more deluded and more insane than I had ever been before.

It hasn’t been until 7 psychotic breaks later, multiple hospitalizations, years of therapy and a LOT of servings of humble pie that I have been able to catch up with the massive whirlwind that all of this transformation has put my poor psyche through.

And here's where I think I got super confused and why I think it took that long to get to some sanity since then...

Clearly stated, I fell for the trap of stubbornly and exclusively attaching myself with the notions and teachings offered by ancient eastern spirituality.

Things like: - You are not the body (so why exercise?) - You are not the mind (so why do therapy?) - You are not your emotions (so why apologize?) - You are not the self (so why work?) - There is only now (so why save?) - The past is an illusion (so why study?) - All is well (so why bother?)
On and on...

And here's what I was missing: These are merely pointers and teachings. They have their uses, origins, their reasons and their intents. But none of them are total truth. As the wise spiritual adage goes: “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

A lot of these teachings come from India, Japan and many other places. But let's look at India. In India, the country runs in a great state of chaos, the body isn't seen as sacred or holy. The sage Nisargadatta Maharaj, who was one of my favorites was a chain-smoking, body denying, screaming sage. Ramana Maharshi, who is credited a lot for popularizing the self-inquiry that I was engaging in, in my basement apartment, only wore a rag around his groin and lived on a mountain and refused to go to his father's funeral. These people have a different culture, a different set of conditioning and a different set of values than we do here. And that was precisely what I loved about their teaching. The "Neti Neti" (not this, not that) or “Via Negativa” (way of negating) approach to awakening. An approach based in denial of everything except consciousness.

In India, I probably would have been an enlightenment success story. I would have sat under a tree and became a sadhu. But I was in Long Island, New York. So that didn't go over too well.

About Japanese Zen, another one of the philosophies that I found extremely attractive (mostly because of the exotic appeal that it had to the heavily materialistic and insecure American boy that I was) contains these teachings of "Chop wood and carry water” and simple teachings like “When you’re hungry, eat. When you’re tired, sleep.” Which even though I understood to be metaphors, I still attempted to cram these pointers in my daily millennial existence by denying my talents, gifts and abilities as well as suppressing my western boy desires and overall humanness. All by living in an unconscious vow of poverty and dependence on credit cards, my Dad and banks that provided school loans. I was just trying to “keep it simple.”

Having a job, being engaged and being a dutiful and responsible citizen seemed ridiculous. Ridiculous being a code word for absolutely terrifying.

One of the things that helped loosen my denial was when my teacher of the time, Adyashanti said in many of his talks: "The spiritual personality type is more afraid of life than he is afraid of death" (I'm paraphrasing, but that was pretty much it.) When I heard that, something deep inside of me knew that what he was saying was true. Somehow I knew that I was only half awake.

What saved me and got me out of it? A LOT of grace. A LOT of grace in the form of help, perseverance, tenacity, sincerity and love.

Mostly what did it for me, where my voice teacher, Mark Baxter, my spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, and later in life my zen teacher, Cheri Huber and the sangha that she guides. Somehow, seeing these people doing what I want to do and seemingly having all of the things that I desire, gave me hope that it is possible to integrate all these things and actually have a life that I want to live. They're all teaching, writing, have homes that they love and are "in the world but not of it."

Which by the way reminds me of another thing that helped me greatly: embracing Christianity and the dualistic religions.

Non-duality gave me the distance through denial of myself, my family, my relationships, my heritage, my desires, my individuality and my humanity as a whole. And even though it gave me a ton of awareness and stability, in the end left me dry and bored.

Duality gave me the embrace, the love, the inclusion and the acceptance and compassion to admit myself, my family, my relationships, my heritage, my desires, my individuality and my humanity as a whole. And even though it can give me a lot of stress and overwhelm, I has also given me a lot of devotion, compassion, aliveness and a willingness to engage and participate.

Because of both of these approaches, along with an unbelievable amount of grace, I can say that I am proud to be who I am and I am happy to be alive and well today.

Today, the edge of my practice is to keep these two approaches in balance. I do that through ongoing spiritual practice and through ongoing engagement in life.

Thank you for reading my story and I hope it's of some use to you.

Gabriel

An Exercise In Transparent Vulnerability

Here's another long one. I've been going through it... again. I am recent out of getting really good care from a hospital in which I had to be admitted for psycho-emotional difficulties. If you know me intimately at all, you know that that has been one of the children that I've been given to tend to for most of my life. And as many of you know, this unsettled, hurt and crying inner child is not the easiest to learn to tend to.

Being a teacher and feeling the need to be a model of possibility, hope, light and love can come with a tremendous amount of challenge when the wounded child within is flaring up. Ironically, the very same model/mentor aspect of my being (a.k.a the "well adjusted adult") is both, the savior and the tormentor of this beautiful crying inner infant.

And as anybody who's signed up for the task of true healing will attest to, it is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart.

I post this to keep modeling what it is like to be open, honest and vulnerable as I have been doing for as long as I've been able to. And if you're wondering where such a cooky decision came from, I'll tell you that it comes from how alone and hurt I've personally felt due to a lifetime of lacking people in my immediate life that know how to consistently model what healthy, honest and undefended transparency and vulnerability look like. Truth be told, the culture of secrecy, shame and extreme emotional privacy (in conjunction with the idealization of putting out an image of indestructible happiness, success and pride) has not only not worked for me. And I can unequivocally state that it has sincerely been the single most painful aspect of society that I have had to experience as a human in this world we all share.

As someone who currently is and has been in a handful of intimate relationships and as someone who is serving in the roles of private voice teacher, acting coach and self-esteem mentor, I know full well that I am not alone in my feelings. I know that, although most of us are afraid to publicly open up about it, many of us are deeply crying inside. Sadly, we sensitive types feel like unlovable freaks for being the only ones openly hurting. All while many others are masterfully pretending to have a completely wound-free life. And even though I understand that being private is everyone's prerogative, I know how isolating and invalidating this chosen privacy can feel for us highly sensitive people. And even though I know people have their valid reasons to hide their pain, I feel that somebody's gotta do the dirty work and come forward. Let that fool be me.

Also, none of this is new, it seems it has always been this way. In fact, it is rumored that the Buddha (whom I deeply admire and love) stated thousands of years ago that life is suffering (the first noble truth). And I suppose that as humans we're each karmically hooked up to suffer more or less over different things. I in particular, have suffered a lot because of people's understandable tendency to project and present and image that is not consistent with their truth. I wasn't always as conscious about this as I am today, but this has truly been the bane of my relational existence.

As a child, what I always wanted more than anything else was for things to line up. I wanted English teachers to have good spelling and grammar, I wanted priests to be loving and compassionate, I wanted presidents to be wise and lead their countries with great sincerity, love and intelligence. I tightly associated what I saw that I heard people say they were with what their job description was. I anticipated no negative surprises. I expected consistency and honesty. Or at least honesty and transparency alone. Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life. Little did I know, that I had incarnated in a dimension of reality where more than commonplace, hypocrisy happens to be absolutely normal and the standard of our social living.

In line with all of this, those of you who know me intimately are probably aware of my attribution to a lot of my inner conflict to the broken marriage that I was an offspring of. And again, I know I am not alone in that. In fact, I know so well that I am not alone in that, that I know for a fact that more people suffer for this very reason than people themselves are aware of. I grew up hearing my mom and my dad saying how much they loved each other, but although initially I was naive and buying it, it didn't take long before I ended up feeling deeply confused due to the fact that this love was not becoming manifest in a way that made sense to me. For most of my childhood my parents had a long distance relationship. A very long distance relationship, with an ocean and 1,553 miles of distance in between, to be more specific.

But love conquers everything, doesn't it? Well it does and it doesn't. Although my parents did have great love for each other, they had what I understand to be very little capacity to make their marriage work. And love didn't conquer that. Avoidance did. It took a long time for all of this to surface and become as clear as it is now, and a lot of difficult shit went down in between. I, for one feel quite traumatized and battered by it, and although my siblings claim to be over it, I am not.

I write this to reach for support as I have in the past, with good results. I don't ask for prayers because, at least for the time being, I'm not too hooked up to be a prayer type. But in spite of that, if a prayer is all you can offer, I will gladly take it.

I also write this because I don't want to be one more of the bunch that copes and bottles this stuff up inside. That has not worked for me at all in the past and it doesn't seem to be working for other people. No matter how much they pretend to be fine. But who knows, maybe it's more than I'm higher maintenance than most and have high standards. Funny, my original intent was to write something like: "Nothing angers me more than privileged people who take credit for their privilege by claiming that their privilege was something they created through their hard work." (Think Donald Trump who seems to believe everything he's ever accomplished is all due to HIM.) Instead, all this other stuff came out. And I'm glad it did.

Your words of empathy and support would be deeply appreciated. The retreat helped all of this beautiful expression of an honest crying heart to emerge. And I am so grateful for it.

I trust that you will handle this tenderly. And if you don't, it's your loss and not mine. That last line I just wrote for those who would be concerned about me for publishing my heart on this sleeve called Blogspot.

With great love, Gabriel

Feeling Good All The Time

I completely understand the longing and desire to feel good all the time. After all, we are wired to pursue feeling good and avoid feeling bad as a mechanism of survival. Of course we will choose comfort, safety and feeling good over discomfort, unsafety and feeling bad. It's the only reason why we are still around - because instead of choosing to stay in the freezing cold, we chose to seek temperatures that allow us to remain alive. Instead of choosing foods that taste awful and are poisonous, we chose to eat nourishing foods that taste delicious. Instead of choosing... well, we all get the point.

Fast forward a couple thousand of years and here we are. In a world were all of our past choices as a species led to the present times. A time when our desires and drives have remained the same, just that are completely different in content. Now, it's not a choice between staying in the freezing winter that will kill us due to hypothermia, now it's a choice of whether we want it to be 70 or 74 degrees according to our heating unit or air conditioner. Which will it be? Now it's not a choice of whether to go for that suspicious looking berry and that tried-and-true apple. Now it's whether we want a chocolate chip cookie or a slice of tiramisu. Our choices have changed a ton, wouldn't you say?

The answer is an obvious yes, and the irony is that studies have shown that the more choices we have, the more overwhelmed our brains get and the more stress we experience. Things were definitely simpler and easier when our choices were two and one was the obvious right one and one was the obvious wrong one. When we have hundreds of choices, our brain panics a bit and freezes a little. "What should I choose?" "What do you think?" "Which one is the best?" Questions we have all been asked by friends. 

But, shouldn't we be experts at choosing? Shouldn't we just KNOW what we want? Especially now that we have all this generational and collective practice? Seems like not. And THIS is EXACTLY WHY I love the ancient tradition of Zen. Because it brings me back to the beginning of time, where no phrase is wiser than something as simple as "Chop wood, carry water."

A very different message from the promises of spiritual enlightenment that I imagined as a tween that was just beginning to dive into spirituality. Back then, if someone tried to sell me Zen, I would have rejected it as quickly as I would have rejected anything that made any sense back when I was in my twenties. "Screw anything logical, rational, reasonable and true," covertly said the resistant and self-centered voice in my head. Why have Zen when I can have infinite bliss and happiness?

And here's the answer: because there is no such thing as feeling good all the time. Because that simplistic and reductionist view of what is possible in life is nothing more than a pipe dream and an utter fantasy. And although I can completely understand the innocent belief in its possibility, I can completely see that it's just not true or possible.

Now, spirituality is not about seeking to feel good all the time. Now, spirituality for me is about acceptance of the reality of life. Now, spirituality is about paying attention to everything and believing nothing. Now, spirituality is about allowing life to be what it is and has always been. Now, spirituality is about embracing and being intimate with. Now, spirituality is about letting life speak to me and dictate to me rather than the other way around. Now, spirituality is about surrender and not about control. Now, spirituality is about taking responsibility and not about dreaming and hoping that magic will save me. Now, spirituality is about saying saying thank you for all blessings rather than asking for more. Now, spirituality is about receiving my life openly rather than resisting and fighting the love that I am.

Gassho.

Being Alone

It's funny how often, when I write, I have this silly illusion that I am possibly writing for somebody else. It's never true, yet I often fall for it. Why? Probably because I want to believe that someone out there will keep me company as I write. I imagine myself and the reader, both together, happily ever after.

What's actually happening, however is that I'm leaving breadcrumbs for my lost soul to follow. And I feel a good little trail about to make itself on the way to the screen.

Being lonely and being alone are two completely different things. Being lonely is another way of saying being empty of awareness of one's majesty. Being alone is another way of saying being completely whole and at peace within oneself. Being alone is like being all one. Yes, all one in the sense that there is no referencing a supposed second or third within one's being. There's no looking for a reflection of one's image, there's no attachment to being accepted, loved, embraced or any of that. There's no ATTACHMENT to it. Read that slowly, my imaginary reader. There's no ATTACHMENT to being accepted, loved, embraced or any of that. Again, read that slowly, my imaginary second.

Human life has its way, its game, its rules, its modus operandi. And regardless of what those parameters are, freedom lies in not being ATTACHED to any of it. Yes, I know this may get annoying and even worse completely incomprehensible, but perhaps you can sense what I mean. It's the relinquishing of ATTACHMENT that solves the mystery of human suffering. And when we relinquish ATTACHMENT, we discover what being alone means. We discover what being all one means.

I know how annoying reading something, connecting deeply with it, sensing it and even deeply understanding it, can be. But it's only annoying when we feel so close and yet so far from what our deepest essence registered. That so close but yet so far can be a tiny split, but it's enough of a split to cause one to go insane. Yes, especially when we try to push and force, like this guy that's writing this karmically tends to do. It must be all the zeal.

Luckily the thirties have arrived. There's less naivete, less immature energy and less confusion. And that can be a saving grace.

Maybe aging is all about coming to terms with our inherent aloneness. Maybe aging is all about making peace with a truth that we're conditioned to not see, even though it's blatantly obvious. Maybe aging is all about growing into sensing the great alone that we are. And maybe that doesn't mean that we have to be lonely and maybe that doesn't mean that we have to be alone. Maybe that just means that we relinquish our ATTACHMENT to not wanting to be alone and to wanting to be alone. Maybe this is a great part of the letting go that humans have to go through in order to arrive at peace. Letting go of ATTACHMENT.

And what is attachment anyway? The obvious answer is fear. Fear of loss, fear of life, fear of death, fear of fear. Fear of not having control. And what is fear? Confusion. And what is confusion? A lack of insight. And what is insight? Seeing what is. And what is? You're it.

Funny, I'm alone while I write this and you're alone while you read it. And even though there's someone a few feet away from me, that still holds true. And even though there may be a bunch of co-workers or whoever around you, you're still alone. How do you react to that? It's a good question because it's a good measure for how at peace with yourself you are. How being alone makes you feel is probably the way you really feel most of the time - except for those moments when you trick yourself into believing you're not alone. Because the fact is that you are alone. You are alone with your thoughts, emotions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, opinions, notions and all the rest. And this is why those of us who do not enjoy our inherent aloneness become ATTACHED to any of these - because if we don't, we'll discover the truth that we irrationally fear so much. It's just the way we've trained ourselves for whatever reason - and so what? It's not a problem if we're not ATTACHED to it. Right?

Giving Thanks

I feel so much gratitude, it is literally killing my ego and triggering tears of healing.

THANK YOU:

To God and all celestial benevolent beings, who have been keeping me safe and sound. I feel you every instant because I believe in you.

To my beautiful self, Gabriel Weiner, for being infinitely curious, inquisitive, sincere, honest and consistent in his love of truth.

To my strong and beautiful mother and father, Angela Jáquez and Paul Weiner, for having brought me into the world and for not letting me die (and for not killing me) when I was under their care.

To my siblings, Fannette Guillen, Benjamin Weiner, Aaron Weiner and Andres Weiner, for having made my childhood and beyond so rich and interesting. For being such great teachers in my life.

To all my teachers and professors, for tackling such an incredibly challenging and underrated task and for giving me more than any store ever has.

To my great, great timeless friend Susana Dominguez, for being an incredible partner on the journey.

To my amazing voice teacher, Mark Baxter for being an unbelievable possibility model.

To my wonderful exes, Lindsay Majewski, Phil Bonnachi, Anabel Valdez, Marcelo Dotel & Sandro Morales for having been such amazing teachers and companions along the way.

To my extremely clear main spiritual guides, Adyashanti, Cheri Huber and Mukti. I always come back to you for a reason.

To my amazing fiancé Dariusz Kulesza for being loyal, humble, dependable, reliable, loving and strong... not to mention, cute and sexy. I love you.

To Daniel Sullivan, Moises Dominguez, Ana Dominguez, Vivian Sullivan and Isabelle Dominguez for making my Saturday nights so special.

To Rossanna, Leylanie and Baby Paul for being amazing additions to the family.

To all of my students, for trusting me and giving me more than I could ever give them.

To all my friends.

To Boaz Givon, Mor Givon, Emma Givon, Romy Givon for making my Tuesdays and Thursdays so joyful.

Thank you and I love you all from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for giving me so much. Thank you.

Gassho.

The Way of The Ego

Think of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate as a pernicious program that has been installed in the head of every human being. It operates much like a virus on a computer.

Now, when your computer slows down due to a virus, do you say "Darn it! This computer has a virus that is slowing it down" or do you say "Darn it! This computer is so slow!"?

If you're like most people, you probably say it the second way. But language really matters.

If you say  "this computer is slow," there's really not much you could do. Yet if you say "this computer is being slowed down by a virus," you have the option of installing an anti-virus and making your computer run efficiently again.

Does that make sense?

Now, if you had a really clever and highly effective virus in your computer - this virus would be installed and operating in a way where it literally blends in and gets concealed extremely well into the essence of your computer. This way, you really wouldn't stand a chance of seeing that the problem isn't really with your computer.

And that's exactly how egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate is.

Let me give you a example of something that just happened for me, so you can get a sense of what I'm talking about...

Normally I work by myself, but today I had someone working really close to me making phone calls and doing some work on the computer.

It didn't take long before I started to feel annoyed and frustrated that this person was here and I started thinking of this person as an "annoying weirdo who needs to calm down and learn how to behave like a normal human being."

By grace (and thanks to a lot of spiritual practice) I was able to see almost immediately after having that thought, that this thought was put into my system by the ego. And rather than going along with ego and thinking that it was actually me that thought that, I said to myself "Oh! There's ego doing what it's done for most of my childhood, teenage and adult life. There it is trying to ruin my experience of life again. There it is doing all it can to confuse me."

Then I thought, "Wow, it's amazing how the ego wants me to be alone and un-triggered and unchallenged for all of my life, so that it can be alone with me acting like it's the supreme ruler of my life." And then I wondered "Is there ANYTHING that isn't wrong for the ego?" Answer: No. For ego EVERYTHING is a little TOO much this or TOO little that. Everything and everyone SHOULD this or SHOULD that. (Hint: when you hear TOO or SHOULD in your head, become very, very alert and notice ego is judging and trying to control your life!)

To ego there is something wrong with EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY. Nobody or nothing is 100% adequate and exactly as it should be. To ego EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY should be different, even if just a little. To ego I need to change, my fiancé needs to change, my parents need to change, my siblings need to change, my friends need to change, my boss needs to change, my life needs to change, the government needs to change, the world needs to change. And of course, according to ego, if I stop thinking like this, I am in SERIOUS trouble. If I don't want things to change, I am dead, I won't make progress, I won't succeed in life and I won't get ANYWHERE.

To ego, there is a SOMEWHERE to get to and that somewhere certainly is NOT here!

Of course, once the ego reads something this and immediately says "So you think there is something wrong with change?" Answer: nope, but not everything needs to! Ego also says: "So you think there's something wrong with having goals and going somewhere?" Answer: nope, but it's not something that needs to go on neurotic, insane, auto-pilot, gotta-have-it, hyper anxious mode.

The point is that to ego this, right here, right now is always lacking. And the only time when this, right here, right now is okay is when the ego says so. And ego only says so if it has me completely to itself. When it has me indulging in some deadening behavior that leads to numbness and what the ego calls "relaxation" ego is quiet. When it has me indulged in some form of entertainment and short-lived pleasure ego is quiet. Ego only shuts up and when it being 100% fed by my system. Ego always has a problem when things aren't being done its way. Ego only likes the people who line up with its world. Ego cares about itself. And worst of all, ego has found a way to tell us, that ego is who we are!

What a travesty! UNTIL you install the anti-virus of spiritual practice. Only with it, do we stand a chance at reclaiming our lives from this nasty tyrant that drains us of most of our life force.

The incredible power and cleverness of ego is really not to be underestimated. I'll share another little bit to illustrate what I mean by its power:

In previous stages of my life, ego had me convinced there was something wrong with me and that I was worthless and useless. When I started doing spiritual practice in earnest, I slowly took away the ability of ego to convince me that any of that was true. I woke up out of that amazingly tricky and compelling evil trick of ego and freed myself from believing any awful thing about myself. But EGO CAME BACK! Because ego is just like the bad guy in Terminator. When you think you've defeated it, it doesn't take long before it pieces itself back together and comes back a completely new form to fool you. How it came back for me? It came back telling me that I was wonderful, better than everyone else, special and amazingly indispensable and talented! What it lead to: arrogance, wanting people to give me credit and appreciate the gift that I am, anger when someone else was complimented and I wasn't (jealousy), competitiveness, center-of-the-universe thinking and a sense of being the only one on the planet who knew what I knew. And yes, initially this inflated sense of self felt way better than all those years of deflation and depression, but honestly, it wasn't really long before I started to suffer just as much for believing I was better than for believing I was worse. They're both lies of ego. And what I've found is that ALL EGO LIES HURT AND CREATE SUFFERING FOR MYSELF AND FOR OTHERS.

Gassho.

Relationships As Spiritual Practice - Part 1

I still want the same exact things I wanted when I was a kid, I want to be loved exactly as I am and I want to be loved well. I want attention, affection, appreciation and respect. I want to be seen as perfect and incapable of doing anything wrong. I want to be treated with kindness, warmth and admiration. I want to be seen as a miracle and as a gift. I want to be seen as a genius, I want to be treated like a king. That's sort of how it went for me as a kid. Perhaps when I was younger it was as simple as when I started the paragraph, and as things went on, things escalated a bit. I don't know.

Today I'm in a beautiful relationship with a lovely person who, like all my previous partners, challenges me in ways that really bring me to the edge of my relational capabilities. So for this and many other reasons, I consider relationships, one of my main forms of spiritual practice. A spiritual practice, that I must say has afforded me with the greatest opportunities for growth and healing to date.

For whatever reason, I find myself in a deeply committed relationship with a person who drives the mightily spiritual and righteous ego that started to control me a very long time ago. And according to such spiritual ego, the reason why my sweetheart drives me nuts is because spirituality and self-development aren't at the top of his list of priorities. So when he is eating a bunch of cookies, watching "reality" TV shows for hours, drinking his third beer and saying that it would be really nice if he had a cigarette, spiritual ego tells me that it's time to go nuts. Because all of this is certainly a sign that there is something terribly wrong with him and with our relationship. Of course.

If only he were like ME, the spiritual, sensitive and enlightened master that I am, I would have no problems and our relationship would be perfect. Of course it would.

Now, in case it's not blatantly clear, I am being sarcastic. Not towards you, but towards this ginormous spiritual ego that has run the show for the better part of my 31 years of life in this particular incarnation. It's a tragedy really, what this clever mastermind ego has done.

If you're like most people, after reading the small vignette I have shared about my sweetheart, you would think that he's a monster. And the truth is, he is not a monster at all. Like him, I have my vices and ridiculous habits too (marijuana, video games, computer, chips and so on... also did I mention I was a smoker?). Thing is, of course the spiritual ego doesn't point those out to me. All the ego tells me is that I'm pretty much flawless or at least in the process and on track to being that way and my sweetie is not. And best of all, the spiritual ego "knows" that for a fact.

See why relationships are great spiritual practice? When you're really, really paying close attention, and when you're being really, really honest, you can start to see the painful problem. If spirituality becomes at all about being righteous, we have completely missed the point. And that's why a close, intimate, committed relationship can be so good for a serious spiritual person.

You get to see things like just how much the ego exaggerates and demonizes people's traits. Especially the people you are closest to and love the most (my sweetie is not a heavy smoker, drinker or lazy fat person). You get to see how ego works full time to take all the beautiful things away from you. You get to see how to ego there is something wrong with EVERYTHING. You get to see how ego throws projections on the screen of your awareness that are designed to make you suffer and that couldn't be farther from the truth. You start to get to see how ego is doing all it can to bamboozle you. You start to see how black or white ego thinking really is. You start to see how an empowered spiritual ego is the most evil force on the planet. And I mean that for real.

Righteously judging your partner hurts and creates serious suffering, righteously judging your partner is a very cruel and seriously damaging practice. One that can only be stopped once we see it for what it really is. And here's what I found...

I didn't get what I wanted when I was a kid. I didn't get it at all. I wasn't treated well, I wasn't unconditionally loved and I wasn't embraced and seen as a beautiful gem. And I am pissed about it. Because I am so pissed, I refuse to give it to my love and I refuse to give it to anyone else. Fuck them. If no one loved me, why should I love anyone? If I was righteously judged for wanting more toys, loving video games, eating junk food and sneaking out of the house to see soap operas - why the fuck should I give my fiancé a pass? Fuck him and fuck everyone, if I suffered for being who and how I am, so should he and everybody else in this world. If there is something wrong with me, there is also something wrong with everybody. My job is to pass on my pain, to pass on my hurt, to get even, to seek revenge and to hate the world. That's what I need to do. That's my function as an ego, that's my mission as a spiritual ego... but of course I'll call it "tough love," of course I'll say my intention is "good." Of course I'll claim I'm doing it to protect you. Of course I will. I'll do that so I can go on. I'll do that so that with my "good" intentions I can continue on building my road to hell and seeking retribution. I'm the spiritual ego, that's just what I do.

So psychotic and so illuminating. Wouldn't you say?

The point is that I want to get, and I don't want to give. I want my love to listen to me, accept me as I am and praise my every effort. But I don't want to do that for him at all. I want him to give me what I wanted as a child, but I don't want to give him any of that. He should go first, and MAYBE I'll go second... if he's lucky and knows how to ask in the perfect way.

Ego is a lunatic. Enlightened ego is even worse.

I feel so blessed to be able to see it for what it is and not indulge it. I feel so blessed to be able to recognize what my partner wants. What he wants is what I wanted and still want. To be loved and accepted exactly as I am. To be trusted. To be heard, to be seen and to be cherished and valued. And that's where the edge of my practice lies right now.

Gassho.