Why Respira
early draft on where I am going with this
The story of how I started my relationship with lady anxiety earlier this year has already started to get written in my head, but I’ll save that for a future post.
But since we are now here, together, on respira.love - something for which I deeply appreciate you, let me start my journey in this new channel by giving some context for the naming and the direction this is going forward. I have to start with this quote from George Bernard Shaw as recited by Jeff Goldblum on a talk show.
“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” ―George Bernard Shaw
R E S P I R A comes from Latin respirare "breathe again, breathe in and out," from re- "again" + spirare "to breathe"
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Top-down my intention is to build openly towards bettering myself so I can better serve myself and others. Apparently writing and teaching are the most efficient ways to learn something really well. I am kinda always teaching and learning. Working with my amazing friends and clients, sometimes I teach them how do do something they want to do but don’t know how. Sometimes I just hold a mirror and help them unwind their ideas into a stream of clarity that creates time by increasing the speed of execution.
And sometimes I learn. Especially when I can let go of the “i am better | he/she/they/them are better”, an item from my list in the previous article.
The carousel of “I am less than someone, I am more than someone” teaches me about the separation I also practice in various contexts, ending up somehow being physically or emotionally away from the group. When separation collapses I can accept learning something new from someone that I no longer look up or down to.
I promised myself that here, I would not write a sentence with ChatGPT, but I do use it and recommend its responsible use for various tasks that it is very good at.
Respira is many things…
— it’s a feed of personal bookmarks, of #selfreminders I wanted to curate so that I can go back to …mostly for myself and whoever else resonates. I’ve always had a curious mind, a bullshit detector that my friends appreciate, so I just collect things that I like.
— it’s a “community building & business consulting” side gig but also main job that serves amazing humans and projects like PAUA &
, , Stephanie Canavesio, 2Performant, Dirk Nellens or SUUNA, the women community I help co-build with my partner and 3 dear friends who have all taken good steps on the path of clarity of purpose and now are able to create beautiful containers for other women.
But my most amazing client and teacher is by far the one and only 🥁, my 14-year-old daughter Ioana (Rising Jodie) self-described as a “🐡 an artist that loves the water 🌊” who is so determined in her passions and the force she is pushing us towards what she most desires and that I am incredibly proud that she is currently working on her first commission project illustrating a future book on Human Design.
— it’s my life journey, the continuous breath; breath is life, they say, and as someone who has been and still is smoking or that has a medical recommendation for deviated septum surgery, I understand how making the right choices is not always the easiest thing to do
— it’s an open #buildinpublic project for all of the above with the purpose of learning better by harnessing the benefits of writing openly and teaching
— it can be a hub of creative ideas and methods to choose your next best move in your personal or professional life - now that’s something I really feel motivated to work towards and it will help me also answer the “what are you good at” question or maybe even find parts of my ikigai.
— a framework for the work I do - I’ve always felt the need to adopt a certain framework but never found a perfect fit so I am constantly creating my own by working myself with what I learned from my teachers; writing can help me crystalize and bring structure to my findings and my ways
— it’s a safe place where I get to practice and apply all the good advice I had for others - feels that creating content for myself, for a change, can be a healthy habit.
Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor in kirtans, not in legs winding around your
own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me instantly—
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.
“Breath” by Kabir
— Respira is also a 3 years journey towards freedom - the freedom of time, money, location, relationships, and purpose - that forms the foundation of living a self-authorised life that I get to design.
Before Respira, it was Romania Healing but that’s a very different story that I cannot appreciate enough for what it taught me and how it brought me to where I am now.
So, It’s hard to define what Respira is but it’s a nice exploration for myself at least. Also, working on my own Substack allows me to get better at helping others work with theirs.
A friend told me recently that I only speak about myself. I was puzzled, was he making an actual point? Or am I the only one I can actually speak about? Like that approximate quote:
“you are so full of yourself”
”of course, I am full of myself, everybody else is already taken”
So yeah, it’s all an experiment, one that brought a lot of good creative flow to the table for me, so thank you again for being here. What is even more extraordinary is that I just wanted to configure the newsletter and I activated payments to test, and when I wanted to deactivate them, I could not because I already had two paid subscribers - thank you Dana and
, you are like air, pun intended #respira.All posts will be sent to everyone for the moment so feel free to stay, go, get the membership, or whatever your guts tell you. I definitely appreciate you and the energy you are sending, no matter what choice you make.
Even though I keep saying that I am writing mostly for myself, I am open and thankful to be receiving feedback from you or any suggestions of future topics you find I can bring clarity to - feel free to reply to this or leave a comment.
To be more concrete, the topics in future articles may vary from community-building tips that I collect or discover myself, technology stack for various use cases, building an online course or a directory of holistic facilitators, self-observations, discipline and how I organize my time and try to develop routines, and realizations I had while working on myself through various modalities like psychotherapy or meditation. A special category of #RespiraCurated posts will highlight other writings or findings from others, including but not being limited to case studies of my clients and the remarkable people I get to share bits of my life with. This is now, it will be something else for sure tomorrow.
The friendship theme is quite active for me these days.
Noticed that most of my best friends, the people I see and talk to the most, are not many but they are all extraordinary on their own, big and small self-starters with a drive and discipline that inspires me and calls me out on my own bullshit so that I can step in and drive the bus that my life is. With them, I am always learning, sometimes through:
power games,
uncertainty,
repressed anger or inability to express it
the peacefulness that comes with realizing that you are not the only one going through a certain thing especially when you feel inferior to anyone from the group who confirmed that they are going through the same,
played the victim-rescuer-aggressor game many times,
got triggered in my wounds, triggered others in theirs,
mistakenly projecting some father or brother's needs onto them,
being able to wake ourselves up together from Puer Aeternus & Senex archetype trips.
Anybody else?
