Reflections

Slowly but surely

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I think I´ve mentioned this before: I´ve been going through a really busy period at work, and this past week, to be honest, has been more of the same. Sometimes I get frustrated, because I see my day (or my week, or my month) flying past, and I find it difficult to carve out time and energy to make progress on my personal projects. Does this sound familiar?

I feel like I'm living in this kind of paradox where I´m simultaneously moving very fast and very slow: running at full speed in my day-to-day tasks, "playing Tetris with my calendar", like I told a colleague of mine the other day, and being super slow with other tasks I would like to dedicate more "bandwidth" to.

Luckily, the Universe keeps sending me clues and reminders every now and then, for example in the shape of quotes I come across during the week, which I can share with you all and reflect on here.

The first quote talks about going fast; I read it in English, and I loved it. The Spanish translation I found sounded a bit strange to me, so I wrote my own version, I hope it's easy to understand:

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Socrates

In a society where "being super busy" is seen as something positive, almost a sign of status, we sometimes forget that rushing not only leaves us physically and mentally exhausted, it also forces us to stay superficial. In order to be able to do a good job at a task requiring certain depth (reflection, creativity, focus...) we need to slow down, cut down the number of tasks and dedicate longer periods of time to them, without distractions. If we link this to the Eisenhower matrix we touched on a few weeks ago, the key is to leave more space for strategic tasks (important but not urgent) that help us to feel fulfilled and make progress towards our goals (starting with proper self-care), instead of spending so much time "putting out fires" (paying attention to whatever urgent things happen to be in front of us, whether they're important or not).

The second quote talks about going slowly, and you can say it louder, but not clearer:

Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

Chines proverb

We live in a society when immediacy rules. We're used to being able to get everything quickly, and we don't like waiting, so we have less and less patience, which can be problematic when it comes to setting medium/long term goals and working towards them. It's easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves with others who have already achieved it, or who are further along the same path.

Here's where I think it's important to remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare, which shows us how consistency and perseverance are much more important than speed. Moreover, depending on the type of "race" (or, now that I think about it, probably in all of them), crossing the finish line too soon is not such a good idea, because the learning and growth happen along the way, as one gets more and more experience.

So it´s OK to go slowly, it may even be best option. But what about standing still? My interpretation is that it´s a warning for us not to rest on our laurels, as the hare did in the story. Because when we stop walking towards where we want to go, we stagnate, we stop learning, and even if it seems like we´re staying in the same place, the reality is that we´re lagging behind.

(Photo of a street tribute to the hare and the tortoise from Aesop´s famous fable; I stumbled upon them while walking around in Boston years ago)

So, what about you? Do you feel a bit like a hare at the moment? Or maybe a tortoise?

Impostors

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Today I´d like to talk about the famous impostor syndrome (thanks Carlota for bringing up this topic the other day).

Black and white photo of a person in disguise, with fake glasses, nose, eyebrows and moustache, smoking a cigar

I´m going to guess you already know what it is, and you´ve probably experienced it yourself: it´s the perception that, deep down, we don´t deserve to be where we are (workwise, for example), because we don´t consider ourselves as competent as other people see us, and we´re afraid of someone realizing one day that we´re "pretending" and setting out to "unmask" us.

I admit I´ve felt it many times in the past, and I´m still feeling it quite frequently nowadays, but it doesn´t stress me out that much any more, thanks to a few things I´ve learned in the last five or six years. Let me share them here in case you find them helpful:

  • Impostor syndrome does exist; it´s a real feeling, we´re not making it up. But perhaps we´re taking it a bit too far by calling it a syndrome; the word "syndrome" conveys the idea that it´s a serious illness or disorder, when in reality it´s nothing more than a natural mechanism of our mind when faced with certain situations.
  • Some say it predominantly affects women, but I´m not so sure; I believe it´s a lot more universal than we think (though maybe the lack of confidence is a bit more noticeable in women).
  • A contributing factor to this feeling of being an impostor is our tendency to not see clearly or even acknowledge our own merits, and attribute our success to luck or coincidence to a certain extent (while paradoxically still attributing failures to our own mistakes, and beating ourselves up for it). It´s as if we felt that "we haven´t earned" the right to be where we are.
  • And the feeling intensifies when we face the challenge of making progress: for example, a task or a position that requires extra effort (essentially a "stretch goal"), pushing us even further from our comfort zone. That´s when self-doubt comes back stronger than ever: How am I going to be able to do this, if I don´t even deserve to be here?
  • The good news is that those doubts and that feeling of not making the cut are giving you really valuable information: they´re showing that what you´re doing really matters to you; they´re reminding you that you have high quality standards, and that meeting those standards is really important to you.

What do you think about this last point? Does it help you to see things a bit differently? I find the reframing extremely helpful, on the one hand, because it gives a positive intention to that uncomfortable or unpleasant feeling we´re experiencing, and on the other hand it allows us to take action instead of getting stuck in an overthinking loop.

We can, for example, write down the objective reasons why we´re the right person for that task or position (and if needed, we can even ask whoever chose us for the role). We can identify our strengths and talents, and also potential growth areas or specific gaps, so that we can work on them (a SWOT analysis matrix is a helpful tool for this scenario; I´ll leave a note to myself for a future blog article).

So, what do you think? In what area of your life or work do you feel a little like an impostor right now? How is it affecting you? And what can you do to manage it better?

CC

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In Spain, in the old days (same as currently in Ireland), car registration plates included a one or two-letter code indicating the county each vehicle was from. Cars from Cáceres, where I was born, had the "CC" code. I still remember the registration plate for that yellow Renault Mégane Coupé I owned back then; I had such a great time with it (we nicknamed it "Tweety"): CC-8836-U.

So, for me, "CC" is a way to identify Cáceres and its province (just to clarify: a province in Spain equates to a county in Ireland; the equivalent to an Irish province is a Spanish region, or "comunidad autónoma").

Photo of the medieval city of Cáceres from a nearby viewpoint

(Photo of the medieval city of Cáceres last time I visited, in December)

But "CC" also means other things; for example, the number two hundred (200) in Roman numerals. Because ladies and gentlemen, this is article number 200 in the BinaryWords blog.

In May, I´ll reach four years of sitting down to write almost every week, usually on Sunday evenings and into the night. Yesterday, my friends asked me if I didn´t feel lazy sometimes when it was time to sit down and write... Of course, there are times when I don´t feel like doing it, much more often than I would like to admit. But in the same way as professional athletes don´t feel like going out to do their training every day, and they do it anyway because they know it´s really important to stay consistent despite the effort required. As someone very wise reminded me yesterday, consistency is the key.

And the key to consistency, at least for me, is not giving myself the option not to do it (save emergencies, of course, but it has to be a real emergency, which hasn´t happened to date). Otherwise, as you already know, if one thinks too much about doing something, it´s never a good moment...

To be honest, I´m no longer able to imagine a Sunday without writing a blog post. I choose to do it because it´s important to me, because I find it nurturing and fulfilling. It´s the way I´ve found to express my creativity while reflecting on what I learn along the way, and I share my learnings with you all in case you find them helpful. I write for all of you, my readers, but first of all, I write for me.

By the way, nobody has ever asked me, but in case you had any doubts, I do NOT use ChatGPT or any other artificial intelligence to write my articles. In my opinion, it would completely destroy the process I just described.

And when I sit down to write, sometimes the article turns out to be good, and sometimes, not so good. Occasionally, I feel inspired, and I end up writing an extra long article; some other times, I struggle to fill out even a couple of paragraphs. All of this is also normal. The key is to keep going, to keep creating. And to get used to the fact that, once the article is published, there´s no way to control who´s going to read it and who´s not, or who´s going to like it and who´s not. It´s a great opportunity to learn to let go of control, and trust that the information will reach whoever it needs to reach, whenever it needs to reach them.

About this topic: I remember hearing in a training course that, when one works on content creation (whether it´s a blog, a podcast, videos, etc.), sometimes there´s an article or episode we think is going to be very successful because we´ve invested lots of time, effort and resources on it and we´re very happy with how it came out, and it turns out it gets very few visits, when maybe there´s another one we put together quickly, almost sloppily, and for whatever reason, that´s the one with the most visits and the most success, much more than we were expecting. I thought that was a really interesting phenomenon, which goes to show how unpredictable the whole thing is, and (hopefully) helps us to relativize it, both when our publications are "successful" and when they´re not.

Having said that, do you know which is the most popular article in this blog? I have no idea why, but it´s this one: Arab Proverb, in which, by the way, I talk about Cáceres, my home town, closing the circle.

P.S.- If you feel like checking what other interesting articles there are around here, have a look at the the blog´s archive page. And thanks a million for reading me!

P.P.S.- Now editing the article, I realize the spell checker I use for my translations uses artificial intelligence for sure... It´s everywhere! I´ll continue to try and escape from it as much as I can.

Sound bath

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I can´t believe today was Groundhog Day, and I didn´t remember! I´m usually well aware of it, but not this year; it didn´t even cross my mind.

Maybe it´s because lately, my life has been anything but monotonous, which is a good sign (if you don´t know what I´m talking about, take a look at this article).

Yesterday, for example, following on from last week´s topic, I decided to invest my time in something important and not urgent, so I went to a mini-retreat that included meditation, journaling, reiki and a sound bath in an amazing yoga studio located somewhere slightly remote and rural. I truly enjoyed it; it was a great way for me to recharge batteries (thanks, Esther and Isa, for organizing it!)

The part I was most looking forward to was the sound bath, which I loved, as expected; I had already participated in a couple of those somewhere else, and I highly recommend this experience to everyone. The sound and vibration of the Tibetan bowls and other instruments bring about multiple benefits, some more visible and immediate than others.

This reminded me that I also have a Tibetan bowl at home, though I don´t use it much; I´d like to start using it more often (here´s a picture; it´s small but has a nice sound).

Also, thankfully, the internet is full of melodies and sounds that can help us to relax, meditate, focus and many other things. Years ago, I remember hearing my yoga teacher say that listening to Gregorian chants was very beneficial; I was surprised at the time, but now I see that it makes sense: their vibration frequency is very similar to that of mantras, as both are variations of meditative chants.

Nature sounds, like ocean waves, rainfall or birdsong, are also good examples of sounds that help us calm down and get attuned to our own biological rhythm. In fact, some companies and public institutions use "soundscaping" techniques to design environments that foster the wellbeing of their occupants, incorporating certain melodies and sounds from nature.

This brings me to another point I wanted to mention: consciously choosing what we listen to (as well as what we say and sing) every day. We´ve all noticed at some point how hearing a certain song can change our mood, right? In reality, the sounds we perceive have a much deeper impact, even though we rarely notice. Perhaps, if we knew this, we would become a bit more selective and choose to surround ourselves with "good vibes" more often, without forgetting to allow some time in silence every now and then, for our mind also needs that.

I´d love to hear your thoughts on this; what´s your favourite sound? And what have you noticed regarding sounds and how they affect you?

Just a reminder...

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...That yes, January can feel a little hard sometimes, but please hang in there, keep going. We´re nearly there, over the two-thirds mark now.

Just one more push, even if you don´t feel like it. Keep doing what needs to be done to get a little bit closer to your goals every day, even if they still seem very far away. Step by step, bit by bit, you will start seeing the results. And you will realize it was worth all the effort.

Photo of a pocket 2025 diary, a pen and a fabric bag to store them both. The bag is white with a message printed on it in black letters: "All you need is FOCUS DARLING. Charuca"

(Now I get to see this reminder every day; thanks, Merche! It says: all you need is focus, darling..)

So, for those moments when all you want to do is give up and get into hibernation mode, here´s another handy reminder:

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

James Clear

Twelve grapes

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Tomorrow is New Year´s Eve! Have you prepared your bunch of grapes yet?

This is one of my favourite events of the year. The other day, a work colleague asked me if I was planning to follow the Spanish tradition of eating twelve grapes as the clock strikes midnight, and of course, my answer was yes.

Photo of Madrid´s "Puerta del Sol" (the Sun Gate) at night time

(Just to let you know: this picture is not recent; I took it two years ago, but it perfectly matches today´s topic. It´s the clock at "la Puerta del Sol", the Sun´s Gate, from which the New Year´s Eve´s midnight strokes are broadcast every year).

There is a song by the Spanish band Mecano that perfectly illustrates the spirit of this night, so much so that the song itself has become part of New Year´s Eve traditions, at least within my family. Here are the verses that resonate most with me these days:

When preparing the grapes, we notice some new joiners,
we will miss those who are no longer with us.
And for those of us still alive, let´s get moving
And get together in the coming year.

Have a happy transition from year to year; let´s celebrate our journey during 2024 and toast to a prosperous 2025. Cheers!

Happy holidays

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Once again, Christmas is here, happy holidays!

(This is a photo of a little fridge magnet nativity scene my mom gave us as a gift many years agoç, the three Wise Men are not in the picture but they`re on their way)

Photo of a little nativity scene made of fridge magnets - baby Jesus, Mary, Josef, the guiding star and the ox and ass

Let´s remember that this time of the year can stir things up and bring all kinds of emotions to the surface. There can be loads of happiness and excitement, especially if we have kids in the house or we´re reuniting with family and friends. But also, depending on the situation, there can be stress, sadness or melancholy, making it all a little bit harder. And to be honest, that idealized image of peace and love they sell us in movies doesn´t help.

Whatever your situation, please receive a big hug, together with my proposal for the next two weeks, a simple strategy we can summarize in three words: ACKNOWLEDGE, ACCEPT, and CHOOSE.

  • Acknowledge the moment we´re currently in (emotionally, mentally, in terms of physical health, etc.), and our expectations for this holiday season.
  • Accept that those expectations will most likely not be met; instead, there will be unforeseen events and other situations that won´t go according to plan.
  • Then, from there, choose how we want to approach these days, letting go of preconceived ideas about "what should be" and receiving, being thankful for, and living what is.

I personally choose to flow and enjoy the moment, perhaps changing traditions or creating new ones.

How about you? What do you choose for the coming days? Do you accept the challenge of spending this holiday season with more awareness and authenticity?

The way to love: lilies of the field

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Today, I´m sharing with you another one of my favourite meditations by Anthony de Mello in his book The way to Love: number twenty-eight (you can read the previous ones here, here, here and here).

This reflection is dedicated to those of us who worry about the future a bit too much sometimes... I´d love to hear what you think about the meditation itself, as well as my comments at the end.

Close up photo of two orange lilies against a green background

"Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life... Look at the birds of the air... Consider the lilies of the field..." - Matthew 6:25ff.

Everyone at some time or the other experiences feelings of what is known as insecurity. You feel insecure with the amount of money you have in the bank, or the amount of love you are getting from your friend or the type of educational background you have had. Or you have insecurity feelings regarding your health or your age or your physical appearance. If you were asked the question, “What is it that makes you feel insecure?” you would almost certainly give the wrong answer. You might say, “I don’t have enough of the love of a friend” or “I don’t have the kind of academic training that I need,” or some such thing. In other words, you would point to some outside condition not realizing that insecurity feelings are not generated by anything outside of you, but only by your emotional programming, by something you are telling yourself in your head.

If you change your program, your insecurity feelings would vanish in a second, even though everything in the outside world remained exactly as it was before. One person feels quite secure with practically no money in the bank, another feels insecure even though he has millions. It isn’t the amount of money but their programming that makes the difference. One person has no friends, yet feels perfectly secure in the love of people. Another feels insecure even in the most possessive and exclusive of relationships. Again the difference is in the programming.

If you wish to deal with your feelings of insecurity, there are four facts that you must study well and understand.

First, it is futile to ease your insecurity feelings by trying to change things outside of you. Your efforts may be successful, though mostly they are not. They may bring some relief, but the relief will be short-lived. So it is not worth the energy and time you spend in improving your physical appearance or making more money or getting further reassurances of love from your friends.

Second, this fact will lead you to tackle the problem where it really is, inside your head. Think of the people who in exactly the same condition that you find yourself in now would not feel the slightest insecurity. There are such people. Therefore the problem lies not with reality outside of you but with you, in your programming.

Third, you must understand that this programming of yours was picked up from insecure people who, when you were very young and impressionable, taught you by their behavior and their panic reactions that every time the outside world did not conform to a certain pattern, you must create an emotional turmoil within yourself called insecurity. And you must do everything in your power to rearrange the outside world—make more money, seek more reassurances, placate and please the people you have offended, etc., etc.—in order to make the insecurity feelings go away. The mere realization that you don’t have to do this, that doing this really solves nothing, and that the emotional turmoil is caused solely by you and your culture—this realization alone distances you from the problem and brings considerable relief.

Fourth, whenever you are insecure about what may happen in the future, just remember this: In the past six months or one year you were so insecure about events which when they finally came you were able to handle somehow. Thanks to the energy and the resources that that particular present moment gave you, and not to all the previous worrying which only made you suffer needlessly and weakened you emotionally. So, say to yourself: “If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I’m going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment, because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.”

The final disappearance of insecurity feelings will only come when you have attained that blessed ability of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field to live fully in the present, one moment at a time. The present moment, no matter how painful, is never unbearable. What is unbearable is what you think is going to happen in five hours or in five days; and those words you keep saying in your head, words like, “This is terrible, this is unbearable, how long is this going to last,” and so on. Birds and flowers are blessed above humans in that they have no concept of the future, no words in their heads, and no anxiety about what their fellows think of them. That is why they are such perfect images of the kingdom. So do not be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will look after itself. Each day has troubles enough of its own. Set your mind on God’s kingdom before everything else and all the rest will come to you as well.

What thoughts came to you while you were reading these lines? This is what came up for me:

  • As you can see, the idea of changing our "programming", that is, of reprogramming our mind and, consequently, our life, is not new at all; it´s far from new. It´s based on ancestral principles that have been taking different names over the years (and centuries).
  • Even if it says here that we can fully free ourselves up from the feeling of insecurity, I honestly don´t think it´s entirely possible: if worrying about the future is in our nature, we´ll continue to worry occasionally. What I do believe to be true is that being able to recognize the limiting beliefs that cause most of our worries is going to allow us to reframe them and change our point of view, lightening our load and giving us more options when choosing how to behave and act in each situation..
  • And of course, having goals and objectives in life is amazing, it´s what allows us make progress. The key here is to ask ourselves whether we´re acting from a feeling of scarcity and need (in which case, nothing we do will ever be enough), or from a feeling of abundance, knowing we´ll continue to be OK no matter what, even if we don´t reach our goal.

So, what´s your take on this? If you feel like sharing your thoughts, please do, I´m all ears.

Catching up (or at least trying to)

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These past few days, I´ve been really busy at work and at home. Thankfully, most of it has been "good busy": exciting projects, interesting conversations, meetups with friends and family activities.

But it´s still very busy, considering I´m a rather quiet person (or at least, I instinctively seek peace and quiet). And it hasn´t been just a few days; more like weeks, even months... With no sign of easing off anytime soon.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Photo of a wall clock

On the one hand, I´m glad, since I find it much easier to stay active when there are "things to get done". On the other hand, I get the feeling that I´ve been waiting to get peace and quiet for months, and they don´t seem to be coming, so I´d like to slow down a bit to be able to keep a sustainable pace.

This morning, thinking about this, I remembered a phrase I used to resonate a lot with years ago; one that I choose to interpret today in a totally different way. It turns out I had already written an article on this quote, but I don´t care, I´m going to show it to you again:

God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.

Bill Watterson

(By the way, I never thought of researching the author, it turns out Bill Watterson is the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip that´s been on my reading list for years; hopefully one day I´ll decide to go ahead and borrow the books from Fredi and the girls).

What do you think of this quote? I love it; I find this kind of subtle humour very smart. And way back when, it perfectly reflected my constant feeling of lagging behind, of spending my days running around getting things done and yet never getting to be fully up to date. Just thinking about everything I "had to do" was exhausting...

Today, fifteen years later and having a few more tools in my backpack, I decide to think about this topic in a way that gives me energy instead of taking it away:

  • Yes, I do lots of things every day, but I do them because I choose to (haven´t we spoken already about the difference between "having to" and "choosing to"? Well, there´s our topic for next week).
  • I´m no longer trying to do it all, because I´ve realized it´s just impossible.. I´ve learned to be more flexible and modify my plans according to the needs of the day and my priorities (more on priorities here)
  • Looking after myself and keeping my battery at full load is a mandatory element of my priorities list (when this is not true, things go from bad to worse).
  • Many of the things I do I feel excited about, and for the ones I´m not too keen on, remembering their purpose and why they´re important helps me get motivated.

Am I more productive nowadays, thanks to all this? To be honest, I don´t know; I´m not sure whether I´m achieving more or less than I used to fifteen years ago; my life has changed a lot since then. But I do know that I´m suffering way less, and I´m enjoying the journey way more, even though I still feel tired sometimes.

And what about falling behind? That´s always relative: what or who am I comparing myself to? In 99% of cases, an imaginary perfect version of myself that I´m never going to be able to reach... I´ll probably never be able to switch off that little inner self-critical voice completely, but what I can do is become aware of how unrealistic it is sometimes, and realize it doesn´t always deserve my attention.

Anyway, regardless of that, what this quote inspires in me as of today is a desire to live: there are many things I want to do, many projects I want to tackle, many goals I want to achieve, many meetups I want to enjoy. And that´s going to keep replenishing my vital energy (as long as God / the Universe agrees) to live for many, many years.

The way to love: suffering and glory

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Let´s continue with our series of featured meditations by Anthony de Mello, from his book The way to Love: today I´m sharing with you meditation number twenty-six (you can read the previous ones here, here and here).

By the way, I´d like to clarify that even though these reflections start from a seemingly Christian context (always beginning with a quote from the Bible), in reality, their content is much more spiritual than religious, so regardless of what your beliefs are, I encourage you to keep reading and then draw your own conclusions.

Photo of tree trunks and branches in a wooded area

Here we go:

"Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" - Luke 24:26

Think of some of the painful events in your life. For how many of them are you grateful today, because thanks to them you changed and grew? Here is a simple truth of life that most people never discover. Happy events make life delightful but they do not lead to self-discovery and growth and freedom. That privilege is reserved to the things and persons and situations that cause us pain.

Every painful event contains in itself a seed of growth and liberation. In the light of this truth return to your life now and take a look at one or another of the events that you are not grateful for, and see if you can discover the potential for growth that they contain which you were unaware of and therefore failed to benefit from. Now think of some recent event that caused you pain, that produced negative feelings in you. Whoever or whatever caused those feelings was your teacher, because they revealed so much to you about yourself that you probably did not know. And they offered you an invitation and a challenge to self-understanding, self-discovery, and therefore to growth and life and freedom.

Try it out now, identify the negative feeling that this event aroused in you. Was it anxiety or insecurity, jealousy or anger or guilt? What does that emotion say to you about yourself, your values, your way of perceiving the world and life and above all your programming and conditioning? If you succeed in discovering this, you will drop some illusion you have clung to till now, or you will change a distorted perception or correct a false belief or learn to distance yourself from your suffering, as you realize that it was caused by your programming and not by reality; and you will suddenly find that you are full of gratitude for those negative feelings and to that person or event that caused them.

Now take this one step further. Look at everything that you think and feel and say and do that you do not like in yourself. Your negative emotions, your defects, your handicaps, your errors, your attachments and neuroses and hang-ups and yes, even your sins. Can you see every one of them as a necessary part of your development, holding out a promise of growth and grace for you and others, that would never have been there except for this thing that you so disliked? And if you have caused pain and negative feelings to others, were you not at that moment a teacher to them, an instrument that offered them a seed for self-discovery and growth? Can you persist in this observation, in your observation till you see all of this as a happy fault, a necessary sin that brings so much good to you and to the world?

If you can, your heart will be flooded with peace and gratitude and love and acceptance of every single thing. And you will have discovered what people everywhere are searching for and never find. Namely, the fountainhead of serenity and joy that hides in every human heart.

What do you think of this topic? Does it resonate with you? If so, remember that pain is mandatory sometimes, but suffering is optional...