Hearts Of Gold

Hearts of Gold, 

What I am learning is that the Chinese women have open, yearning, willing, hearts of gold. When I was first introduced to the idea of coming to China to teach my reaction was not positive. I was afraid.  I did not know anything about China or the people. When I see the news it only presents the worst or those in authority or government.  I don’t study history books and have never studied about Chinese history. It goes back a long way and there is much that can be learned about the lives of those that lived before. It is the lives of those that live today and present themselves to me each day in my class that I wish to write about.

Grace is a tall (usual for Chinese) elegant, intelligent young woman who yearns to follow her heart to America and become an international nurse.  When I arrived and taught my first class on listening to your heart she was the first to question how does it work to listen to your mind and your heart? She started working on her English skills early in high school knowing what she wanted. When she told others of her dream to go to America they squashed them, and said it was impossible. She is now a believer. She will not give up on her dream, her heart has been telling her for 4 years this is what she wants and she will now speak it and let it follow. Last night when I talked about being a creator or a victim she got it. She stated boldly; “I am the creator of my future, I know who I am, I am Grace, and I am an international nurse.”  Her heart speaks to mine.

Andrea is a freshman. She is quiet, strong, yet gentle. Every Friday I teach coaching all day 9-11 and 1-5. The students are to choose one hour to attend. She attends the whole day. When I asked her why she stays, she said there are no classes for her on Friday; she needs to improve her English and wants to stay to learn all she can.  She never lets me erase the board, gives up her chair to others when the class is full, and shares her belief boldly and openly about God. When I sneeze she says “God bless you.”  The project she is working on is Reading to Children. She said she wants to read the Bible to them and share the life of Christ. When she left class yesterday she said “God bless you and your husband and children for allowing you to come into my life and teach me to be a better person.”

Lara, is another nursing student. She has taken on things since I got here that scared her to death. She speaks good English. I told the students to take every chance they get to translate for foreigners so they can get the experience. Recently there was a psychology convention on campus and she translated for it with great trepidation. After her experience she felt so much power and confidence for pushing through the fear. She is a sweet, soft spoken, power ball.  It really brings me great joy to see them bull-doze through their fears.

Leo is in the men’s academy. He is a freshman and so willing to learn and improve himself and his English. I have been very impressed with his English. He said in primary school he thought it was for fun,  then in high school he realized the importance of knowing English and studied harder.  Every class he comes to he asks if he can come to another one of my classes and he wants to know how to be more professional. He is not afraid to speak his English and make a mistake.  This shows great courage in my mind because most of the students are afraid to speak because they do not feel confident in their English skills.

The passion in their eyes when I teach is what brings me back each time. They sparkle and twinkle, smile with attentiveness and want more.  When I have finished my teaching materials 15 minutes early I tell them class is over, they can now leave. They sit and stare at me. I ask if they understood me and they say “yes but we don’t want to leave.” This is why I am here, to love, to teach and to feel and experience their passion for learning.

I Feel Selfish

I feel selfish,                                                                    

Even though I have given a lot of time and energy to this project in China I feel a little selfish that I have also been focusing on my own growth. I know I have a powerful influence on these women and they drink in and grasp for everything I give them. Therefore, I feel like I have held back some of the things I could have given them with my own self-intraspection.

I am inspired each time I spend a little one on one time with the students. Each one has a unique personality and is always full of questions.  I walked with Felicia yesterday. She is a deep thinker. There is something about her that is drawn to looking inwardly and she is always looking for inner peace. She said there are times she will spend as much as 2 hours just sitting and looking inside herself. Her question for me was; “how can you have inner peace and passion?” My answer to her was; “I don’t have inner peace if I am not living out my passion”.  I think she was thinking inner peace would show physically as calm and serene, and living passionately was excited and full of life. My experience is when I don’t live out what calls to my heart and brings me passion I am not at peace with myself.

In the Access Your Personal Power Workshop we teach an equation that says; “Inspiration minus Expression equals depression”. I have seen this play out in my life many times. When I feel inspired to do something, even if it is to make a phone call to someone, and I don’t listen or follow it, I feel sad or depressed about it. I have learned many hard lessons over the years that have made me very aware of acting on my inspiration. When I committed to come back to China this third time I felt inspired to do so and acted at the moment because I knew I might not do so if I waited.

I taught vision boards tonight in class which is my favorite subject. I especially love hearing what the students have written on their boards. They stand up and read their vision board statements while I help them to put them in first person present. Most of their statements say “I should, I must, I want.”  The majority of them focus on what they can provide for their families, and how they will take care of their parents. It is really quite honorable how their whole focus is on taking care of their parent’s dreams and giving back to them.  One of my favorite statements tonight was about a student’s mother who is a Doctor and as a child she always wanted to write poetry. But her parents wanted her to be a Dr. This student said; “I want to help my mother achieve her dream of writing poetry and publish a book of her poems.”

These Chinese women are a powerful influence on me in the way they live, the way they express themselves and their drive and commitment to be better. I love seeing how they are so eager to be the best in their classes and give to others. There is much we can learn from these kind, driven, committed,   generous people.

Morning Walk

Here is a picture of me on my morning walk that I do.

Selia's Dream

Selias Dream,
I had an extraordinary student in the fall of 2011 that has impacted my life greatly, as well as the lives of many others she has met and spoken to. Her name is Selia, she created her name from 5 friends who inspired her. The first letter from each of their names is where she got the name Selia.
Selia comes from a poor village in central China whose parents are farmers. Her uncle went to Shanghai to adopt a baby from an orphanage and brought home one for his brother as well, it was a little girl, Selia. She has a brother and sister and feels like her parents have been so kind to raise her as their own and love and support her.
Selia grew up going to the farm fields with her parents. She especially loved the summer time when they grew grapes and stayed in the fields in a tent. It was fun for her to wake up and eat grapes and run through the vineyard. Later her parents grew peanuts and corn.
When Selia was in grade school she really wanted to speak English. Her teacher who taught English was Chinese so she didn’t really have anyone to speak to. She decided to get good at speaking she would speak her thoughts out loud on the playground in English. Every time she was alone she was speaking her thoughts. Consequently her English is excellent.
When I met her she was a sophomore at Sias University and a first year member of the World Academy for the Future of Women. We connected immediately. Maybe it was because her English was so good and possibly because our hearts were connected, like many others have been with her. She would help me with class projects, go shopping with me, and come visit my room whenever possible.
I taught the concept of vision boards which I also teach at our ‘Access Your Personal Power Workshop’. I taught the women in the academy to dream bigger than they could imagine and allow themselves to see outside the box. They had a page with 9 squares on it and were to fill in 9 dreams or visions they have for their life, written in first person present. After they completed this task I had them stand up and read at least one thing they had written down. Some of the dreams were “I want to buy my father a coat, buy my mother a pair of shoes, or get a comfortable chair for my father to sit it when he comes in from the fields. Selia stood up and said “I want to live in California on the beach.” There were a few giggles and I admit I chuckled inside but said “now you are thinking big, outside of the playing field, of what is possible. “
I returned to Sias University campus in the Spring of 2012 for the Women’s Symposium and graduation. There are a lot of foreign visitors at this time of year and I often told the women “take every chance you get to speak to foreigners and tell them your dreams. “ Selia did some translation for a speaker on campus. He was smitten by her and her dreams as many are. He asked if she needed help. She definitely needed help. It was going to be her senior year and she was considering quitting school because the financial hardship of her education was too great for her parents. When he heard this, he offered to pay her last year of tuition and living expenses as well as an internship for his company.
When Selia heard of this offer she was so excited. She skyped with me when I got home and told me of his offer. Then she said “you taught me to dream big and this is big, guess where he lives?” In California, on the beach. Selia arrived in the States January 2013, she stayed with me for 3 weeks and then went to California for 4 months and came to my home again after that.
Selia got her dream and felt like she needed to create some more dreams since she saw so many of them already realized. She did research and a power point presentation about the difficulty of getting an education in the poor villages. Most of the kids leave home as early as the age of 8 to live far away from home in a boarding school to get an education. She was one of those children.
The dorms were crowded, no running water or bathroom close by, and very cold in the winter. There was a large long trough outside with water spouts where the children were able to wash their hair or body. In the winter it was icy cold and the water was cold too. The bathrooms were across campus from the dorms. The classrooms did not have heat either so they wore heavy winter clothing in class. Sometimes she would stand up and stomp her feet to keep them warm. She said it did not always feel safe as some of her friends said the teacher was abusing them. She was able to go home once a month to see her family for a weekend.
Thus, Selia’s Dream School began to form in her imagination. She wanted to create an environment where the students felt safe, where it was clean, with water available and they could learn. When she returned to China she looked for a location to rent. Selia had to acquire a loan at the bank which her boyfriend helped her get. She purchased cute little desks with seats and set up a classroom.
She has a room she stays in above the classroom where she sleeps and a little hot plate and rice cooker to cook meals on. She has a bathroom but no shower or hot water so boils her water to bathe in a bowl. This is nothing new to her from growing up.
She is teaching an after-school tutoring program that costs the parents extra money. It has not made her rich and she does not currently have many students. She is realizing her dream and following through with something she really wants to do.
I am so inspired by Selia and her spoken word for making happen what she wants and being open to miracles. One miracle after another has taken place in her life and she acknowledges it. I feel grateful to be able to spend the day with her and talk with her student children yesterday. It was a powerful affirmation to me of how vision boards work and manifest. It is certainly another way to say thank you for letting me be a part of something bigger than myself and watch these students soar.

My Visitor

My Visitor,                                                                

I forget I know people here besides the women in the academy. When I was here in 2011 I met a wonderful woman from Anyang named Cynthia. She is such a dear person, always wanting to take care of me and everyone around her. Her demeanor is sweet, tender, demonstrative, generous and loving. She was visiting today and the students called and brought her to see me.  She had a gift for me (of course) and held my hand all day as we shopped on the streets. If there was anything I liked or showed interest in she wanted to buy it for me. I had to refuse so many times. She is grieving the recent loss of her mother and is feeling lonely as her son is in the U.S. in grad school and her husband works in a distant city. It was so great to be in her presence and feel her kind heart and share our afternoon together.

After my morning massage and facial (for so little) I met with Cynthia. I had appointments with students at 2, 3 and 4. I think the massage stirred up some toxins and emotions because I felt so up and down all day. It was great to be with Cynthia.

I had a lot of frustration with communicating with the student leaders. We had a big event tonight, it was poorly planned and advertised, I was concerned about how it would go.

We had a premiere showing of the movie Girl Rising. It was purchased in the states by a previous facilitator and sent FedEx so we got it quickly.  It is such a powerful film about the lives of 9 girls in other countries and their stand to get an education. We showed it in a large auditorium and it was packed! I was so happy to see such a good turnout ( 600 students).

One of the outcomes of the film was the student’s reaction to it. I had many women of the academy come up to me and say how grateful they are for their education and how happy they are to be able to study. A student said, “I used to think I did not like to study; now I am happy I can study.” Another said: “ I now love my major because it is an opportunity, I am so lucky.” I just received an email from a student saying; “ The movie is so meaningful, I was really shocked. I had never thought that there are so many girls that do not have the right to receive the education. I can see their eyes with an eagerness to learn, I was moved by them. After watching this movie, I sent a message to my father, saying thanks to him, and I told him I was so lucky because I can receive the education too easy. But I did not cherish the right. I think I will make a big change from this movie.”

It certainly moved me to tears with gratitude for the freedom I have now and have always had as a woman. Not only have I had education and learning readily available but choice. The opportunity to make choices about my life has been a blessing I often take for granted.  I have always had supportive parents, siblings, and husband for the dreams I’ve had. This film has moved these academy women to move even more swiftly on their projects to encourage children to get their education and to help the HIV orphanage children to also go to school.

 What I saw once again is that with a vision big enough, and taking action towards that vision, dreams can become a reality. I love what Walt Disney said; “if you can dream it, you can do it.”