The Importance of Our Work

These are heartbreaking times. Passage of the TPP, consideration of the DARK Act and the numerous additional let-downs from our legislature can lead us down a road of despair.

As activists it's okay to get frustrated, but I beg of you- don't react.

Personally, I wonder how can the people of this country be more interested in Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's new baby name than the depletion of healthy soil on our planet? Even with my beloved friends and family, I become upset when my observations don't propel them into action the way I wish it would.

There are a couple of things that I have learned from all of this and I would love to share them with you.

1. Anger accomplishes nothing other than making you feel worse.
Take the time to turn anger and frustration into empathy and understanding. Dig deeper to the human core of the issue, why are these people making decisions like this? Take our politicians off of the capital and look at them instead as a brother or sister who has let you down. Anger will fuel both of your fires to continue animosity, leaving no other solution than " death" for the opponent. Disappointment and empathy leave room for forgiveness and change. Give these folks- even your greatest enemy- the opportunity to be the good and relinquish them from their mistakes. The truth is that we have all made mistakes that in one point in time may have seemed unforgivable, but when we don't forgive the seed of poison grows into a tree of poison in your body that will diminish your capacity to feel anything but anger (which is only fear with a mask). Cut the negativity and be solutions focused.

2. Focus on the people closest and most like minded to you.
Why bother trying to convince people who aren't ready? Sometimes you have to step in closer to take a look away from the big picture so that you don't miss the magical connections and relationships happening right in front of you. What originally connects us may be a common cause, but what keeps us is love. It is a gift to be able to fInd people you can be authentic and truly yourself with, cherish that.

3. Don't lose sight of the small victories, in the end the results are up to you.
Trying to make the entire world a better place is a daunting task. Think about how different we all are and how differently we perceive the world around us. When we are able to positively impact one person around us, we both win. When we are positively impacted by someone, it works the same way.  We move with integrity and honesty and hope to influence through those means. You win, in the end you win because you are and were a good person. This is how we really change the world, through one person at a time.

4. It's ok to back off, take a break, even quit, but don't stop being you.
When you feel defeated, it is ok to let go for a while or even completely. The weight of the world is not your burden to carry. What is your responsibility is you. You know when your are living out your values and when you are not. By being you and living into your beliefs, you are elevating the world. That is enough and it is all that can be asked of you. Anything else is optional, don't worry about expectations or perceptions. We need to focus on ourselves as much as we focus on others, always coming from a place of compassion.

5. You are amazing.
The fact that you are aware of the issues and feel something about them is a gift. Don't lose that, but don't let it overwhelm you. Remember that you get to choose, because being sensitive can be a blessing or you could make it a curse.


In love & light,
Liz

Ghandi's memorial in Delhi, India. May we be a part of the peaceful resistance.

Traveling Together and Personal Development

Despite the challenges of spending 24 hours a day with someone for multiple days at a time, there is nothing that I recommend more for building relationships than travelling.

At this time in my life, I tend to go away for longer amounts of time whether volunteering on a farm, visiting family in South America or Europe, or just exploring a place. Over the past few years most of my travels have been with my fiance Mike.  Most recently I took a trip to Iceland leading a tour with my sister Emma. When you travel, you are forced to leave behind a lot of your excuses, with no where to run and nothing to do, traveling in a partnership can expose your strengths as well as your vulnerabilities.  

Here are a few learnings:  

Working through the Fighting:

Walking in the Ganges with Mike.

You will probably fight more than you are comfortable with or used to. OH MAN do Mike and I fight sometimes.  We can sometimes fight a lot. Life on the road has a way of surfacing issues much faster than life at home does. You are usually often in more uncomfortable circumstances, no routine, cramped spaces, hunger, lack of sleep can all increase your irritability. 

Don't let that scare you, in the end you get clarity. You let the issue breath, you come around and calm down. Cooler heads prevail and you find strategies for working together to prevent and keep these issues from repeating themselves. We have had tons of incidents, from forgetting the camera on the back of the chair at a restaurant to overpaying at a hotel, that usually constitute a fight.

Bottom Line: Not every fight is life or death. Sometimes it is okay to go to bed upset, when you wake up, you might see things in a different light. If you are committed to making the relationship work, not all fights are a threat to it's existence. 

Problem Solving:

Despite the inevitable panic when your passport is stolen or when your flight is cancelled and your hotel double booked your room on a day when the entire city is sold out so you have to sleep in a sketchy place, despite finding a giant bat eating spider above your head in the Amazon, you will prevail!

I have so many examples of problem solving and it's funny because problem solving could just be the granddaughter of fighting but, she has slept, feels safe and has eaten so she can operate abover her primal instincts and use her brain!

In these moments of having to work together, the focus is on one thing that you can both agree on, staying safe.

It is amazing how when you travel with someone you care about and you encounter a problem that is a threat to your well-being, you somehow seem to care more about keeping the other person safe... Maybe that is just me, but I am pretty sure my sister and my partner feel the same.

In emergency situations there is no time for the dramatic bullshit that a fight will entail. Urgency, strategy and cooperation can be found here. How do we get ourselves out of this? It doesn't matter who is at fault, this is the only question you will be asking. To be able to navigate these situations is an incredible strength of any partnership or friendship.

Bottom Line: YOU CAN NOT CREATE A BETTER TEAM-BUILDING EXPERIENCE. 

The Compromise:

Emma and I at the Skaftafell Glacier in
 Iceland after a fight the night before.

You might not truly understand compromise until you have no other option, I've never truly understood compromise until I started traveling with another person. Travel forces you to evaluate and make agreements on the most mundane and seemingly insignificant parts of your daily routine. You get really clear on who you are and how you operate. You also get really clear on what the other person needs to operate whether you like it or not.

It is in fact annoying, not being able to do what you want to do and see the things you want to see. I’ve experienced this while traveling with just about anyone besides myself. While traveling with my sister I learned that I was a bit high maintenence myself (which I thought I was the furthest thing from)! I like to wake up really early because I am excited to see the place we are in! For her, and to many others- she wants to sleep in. She has to wake up early every day in her "real life" so she savored the opportunity to rest up!

Bottom Line: These are great lessons that you will learn on how to live with another person despite their quirks (which are really just our judgements). Our true acceptance of each other’s habits will help us long after we return home.

Being by yourself.

Taking some alone time to go shopping in India!

When you spend every minute with another person, it doesn't matter how well you work together or how comfortable you feel around them.  You are going to want to get away from them, beginning to notice perhaps more than ever how important it is to have your own space. You will find yourself vying for 5 minutes of alone time. This can be a huge challenge when you are sharing a small hotel room and are in a country where you and your partner are the only two that can communicate.

There are simple things that you can do solve this. If you are in a safe place you could go for a run or walk on your own. Go to a cafe and just chill. Sometimes it means taking a real break and traveling alone for a few days or weeks. Even if all you can do is turn your backs to one another, plug in your earbuds and listen to your choice of music for 15 minutes, you've gotta do it.

We have been in places where it was not safe to go out alone and felt as if we were prisoners to our hotel room. In these instances, we spoke about our inevitable desire to have some self-care time very candidly. Our solution in times like these is usually one of us staying in room and the other going to the lobby for at least 2 hours. We usually will come back together feeling refreshed and ready to work together again.

Bottom line: You become flexible and bit unattached. You see more clearly how you are still two individuals who work well together, but must maintain their independence to a degree. You learn to respect this space and not mistake desire for separation with doubts. 

TAKE AWAYS

In the end, traveling in groups makes your logistics easier. You don't have to try and get into a bathroom stall with all of your belongings, you don't have to try and negotiate with a cab driver who is ripping you off alone. More importantly, traveling with someone else allows you to turn off, you can give your partner a chance to lead, choosing activities and eateries, when you just want to observe and go with the flow.

Traveling with a partner is not all about disagreeing and giving in to another persons preferences.

What traveling together will provide for you: life changing experiences, amazing views that you can recall together, incredibly funny stories that you can share with your friends and your family and a true understanding of what it means to work in partnership with someone. If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. It's personal development. 

Mike and I in Peru trekking to Machu Picchu.

When the world is spinning around you, just sit and shut your eyes.

It has been a whirlwind of two months.  Here I want to share some of my reflections on Delhi,  unexpected changes and life in general.

A whole lot of changes require a whole lot of flexibility. None of my plans to stay on a farm in India for over a month, head to Nepal with friends and then to Iceland went as intended. There were a few contributing factors to this, on the farm I got pretty ill with no sights of getting better (lack of clean water, food that I was able to eat, etc.) and of course, there was the tragic earthquake in Nepal which continues to be a concern for those involved. Despite all of this, I had to find a way to feel content and confident in the many directions that I have been moving. 

If you have ever backpacked, you know the feeling of being unsettled. I know this feeling very well, but it is much different with 100 pounds on your back at almost 28 years old then when you are 20 and anxious to meet people and see everything. After all of this commotion, Mike decided it was going to be best if he left to go back to the USA and wrap things up at home with his business and our house. I went back to Delhi because I have commitments that I needed to attend to in Europe at the end of May. 

I spent two days on my own in Delhi. I do not recommend for females to do this. Though I never felt unsafe, I took every precaution imaginable. I rode the women's only section in the train, came home before dusk, carried pepper spray and a knife and stuck to the areas that were suggested to me. Having to be so vigilant really takes away from being able to enjoy where you are. Delhi is also very dirty, you can wipe the pollution off of your face at the end of the day and your throat will most definitely feel sore. I don't mean to diss Delhi, there are some great places and great people, but you will quickly want to head out of the city and into a place that is more manageable.

On May 2^nd my friend Brittany arrived in Delhi, she has quite a story of her own. Brittany's husband was already in Nepal before the earthquake volunteering for the Himalayan Rescue Association, he had no idea of the gravity of the earthquake until a few days after it happened. Thankfully he was fine, but it really changed things. Originally the four of us (Mike, Remi, Britt and me) were going to meet up in Manang, Nepal. The details don't matter, but things changed a lot. 

Brittany changed her flight from Nepal to go to Delhi a few days before arriving, we took a chance and waited to hear more on the conditions in Nepal. It was a day to day thing, we really had to think on the fly in addition to being in a hyper-aware state of your surroundings.  We decided that we could spend a few more days in India touring the Golden Triangle which is much safer and more touristy and that I would fly out to London on May 15th on my originally booked flight back.

The only problem was that my visa was going to expire on May 5^th  and the office I needed to extend my visa at, wasn't open until the 5^th. MAY 5th WHAT A SHIT SHOW! Going to the FRRO (passport agency for foreigners) makes the DMV look like heaven.  We woke up early with all of the papers that I thought I needed and sped to the office. We had two plans- one with visa extended and one with visa denied. If we failed, Brittany would meet Remi in Kathmandu, and I would be on the next flight out to anywhere. Keep in mind we had shoddy internet access on my inconsistent Indian Airtel phone and were taking a huge risk! If I got denied and couldn't get on a flight I faced huge fines and potential jail time. 

Here is where it started to get fun :) 

We got to the office and it looked like the wall street trade room of Afghani refugees. In no way do I mean to offend anyone by that statement, but it was true. We met some great people that were trying to migrate into India from Afghanistan... but there were so many of them! The security would try and push back the crowd and they would wander straight back up to the front. Chaos, confusion and clearly frustrated employees- I knew I had a very unlikely chance of getting my visa extended. 

It failed. I didn't have the right papers, no one cared to help, the issue wasn't an emergency and certainly I had the money to buy a new ticket and fly home because I am white. No one wanted to hear the case. That was fine. Thankfully we sort of had an escape route, it's just that we hoped we weren't going to have to use it! 

We used our fitness skills to get us quickly back to the hotel. Sprinting up stairs, jumping through crowds, pushing our way to the front of lines. We were sort of laughing and smiling all the way through, every few minutes stating that we couldn't believe we were doing this right now. The poor girl just needed a break. I am so thankful that I was with her though. She is the best person to be with in this situation, when we sat in the back of the tuk-tuk, she was like "ok, let's meditate" ha! She is probably one of my only friends who could handle that without a breakdown. Resiliant and smart, she's the best.

Now I am in Milan, it was the cheapest and most familiar destination that I could have gotten to in three hours notice. After a few days in Milan I head to Portugal to stay with family.  It actually works out quite well because now I can work on planning our wedding. 

Recommendations for Delhi:

Lodging: If you want to stay out of the madness of the city and get some quiet time at night, stay in Guragaon, it is a bit out of the way but worth it in my opinion. At a reasonable price you will get clean rooms, sheets, pillows and a pool. You can easily take the tuk-tuk to HUDA City Center and ride the metro in. If you want to stay in the city, stay at the Hyatt Regency near the FRRO Office and Hauz Khas Village, go any further in to the city and you will not feel safe at night walking, in order to really enjoy where you are, I recommend staying close to Hauz Khas.

Transportation: Take a prepaid taxi from the airport to your hotel. Use tuk-tuk to get from your hotel to metro, and metro to get anywhere. It is clean, fast, cheap, EASY TO UNDERSTAND and free from pollution (do expect to wait in line and but cut in line for tickets, you must be aggressive and push your way to the front- they mostly all speak English. You will also have to go through a pointless security check point). In Chandni-Chowk go by rickshaw, they are unbelievable at navigating on their bikes, plus if you want to avoid stepping in God knows what, you should do it. Never take a bus, always keep your bags on your front side, bargain your rides they will try to charge you way more than it's actually worth.

Top Three Eating:
Karim's hotel- best food ever.
Old Jalebi Walla
Select City Walk ( has a plethora of trustworthy, clean and delicious restaurants. I recommend to go to the food court, where you buy a card and fill with rupees and use this to pay at each vendor stall- this food court puts the best of the US to shame)

Top Things to do: Go to Chandni Chowk, eat some jalebi from the “old jalebi walla”, butter chicken at Karim's and then head to the spice market for an authentic experience. Also visit the Sikh temple for the best tour of all- it is free and you get a guide, you will have to take off your shoes but it is very clean compared to the hindu temples, it was a beautiful experience for Brittany and I. Visit the Ghandi Memorial, India Gate, Red Fort and Qutub Minar. Visit Select City Walk (a mall where the wealthiest people of India shop) for a western oasis of air conditioning, clean water and food- best store here: The Good Earth. Also worth a visit is Hauz Khas Village, this is where you will find the trendiest bars, shops and restaurants. The upper casts definitely are hanging out here. Lastly if you do anything: GO TO THE KINGDOM OF DREAMS, it is like the Universal Studios of all that is India. I can't explain, just go, if you did only this while in India, you would have gotten a very westernized, but very accurate taste of all that is India.

What to buy: Camel Leather Slippers, Pashminas, Saree, Kurta, Spices- drive a hard bargain and watch out for fake Saffron- real saffrom will be 200/300 rupees per gram.