Understanding your Greatness and celebrating!

While in Munoz, I’m visiting local kids in one of the two Bates here. Bate is a Haitian refugee. Haiti and Dominican republic form an island of Hispaniola, and Haiti is known for its extreme poverty and is basically the poorest country on the western hemisphere. The earthquake in 2010 and all the other disasters that followed, brought many Haitians to their neighbouring country. They live in small communities in villages around the Dominican republic. The campsite where I’m staying offers some volunteering with local kids, but all the organisation is basically in your own hands. You prepare your own program and you do whatever you feel like. You can teach English, do some arts and crafts or just be there, as they really enjoy foreign’s company and attention. The community center for volunteers is a small little shack in Bate and it rains a lot, so my options are limited. But I do everyday something different and just try to bring the most to the kids, with my unconditional love and experiences I got through the years.

I had lots of jobs  where I worked with kids and in each country I spent some time with the local kids as well. But kids here are somehow different. They come from a really poor country, I know that. They were born into families who struggled every day through life, and they still are. Those kids had to learn how to survive at their early age. Every time I bring something for arts and crafts they rush upon stuff I brought, before I even try to split in between them. They beg every day to give them something. Even something that they don’t really need. They have lots of food, because DR is self sufficient and they have place over their head as well. So they have basics for survival.

They just want something. Something materialistic. Maybe because they think then will matter more in the eyes of others. It’s completely the same as in the western world. We think material makes us better and bigger. Those kids think the same. In Dominican republic the racism is a big thing between black people. The lighter you are the more you value. Haitians are completely black. They probably feel like being at the bottom and crave even more for the acceptance. Is that why they yearn for material things? They just want to be accepted?  Accepted in other people’s eyes, accepted into the world we live in. Don’t we all? We just want to be good enough. We all want to fit in. To be accepted. To be loved. And to even deserve love. That’s the problem in the world today. We all want love, but we think we don’t deserve it, because we think we’re not good enough. We feel others are better than us. Do you ever feel like that? I certainly did, I still do sometimes.

But in the end, we are who we are. When you accept yourself as you are, when you become sincere to yourself and others, and you show to the world who you truly are, then you are good enough.  Just as you are. You don’t need to be rich, You don’t need to have influential parents. You don’t have to have 45045 FB friends. You don’t have to own a car. You don’t need to be on the upper position at your job. You don’t need to wear fancy cloths. You don’t need to be strong and fearless. You DON"T NEED to be all this things to be good enough! You just need to be you! And the right people will love you and stand by your side and support you with your crazy ideas and they won’t judge your actions. They will be there because of YOU only. So if you want acceptance of other people, shouldn’t you accept yourself first? Are you good enough for yourself?  Do you love yourself? Do you even like yourself?

Then how you expect people to accept you, like you and love you, if you can’t?

A quote from one of my idols, who just blew me away with her words and being HERSELF is Lisa Nichols, motivator and powerful coach of living the Great life:

“Now I know, until I fall in love with me, when I’m madly in love with me, not in a braggadocios way, but I fully love me, then I’m the example, I’m the first example of how the world is supposed to love me. And I have to give them the best example ever! I can’t expect people treating me better then I treat myself, it’s unrealistic and it’s unfair. But we do it all the time. We expect someone to show us our greatness, when I’m supposed to show understanding my greatness and allow YOU to celebrate it with me!”

Mayita