Greetings

I guess one can categorise a year as being happy or successful by looking back at its moments, being unable to decide what was more wonderful. Personally 2013 was a great year for me: traveling, collaborating with extraordinary people, learning, training and getting trained, coaching, creating, spending nice moments with family and friends. It was only one not so nice moment at the begging of the year when my last grandmother died...I was not in Europe so my family decided to tell me when I was almost back. She was buried on the same day I was getting married*. This is life. Some die, some are born...I was sad, I still am but life has to go on.
But, the purpose of this post is not to make you sad or philosophical about the normal matters of life. Its purpose is to share with you some moments of life, to celebrate the ending of the year and to look hopeful and courageous towards the new year and whatever is going to bring us. 
Traditionally there are only the happy moments because we do not make pictures when we are down, when we are in tears, in rage, when we are sad. I had these kinds of moments as well but they were all making me a better person. 
This is what I wish for everybody for the year to come: be a better person everyday. When you feel there is nothing to do, remember that humans are wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid and you will always find somebody for help, encouragement and understanding.

I wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

_____________________________________________________________________
*Maybe some of you would ask how come I was getting married and I did not know about my grandma that was suppose to be at my marriage together with my family. Simply because me and my husband decided that the very act of marriage is an intimate act, that we do it for us and not for our families and other public and that probably (to read hopefully) they will understand will be happy for us and with us later on.

People and places: Back to the « normal » life

Travelling for 5 weeks could be a lot or could be not enough and becoming the beginning of willing more…When we started on the 31st of December 2012, I was thinking it is a lot. A lot of time and a lot of travelling. Now, I am back home since 2 weeks and I will start all over again, for 3 years or more :-) 

I wrote in the title back to « normal » life but in fact my life is not « normal » anymore after this trip…and there were only 5 weeks! 

Even the feeling of sleeping and waking up in my own bed is different...

Some people travel for 3, 6 months or a year…If these 5 weeks make me feel that I will travel from now on everyday of my life exploring my days like a new and most wonderful day ever…then what is happening when travelling longer? 

Must be amazing!

I grew up in these 5 weeks more then in the last five years. Meeting people from so far away, talking to them, knowing them in their everyday life it helps to realize different things, things that maybe one knows in theory but never experimented:

• all people around the world like to eat, enjoy some moments of their life with family and friends…sleep and work

• all children play and laugh in a wonderful way

• time, distances and cultural differences are RELATIVE

• everywhere are good and bad people

• learning is a process of change

• traveling is enhancing every experience helping in finding out who you really are and what you really want   

The planning of this trip started because of an old friendship and the desire of keeping it alive. It was the most important objective and together with it were coming alone the discovering and exploration of new places and people. In the same time the relationship with my partner grew stronger and our perception of the world more universal.

There are many ways of travelling and experiencing so I will not give any advice on that.

Though, I will have a suggestion: do whatever you do with the thought you are a traveller on this life and there is no need to carry the entire house with you because home is everywhere… 

Read here about: Part 1: Hong Kong, Part 3 and Part 4 Fiji, Part 5 California

People and places: Life and wild life

Seven days already in California and I can say here is life and wild life.

Seven days, driving on the cost of California from L.A. towards San Francisco with two days in Yosemite Park…

I did not write anything until now because I was hoping to understand more of the life here and change my feelings... Los Angeles immediately after Fiji was feeling like a slap in the face. Yes, here are clean hotels like I know them from Europe, yes, there is wi-fi everywhere, civilization…restaurants and expensive shops…but no humanity. Seven days in US and I did not talk to anybody then the hotel clerks, waiters or shop sellers. It is very strange though. They are all very polite and smiling. In every store one enters is welcomed with « How are you doing? » which is quite annoying…in case you are not doing well ;)

I have no story about anybody I met here, but I know there is life and wild life in California.

It is the life of humans and the life of wild animals, which are really wild, and that one can admire. Since we are here we have seen: seals, elephant seals, sea lions, sea otters, two different kinds of squirrels, condors, hawks, dolphins, pelicans, ducks and a lot of other birds I do not know the name. This is amazing here and I have never seen anywhere else until now so much wild life one can simply observe (without being in a Zoo). I felt really small in the middle of all the mightily nature in Yosemite Park and thankful I did not see the bear J.

But there is another type of wild life in California: all the homeless people that are everywhere: in the streets, in the stores, in front of the churches, in the parks etc. There are young or old, men or women…there is a huge number of them everywhere. I have even seen a small report of about 7 minutes at the main news about homeless people, entire families living in the sewers of L.A. It is because of them I did not write until now. I did not know how to write that in spite of the beautifulness of the wild nature o this part of US there is always a certain sadness filling the air… and the difference between the rich people, luxurious houses and places and the site of these homeless people is huge and extremely obvious. Only a blind could ignore it. During my life I never saw such a number of homeless people in any country of Europe, including in my own where those having my age remember the streets of Bucharest after the 90s.  I do not know why they are in this situation…I can only observe that between people with a 9 to 5 job, near reach people wearing on them more the ten thousands dollars, near all the wonderful things of California are living them: a special category of people, some having still a human look, some just deteriorating and having an empty gaze in their eyes.

More the society is “civilized”, more we are independent, “free”, less we care about the others…and still I haven’t been to Africa or India…Overall in Fiji probably were more poor people but the fact that there were living in families, villages, clans, the poorness was not so obvious because there were living a community. The lost souls of California are alone.

Seems that California (and I say California because I do not want to generalise to all US) is full of contrasts. So, yes, California is great, I have seen on one hand wonderful things but on the other hand also other kind of things showing or just confirming me that nature is better then what we call humanity…or that somehow humanity can act unnatural. 

People and places: Laughing - the best Fijian feature

The Fijians* are big, no matter if men or women. There are strong and happy. Fijians are laughing almost all the time: when working, when there is a joke, when they play or talk, when there is an embarrassing situation and even when is dangerous. They are helping and laughing…it is like a therapy: the danger does not seem so big anymore; the embarrassing situation is becoming just funny. No wonder that there are considered as one of the most happy nations. Their laugh also is from the heart; from deep down their belly…one can hear it and start laughing as well. It is like pure happiness, like there is no bad in the world, like there is just that moment going on forever.

Fijians sing a lot too. They sing when they are not laughing ;) and they do it in church as well… as Fijians are very religious.

I would like to be able to transfer the feeling I had being in this country…because I was not feeling as visiting but as being, living, changing…The way Fijians live is contagious: strongly connected to their culture, to their small piece of island, to their way of being: happy, warm and welcoming. Besides this the food is just amazing. And this again I cannot make travel through my writing: the taste of food, the smile of people and the deep happiness of the moment. The only thing I could do and I am gladly doing it is to enclose all of this in my heart, in my being, in the cells of my brain…hoping that from this small seed will grow a tree…I seed of myself, of my feelings and perceptions here about this people I met. A moment in life that I enjoyed as a saturation of natural beauty, of nice people and of love.

I came here to meet my friend from childhood, to keep this relation alive and as strong as possible. I leave with much more then that…

I’ve learned a very nice lesson from this simple living people and maybe making stronger the belief that what we call poor people live their life more fully then us, the ones from "civilized" countries. Vinaka**!

* Fijians which are not having indian origins

** Thank you in Fijian

People and places: Fabrizia from Fiji

On the 6^th of January we arrived on the main island of Fiji and we started our travelling from Nandi towards Suva stopping for a couple of days in Mango Bay.

Here is like the green house of the botanical garden: 27-29 degrees and humid, green plants everywhere, palms, papaya trees, different kind of trees with wonderful red or yellow flowers, thousand of exotic wonderful flowers.

In the first day of our arrival our friends from here took us to eat at the Eco Café of Fabrizia. I never tasted in my life such a good grilled fish with rice and, you will not believe, ferns. Seems that the local ferns are cooked a little bit steamed with coconut milk, salt pepper and is giving this amazing “contorno” as she called it. I never felt so at home… So practically we landed in a deep, wonderful Italian atmosphere surrounded by a typically Fijian environment: the house and the small restaurant are build in traditional manner with bamboo, directly on the beach, children are playing in the water…

Fabrizia is a brave, hard working, wonderful Italian woman. She married a local Fijian years ago and she build this small business: a place of Paradise that she and her husband are sharing full-hearted with their clients. Everything is home made: gorgeous lemonade, amazing marmalade, vegetables from the garden, natural growing chicken, fresh fish from the Ocean etc. Maybe you will think it must be like this everywhere on the island. Apparently not: the locals are more and more attracted if not fooled by the mirage of civilization and forgetting bit by bit their tradition. So, they started to prefer “tin houses” to the more difficult to build but much nicer bamboo houses, they prefer drinking merely Coke, Fanta or other chemicals to their natural juices (here is a paradise for bananas, pineapples, papaya and other amazing fruits).

We were going to eat there one more time, before continuing our trip. This time was a genuine Italian pizza we enjoyed in a very relaxed and happy atmosphere…I do not even remember when I laughed last time so much and so deep in my heart. 

People and places: starting and Hong Kong

I am going to start posting a few stories about our small project of travelling around the world. I say small not because the world is small but because even if we make a complete tour of the planet we stop only in Hong Kong, Fiji Islands and California (between Los Angeles and San Francisco).

We started our journey on 31st of December with a flight from London to Hong Kong. Midnight cached us in the air…almost sleeping. We just said to each other Happy New Year and we went to sleep ;) It was one of the less ceremonious New Year’s eve we have ever spent…but we were eager to arrive in Hong Kong. The start of the year was announcing itself GREAT.

On the 1^st of January we arrived in Hong Kong…and we stayed until the 5^th of January.

Hong Kong (meaning the Incense Harbour) was GREAT and did not disappoint me at all. People were smiling a lot and every time they have seen us with the map figuring out our way, they stopped and ask politely if we need help. Being jet legged had a big advantage: we were starting very early in the morning. This meant we were in the metro during the rush hour. With a population of more then 10 million people I was thinking it will be hell…worse then Rome, Paris, Bucharest and other big cities I was accustom with. In fact, not at all. No matter the hour or the place I never seen overcrowded places, I never felt aggressed or in danger. Also, I did not see angry or upset people… And I have to admit that at least the metro system was one of the most organized and I supposed the rest of the public transportation was not worse as they were very few personal cars in the city.

Every neighbourhood has its own “world”: financial place with international restaurants and stores; street markets for all kind of goods, golden fish market for aquarium fishes, flower market, traditional Chinese medicine market, dry food market, ceramics market, jade and jewellery street etc. Hong Kong has its hills with amazing nature and hiking paths, we did a few. Inside the city, wherever possible, surrounded by the forest of skyscrapers, were also parks with amazing big and almost suspended ficus trees. In these parks, the Chinese, especially the elder ones, were practicing sports of all kinds from jogging or tennis to yoga, chi qong or tai chi. Nice to see and feel this of relaxing and healthy atmosphere…Another place I liked was the sea food market. The food is also something that we enjoyed even if we were not exactly courageous in our choices: different kinds of noodle soups or dumplings, salads and some small baked bread. In any case the Chinese cuisine as I new it from Europe has not so much in commune with what I have seen on the table of the people there and in the places were they were selling the food in the street. By the way, the smell was incredible good and people were queuing to eat there.

In other words, first experience with Hong Kong: nice people, nice places to visit (we did not cover too much in our 4 days there), nice food…and for whose interested quite good for shopping.

Greetings

The year 2012 was a complex, some times difficult, some times challenging year but mainly rewarding. It was a year of change and new projects, of happy moments and hopes: new business projects, psychology studies, story telling at the Romanian book shop, moving in a new apartment, meeting new friends and enjoy best moments with old friends, travelling to new places...

I wanted to share with you some of these moments in a small 2 minutes and a half movie. There are only the happy moments because we do not make pictures when we are down, when we are in tears, in rage, when we are sad. I had these kinds of moments as well but they were all making me a better person. This is what I wish for everybody for the years to come: be a better person everyday. When you feel there is nothing to do, remember that humans are wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid and you will always find somebody for help, encouragement and understanding.

I wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Anul 2012 a fost unul complex, cateodata dificil si provocator dar in cele mai multe cazuri a fost extraordinar. A fost un an al schimbarilor, al noilor proiecte, al momemntelor fericite si al sperantei: mutarea si renovarea noului apartament in care ne-am mutat, proiecte noi pentru afacerea mea, noi cursuri la psihologie, intalnirea unor persoane ce mi-au devenit noi prieteni, momente extraordinare cu vechii prieteni, calatoriile in locuri in care nu mai fusesem inainte…

As vrea sa impart cu voi cateva din aceste momente intr-un filmulet de 2 minute jumatate. Mi-a fost greu sa aleg doar cateva poze dar cred ca veti simti admosfera generala J

Bineinteles, am selectat doar momente fericite caci nu am facut poze cand eram pierduta, nervoasa, cu ochii in lacrimi, manioasa sau bolnava…dar toate aceste momente m-au facut sa fiu o persoana mai buna. Asta este ceea ce v-as dori tuturor pentru anii ce vor sa vina: sa fiti si sa deveniti persoane mai bune in fiecare zi. Si atunci cand vei avea momente in care crezi ca nimic nu are sens, nu uita ca oamenii sunt buni, intelegatori dorindu-si cooperearea sociala si ajutorul reciproc si ca vei gasi intodeauna pe cineva sa te ajute, sa te incurajeze sau sa te inteleaga.

Va urez tuturor Craciun Fericit si un An Nou cu multa pace sufleteasca!

A glimpse of Rome

I am just back from a three days trip to Rome. I was going there for the meeting of the European Leaders Chapter of ICF. But not about this I want to write even if it was a very good and constructive meeting and I get acquainted with very nice and interesting people. I want to write about Rome. Sempre Roma. Rome like I know it, Rome now.

I have always admired the organized and specific way of Germans but in the same time I have been always amazed by the unorganized way of the Italians and by their ability to make things work in the biggest confusion and untransparency. The juicy part of living in Italy.

I have been living in Italy a few years ago for some time and in Rome as well enough to feel familiar when I am going back there. So I decided not to take a taxi but to use the cheap public transportation from the airport to the hotel. Once landed on Ciampino I knew there are some bus shuttles going into the city. In the Airport was only one information desk about these shuttles but was closed. I went outside looking around: it was raining. Probably the first rainy day in Rome of this year and probably the only one trough the spring. I see what could have been a bus stop because people were waiting. It was also a poster announcing the hours of the bus…in 5 minutes. I am lucky, I was thinking. After 10 minutes of rain and no bus, more and more people were coming from the airport. Enough to make full 3 buses. In the rain, with orange jackets a few guys are coming. They have something in their hands and yelling: Termini, Centro, Termini, Centro. I am realizing they should sell bus tickets. I go, I ask the price…I pay. I take my wet ticket already and going back under the cover of the bus stop. After another 5 minutes, I was half wet but one bus is arriving. ALLL, but ALL the people/turists/travelelrs are running to the bus. The first ones getting in are informed that they don’t have the right tickets. In fact nobody has the right tickets because they are sold only in the bus. I am not worrying about the fact that I could have fake tickets. I know how it is in Italy: very competitive...so there where is one company will be at least two more. I was right. After some more minutes in the rain the bus matching with my tickets is arriving. Another crowd running in the rain to take the bus. We just cannot go inside the bus with our luggage. It has to be put in the luggage compartment under the bus. A lot of people don’t understand Italian, the bus driver and his assistant they don’t really speak other languages. Confusion, rain, crowd. A mobile phone ringing. It is belonging to the driver. In the middle of all the mess he answers: Ciao, Cara! Come stai! Bene..anch’io. …etc. After a few minutes (!?) he finish the conversation and starts again to ”organize” the crowd/client thing. Finally after 30 minutes the bus is full of wet nervous people and the luggage is in the special compartment. Some negotiation are still going on the a funny language (mix of Italian and something else) with people that their wives/girlfriends were coming up in the bus during the time the men were arranging the luggage in the indicated place and now they do not have place anymore. The Italian driver say NO! Non e possible. In my bus nobody go standing…after 5 more minutes of negotiation the guys come on the bus as well. We are moving!!! youppy !!!But not for long: in 10 minutes we are entering the city and the traffic is tremendous…slow. Doesn’t matter for me as I am looking on the streets I know…in a neighborhood I was living for a while…here is the market. Loveley memories. Gelateria is in the same place. Roma e sempre Roma. Bella, caotica, dolce vita, tranquilla…bellissima Roma.

About me

Who am I? I am a creation…a creation of bones and skin, of different cells combined…the result of generations of people who loved each other: my parents, my grandparents, my grand-grand parents, my ancestors…On one hand, on the other hand is my soul living in this body…energy from the universal energy, the boom which is making me moving, thinking and feeling…especially feeling. The soul is this miracle giving us existence in a certain form. To all this it is added layers after layers: experiences. The experiences of my life, the places where I grew up, the places I was passing by, the people I was meeting until I understand something, the transformation, the passing, the trans-passing, the evolution. I am an explorer of the life. I explore in order to understand using this amazing capacity that only us, the human beings have: the conscience. From time to time I receive a gift, the opportunity of sharing all these with the others, to offer something from me, something of me to the ones willing to become as well explorers of what we call here on earth: life. Most of the times I receive gifts form the others, from all the others crossing my “road” in life, from the life. We are all receiving gifts from the life, some of us are aware about and we accept them, some are ignoring these gifts for a while…some for the whole life. [i]

My name is Dana and I am a person looking permanently to give sense to my existence. I have been always looking for a deep understanding of the human being with a passion for all the changes taken place inside us accordingly to the environment: family, friends, different events, socio-economic situation, weather change (why not, it is trendy), hormonal change, practically anything which can change something in ourselves. It seems that the biggest fear of the human being is the change itself. I could say we are allergic to change even if we are continuously changing, adapting, evolving from the first day of our life and this is making us stronger. The conscientious understanding of different things I will treat on this blog was not coming straight and easy. No, I was first going trough a lot of changes: from childhood to teenage, from teenage to maturity…from elementary school to high school and university, from university to my first job, from short time love affairs to the long relationships, then to marriage, to divorce, again short time love affairs and again different long time relations…from hating my parents to reconciliation with them, from fighting with my sister to a nice friendship… from Romania to Italy and from Italy to Luxembourg. Briefly I was working as an economist in sales and marketing strategy, as manager in an import-export company, as a warehouse manager and jumping over a lovely year in Italy for study as an innovation management consultant. But all these were not driving me towards the essence of my searching: human being, because after all economy is about people, we are selling to people, people are innovating, the economy / trade has emerged as a result of evolution and adaptation of human beings.

Two years ago I started a new path, a new expedition: coaching.

Reading what I wrote before, I clearly see that I managed to avoid saying who am I are by saying what I did. Classic! In fact when we meet a new person we do not ask "Who are you?" but "What are you doing in general, how you gain your life, what do you do in your free time, etc…"

Also, we have the tendency to ask others how we are, how we are perceived ... Our identity is often deeply linked to the way others see us. Thus we have at least three views about us: the way we are seen by the others, the way we would like to be and the way we actually are.

So again ... who I am or how I would like to be perceived by others? I'm an adaptable person with the sense of humor, I love life, I love people, I love new experiences. I am a person with vision, I find solutions where others see only problems, I like to be liked by others, to convince them with my ideas ... I am a conscientious and dedicated leader. I am someone who can give you an opinion, an idea, someone reliable in times of tribulation but also for having fun ... How am I in my inner forum? I am a person with pluses and minuses like mere mortals ... my views and opinions can sometimes become fixed ideas that can tease someone for a long time, my adaptability may become inconsistence, new experiences can become quickly boring ... Sometimes my conscientiousness and dedication could make me go off track and supporting an idea that was not good ... a person who had hidden thoughts. I am a reliable friend, getting involved in projects that I love and believe in, I am starting off with enthusiasm for a new idea, a trip, a book ... a new challenge. I'm afraid not to exaggerate, I am afraid of losing what I have built up to now, not to be misjudged. I detest racism, misogyny ... discrimination of any kind in general ... and the list goes on. How others see me? I'll let them say, those who know me to post their opinion ... and then I will ask you my new readers who may not know me in person.

---

[i] Up date from 4^th of May 2011, after meeting a great person Oana Pellea (Romanian actrice) that I admire very much. Her presence inspired me in reading, hearing, feeling and understanding a few things.

About this blog

I chose the title of this blog after a song of a French group Manau "Le Tribu de Dana" or the tribe of Dana in free translation. Dana, it seems that it was an Irish goddess of Celtic mythology, a kind of God-woman, the goddess of fertility and prosperity. This goddess had equivalent in Indo-European mythologies of various peoples before Christianization being called Dana, Danu, Don and seems to have given different names of rivers like Danube (in Latin Danavius), the Dniester (Russian) or Dnieper (Russian Dniepr). The significance of names could be "donor" or "benefactor". In India dâna has the meaning of gift.

This name suits me perfectly because the purpose of this blog is that to offer, to give some of my thoughts and my knowledge.

Two years ago I started a new path, a new change: coaching. This blog is linked to this vocation ... It is linked to my will and passion of understanding and accompanying of human beings, people in general in the process of change, of personal development, of finding inner peace, of finding itself. I will post articles about coaching and differences between coaching and psychology, psychotherapy or psychiatry, about personality, about stress, about YOU .... Maybe if you come up here with reading and you are not yet bored, you already begin to say: blah, blah, blah … another one telling us how to be better, perform better, how to guide our lives, what to do, what to ... Well, if you want to start reading this blog, to be part of this "tribe" then I tell you from the beginning "YOU ARE ALREADY SOMEBODY GOOD " and it will be the title of the first article ... Happy reading!