Instead of calm down say this
[Applause]
calm down
that’s a phrase that has called exactly
zero people
in the history of humankind
especially when it’s being yelled at us
or when we are the ones yelling
at someone why is it
that we use such an inefficient strategy
what if i told you that there are
simpler kinder
more effective ways not only to help
others calm down
but perhaps more importantly to help
calm ourselves
regardless of anything that’s going on
around us
and sometimes it can be quite a bit
i want to invite you to close your eyes
for a moment
and imagine a 14 year old 8th grader
who has flown school and needs to repeat
8th grade all over again
imagine that same person at 16
losing a loved one to a tragic car
accident
imagine that person later are 18 years
old
discovering an infidelity in their first
sentimental relationship
at 22 trying to get through university
within the boundaries of a precarious
financial situation
the stressors the expectations
weighing heavy on this person’s
shoulders
what if this person later in their 30s
goes through an international divorce
with children
in between imagine that person being
torn apart
from their child who now lives on the
other side of the ocean
with your eyes closed imagine the same
person
in their mid 30s discovering for the
first time
breathing consciously paying close
attention
the sensation of the air on the tip of
their nose
feeling the air in the back of their
throats
the sensation of their clothes against
their skin
as their lungs expand with their
inhalation
and contract with every exhalation
imagine this person with the tools the
perspective
the resilience gain by simply
being able to breathe through the ups
and downs
that life brings to all of us
imagine this person with the ability to
simply
be less reactive
feel free to open your eyes
and look at this person
and i so wanted to be next to my
daughter
but there was a court and a judge and an
ocean
5 000 kilometers 3 100 miles between us
sundays changed for me they were no
longer about going
with my daughter to the park to meet up
with friends
or learn how to ride a bike i remember
one day
walking up diagonal avenue in barcelona
seeing a girl about five years old long
black hair
happily riding her bicycle just like my
daughter
i started weeping right there and then
my daughter had just moved back to the
states
a few months prior after i lost custody
on what was as it is often the case
yet another ugly divorce for many months
i’ll have serious panic attacks i was
depressed
i didn’t know if i would see her again i
was overwhelmed
through the grief not only that my
marriage had failed
but the uncertainty about my
relationship with my daughter
life is full of ups and downs
and i used to categorize the downs the
stressors
as adult-only issues
but if we take a moment to reflect the
truth is
that we have stressors throughout our
lives regardless of age
gender socioeconomic status
belief system through this crisis
i came to identify with a quote from
matthew quick that read
the world will break your heart 10 ways
to sunday
that’s guaranteed
and having what at the time was an
immense
sense of impotence and uncertainty
and a broken heart i found myself
with no access to effective tools
to navigate all those emotions i had no
strategy
no way to calm myself down
much less help my daughter calm down
help her understand that yes things were
going to be difficult
but ultimately okay
in the midst of all that i started
listening to this
video on youtube and i apologize
for the pronunciation it was called
tranquil it was a mindfulness meditation
in a language where the only word i
could grasp
was respire breathe
and in just three short minutes
my panic attack would subside
and i would just feel this energy inside
of me
that’s when i first discovered the world
of mindfulness meditation
the second time i went through a divorce
i was lucky
to be able to count on the benefits that
mindfulness meditation has to offer
i was less reactive i was able to focus
more clearly on where exactly i wanted
to spend
my energy and my time
i was able to continue being an involved
father of two
despite the hardships that we were all
going through i discovered that i could
focus my attention
purposefully on breathing
and by doing so all the clutter
all the chatter all the noise the
negative narrative
inside my head would go away discord
that i could focus again
i could move away from merely reacting
to the events that were happening to me
around my life
and choose how to act based on my values
on my needs
on my children’s needs i discovered that
i didn’t have to find
a guru or a master someplace far away
to find a quieter place inside of me
i just needed to practice mindfulness
meditation
like a child practices riding a bicycle
now when we talk about emotions when we
are dealing
emotionally with a situation we need
tools
in our own native language
through my journey i discovered that if
you didn’t speak
english or french or live in one of the
richer economies in the world
not only do you have less options or
materials
to find out about the benefits of
mindfulness meditation
but also your access to relevant
high quality scientific information was
supremely diminished
that felt unfair almost all of the
content i found was primarily in english
and not available in spanish why does
the spanish-speaking world
have to wait so much longer to benefit
from the positive effects of mindfulness
both for our mental and physical health
what can we do to bridge that gap
a study conducted by the wh so in 2017
founded in latin american countries of
low and medium income status
almost exclusively all spanish-speaking
there are only between two to 6
mental health care professionals per 100
000 people this highlights a
massive gap between the needs of the
population
and the resources available
so that they can take care of their
mental health
let’s bear in mind that there are
over 400 million spanish speakers
around the globe in the journey of
facing difficulties
i’m not alone there are others
flunking 8th grade facing difficult
situations
injustices and just like i was
with no access to tools that helps them
come back to a state of calm that allows
them
to be focused productive effective
being born and raised in colombia
i felt a profound urge to share with the
entire spanish
speaking community what
i had learned along the way in its
simplest form
mindfulness meditation is the practice
of focusing your mind’s attention
on something in particular such as your
breath
through scientific inquiry we humans
understand
what is it about this practice what is
it about this ancient tradition
that actually helps us calm down
appease our minds so in 2017
i decided i was going to do my part to
help
people in my community around the world
calm down to help them navigate
their own ups and downs so i embarked on
democratizing
mindfulness meditation to spanish
speakers around the globe
when i run round tables in colombia to
find out what is it that people do
to calm themselves down to take care of
their mental health
one girl describes signing up for a
mindfulness meditation class
the class was on saturday mornings at 9
00 am
she lived on the other side of town
so for her taking care of her mental
health
meant not being able
to do activities with her friends on
friday evenings
because you have to get up at 6 45 in
the morning to make it to class on time
the class was two hours long
so by the time she got back home her
entire saturday morning would have
vanished
that’s a big price to pay for something
that isn’t widely known
in her culture to be effective
what was the solution then in my
eyes a sound solution
was to deliver science-based mindfulness
meditation
and make it available so that people
could take care of their mental health
wherever they were whenever they needed
it
through a mobile app
in january 2021 four years
after i poured myself on this project on
this journey
our first clinical study was published
in the
international journal of environmental
research and public health
in switzerland it is to date
the first study conducted
exclusively with native spanish speakers
as participants using an app in their
native language
the study was led by a team of
researchers at the university of burgos
had 164 participants and the results
were fascinating
for one people increase
their levels of mindfulness
they decrease their negative emotions
increase their ability to forgive
themselves and others
they were more creative and
perhaps most important of all they were
more satisfied
with their own life and who doesn’t want
to be more satisfied with their own life
english speakers might be familiar with
names like
john kabat sin sara lazar
davidson daniel goldman
maybe even know their work
but even if we don’t know exactly the
accomplishments of these scientists
dedicated to
researching the benefits of mindfulness
meditation
their names sound familiar to us
that sensation of familiarity
perhaps even trust is exactly what
happens
to spanish speakers when we hear names
like
juan pablo pisarro ruiz maria caminos
colar
javier garcia campagno nuria ordonez
mario
names of researchers devoted to the
needs
of our community in the spanish-speaking
world
discovering mindfulness meditation will
not make
hardships disappear from anyone’s lives
it didn’t make hardships disappear in my
life
i went through a lot of grief through my
second divorce
launching a startup and putting it all
on the table
to the point of turning your pockets
inside out
maxing out credit cards even throwing
your 401k behind it to at least
get a chance to make a dent
in this massive need for effective tools
to take care of our mental health is
full of uncertainties
even having that phone call
where my mom would ask me so when are
you gonna get a real job again
and i’ll be thinking this is the most
important job of
my life so far thanks to the advent
of technology i’m able to help
thousands of people who have long been
denied access to scientifically proven
mental health care resources
i have at least one truth inside of me
and that’s what i like you to take today
learn to pay attention to your breath
learn to calm yourself down
and you will be able to write the ups
and downs of life
with a different perspective a different
error around you
matthew quick did say the world
will break your heart 10 ways to sunday
that’s guaranteed
and he continues
and i cannot explain that
or the craziness inside myself and
everybody else
but guess what sunday
is my favorite day again
there will be times when we lose
ourselves
when things seem so impossibly difficult
when things seem lackluster even things
we really used to enjoy
and when our hearts break things will
most likely never be the same
but that doesn’t mean they cannot be
good again
i still go through hardships in my life
of course and i see others go through
them
but the way i react to those hardships
has drastically improved
the last time my daughter got sick from
the anxiety of boarding a plane alone
instead of telling her to calm down
i embraced her and said
breathe thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
be
[Music]
[Music]
up
you