Surviving the Financial Crisis: The New Pioneers

The Greek equivalent of making lemons out of lemonade

It seems late to be addressing our financial crisis, but I'm noticing a second reaction wave...now is when our fears can transmute into apathy, numbness, submerged anxiety or underlying depression. Many do not feel they can express their concerns any longer, simply because this has become old news. We're being told that we can never hope to achieve the standard of living most of us have grown accustomed to, that it will take years for our economy to recover, if, indeed, this is even possible. Most of us have lost a substantial portion, if not all, of our retirement accounts and savings. Many of us have become even more isolated, accompanied only by our fears. All of us have had to make enormous changes.

Some of you know that I recently returned from Greece. Their economic situation is bleak. Most families have at least one family member out of work. Many families do not contain a single working adult. Their situation is as bad, if not worse than our dire one in California, and, yet, their reactions differ from ours. I’m not quite sure what I expected to find, but, from the outside, life appeared to continue as usual. One midweek evening in Volos, I went out with friends. It took us awhile to find a taverna with an empty table. Our friend turned to me, waving at our first choice-- packed from end-to-end--and proclaimed, “Our financial crisis!”

Don’t get me wrong; they are hurting. Most of my friends are experiencing extreme difficulties…so how is it that their mood was generally better, that they were the most generous, ever, to me? I remember seeing an article, earlier this year, in a major U.S. news publication commenting on how little the Athenian nightlife reflected their economic depression. One possible conclusion is that of escapism and denial, but it was clear to me that this is not the case.

When I returned to the U.S., friends and acquaintances greeted me with the usual comments: “How lucky you are!” “So great that you have the freedom to do this.” “Wow! I’ve never taken a six week vacation in my life, let alone each year!” When those same folks realized that I haven’t held a salaried position for over two years, they became silent and didn’t know how to respond.

This led me to reflect not only on the differences in our resources (Greece vs. U.S.) but also in our choices. I remembered this again, recently, when I met the mother of a local TV show host. Her mom--now in her 70’s—lost her husband many years ago and single-handedly raised five children, who now have ten children of their own. All her children are well-educated and successful . She was a hard-working mother, who, in her words “did what needed to be done without thinking about it.” She reminded me of my mother.

I realized, for some, the adjustment is so great they don’t even know where to start, but much of it boils down to choices. And most of us will not make the hard choices until we’re pushed into corners—deep, dark, lonely, crowded corners.

I may have not been surrounded by mentors to help me negotiate medical training or start a business, but I do have a mother who modeled choice. On my parents’ two-teacher income, my mother of three children found a way—a way to build a summer cabin in the mountains where we all spent three months each year, a way to feed us, clothe us, and pay for our university educations, a way for us all to learn how to snow ski (on brand new equipment purchased at a pre-season sale… When the check-out clerk rang up clothes and equipment for a family of five—a whopping $600 sale—he said to my mom “Your family must love to ski!” I’ll never forget his expression when she answered, “Yes, we will, after we’ve had our first lessons.”), a way to obtain her PhD--in her 50’s--while working a regular job, a way for us all to travel to Europe together for the summer (exchanging homes and cars with a family in France), and the piece de resistance, a way to buy a home in the most expensive area of our city when most women her age would be scaling down for retirement. One of my mom’s happiest moments is reflected in a newspaper article on her wall. It shows our entire family during graduation week. Why? Because four of us graduated earning five degrees within one week of each other.

How did she accomplish this? Hard work and choices. We shopped at discount stores; we bought used cars; Mom cooked, rather than dining out. Did we compromise on the things that were important? No. We lived in a nice home. My entire family loves to cook—mom prepared gourmet meals (Coquille St. Jacques served in half shells and Dobos Torte), and don’t forget the higher degrees from great schools, skiing at our mountain home, and European travel.

I made different choices than she did, but I learned from Mom that I had choices. I chose to structure my life the way I desired, knowing full well it would set me apart from most physicians (so much so, that I’d be harassed by the IRS for not making enough money!). Given limited financial resources, I chose how best to use them, given that “resources” spanned more than finances. Many other elements contribute to the richness of my life.

Enter: the Greeks. I realized, my family shares with the Greeks a strong sense of community and shared resources. Neither is common in the U.S., and so we struggle. Most Greeks live in houses tiny by our standards. Most live on a small percentage of our budgets. Most work many more hours than we do, but also spend many more hours in the company of family and friends. Most have few material possessions. Many have experienced hard economic times and have previously lived under a dictatorship. I believe all of these differences give them strength to persevere. Having the support of family, not just emotionally but physically, provides power where we are weak. Are there disadvantages of sharing a family home or living in small quarters? Of course; however, in times of hardship or need (pregnancy, newborn, young children, one-parent households, job loss, illness, family deaths), they have a built-in support system that most of us lack.

We can use this information to our advantage. Most of us are having to make tough choices…what stays, what goes…but it’s also a time of creative restructuring—and I’m not going Pollyanna on you. It’s time to ask the tough questions, like “What is most essential to me?” “What are the most important aspects of my life?” “How do I want to live my life?” “Where and with whom will I create family and community?” “What do I want for me and my loved ones?” “What am I willing to give up?” “What do I want to create?”

It may not feel like it right now, but the advantage we do have over the Greeks (and most other nations in our world) is our freedom of thought and opportunity to create anew. With established structures and modes of thinking crumbling all around us, it’s time to get real and find creative solutions--and, when we do, to share our solutions with each other.

We are the new generation of pioneers. It’s time.

Timeless Beauty

Once again, I am thankful to Twitter for connecting me with like-minded people. More and more women are exploring our society’s refusal to accept death and aging, and, lately, they’ve been tweeting about it. Elissa Stein, author of FLOW is working on her next book project, Wrinkle, and her recent Huffington Post piece, The Age of Invisibility, was about our mistreatment of the elderly. Through twitter, I also learned of photojournalist Robbie Kaye’s documentation of her Beauty of Wisdom interviews with women in their seventies and older, conducted at their beauty shop appointments.

It’s time to address this peculiar societal dysfunction.

In the not so distant past, the anorexic teenager was our society’s single representation of beauty. The Twiggy template lived on, decades beyond her actual owner. Dove’s relatively recent campaign was one of the first to use normal-looking normal-sized women models. Their famous Evolution video revealed the false representation of the final icon of a female model that appeared on a billboard. By the time the initial picture was adjusted, it was so far removed from the original that it was difficult to connect the two. Our sense of beauty, both outer and inner, has become unbelievably warped.

It took my traveling to Greece to become aware of just how culture-specific beauty is. I was relieved when I discovered that the Greeks were blind to the dark hair on my body that was deemed socially-unacceptable in the U.S. I was thrilled that women who we would consider overweight showed no hesitation in wearing tight clothes in public or bikinis on the beach.

But there was another difference, and this one had more to do with inner beauty. In Greece, the elderly were cared for, honored, and respected by their families. Often, these elderly women provided the structure and foundation for the family. Many of my Greek friends were raised by their yiayias (grandmothers). Because the Greeks are a very social people, I had more conversations with elderly women there than I did with one of my own grandmothers. I could not return to my apartment without talking with a yiayia who lived in my neighborhood. She would pull out a seat cushion and rush to make Greek coffee when she saw me approaching her marble steps. In fact, I had to add an extra thirty to sixty minutes to my trip home if I didn’t return during her afternoon nap.

These grandmothers not only shared their life wisdom with me but provided me with such a strong sense of family and stability that it eased the 6,000+ mile distance from my real family. Looking at the world through their eyes provided me with an immediate sense of what is truly important. Linear time disappeared. Relationships and relating became crucial. It was clear that what we do is not as essential as how we do it, and that those we love are more important than anything else in this world. The emphasis on artificial physical beauty disappeared in a land where nothing could be more gorgeous than the dramatic scenery, weathered by the same natural elements that wrinkled the lovely faces of the elderly.

I became aware of another striking difference. These Greek women lived each day in the present moment, just as children do. In fact, they lived their entire lives in this way. This was a country in which the natural cycles of life were recognized and death was accepted along with life. The Greeks understood that in order for anything new to be created, the old must dissolve. They remembered what we have forgotten, that unrestricted growth is unsustainable and undesirable.

Both of my biological grandmothers died long ago. Now, more than ever, I absorb my mother’s memories of her mother and her mother’s generation. Not wanting to miss any of their wisdom, I grab hold before it disappears forever. By forgetting her, I lose. By forgetting them, we all lose.

Ours is a young nation. How can we expect to mature without the wisdom of our elders? Without this wisdom, we continue to destroy our earth and ourselves. The longer we hold onto this notion of unrestricted growth, the more this destruction continues. When will we, as a nation, begin to face our fears about aging and death and, instead, honor the hard-earned wisdom of our elders? When will we see their true beauty? Until we do, we will remain blind to our own.


***
You can read Robbie's letter to her Beauty of Wisdom women on the Feminine Revelations site.

Got Kefi?

Nia Vardalos’ new film My Life in Ruins is all about getting her kefi back (See article #1 and article #2).

Kefi is the Greek word meaning the passion for and joy of life! And the Greeks seem to have this in spades. No matter how bleak, how bad their lives get, they have the ability (like energizer bunnies) to bounce back up, snap their fingers and jump into that next circle dance. They are paradoxical. I had never before seen a group of people who could hold grief and tragedy in one hand and kefi in the other. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for most Americans. Not only have many of lost our kefi long ago, it’s been so long that we don’t realize that it’s missing.

There is a lot we can learn from the Greeks. No matter how bad things get, they are able to bounce back. They are downright resilient. Most of my Greek friends will credit this lesson to nearly 400 years of Turkish occupation. I understand this well, because my great-grandmother was forced to rebuild and re-create everything over and over again after constant theft and destruction in her small Middle-Eastern village. When we must constantly re-build and recreate we not only learn to detach from things, but we also experience our incredible capacity to create anew. We are forced to live in the moment. We are forced to let go of everything that is non-essential. Instead, we focus on what is important.

This is exactly what so many people around the world have been called to do this past year. With financial and environmental crises and job losses, we are all being forced to let go of all that is non-essential. In the process, many people are discovering a sparkling jewel—their kefi!

Fortunately, it isn’t essential to experience tremendous loss to recognize what is important. Have you lost your kefi? Do you want it back? There are as many ways as there are people to find it again.

I will use the Greeks to illustrate. Here are some examples:

1. Greeks live in the present moment! I know, easier said than done…and I know that I’ve said it before, but it’s the most important step.

2. You can’t have kefi if you’re lost in victimization and entitlement. That’s not to say that neither exists in modern day Greece; it certainly does. The point is, though, that we will never be able to experience the power and the joy of creating if we remain victims and expect the world to treat us fairly. I am still surprised by how easily the Greeks accept the natural cycle of life and death. Malpractice is just recently on the rise in Greece.

3. They let go. What will be will be. When I was an extra on the set of Mamma Mia, we had to be down at the port at some ungodly hour—I think it was 3:30am one day. That morning the weather was so stormy that my umbrella turned inside out within five minutes. I was complaining the whole duration of the hour-long bus ride to the camp. Most of my Greek compatriots were catching up on sleep. I just knew, I was saying to anyone who would listen, that we’d go through the entire day, waiting in the rain, without shooting. Why didn’t they just let us go home? And, sure enough, we did wait the entire day without a single shoot—while wearing damp costumes to boot (Yes, they stored the costumes in an open-walled building!). What did the Greeks do? I didn’t hear them complain once, other than a wishful sigh that they had some tsipouro (similar to ouzo, the preferred drink of Northern Greece on a rainy day!). But we didn’t have tsipouro, so what did the Greeks do? Dance and sing, of course!! (The tsipouro we had later that night. Don’t ever drink tsipouro after 6pm—another story…)

4. They get up and move their bodies; they usually dance (and, yes, sometimes other things).

5. They sing.

6. They gather in groups with friends and family, constantly. A typical social network and support system includes almost the entire population of Greece.

7. They work hard, play hard, and nap hard.

8. No matter what, they always have time for a (Greek) coffee or an ouzo.

9. They cherish their friends and family. Nia Vardalos’ kefi returned when she adopted her precious little girl—or, perhaps, it was the other way around!

10. They enjoy life!

I don’t know about you, but I’m off to Greece!

But if you can’t go to Greece, then how will you get your kefi back? …you can always see My Life in Ruins on Friday, June 5th! Opa!

See my post on My Life in Ruins.

See my interview with Andi about the shoot on her Blog: Misadventures with Andi.

Red Poppies, Greek Easter

It’s Greek Easter again. One would think that after traveling to Greece annually for nineteen years I would have experienced Greek Easter on many occasions, but, in fact, I only did so once. I usually travel to Greece in the Fall, so to witness April was rather unusual. It happened the year that I lived in Greece. I was hanging out in Athens for the long cold wet winter. I wasn’t prepared, even though I had been forewarned. When my friend, a former American turned Greek native, discovered that I had left my long silk underwear behind, she advised me to contact my parents and have them send it immediately. I didn’t believe her. Surely after living two years in Maine, I would know when that extra layer was necessary. After all, Athens shared a similar climate with California. This was going to be a piece of cake, or so I thought...

When the hurricane hit, it took out two of three Athenian power towers, and with them went the electrical grid of the entire city. Soon after, shortages followed--shortages of batteries and candles, bunsen burners and fresh foods. Worse yet, I was ill--so I was confined to my apartment. My only unexpected benefit from this challenging situation was weight loss from the under-advertised but highly effective hurricane diet. That, and the free water show outside my window--Niagara Falls rushing off the top of the gymnasium roof and pounding onto the pavement below.

It was dark. It was cold. I was sick. It felt like the Apocalypse. This was not how I had envisioned the world’s last days; where was the fire?

When the electricity finally returned, we had rolling blackouts. This takes on a different significance in Greece. Water heaters are not on automatic cycling. You must turn on the electrical circuit fifteen minutes prior to your bath in order to avoid glacial waters. So when the light in the hallway went on, no matter what the time, that was my cue to flip on the hot water circuit, and, shortly after, to take my bath.

I remembered all of this a few months later during Easter week (called “The Great Week” by Greeks). The coming of Easter that year was more dramatic than any other year. After all, it was the first time that I had survived an apocalypse. Rebirth was no longer an abstract concept; it embodied its physicality. I had decided to travel north to Volos to spend Easter with my friend’s family. This meant a five-hour bus drive from Athens through the twin sister of California’s central valley. This was pre-iPods and text messages. I had run out of English books long ago, and my Greek wasn’t quite good enough to follow the circulating gossip. Were the two yia yias (grandmothers) discussing the beets they had cooked that morning or the window shutters that needed to be repainted? Were they talking about their eyeglasses or their homemade lentil soup? (My apologies to non-Greek speakers)

So while turning to look out a grungy window, I prepared myself for the familiar, boring, dried-out, wheat-colored landscape. My astonished in-drawn breath grabbed the attention of the middle-aged woman sitting in front of me. She quickly glanced out her window too, paused, and then shook her head, as if to say what did this woman find so captivating? Is she a foreigner who is mesmerized by even the dullest Greek scene? The same type who squeals at her first site of the Acropolis, or finds evil eye pendants so beguiling? Strange, I didn’t think she was a foreigner…she looks Greek, she speaks Greek…maybe she’s just crazy…

I was too excited by my own, apparently private, viewpoint to care about her thoughts. Stretched out in a rotating fan to eternity was a sea of blood-red poppies, strikingly sprinkled against the stark neutral background. Infinite thoughts flooded my mind…rebirth…the blood of Christ…the never-ending dazzling display of the sharp contrast of Grecian elements…the cyclical triumph of the earth’s life-giving force. Too many thoughts to digest. In that infinite moment, the universal symbolism of Easter came, as so many messages do, through the physicality of this land that I had come to love.

I wish all of you a Happy Rebirth!

Καλό Πάσχα!

Craving Greece

So for all you Hellenophiles—you must be wondering where the posts are about Greece.

I’ve been caught up in the craziness of everyday American life. Without constant communication with my Greek friends, Greece would seem far, far away. What can I say? I miss Greece. I miss walking down the street and being seen as a woman first and as a doctor…well…never!

I miss the lack of anonymity that wears off after the first twenty-four hours, the Greek interest in all my personal details. The list goes on: the easy acceptance of death and decay, the cacophony (Greek for “bad voice”) of the farmers market, the crazy taxi drivers who are relentless multitaskers—trying, still, to rip me off while asking me out, the constant “good” greetings--“good day,” “good afternoon,” “good evening,” “good night," “good trip," “good appetite,” and the constant blessings—“to your health,” “to our health,” “with health”—for everything from street salutations to the purchase of new shoes to a toast over ouzo. I even miss the unwelcome advances from anyone male, aged eight to eighty. Once in Athens, in just under an hour, I was approached by a ten-year old boy, two police officers, a shop owner and a business man. I quickly glanced down to make sure that I hadn’t left any pieces of clothing at home—but, no, they were all there.

I miss the constant comments about my un-dyed hair, followed rapidly by criticisms of George Bush and our country’s propensity to bomb their neighbors. Some days, when I’m really bad off, I long for a position in the middle of the yelling matches on the buses or in the street, the ones that make you think that someone is going to end up in the ground before the driver gets to your stop. Then you listen carefully and discover that they’re relating something insignificant about their motorbike, or brand of cigarettes, or cell phone. Not anger, just passion.

I miss most the blue, blue sea, the fierce sun, and the white rocky cliffs studded with short stubby pine trees. I yearn to lay on marble stones at Delphi. I ache to see the moonlight. I long for time that slows down…then stops… and an earth into which my feet sink, where I become heavy, grounded. Yes, this is what I desire.

I crave the collapse of linear time, past, present and future converging into my center.

Welcome

Hello everyone. Welcome to my Blog.

I am very excited to have this up and running. It's wonderful to combine my love of Greece with the healing power of the feminine. I am taking a break from direct patient care, as a Holistic Gynecologist, to devote my time to writing and speaking.

Check out my website: www.rebeccaelia.com. You will find resources for woman who are interested in obtaining more health and balance in their lives by reclaiming the feminine qualities within themselves.

I am inviting women who have experienced the healing power of the Feminine to share their stories. If you have experienced more health or balance through reclaiming any of your feminine qualities, such as creativity, nurturing, intuition, feeling and interdependence, I invite you to share with us.

If you have gained feminine wisdom through life's transitions, such as pregnancy, birth, menopause or the death of a loved one, then please consider sharing your wisdom with us. If you have healing stories about expressing your feminine creativity and wisdom in the later years of your life, we would love to hear from you. We need and value your wise-woman wisdom!
Please submit stories to: rebecca@rebeccaelia.com. Stories will be posted on my website under the heading of Feminine Revelations.

Because Greece has been my feminine healer I will be devoting part of the site to this Goddess Land. Photography is one of my creative outlets--so I hope that my pictures will help you reconnect with the Feminine, as well.

Thank you!
Rebecca