Welcome to the 80s English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co -host Sotial and today Sotial is going to share with us about - she's going to talk about some work that she's been doing recently.
So Sotial please enlighten us a little bit.
Like what have you been doing over the past week?
Jack, as you know I work as freelance translator interpreter a lot of the time and I got an opportunity to work as a simultaneous interpreter at a woman's retreat and Oaxaca Mexico and it's not like a fancy spot or treats or something that like women pay for it it's a really interesting space because it's like a non -profit organization and the space is based in contemporary healing practices and also ancient traditional Mesoamerican healing practices and the purpose is to be able to help or you know give space for women who are activists whether that be and feminism in environmental work like
whatever space of activism they you know they're involved in to be able to have a chance to rest and relax and heal and I really cool yeah that's I was I was thinking about that given the the nature of our politics today and and and you know activists are out there on the front lines basically you know you get you you gain an inch and then you lose an inch you gain an inch you lose an inch you lose two inches you gain one inch and that can get really like you can get really worn down by that I imagine yes yes I agree and I think it's very like it's very challenging and I think it's really cool
because I'd never imagined that a space like that would exist like I didn't know that it existed until I was like contacted to do this job and I had no idea like but you see how necessary it is like through the the week of work and it was really really fascinating I actually went in and I this year on personal level, but on a professional level, I've been doing really well.
Which is kind of different from last year where I was doing poorly in all areas of life, but this year I'm actually doing super well professionally, but in terms of my personal life, it really is a mess.
I'm really dealing with a lot of hard things.
And so I was apprehensive about going to this space because I was kinda nervous I was gonna infect it with my negative energy and my feelings of worthlessness and my in my issues like my just feeling depressed and everything.
And I went and one thing that I really love about being an interpreter is that you get you're not only doing like translation work you get to experience a lot of the things that you're translating while you're translating.
So when we were doing like a lot of these workshops I got to participate in a lot of the healing activities.
Like I was part of the peace circle.
I was part of, they like read our Mesoamerican astrology cards.
I was part of that.
I was part of like these dance exercises and these like cleansing ritual and this like it just leaves a bunch of things like these physical therapy practices which helped with like chronic pain.
And we were just, it was just really cool to be able to experience all that and also to help like these women and translate for them and allowed them to like have these experiences as well and by the end of my week I really felt like healed in an interesting way you know that's great well because as a translator this is interesting because like you're I mean you're you're not the point person there's there's a leader but all of the women are looking to you for the explanation you know what I mean So you're as important...
I mean, you're like a conduit for the leader But you're also kind of a leader in their minds.
That's how I would picture you If I were one of the people who didn't understand, I'd be looking at you all the time Like, what are we doing here?
Like, what's next? What do I have to do?
You're the point person, in a way you know?
Yeah you're very necessary in the process and I felt super valued in my job and I think I struggle with feelings of like self -worth and feeling valuable which i think is also just part of being in your 20s but it's also just and being a woman too and in this world.
Yeah, yeah sure, sure.
Yeah but it is really difficult and I struggle with feelings of worthiness and of feeling like valued and feeling like I'm enough and feeling like I I add something of value to this world you know and being you know in that space and helping with so many things and at the end being told by all the women in the retreat that you know that my work was incredible and that it really helped them to feel connected with everything and that the experience wouldn't have been possible without me really like it kind of gives you an ego boost you know like oh yeah I think a lot of people in 20s have what we
call imposter syndrome.
You know? Yeah. It's like, and that's the feeling of like you're, you're not worthy to be doing what you're doing.
And you have to think they wouldn't ask you to do it if they didn't want you to do it.
You know what I mean?
Like, but that's true.
But it's, but it's, but, but you know, imposter syndrome is not something that you can just shake off.
You don't like intellectually you understand it's, it's ridiculous.
but, it's an emotional state also, so, and that's much harder to kind of get rid of.
And there's so few opportunities for people in their 20s these days to get a chance to shine in some situation, do you know what I mean?
Like there's not a lot of opportunity out there these days, you know.
And so, to feel valued.
and so to have that opportunity I think it was is probably really was really special I imagine for you.
Yeah it really was.
I've been having a lot of opportunities this year where people have actually reached out to me for jobs like I was hired you know to be a writer for that blog and I was hired for this retreat and I've been like hired for a bunch of different things and I haven't applied for any of them people have been reaching out because they know the previous work that I've done.
Yes. And that's like a really powerful place to be kind of in your professional life because one, you get to kind of pick and choose what you want to do.
But two, it's like, you realize, okay, you feel valued, like I did a really good job because now people are seeking me out for my quality of work and my talent, you know.
Yeah, it's validating, you know, it's like.
You know, they say, you know, you're not supposed to, you know, look for external things, external validation.
but I don't actually necessarily agree with that a hundred percent.
I mean, I think it's natural to be like, to want to be competent at your job, and it does feel good when you are, you know, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
You know, I don't think it should define who you are as a person, you know, necessarily, but I think that it does, like, I think it does boost your self -esteem or whatever you know at least in my experience it has you know I think with like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and I think a lot of like contemporary like mental health practitioners agree that you have to feel like loved and valued and respected and everything before you can love yourself like that's the primary need that we have as children and a lot of us don't have it like met or completely met and when we're older like we really struggle
with feelings of self -worth and I think that a lot of mental health practitioners these days They say like no it is important to feel valued by others and it's important to live experiences where you feel valued and of value and are positive for you and like that improves your mental health and I think that that's very true at least for in my experience and yeah like obviously if someone is making you feel worthless like you shouldn't be depending on their perception of you but I think if something makes you feel good, like being recognized or valued, I think it can be a positive thing.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I think this sounds like a really positive experience.
And the fact that it was like a women's retreat is kind of a twofer because it's like you get to participate in the healing process at the same time you're getting paid to do a job.
It's something that you would be interested in doing if you were invited as a guest you know what I mean like yeah I imagine.
Yeah and it's just so cool and I was like I never imagined I never dreamed this place like that could be possible but it is and it's so unnecessary and I really love feeling healed and better and I remembered like one of the guests said that she felt like she remembered parts of herself of who she was before coming you know before getting wrapped up in her work or getting wrapped up in her negative life experiences, and when she came to the retreat after completing the retreat for the five days, she's reconnected with parts of herself from before.
And I honestly felt that when they read our Mesoamerican Estuology, you have two signs, so I was born on the day of the monkey and the of the snake was really like a Trisenia like months have like 13 days and in this particular calendar mm -hmm and it was really cool because it doesn't describe your personality like Roman astrology does or Greek astrology I'm not sure what I don't know either yeah yes but it doesn't like Western astrology it doesn't describe your personality it describes your essence That's much better.
Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool because I felt like, yeah, this does kind of describe my essence.
Like, my day is a monkey, which means that I'm someone who is cheerful and joyful and can easily make friends and is really intelligent and can learn independently and likes to be like, likes to travel and move around and all those things.
and also the snake is like wise and smart, intelligent and has like a magnetic energy and fits in well with others and like the people who have snakesign do well as like diplomats or administrators or teachers and people who do who are like or like business people and people who monkey do well as artists and that's another thing like the monkey is good at art in any of its forms including music because like you play music with your hands and so I felt like that was very like fitting because I love art and I love music as you know so I felt very liked recognized by my essence and and I also remembered
like bits of who I was before like you know one when you become a real adult and bits of you get kind of chipped away through rough experiences I Yeah, well it's interesting that you have two essences, because that's much better than pigeonholing someone in like, oh you're an artist so you're not good at business.
Right. Or, oh, you're good at business so you're not artistic.
It's like, no, we are multifaceted human beings.
We're complicated. We are large.
We contain multitudes.
You know so it is It seems much more appropriate what you're talking about Yeah, I think it's really cool as well because like I didn't get the full one obviously for a sake of time and everything But with the other people she got to talk about like witch gods Rule over their day or whatever and that gives like more and more facets to the personality like now the personality the essence So like yeah, so it's a very full profile.
So I think that's really cool And yeah, I don't know.
I really enjoyed the experience and I did leave honestly feeling healed and in a way that I hadn't felt before.
And I think it's because Western medicine relies a lot on like Western practices of healing and psychotherapy and medication and things that are like very like cut and dried.
And then in this experience it will be together a bunch of stuff.
We did have physical therapy but we also had like spiritual practices And I'm not someone who believes in like things like that.
I didn't think it would help, you know, but it does cause it's kind of about like connecting with yourself.
It's not really about like some like hoo hoo, haha, weird like woohoo, like pseudo science stuff.
It's more about like being present and connecting with yourself and connecting with other people, you know.
And I think community is something we really lack in modern society and like being able to experience it in that retreat was really healing, and that's one of the things the women said the most about their experience.
Yeah, yeah, we're so atomized now with social media.
It's just, there's no connection.
It's like all connection with no real community.
That's really fascinating because we like to throw away the ancients' ideas, you know what I mean?
like they they had some practices that were, you know, that were used for thousands of years.
You know what I mean?
Like why don't you why do we just so suddenly throw them away so we can do like Freudian psychotherapy where we just shine a light on every little aspect of our lives and and pick it apart you know every little piece of the past?
I'm not convinced that's actually healthy I heard someone describe it once like if you had a house and you lit every every single shadow every single dark spot in that house had you put a light there so that there was absolutely no shadow you know what I mean like no shadows no no no place yeah yeah you the house would be unlivable yeah and so I thought that was like really fascinating I'd never heard that before but I was - it kind of blew my mind when I heard that I was like you're right that would be you couldn't live in a house like that so why do we do that to ourselves uhm psychically you
know like pay money to do that to ourselves you know yes yeah yeah all right listeners well if you're if you have any comments to share with us about this make sure to leave us a comment down below you can listen to us on any major platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Red Circle, etc and we will see you guys next time make sure to shoot us an email at a to Z English podcast at gmail .com and join the weed chat group and we'll see you guys next time bye -bye .
