00:00:00 Cristina

They felt the potential of this work that we are doing. I said, Hey, I want to bring this work to people here as well, because I feel there’s so much need in the world of compassion. When I started in January 2019 with the first cohort, there were like 6 Romanian people who joined the international course. And since then, there are I don’t know how many, 100, 200, something like that, but it’s growing and I look at the impact it has and how people are so connected. The longing that they have for belonging in a group because the job that we are doing, the work that we are doing, might feel so alone in a way, because we are holding space for so many people. But at the same time, we also need to be held and to allow ourselves to be held. And this is what we are Co-creating here and also all over the world. Those spaces where people can feel that they are held like in a cocoon and they belong.

00:01:09 Rosemary

This is The Gifts of Trauma podcast stories of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry. 

J’aime

Welcome to another episode of The Gifts of Trauma podcast. Thank you to Compassionate Inquiry and thank you Cristina Bara, our guest today, for being here.

00:01:39 Cristina

Thank you for having me today.

00:01:40 J’aime

Such a pleasure. My name is J’aime. I’m so excited to welcome you here, Cristina, to meet you today, to introduce you to listeners who haven’t had an opportunity to know you. I would love to start this conversation in true Compassionate Inquiry form. We so often begin our time together with an intention. We’d love to hear from you. Cristina, what is your intention for this conversation we’re going to have today?

00:02:09 Cristina

What a very good question, J’aime. Thank you for that. If I were to set an intention, to would be for our conversation to reach people and to help them connect to their deeper longing. While I was doing the grounding and also preparing for this conversation, I also sensed that I was touching something deeper in myself. So maybe if at the end of the conversation people listening will just have a moment with themselves and connect with a longing or something deeper, or with a question. I believe that would be the day I would consider the intention being met, towards the end.

00:03:06 J’aime

Thank you for sharing such a beautiful wish both for yourself and for inviting right away, who’s with us in this conversation, listening in, and we’ll definitely touch back and create space for that at the end of this conversation. I too want to take a moment to share my intention, Cristina, and it’s really about why I’m here in the first place. My intention is really to take this beautiful work that has been created and inspired by Gabor and sustained by Sat Dharam, to create a platform for you, specifically today, to talk about how Compassionate Inquiry has affected and impacted your life, and how you are carrying this light from Gabor, from Sat Dharam, from our Compassionate Inquiry community. I’m so curious and excited to hear about how you’re bringing this light through your own vessel and into the world through your work.

00:04:10 Cristina

This really touches me, J’aime. Thank you.

00:04:12 J’aime

I think that your intention is such a beautiful opening because what I’ve learned about you, what I’m so curious about is this journey of authenticity, of becoming. I really want to talk about your becoming today, and what I know about you is that you, for eight years, were a tax consultant. It seems to me you’ve answered a deep call of your own longing, and I would love to know how that longing visited you back in 2010, 2011, 2013, when you were working in this field. What was your life and how did you hear that call? What was that like to receive it? I imagine it might have been even a little disruptive. Where would you like to begin?

00:05:04 Cristina

It was for sure. Yeah and thank you for this invitation. It also helps me to look back and connect with different parts of myself. Words that answered the call, as you say. And I would start with a story. I think last year or so, I went to the countryside to visit my father. And in one of the rooms there, there’s a big library. And so there are a big bookshelf. And so there are a lot of books there. And I found one and it was written by Yalom, Irvin Yalom, who was very dear to me, who so through his writing and everything he’s sharing, authenticity and so on. And I looked at the book and it was untouched but it had some dedication on the first page and I dedicated the book to my sister, like a birthday gift. And I was so curious when I still have goosebumps when I shared that because my sister never touched the book, but I found it on the bookshelf, after so many years, while I was going through all this journey from tax consultancy and then to coaching and then to somatic therapy. And it was like a gift for myself, in a way. Something that a smaller part of me was giving to the future world of me knowing. So I think there was always like a seed waiting to be planted or to transform, to blossom into something beautiful. And so when I chose my career, it was very much in the place where I wanted to make my parents proud, specifically my father. And he had his own business. He still has. And there was this idea, my sister, she’s very much into words. She’s older than me, and she’s into arts. She studied arts history and she was into paintings. And I was like, if my sister is doing this part and engaging in this work, then you know, the family needs someone to take over my father’s business. So I’m gonna be that person. And so I studied economics and then I started working and joined one of the biggest tax consultancy firms. And I had this sense of being proud or I imagined that working in this company and having this role that will make my father proud of me because I’m working in a field he can understand or relate to in a way. And while I was working in the hallway above the office, I remember wearing high heels and having a more office dress code. I was feeling proud, but at the same time I was not being myself because I was so immersed in work, that I was on the verge of burnout. And I didn’t realize that sometimes when you’re very deep in the thing that you’re doing or in the, let’s say, early adaptation, you don’t know that you’re there. You know that there was a story where a fish, as an older fish as the other one. How’s the water? And the younger is, what water? If you’re swimming in the water for so long, you don’t know that you’re there. So you need to take a step back or do a jump to realize. And so this is what was happening for me. I got a surgery at some point, because I had intense pain. It was like connected with the gallbladder.

00:09:01 J’aime

Let me just pause you for a moment there, Cristina, because you told this whole analogy of not knowing about the very water you were swimming in and not being fully aware of how intense it was for you. And a question popped in my mind immediately as you said that ,I wonder if there were some physical situations or I wonder how her body let her know that. And then you immediately begin telling me about this gallbladder surgery. So you’re nodding your head. Such a big yes. So I just want to bring our listeners on board that you were really setting the stage and your body was singing the chorus already, even though your mind wasn’t aware. So bring us into that before the surgery even, what happened? I’m sure there’s also something there.

00:09:52 Cristina

Yeah, and thank you for stopping here, because indeed the body keeps the score, right? And there are signals, and I was so workaholic, spending the night. I get back home at 2:00 AM in the morning. I don’t even know how everything was for my husband, and how patient he was with me during that time, because I was really working, so intense. I was barely able to connect with my mother. She was also in need of support. But I was like, I’m working so I’m never available. The work is the most important thing for me, but at the same time, the body keeps the score. And I started having all this pain, and the food was like an escape for me. So I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating, how late maybe. So it was also compulsive eating behavior. The sleep wasn’t good. And I was always in my mind, a lot of thoughts. It was very difficult. And by the time I reached, even at the moment when I went for surgery, I was working on delivering something. I was working on a project and the manager I was working on, she was calling me and giving me some instructions on how to redo a word, make commitments of the work I was doing, and I barely could see it. I was like, I don’t know, crunched or my body was in such a bad shape. And even though I was in so much pain, it took me a while until I decided, I’m gonna go home. And I said I’m gonna go home, but I didn’t think about going to the doctors. But the taxi driver saw me, that I was in pain. And he said, don’t you want to stop at the emergency or go to the doctors. And I said to myself, I’m going to be OK, because when you’re so used to taking on so much, it’s very hard to stop. You might say, oh, I’m going to go over this. It’s going to pass. And I went to the hospital and I had the surgery like that, yeah.

00:12:08 J’aime

Let’s invite a little pause right here. Let’s invite a little pause even right now as you’re talking about how we get to go so fast in life sometimes, because even in this moment, as you’re telling me the story, Cristina, so much is coming on board for me about a very, very similar experience I had. That’s just letting me know that I want to really create space for you and just really send love and appreciation for you and the time of your life. And also for that, that tender moment where a taxi driver who didn’t even know you recognized and named something for you. It’s so beautiful.

00:12:56 Cristina

Thank you for that. Thank you, J’aime.

00:13:03 J’aime

And that seed you mentioned earlier, that was alive inside of you at that moment. And I’m just appreciating that something was germinating in that moment in that taxi cab.

00:13:15 Cristina

I guess I was still doubting. I wasn’t sure, but I also felt that there’s something wrong because I was never in such a huge amount of pain. And so I decided to stop and go to the hospital. And then they let me know that they needed to perform the surgery and I needed to stay there. And I called, I called my partner at that time, my husband now, and I took the surgery. And also, when I was listening to you right now, I realized that even after going through that, I didn’t stop. You know, after doing the surgery they would say that maybe you only need one or two weeks of recovery. There was, like, oh, but I also need to go back to work quickly. I also felt that the environment is not good for me, so I changed it, eventually, but it was still in the same field, so it really took me quite a while to realize that I needed to do something else.

00:14:24 J’aime

And I can hear, also, another very relatable point of not taking enough time to recover that I’m sure a lot of listeners have had an experience with. Before we move on to that point, what was the actual condition? What was happening with your body and what was the surgery?

00:14:46 Cristina

I think it’s… So it was the gallbladder being removed, tere were a lot of tiny stones and some of them were beginning to move and that’s why I was in such a huge amount of pain and so they needed to take it out.

00:15:03 J’aime

Have you learned anything about what brings that condition on in a person’s body?

00:15:12 Cristina

I would say right away that there was a lot of repressed anger, and it had a lot to do with the boundaries. It had a lot to do with not saying no, with not saying ‘it’s enough’ and also not standing up for myself. Sometimes I’m a fighter, but for other people, it’s so easy to stand up for others, than it is to stand up for myself. Yeah, it was a lot of anger there.

00:15:50 J’aime

Thank you for sharing all of that. I think that’s incredible comprehension. You said something when you were talking about even how you came to take on this sort of work. You said that you felt responsible to carry the family business, because your sister was pursuing something that was not related to it. And you did this motion with your hand. We can do it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to take it on. And you also said something that really got my attention. You said it was something you thought your father could understand and relate to. Can you say a little more about that? I just wonder if that is also related to what we’re talking about right here.

00:16:37 Cristina

Yeah, it’s this. ‘I can do it.’ And also pushing myself beyond boundaries because the way… the need of a child to be seen is so big, no matter your age. So there’s still a part, a part of me. I’m going to speak for myself, but I’m sure many can relate. There was a small part of me that really wanted my father to say ‘I’m proud of you. I see you.’  And I also get emotional when I talk about it because I can feel that it’s very deep. And that’s the part that’s saying, ‘You’re gonna do this. It doesn’t matter. You’re gonna do this?’

00:17:21 J’aime

And can I also say what I notice is I look at you. I wish that people could see the visual of you making a fist and showing your muscle and saying we can do this. I see a vitality in your eyes that I believe will be done. I see that determination while I also feel the pain of not being seen, and that longing to be seen.

00:17:50 Cristina

Thank you for mirroring and pressuring.

00:17:55 J’aime

So I wanna ask because I noticed this theme that you talk about publicly of wanting to be seen. You talked about it in a blog post about your grandparents not seeing your suffering. I think this is going to become a very prominent theme in this conversation because it was even about not seeing the pain you were in, and a stranger seeing it, and this journey of seeing… where do you want to take this?

00:18:28 Cristina

Oh, gosh, this is such a big theme and it is for me, we’re… it was and it still is. But I was also reflecting the need of being seen, but at the same time, that is never complete until you see yourself exactly in the image of… with the taxi driver. And so this is the journey. This is the journey for me, uh, seeing myself. Because if we can really see ourselves, then it doesn’t matter what happens on the outside.

00:19:07 J’aime

There’s so many directions we could go, but I’m really curious to hear right now is how are you seeing yourself today in your role and in your work? And even… you talked to me earlier about how it’s been a really busy day and also with the election happening in this present moment in Romania, we should let our listeners know that you come to us from Bucharest, Romania. It’s also just such a joy to talk to people from all over the world and feel that nobody is alone in the chaos of what it is to be alive right now, and in the reorganization into true purpose through these times. So what are you seeing in yourself these days?

00:19:56 Cristina

Yeah, such a good question. I’m seeing the fear that I experience a lot maybe or… sometimes, in this period that we are all going through, when things are uncertain. And what I notice because I really paid attention recently to this subject. Also, how do I see myself? How do I talk to myself? I wanted to say activated, that’s the first word that comes up. I cannot seem to find another one. This kind of like a ‘good mother’ inner part, in a way. That’s why I notice how I talk to myself when I’m, we don’t know, doing day-to-day things of washing my face, my teeth. And, I had this voice that’s saying ‘I’m proud of you’ or ‘You did the best you could today.’ And I also talked before we started, talked about ‘to dos’ I to do with to dos and so on. There can be so many reasons why I can say that I should have done things in a different way or better. Some while ago…. that’s very interesting. Some while ago I was so angry at myself and I don’t know where I was, but I wasn’t home and I was so determined… I said I’m going to go home and I’m going to write down on a piece of paper all the horrible things I feel about myself. And I could hear them in my mind, but somehow I don’t know what happened. But I never got to write the list and I was so happy for it. But sometimes I would go into that deep hole, while I can feel all the things that are wrong with me. And so it really takes a conscious effort to connect with this good mother inside of myself and say, hey, well you really did a great job today, considering the resources that you had, or the capacity, because sometimes we have more capacity, other times less. That’s OK as well.

00:22:13 J’aime

What I’m hearing, is the true… you used the word activation, so I’m going to use it too. The activation of compassion. And for a lot of us it does look like being the mother to ourselves. You hear people throwing around the phrase of ‘reparenting’, and I usually don’t know what they’re talking about when they say it. But as you’re speaking it, being that mother, even finding that mother, I think that’s so powerful too, because we are in a process of ever ongoing, deeper, more nuanced transformation. And as you sit here before me today, I think that people will find relief to know that there’s never a completion point, that it always is a deeper nuance. Even Gabor shares so succinctly, his present moment encounters with the hurt parts of ourselves. So the way I see this activation of your compassion today is giving yourself a break with the ‘To Do List.’

00:23:30 Cristina

I like that activation of compassion. I’m going to remember that.

00:23:35 J’aime

Yeah, you said that. So how does this come up in the people that you’re supporting? You’re a Compassionate Inquiry Facilitator. You’re a Circles Leader. And for those listening who don’t know what Compassionate Inquiry circles are, they’re a beautiful invitation for anybody. You don’t have to be trained in Compassionate Inquiry or participate in any of its programs. It’s an online group. Do you want to say more actually about what it is? You’re a facilitator yourself. Can you tell us about what Compassion Inquiry circles are?

00:24:09 Cristina

Yeah, it’s a group process. So basically it’s where people who are interested in getting to know themselves better, in connecting with their bodies, with their limits. I talked about, you know, not seeing myself, not being able to say no. So we talk about these things, about also having compassion for different parts of ourselves. So it’s a group process, it lasts 10 weeks, 2 hours per session, where people connect with one another and are also guided by a trained circle leader through a set of questions corresponding to the weekly theme. And they also get a sense of what Compassionate Inquiry is. We do small demos without making into full therapy sessions. So it really gives you the tools so you can use them in your own journaling and in your own personal development process. So this is what we wanna do. And I feel that groups are so important and I talked about the importance of seeing ourselves because if we do that, then it doesn’t matter what happens on the outside. But I would say this is also half true in a way, because we also need people. 

This also takes me to Compassionate Inquiry when I met Sat Dharam and I also remember the moment when she invited me to be a facilitator. And I wondered what’s wrong with this woman because I think she saw something in me and in us, that sometimes it was difficult to connect with that part, and others see – the seed  – sometimes we lose contact with it. So also having someone who’s just holding space for you and believes in you, it’s very powerful. And through this group process, you can see yourself through different mirrors, and have a sense of common humanity and understand that there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just a human having a human experience. And we all struggle sometimes. That’s why I appreciate Gabor so much, because he doesn’t put himself on a pedestal. I am just a guru and I have everything figured out and so on. He really represents an image of himself that it’s so relatable. He can relate to the sense of being triggered or losing patience with others or going to workaholism or in other addictive behaviors. Yeah.

00:27:16 J’aime

Everything that you’re saying right now is giving me this exciting opportunity to weave back into your former life, also, working in taxes. And it’s surprising to actually ponder this right now, but I was looking at some of the jobs you had, because you were a “team leader,” you were managing teams of 18 people. I thought that was interesting. I saw the 18 because that’s like the max level for a circle, is 18 people.

00:27:44 Cristina

And also for the year long training. That’s true, I never thought about it.

00:27:49 J’aime

Wow, that’s wild. Providing training sessions, preparing monthly appraisals of your team members, ensuring a positive working environment, working closely with senior management staff, handling conference calls. How beautiful that you knew and you didn’t know the seed in you that you were training for something in this facilitating space that Sat Dharam immediately, again, saw in you and provided that space for you to see for yourself. Yeah. And let me just give a little space because I’m looking at your beautiful eyes and I’m seeing more emotion come into this moment. And let me just check in with you.

00:28:34 Cristina

Yeah, it’s really touching to look back, to look at the journey, and also to realize that it wasn’t a waste of time. So sometimes we might think, ‘Oh my God, I spent so many years doing this job there, I eventually left and it was a total waste of time. I’ve ruined my life.’ I don’t think that’s true because everything in a way contributes to our becoming, from the seed, and the job that I had of being a team leader that wasn’t in tax consultancy. But even then, I got in contact with the part of myself that wanted to empower people, to help them get in contact with their strength, to provide a safe environment. Now, when I said safety, I have goosebumps because I had no idea about Polyvagal Theory and about the state of the nervous system and about how important safety is in a work environment. Had no idea.

00:29:42 J’aime

Can you stay there for a moment and talk about it? Because I noticed that safety is something that comes up again and again that you vocalize in your work. And you mentioned Polyvagal Theory, maybe you can talk a little bit about how you practically are applying, and activating, what you know about that and how you see it come up in groups.

00:30:06 Cristina

Yeah, I think this is so important that I didn’t realize I was using this word several times. But also thinking about staying on the previous job, I realized that sometimes you’d see people behave in different ways if they are in contact with different people. So, with some of them they might shine, they are more relaxed and so they can be more efficient in their work, can deliver greater results. And with other people they don’t. And so sometimes they are labeled of ‘not caring enough about their organization,’ or the work they are doing, being lazy and so on. But I don’t think people ask themselves then what’s wrong with these people or with this person? Why is not delivering? Talking about safety I think that this is a very important point. In group work and through facilitation, this is a very important piece because people need to feel that they are welcome just as they are, with their emotions, with their questions, with their overwhelm. They need to feel that they are acceptable and they are accepted. They need to feel that it’s possible for them to have different experiences than they had. And if people are safe, then they can also connect better, because you cannot talk about connection when there’s no safety, right? So safety is not only the absence of threat, but it’s the presence of connection.

00:31:56 J’aime

I hear this recognition that you have coming through for a diversity of expressions for people to… you don’t have to just do it this one way. And I wonder, is that something that came up in your own experience of… I do it a different way? I’m thinking back to actually a very young version of you potentially, and it may or may not be related to wanting to be seen by your dad, and strategically choosing something that would be recognizable to him. If I’m this way, like I see you in this point of your life, changing your shape to try to fit into this pattern of recognition for someone. And I see you through that experience and that metabolism, that understanding of what you did, not wanting other people to have to do that, to be recognized and to have a place and to have a voice. How does that land with you?

00:33:07 Cristina

I think in a way it is about a journey of changing shape. If I’m this shape all with this group of people reacting, if I’m in this shape, then what would be the outcome? And also finding my own shape. And now I’m gonna share what comes up and you’re gonna let me know if it relates to your question or not. But I’m thinking I’m doing a training in dance movement psychotherapy because I’m also interested in this part of embodiment and connecting with the body and so on. And so we did an exercise once, and so we were walking as another person in the group. So you choose a partner and walk as the person in front of you and pay attention to how their body parts are moving and with the intensity or the rhythm of their moves and so on. And we were also invited to walk as our father or walk as our mother. And so it’s very interesting to see what we’ve integrated in a way, and then also framing our own way of walking, finding our own rhythm. So I think it’s about trying to see what my real shape is, so I can walk in a room and try to figure out is this good for me or not? Sometimes I might stay in a room a bit longer because I don’t know if it’s good for me or not, and then move into another room, and then just finding myself by finding all the things that I’m not. I don’t know if it makes any sense.

00:34:57 J’aime

It makes perfect sense. And yes, you definitely answered my question because again, it brings us back to creating like a capacity to not only see, but to feel who we are by knowing what we’re not. And I have a son who’s 11 years old coming into adolescence. And I think about also this identity time that’s so important where I have to just allow him to try on different shapes and different walking and to not get attached to any of those things that I see that are changing all the time because it’s his, like you said, it’s his journey of taking different shapes and feeling which one feels more like him. But as a guide, I see myself more as a guide than a nurturer, as a mother at this point. As a guide, I do get to create questions that help him navigate this journey of, ‘Does this feel like me or am I getting further away from me right now?’

00:35:59 Cristina

That’s beautiful and I think he’s so blessed to have you J’aime. It’s so important to have someone who asks these types of questions.

00:36:08 J’aime

And also, that wouldn’t be happening. I don’t think I would feel so strongly about that if I don’t reflect back on how badly I needed that myself. So this is the other beauty of it. This is the other gift of the trauma, right, Is this heightened awareness. So I do want to complete the journey, your journey of becoming, of coming out of that surgery. There’s like a gap right now, I feel, that I’d love to colour in of you just diving right back into work… between that moment and let’s say, meeting Sat Dharam. What did that look like?

00:36:50 Cristina

So as I said, I went back to work and I changed the environment a couple of times, but it was in the same field. And looking back, I was looking for someone to see me again. It’s about seeing someone, starting with my parents and then also looking for that in the employer. And there were moments when I felt, oh, I’m not able to get that here, And so trying to search for it in a different place. And what was the trigger for me, I think in the last one was that I thought that I wasn’t bringing, I wasn’t bringing any more value through what I was doing. It felt empty. It felt so empty, even though I didn’t work as many hours as I used to, but that wasn’t enough for me and so luckily I had some friends, who were joining meditation groups and so on. I’m also thinking about the hero’s journey. We are all going through that and as you’re going on your journey, there are some friends or people, like a wise woman or man that you meet along the way, and help you move on the right direction, where they guide you. And so I started doing meditation. I had no idea what meditation is, if I need to think about something or not. I just got in contact with my noisy mind and I was overwhelmed by it. I looked around in the groups and I felt, ‘Oh my God, everybody seems to know what they’re doing. I have no idea. I don’t think I’m doing things right.’  But I kept going. And so I went into several retreats, meditations and also with plant medicine. And so I started feeling something different. Ah, this is what it feels like when you slow down. Or, because it charged me with good energy afterwards, I was engaging in these activities. At some point I joined the coaching school and that was the moment when I said, oh, I think I would love to work with people in this way. Let me try this. I was still in the other job, so at the beginning it was in parallel. I still worked in tax consultancy but also joined the coaching school and started working with people until I found Compassionate Inquiry in 2019. I was in the first core ward. I had no idea. I don’t think I had read Gabor’s book at that point, any of his books, but I saw a video of him on Facebook and he talked about compassion and he had such a soft voice, and I said I think I want to join this course. I don’t know why and halfway through the year long training I suddenly quit my job. I went to my husband and said I’m going to quit my job. He looked with big eyes, because we had no backup, and we had a lot of day-to-day payments to take care of it. It really wasn’t a good moment to do that. But I felt that I cannot do this anymore.

00:40:17 J’aime

I want to go back in time and celebrate that moment with you, because what I’m learning about you, going to your husband to me feels like a way to activate… I’m going to keep using this word, your word, that part inside of you that needed to be expressed, that didn’t get to express itself through your dad’s of… ‘Wherever there’s any risks, I’m going to sacrifice myself to fulfill those needs.’ And here you are in a situation where you’re saying I have to do this. I see the risk and yes, I still have to do it. Something happens. So magic and…. right? And I see you really shaking your head yes. Like, what can you feel inside of yourself from that moment that we can talk about today, of that recognition?

00:41:15 Cristina

It’s something bigger. Way bigger, J’aime. It’s something I can also feel it in my body right now as you can connect me with this image. It was something bigger than myself that helped me be so determined in just taking this decision because I really wasn’t asking for permission, as you’re saying. I just, I think I needed to say it out loud, and own the next step in my journey. So I’m really grateful for this something bigger, yeah.

00:42:02 J’aime

The something bigger is the invisible map that we all have inside of ourselves. That’s that longing, and I think it’s language is longing. Do you want to talk about what happened after your husband’s eyes got really big? Is there more you want to add to the story?

00:42:23 Cristina

I think that this… and thank you for also connecting to the word that I use or the intention at the beginning because, it is connected, right? And it was very difficult, but only through connecting with this something bigger I was able to go to the other side of the tunnel, in a way, because I got into contact with so much anxiety every morning, when you’re doing the job. Nine, it wasn’t nine to five it was 9 to…. It doesn’t matter. Once you have a structure and then you find yourself in a place where you don’t have that structure anymore and you don’t even know if what you’re gonna do if it’s gonna work. I had no idea they started working with people a bit. I had led two workshops with a friend, but the reality was that I was very scared. So only Compassionate Inquiry, in a way, that’s why I also started with and it helped me a lot, by bringing CI to Romania, because I felt the potential of this work that we are doing. I said, hey, I want to bring this work to people here, as well, because I feel that there’s so much need in the world of compassion and I started working on that. So by working on this work of bringing CI to Romania, that helped me have a sense of, ‘OK, I’m gonna figure it out, it’s gonna work out,’ and yeah.

00:44:10 J’aime

Wow, that’s massive. I didn’t realize, because I’ve always been curious about compassion and quiet seems to have such a big presence in Romania. Can you talk a little bit about what went on there?

00:44:25 Cristina

And I don’t think I even figured it out, J’aime. I also had the conversation with someone,with se veral people and we wondered what’s the thing with compassionate inquiry in Romania? Why there are so many people drawn to this work? If I look at the maybe transgenerational perspective, it might also be… Gabor’s roots are in Hungary, it’s very close to Romania. And Sat Dharam also has roots in Poland, also close. So I think that’s also something bigger, going back to the bigger piece that connects us. But there’s also the need of people to be seen. And I feel that in my generation of how much longing there is…. And so people resonate, and they are drawn to this work exactly by the thing I was drawn by, the word compassion. You don’t even know what it means, but you know that there’s something you’re lacking, or you’re wanting inside of you. Yeah.

00:45:36 J’aime

So you’re part of carrying the torch of Compassionate Inquiry back to its home, in a lot of ways, back to the actual geography of our planet, where the wound came from in the first place.

00:45:54 Cristina

Like, when you say it that way, it sounds as if there’s a repair in a way, in the system, something that was wounded and also wants to be repaired. Or it’s like a flower moving towards light. Also people going for that.

00:46:13 J’aime

If the medicine doesn’t grow close to the wound, the medicine journeys or migrates back to the wound, in this case. And it’s been such a joy, we’ve talked to practitioners in these last few interviews that are bringing Compassionate Inquiry to Brazil and bringing the practice all over the world to the war-torn places. So I want to make space right now, just to make sure you feel complete in talking about what this journey has been for you. We’re landing in this collective place now, that feels ethereal and amazing to sit with you in…  but are there any other places or things we haven’t talked about that you feel you want to bring into the light right now?

00:47:02 Cristina

I think that’s a good place to end with also talking about the collective part. And so we started with the personal journey of not being seen and the seed and now looking at the broader picture, and how we are all so connected, and how basically what we want so similar things, right? Maybe we have different ways of looking for that or our journeys might look different, but they are so similar in so many ways. And the experience a lot of this collective… so here in Romania, but also by facilitating the international groups as well. When I started in January 2019 with the first cohort, there were like 6 Romanian people who joined the international course. And since then, there are I don’t know how many, 100, 200, something like that. But it’s growing. And I look at the impact it has and how people are so connected and longing that they have belonging in a group. Because the job that we are doing, the work that we are doing might feel so alone in a way, because we are holding space for so many people. But at the same time we also need to be held and to allow ourselves to be held. And this is what we are co- creating here and also all over the world, those spaces where people can feel that they are held like a cocoon, and they belong.

00:48:50 J’aime

I really hear, I want to say, the divinity of the mother that speaks and acts through you, Cristina. And it’s just been such a gorgeous gift to be able to sit and be in the softness of it all, through exploring your journey. But it was painful and incredibly relatable for me, and I’m sure many of our listeners. I have no doubt of your capacity. I just have every ounce of excitement and gratitude for your contribution in how Compassionate Inquiry is expressing through your service, and through your dedication, and your fierceness, because I see that too. I would love to know, as I sit here with all of what you are in this moment, if you could go back to that cab, let’s say, or sometime in 2011, 2012, anywhere in there, and whisper something into that iteration of you, of Christina back in that time. What would you say to her?

00:50:07 Cristina

Oh, such a touching question, and I feel the tears coming, and also goosebumps. And when I think what I would do whisper is, “You are loved, you are loved.” And I would whisper that in the ears of our listeners as well, you are loved.

00:50:40 J’aime

The frequency of your voice is so beautiful, because you are love. You really are. Christina Bara, thank you so much for being with us.

00:50:55 Cristina

Thank you so much for holding the space so beautifully, and just for your presence.

00:51:03 J’aime

Thank you.

00:51:09 Kevin

If you’re a current Compassionate Inquiry Professional Training Program participant or graduate, you’re invited to CI’s Experiential Intensive Retreat, in the north of Ireland, from September 8 – 12. Deepen your personal and community connections in the beautiful natural setting of Corrymeela, with beautiful views over the Irish sea. Rest, reflect, and partake in workshops,  CI-, body- and nature-based  practice sessions, plus delightful evening community celebrations, with home-cooked meals, Irish music and dancing. The link in the show notes to learn more. 

00:51:56 Rosemary

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