Day 305: Susan Straight

August 1, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“We’re living a kind of false persona on top of who we really are.  I mean, we’re always who we really are and we don’t always express that in the world, so when I’m free to really not be encumbered by worrying about any of those things, which I work on every single day, not being encumbered by those things, then I think we have a real possibility to be completely who we are.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Susan, for being part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Susan Straight: Okay, thank you.  My name is Susan Straight, and I am the Director of a nonprofit organization called The Center for Intercultural Education.  Over the past I’d say 12, 14 years actually, it’s mostly been in New Mexico, and it’s about service learning with children in schools using community service connected to curriculum.  And now it’s more into a kind of international program.  And mostly I’ve spent the last five years half time in China helping young people in universities develop a program where they can do volunteer work in their own villages and the cities, and that is primarily my focus now.

Toni: Well thank you for being here, and Susan, when you think of inspiration, who do you think you’re inspiring, and how is it happening?

Susan: Well, when I thought about this question, I thought, you know, we never … I think we never really know who we inspire.  I think oftentimes we inspire people and we just keep passing through life, and only if somebody chooses to tell you what a difference you made in their life do you really know.

However, having said that, I’ve had people come back and tell me that I have inspired them.  I know that I inspire the Chinese students, because many, many of them have told me about that and have written me notes or emails or letters saying, you know, that I have and why they feel that’s true.  And also I find my family and my friends also have told me, so you know, when you get feedback like that, then you kind of have a sense a little more of the ways in which you do things.

Toni: Susan, when you think about the work that you’re doing with the students, and I would imagine the same type of work and the way that you show up is also inspirational to family and friends as well, but can you give an example of what happens between you and those students that they take away as being inspirational?

Susan: Well, I think the way I’m living my life is inspirational to them.  They don’t really have any role models.  I’m almost 65 years old and, you know, I’m traveling alone to a foreign country and living there.  I have an apartment there.  I’m doing this work primarily as a volunteer, and they’ve never met particularly a woman doing something like that.

And I just kind of represent some new possibility for them, I think, of what a person could be doing at this age of their life, this part of their life, because people my age in China are delightful, wonderful, warm people, and they’re kind of in a way shutting down their lives.  They’re backing off from outward expressions in the world, and they’re mostly taking care of their grandchildren and playing cards with their friends and Mah Jongg and things like this.

Particularly when I’m in the villages, they’re just inspired by the ways in which I can be with lots of different kinds of people.  I’ve traveled a lot in the world, maybe 27, 28 countries, and I’m not at all … I don’t speak the language, and a lot of these villages don’t speak Chinese even, so most of them have never met a foreigner when I show up in their village.  And so there’s a kind of ability that I have to just really be with people, and they feel it … the students feel it, but the villagers feel it, too, which is incredibly rewarding to me, because they are so loving back.

Toni: By … let’s see … you know, I’m just … my mind is racing here because I’m hearing a dual purpose that you’re serving.  One is you’re serving this purpose and inspiring the children, the youth, the young adults, but you’re also at the same time, you’re inspiring the adults, and it may be unintentional, but it seems to be based on the way you’re describing it happening.  So, how do you think that you’re helping them – maybe both – explore their potential?

Susan: I think because I’m living a life based in service and actually have always, even when I worked for corporations and things, that my primary motive in life is being of service.  And so even if it’s my kind of volunteer efforts on the side, that’s always just had this huge place in my life.  So they are suddenly open to the possibility that they could live a life that way, and that’s a … they didn’t even have a concept of volunteering when I got here.  This is a totally new concept to them.

So the whole idea of living a life — even when you’re working and raising family and other things — in service, and that it has more to do with how you interact with people, it’s a new idea for them, and it has started them asking a lot of inner questions that they’ve never asked before.

One time I was having a discussion with some students and I asked the question “What kind of a world do you really want to live in?”  Now to me, that was a pretty obvious kind of question, but I got a letter from one of the boys who said “You asked that question, and it was the first time in my life I had ever looked at that.  I had always believed that life is life and you just have to kind of adapt to it, but then I suddenly found that I was envisioning a world in which there was harmony and peace and love and all these things, and I realized that I actually have something to do about that.”

It’s things like this where I didn’t even know that.  If he hadn’t written, I would never know that he had had that experience with that question.  But I think they begin … people begin to ask themselves “Well, what do I really want?” and see a kind of possibility in themselves.  For a lot of these students, this is a real heart opening for them.  They’ve never met and been close to villagers, and they’ve never felt that the depths that they’re feeling when they’re working side by side with villagers, helping them.  So I think it’s a kind of two-prong thing — giving people opportunities to discover who they are, and also modeling somehow the possibility of living a life from that.

Toni: What inspires you, Susan?

Susan: Well, I guess when I’m really free to be who I really am and I’m feeling really good about myself, then I’m really inspired by practically everything that shows up in my face, so I mean, magical things happen from that.  And so, you know, I walk into the park and this total stranger comes up and wants to dance with me, you know?  That inspires me.

Or, children, you know, just even smiling back at me.  And I can’t talk to them – I don’t speak good enough Chinese to really talk to anybody.  Or watching young people discover something about themselves; that really inspires me.  Or villagers beginning to recognize that they have value, when they’ve been told their whole lives they didn’t.  That’s incredibly inspiring to me.  So that’s all I need.  I don’t need anything else.

Toni: The very first thing though that you said was – I mean, it’s all so very powerful – but the first part that you said, which is when I’m free to be who you really are, that struck me, because when aren’t you?

Susan: Well, I think most of us shut that down, you know?  We worry about what other people think about us, and we worry about social conventions, and we worry about whether we’re going to rock the boat in our marriage or relationship or in our family or something, and those times that we do that, we’re not really free to be who we really are.

We’re living a kind of false persona on top of who we really are.  I mean, we’re always who we really are and we don’t always express that in the world, so when I’m free to really not be encumbered by worrying about any of those things, which I work on every single day, not being encumbered by those things, then I think we have a real possibility to be completely who we are.

Toni: See, I think that is a very powerful statement, and everyone who reads these transcripts or listens to the audio will take away a different perspective, but for me coming from you and the work that you’re doing, that statement that you are continuously working on that, and how important that is to work on that, and what you receive when you’re in that place of being totally yourself I think is the biggest takeaway for me in this interview.  That’s amazing.

Susan: Hmm.

Toni: Well, there you go!

Susan: I’m inspired by that.

Toni: Well, you inspire me.  Okay, so one more question, Susan.  What are you doing now to explore your own potential?

Susan: Well, my … I guess my beliefs are really heavily anchored in the kind of spiritual connection, a kind of very deep, personal spiritual connection, and I think it’s that I need to continually recognize that connection and really work to live from it.  For me, that is my potential, that possibility of the, you might say, perfected man or the higher self or the totally spiritually connected being living in the world.  And I think there has to be a kind of foundation of a sort of trust in that that allows you to really listen inside to how you’re being prompted and where your passions really are.

Toni: And that trust must be very important to you.

Susan: Very.  It’s crucial, yeah, and I follow it.  And that’s how I can live from that freedom that you were so inspired by of who you really are.  That’s the only way I can really be in touch with who I really am, and so I practice that every day.  That is what I do to explore my potential, because I know that if I practice that every day, then the fullest me in any moment can be present.

Toni: Well, I’ll tell you.  You have now come full circle during the interview, because that trust that you speak of that is so crucial to you is also then what you display and demonstrate to the youth in China.  Because if they didn’t feel that trust or they didn’t trust you, there wouldn’t be any value, or there wouldn’t be any learning, and so that has to flow both ways, and I think that that’s pretty amazing that that has come full circle in this interview.

Susan: Yes, and what happens of course for me is that I feel loved all the time by those people and by my friends and family, of course, too.  But there’s just this enormous amount of love available.

Toni: Susan, you have been wonderful …

Susan: Well thank you.

Toni: … in this interview.  Thank you so very much .  It’s been a pleasure to talk to you, and I can’t thank you enough for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.

Susan: Oh, well thank you for doing the Get Inspired! Project.  We all need this.

Toni: Well thank you.  It’s been an absolute pleasure.  Take care, Susan.

Susan: Thank you.

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