PASEO Program Adventure—Day 37: Puerto Chicama/Puerto Malabrigo, Peru

This morning (last Sunday), a few of the students and I traveled to Puerto Chicama, also called Puerto Malabrigo, which is two hours north of Trujillo. We arrived in the early afternoon, and spent the day exploring the area alongside the beach. After trying to swim in the water (which was pretty cold, to say the least), we rented four-wheelers for less than three dollars. 

While I’ll admit that I was hesitant about going at first (because of homework, wanting extra sleep, and plenty of other excuses one could pull out of the book), I have to say that driving by the breathtaking beach and lagoons with great friends on a beautiful day with incredible weather was more than I could have asked for. It’s spontaneous adventures like this that last as memories for a lifetime.

While it’s definitely easier said than done, it’s important for us to remember that the only things guaranteed to us in life are death and taxes. Whether or not you pay your taxes is a different story, but everything in between is completely up to us. The decisions we make, the actions we take, and the dreams and adventures we choose to pursue are ours to make. 

It’s easy to say “No” and stay within our comfort zone (which for many of us on a Sunday morning is under our covers), but it’s taking that first step outside the front door and saying “Yes” that leads to new adventures. More often than not, the ball is in our court, and the steps we decide to take are entirely up to us. So why not decide to live a little and enjoy the most of our time here?

PASEO Program Adventure—Day 31: Huanchaco y El Porvenir, Peru

This morning (last Monday), we started the second half of our program with a class on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT, or Terapia Contactual Dialéctica in Spanish). DBT believes that people are doing the best they can, but that we can always do better. And if you really think about it, we can do better in any given aspect of our lives- especially in areas we are trying to work on. Trough acceptance, mindfulness, and distress tolerance, the aim is to attain emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness.

A big tenant of DBT is Mindfulness, which centers on paying attention in the present moment without any judgments. While at first glance, we may think this is a simple concept, imagine how quick we are to judge different situations we face on a daily basis. The trick here is to put these judgments aside and observe the present moment we are living in and experiencing, both willingly and willfully.

We learned about three different types of minds, so to speak that are important to understand- really in any area of life if you find yourself communicating with others. Some people think with a rational mind (often times parents), others think with an emotional mind (often times adolescents), and others think with a wise mind. None of these are bad or worse than any other, but it’s important to understand that we each make decisions differently. Not everybody thinks alike, and in general, if we can try to understand this concept, we may find that we can work together more easily to come to agreements and find solutions.

After class, we had our weekly meeting with a group of local women and family members in El Porvenir that I spoke about in prior posts. Each week, two students from the program are responsible for teaching the group members relaxation and emotional regulation techniques for them to utilize at any given moment and teach others in their community. This week’s topic focused on effective communication, because often times, this is a skill that each of us can improve upon.

Think about it. How many times do you get home and have your parent/child/significant other “nag” you about something you did or didn’t do? And how many times do we do the same to those around us? While we may like to think that accusations, assumptions, and commands are part of effective communication, unfortunately they aren’t.

In the group, we discussed ways to empower the participants to express themselves more openly, because often times they may not have the opportunity to do so.

Effective communication is as simple as: 1. Describe the situation, 2. Express how the situation makes you feel, 3. Recognize the good intentions or feelings of the other person, 4. Ask/Make the request of what you would like the other person to do.

If we can feel validated for our effort or intentions as opposed to feeling guilty for possibly making a mistake or forgetting something, we’ll likely try that much harder and work with the other person to get the job done as opposed to arguing back and shutting down.

Even though these steps sound beyond simple, it takes practice to build effective communication, but it’s a worthwhile skill that can take us very far in any kind of relationship.