I saw today the awesome power pushing myself to my limit, while motivated by so many loving people, can bring. Amazing things are possible.
Pete and I have pedaled our bikes 19 days in a row. Through desert, mountain, plateau, and today I pushed myself further than I ever felt possible to get up to 11,312 feet-the exertion of which broguht down my internal wall to the emotions of how powerful and important love, togetherness, and my family are in my life. This internal wall was a block which has not enabled me to truly find my heart and put out there what it is that I truly feel about the importance of this trip to me and the people in my life.
The climb today crushed that. With 2 miles to go I broke down in tears of joy as I kept pedaling to the top–pedaling for a unification, for teamwork, for a partnership–and that brought down the wall and opened me up to the awesomeness that is a love of something I can’t quite describe: of being alive, of looking down a 1000 foot drop to a running creek, to straddling the continental divide–to understanding a lot of the signs that have been put before me and how I am going to follow them. Uncontrolled tears, a weeping of happiness that I have only ever experienced during Yoga classes led by Nitya and Heather and other moments of complete connectedness.
To feel that and now know that I need to share my feelings of passion, motivated by love and spur me forward to action is an amazing thing.
Pedaling the bike is one thing, the deep profound symbolic and real feelings I have are quite another. I just hope that my feeling of empowerment translates so others can feel it too: by either reading this post or through sponsoring a new microcredit loan being given out to a new client in Nicaragua through a donation collected on this website.
The idea of connecting empowerment to my experience today came to me this evening after riding up the pass while I was reveling in the effects of this positive energy and I got to thinking about how lucky I am to be able to have this opportunity to feel the self-love I have and find a way to transform it into love for others. Luckily, this feeling I have can translate, in a very tangible and powerful way, to others–if you are reading this, please donate to FINCA today and help spread the creation of microcredit banks throughout Nicaragua.
This time last year, I was working to form microcredit banks in Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua and it wasn’t just the physical changes that made me optimistic about microcredit’s ability to help alleviate poverty in the region. With the microcredit loans, borrowers were able to purchase new food for their pulperia (general store), build a new addition for their comedor (reasturant), or purchase a new pig to fatten and sell–real changes in an area of few opportunitites.
Then there were the borrowers themselves telling me how much the new loan had done for them or how excited they were for the new opportunity their new loan would bring them. These were very heartening changes in a region where the per-capita income is 23 cents a day. Real changes. And while it is not a panacea, microcredit is something that helps and something that you can help share in right now.
Please, please please if you are moved by this piece, if you have read to here, please donate to FINCA here. Help share empowerment a world away which really does make a difference.
Thank you.
For more information about microcredit in Nicaragua, click here
For my story about FINCA in Nueva Guinea, click here
Thank you.
These feelings are still very real and in the forefront of my consciousness and I hope to bring this positivity, motivation and love to everything I do and everyone I meet.
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