Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 131

Buddha Samadhi; Country- India

The photograph was taken with a mobile- Honor 7c (13MP+2MP rear camera) with “wide apperture mode enabled”. No external lighting or agents were used. No tripods, stands or supports were used. Mobile was hand-held. Not the slightest of editing was done. The focus was on the statue with the background blurred.

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A Bedouin Shepherd in Wadi Dana Valley, Dana Reserve, Jordan

We were hiking down along the Wadi Dana Trail, a remote valley in Jordan, when we heard a gentle pipe sound. We approached an acacia tree and saw a shepherd sitting in the shade, near his sheep. He was playing a pipe in the middle of the wilderness. When he noticed us, he stopped playing right away and invited us to sit down. He put an old black kettle with tea on a wood fire and started to talk with us in English – once again, in the middle of the desert.

He didn’t speak good English, however, but he knew a few words, enough to manage a conversation with his foreign guests. He lit a cigarette and told us his name was Sliman. When the language barrier compromised our communication, a wooden stick suddenly had miraculous powers.

When I saw he started to write with the stick in the sand, I grabbed my camera right away and quickly took some pictures of him. I used a compact, light camera – a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX300 (20.1MP), easy to carry and with a 50x optic zoom. For shooting this photo, I used: ISO80, aperture priority – f/8.0, focal length – 35 mm, and exposure time – 1/80 seconds. I haven’t altered the photo by any means, I have just resized it to fit the current requirements.

In the fine sand, Sliman wrote the following numbers: 37 – and explained somehow this was his age, 3 – how many children he had, and 100 – how many sheep he had. Then he offered us hot tea, asked for some money in exchange, and started to play his pipe as we left and continued our hike along the valley.

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Thrive Global Interview: Let’s Get Intimate: Connecting With Yourself To Live With Better Relationships

Thank you to Sasza Lohrey for including me in her Thrive Global Series:  Let’s Get Intimate: Connecting With Yourself To Live With Better Relationships
//April 8, 2019

When I was a first year medical student at UCSF, I realized I was in the wrong place. I decided to take a year leave and think about my choices. It was very challenging and many people told me I was being stupid. I remember when the dean of the medical school told me, I hope someday you can say, “This was not the right place for me and I was willing to try something else.”

As a part of my series about “Connecting With Yourself To Live With Better Relationships” I had the pleasure to interview  Lisa Ellen Niver  is an award-winning travel expert who has been to 101 countries and six continents. Her website,  We Said Go Travel , was read in 212 countries in 2018. Find her talking travel on KTLA TV and her YouTube videos with nearly 900,000 views. Lisa has written for AARP, American Airways, Jewish Journal, Smithsonian and Wharton Magazine. She is writing a book, “Brave Rebel: 50 Adventures Before 50,” about her most recent travels and challenges. Look for her underwater SCUBA diving, in her art studio making ceramics or helping people find their next dream trip.

Thank you so much for joining us! Let’s Get Intimate! I’d love to begin by asking you to give us the backstory as to what brought you to this specific career path.

I have loved books my entire life and always wanted to be part of them. I wrote a story as a child where I was able to go inside the books and participate with the characters. With my career now, I travel the world in search of adventures and write about the people I meet.

https://wesaidgotravel.com/category/we-said/

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you hope that they might help people along their path to self-understanding or a better sense of wellbeing in their relationships?

I recently wrote a story for Ms. Magazine about Lisa Genova’s book, Every Note Played, and Carrie Shaw’s company, Embodied Labs. The article is called: “The Virtual Search for IRL Empathy.” Books and virtual reality can help us understand each other more. I feel honored to be able to share these stories and hope that more people will have compassionate caregivers.

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2018/12/24/virtual-search-irl-empathy/

Do you have a personal story that you can share with our readers about your struggles or successes along your journey of self-understanding and self-love? Was there ever a tipping point that triggered a change regarding your feelings of self acceptance?

When I was a first year medical student at UCSF, I realized I was in the wrong place. I decided to take a year leave and think about my choices. It was very challenging and many people told me I was being stupid. I remember when the dean of the medical school told me, I hope someday you can say, “This was not the right place for me and I was willing to try something else.”

For me, the path less traveled has been full of travel! After leaving medical school, I received my Masters in Education and taught students of all ages science. Teaching led me to traveling full time and I worked for seven years at Club Med, Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean and Renaissance Cruises. I lived for several years in Asia and at one point I had library cards in four states! People count success in different ways. I am happiest when I am able to travel to a new location and I have a new book to read on kindle. In 2018, I went to my 100th country and on my first African safari.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WeSaidGoTravel/

According to a recent study cited in  Cosmopolitan , in the US, only about 28 percent of men and 26 percent of women are “very satisfied with their appearance.” Could you talk about what some of the causes might be, as well as the consequences?

When I was 40 years old, my doctor talked to me about my weight gain. I said, “I did not gain weight, my clothes still fit.” She showed me in my chart and I had gained weight. While I was upset at the time, I was glad she brought it up. I was able to lose weight slowly over time by changing my habits and I did feel happier about myself. I was more interested in doing new activities and started going to dance class. My first step was to stop gaining weight and to start walking at least 10 minutes a day. I was teaching at the time so I made an appointment with myself every day at recess to walk on the track. After a while, I did walking meetings with other teachers and then started to walk after school. For my next job, I walked to and from work which was two miles each way. Building exercise into my day was something that really made a difference in how I felt physically and mentally.

Metamorphosis: The Website and I

As cheesy as it might sound to truly understand and “love yourself,” can you share with our readers a few reasons why it’s so important?

When I was in high school, I remember reading this quote by Emerson about success.

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have always tried to remember my personal goals. If you love yourself, you can focus on what is important to you and not focus on the goals of the group or the crowd.

Why do you think people stay in mediocre relationships? What advice would you give to our readers regarding this?

I know that I personally stayed in a mediocre relationship. I thought I could change my partner. I thought if I loved him enough, I could make it better. I believed that I had committed to him and I had to take the good with the bad although the bad had often outweighed the good.

In the end, I realized that both of us were on his team trying to make his life work and neither of us were on my team trying to make my goals happen. I had to choose myself and I did leave my relationship.

When I talk about self-love and understanding I don’t necessarily mean blindly loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. Many times self-understanding requires us to reflect and ask ourselves the tough questions, to realize perhaps where we need to make changes in ourselves to be better not only for ourselves but our relationships. What are some of those tough questions that will cut through the safe space of comfort we like to maintain, that our readers might want to ask themselves? Can you share an example of a time that you had to reflect and realize how you needed to make changes?

There have been many times I have changed paths from leaving medical school to leaving my marriage and even to losing weight. All of these choices caused me to ask myself very tough questions.

I had to ask myself what is best for me? Not what is best for my family or my friends or my partner — but only what do I think might make me happier in the future. I have had to sit still and think about what do I want. I have been fortunate to have worked with several very good therapists who helped me on my journey. Many friends and family members supported my changes, choices and also asked me tough questions.

So many don’t really know how to be alone, or are afraid of it. How important is it for us to have, and practice, that capacity to truly be with ourselves and be alone (literally or metaphorically)?

For me, I have had to practice stillness and being alone. I love listening to Deepak and Oprah’s 21 day Meditation series. Often when I am in the airport, I walk up and down the terminal listening to them talk. I had a therapist who told me to practice mindfulness. She had one meditation to listen to. I listened to it over and over and over. I did not feel better but I kept listening. I read books and more books and wrote in journals. I keep practicing and my life is better.

One Page

How does achieving a certain level of self-understanding and self-love then affect your ability to connect with and deepen your relationships with others?

I feel proud of my work to be who I am. It has taken many years to realize that my path is very different from what I thought it would be but this is the right path for me. All of the struggles and track changes have led me here. I really love my life. Although I would not wish for the obstacles that challenged me, I am glad to have overcome them. I am honored to write stories for AARP, American Airways, Smithsonian and so many other publications! I am on TV with KTLA in Los Angeles and filmed a segment for Critics Choice Awards and the Oscars!

Star Treatment Package Giveaway

In your experience, what should a) individuals and b) society, do to help people better understand themselves and accept themselves?

Travel has helped me to learn more about myself and society. Seeing how other people live had opened my eyes on many issues. I recommend reading books about history and culture as well as biographies. I recommend taking a class and making a commitment to learn as much as possible about our world and your community.

What are the strategies that you implement to maintain your connection with and love for yourself, that our readers might learn from? Could you please give a story or example for each?

One of the things that I do all the time is make lists. I write down what I think I should do and then I don’t worry about it as much. I know it is on a list and that helps me. I take all my lists and in the evening, I decide what is the most important thing to do first the next day. I make sure to schedule time to exercise and to see friends and to read. I do the two most important things on my list before 11am.

What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources for self-psychology, intimacy, or relationships? What do you love about each one and how does it resonate with you?

One of my favorite places on the planet is the library. It amazes me that they will lend you books, videos, music all for free. I highly recommend that people use the library for kindle books. I order my books online and they are delivered to me through Amazon and I can read them anywhere.

Los Angeles emedia link: https://lapl.overdrive.com/

I love to read Seth Godin’s books. I heard him speak in New York City this year at AdWeek. I never thought I would meet him in real life but it happened! I loved Michelle Obama’s book as well. I like to read people telling the truth about their lives.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? Maybe we’ll inspire our readers to start it…

I hope that people will be kinder to each other. When I worked in the classroom, I only had one rule: “Respect.” Each student needed to be respectful of themselves, their property, school property, other students and to the teacher. There can be so many rules to follow but if we all just slow down, say please and thank you and really listen to the answer when we ask each other, “How are you?” The world would be much better.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote” that you use to guide yourself by? 

Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life and how our readers might learn to live by it in theirs?

I have this quote in my email signature: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

I believe we create our lives through our wishes and beliefs. I hope that each day you are taking small steps towards making your dreams come true.

Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiring insights!

Thank you! I would love to connect with your readers.

They can find me at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wesaidgotravel/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wesaidgotravel

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.niver

Facebook WSGT: https://www.facebook.com/wesaidgotravel/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wesaidgotravel/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaellenniver/

My website: We Said Go Travel: http://wesaidgotravel.com/

My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/WeSaidGoTravel

My articles and TV segments: http://lisaniver.com/one-page/

About the Author:

Sasza Lohrey is the Founder & CEO of BBXX, a digital platform for intimacy and wellbeing. She is also the host of the BBXX podcast, “Let’s Get Intimate!” which hosts provocative and entertaining conversations with experts in order to challenge the way our culture conditions us to talk about sex, intimacy, and healthy relationships. BBXX was created in order to help people better understand themselves, so that they then can form deeper and more fulfilling relationships with others. Sasza is a former D1 athlete with a background in psychology and digital media. She is a member of the Women of Sex Tech collective, the co-mentorship community Dreamers and Doers, and a regular columnist for several online publications. Originally from the Bay Area, Sasza founded BBXX during a Stanford entrepreneurship program in Santiago, Chile. Learn more on our  website  and listen to more interviews with experts on our top-rated  podcast !

— Published on April 8, 2019

The post Thrive Global Interview: Let’s Get Intimate: Connecting With Yourself To Live With Better Relationships appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

A morning at the camel race track, The United Arab of Emirates

I took this photograph with a Canon 5D Mark ii and 24-105mm lens. I used my own Lightroom preset on the image which brings up the shadows and adds contrast. The vibrancy has been shifted up and the saturation taken down a notch.

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Cooking for the devotees in tongi, Bangladesh

i took this photos at the final day of ijtema morning. thousands of people are going ijtema field on the train. and a man under the rail bridge cooking for the devotees. camera canon 1200d + 18-55mm lens.

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Best Chilean sunset was found by chance

I took this photo with my camera Fujifilm X-M1. I did not use any filter in order to alter the image.

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Why Celebrate International Women’s Day at Google?

 

Thank you to Carmen Rios and Ms. Magazine for publishing my article: “We All Have a Place in a Tech:
Inside Google’s International Women’s Day Celebration”
3/7/2019 by LISA NIVER

Last year, I spent March 8 in Venice Beach at Google’s Southern California headquarters. I was invited to be part of the inaugural Los Angeles Women Techmakers event taking place there—one of over 225 events in 52 countries that were organized for International Women’s Day under the theme of “Building a New Horizon,” and one which included over 20,000 women in technology.

Natalie Villalobos Carrie Shaw, CEO of Embodied Labs, Carolina Castilla, CEO of Massive Act, and Liliana Monge

“We need to reframe our minds,” Olga Garcia said to open the day, “and intentionally build the future.” It was a perfect introduction for our first speaker: Marzia Polito, who leads two teams at Google—of which 40 percent of the engineers are women. She opened up about what inspired her to become a woman tech-maker, and how she acquired the skills to make it happen.

Polito asked us a hard question: “Who inspires you?” But her answers are part of her DNA. Politio’s grandmother taught her to be a problem solver, engaging her in games of Scrabble and challenging her to finish crossword puzzles; her chosen grandfather, Lucio, inspired her to study math. Polito, who grew up to be a girl who played with “toys for boys” in the 1980s, eventually learned, at her father’s side, how to program the newest computer in BASIC.

Polito urged the women in the audience to heed three pieces of advice: “We have something to bring to the table,” she instructed. “No one should tell us we are wrong. We are special because of what we contribute. Be Yourself. Build Alliances. Speak Up.” She called for more self-compassion, not more self-confidence; she encouraged us to spark more empathy, more connection and more compassion.

Women are too often told they’re “doing it wrong” because we tap into our emotions—she told us instead, declaratively, that we are doing it right. She also invited us to involve men and women in the discussion of how do we work together—but warned us not to be mere spectators. Being included, she reminded the women there, “is not a favor to us.” Instead, she directed us to “demand what is due to us as women.”

The author onstage at Google’s 2018 International Women’s Day event at Google Los Angeles

Natalie Villalobos, head of Global Programs for Women Techmakers, later moderated a discussion between Carrie Shaw, CEO of Embodied Labs; Carolina Castilla, CEO of Massive Act; and Liliana Monge, CEO of Sabio. On stage, the four women shared the stories of their companies and their own journeys to success—discovering, in the process, that the common thread which united them was that they believed that they could figure out the answers, and didn’t hesitate to ask for help, find mentors and think big.

Hearing their personal stories, and glimpsing their resolve, was inspirational for many women in the audience, who talked later about their own desire to launch companies. After hearing from the women gathered at Google’s SoCal HQ, they could better see how to make it happen.

Castilla founded her company because she saw the need. “If no one is helping us,” she remembered thinking, “I am just going to do it.” Shaw was inspired by her service in the Peace Corps, and her mother’s medical issues. Monge wanted there to be more non-traditional tech candidates for jobs in technology. “It is a battle,” she said, to get young ladies to choose tech, often because their families tell them it is not a good match. The video that screened before lunch—“we all have a place in tech”—encouraged us to help turn that tide.

“You can learn more in an hour of play,” Kimberly MacLean, Director of Learning at Speechless, declared that afternoon, “then in a year of communication.” MacLean walked attendees through different confidence-building strategies to gear them up for presentations, pitches and meetings. She talked about building stories—which, science says, are 22 percent more memorable than facts—and then gave us access to 13 more courses that are offered in partnership with CreativeLive, Women TechMakers and Speechless.

Bria Sullivan, who describes herself on LinkedIn as a “Full Stack Engineer on Google Ads Tools by day, Android and iOS Developer by night,” with “diversity and inclusion” listed as her “#1 priority,” followed MacLean with a lightning talk about being one of the only women in the room. For someone like Sullivan—and many of the women, inevitably, in the room—it’s a haunting glimpse into how hard improving the composition of the field could be. Her challenges reminded all of us that there is still so much work to be done to build a new horizon together.

Bria Sullivan and Lisa Niver

Villalobos closed out the event by telling us how it all began. She created her dream job—and now, she spends her time developing projects to support women all around the world. This year, Google will hold 16 of these summits. Their outreach encompasses 190 countries and touches 100,000 women.

“When you chart your path,” Villalobos told us, “trust your why.” Following our passions and reshaping the industry, she assured us, will “clear the path for the next generation to create something that has never been done before.”

TAGGED: TECH, WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY


Read my article: “We All Have a Place in a Tech:
Inside Google’s International Women’s Day Celebration”
on Ms. Magazine

 

View this post on Instagram

 

How did you celebrate International Women’s Day this year? I was invited to be part of the inaugural Los Angeles Women Techmakers event at Google in Venice! Are you ready to build a new horizon? Remember what Keynote speaker, Marzia Polito, told us: Be Yourself:We need more empathy, more connection and more compassion. We are doing it right. Build Alliances: Involve men and women in the discussion of how do we work together. Did you know that the first computer program was written by a woman? Ada Lovelace Speak Up: Do not be a spectator. When you see something that is wrong in your environment, engage. Remember being included “is not a favor to us. Demand what is due to us as women.” #wtm18 #iwd18 #Google #women #techmaker #technology

A post shared by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Mar 24, 2018 at 10:50am PDT

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Did you have #fun for International Women’s Day this year? Did you #play? Kimberly MacLean, Director of Learning at Speechless, told us at the first ever #Google Women Techmakers #IWD18 #WTM18 event in Venice, CA: “You can learn more in an hour of play then in a year of communication.” She taught us games and shared ways to build confidence. We all stood with partners and said: “I am Lisa. (your name) and I am here.” You could feel the energy growing in our room! Are you ready to build a new horizon? In #Photo: Carrie Shaw @EmbodiedLabs and Sandy Marshall, Project Scientist @projscientist and Lisa Niver @WeSaidGoTravel @Google #women #techmaker #technology @women_techmakers @Speechlesslive #improv #improvcomedy #standupcomedy #storytelling #tech #funnybusiness

A post shared by Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) on Mar 25, 2018 at 11:33am PDT

Shabbat Shalom. Happy #InternationalWomensDay #WomensHistoryMonth Thank you @carmenriosss @MsMagazine

article with @Google @WomenTechmakers

“We All Have a Place in #TECH!” https://t.co/QhmNguzetr #WomensDay #women #technology #STEM pic.twitter.com/cPtH4ELKDl

— Lisa Niver (@wesaidgotravel) March 8, 2019

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Life of an (in)active Volcano: Peru

The photo was taken with my Panasonic Lumix TZ1 camera. Edited in Snapseed app.

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Cocktails and Conversation with Cherríe Moraga: Ms. Magazine Book Club

Join Ms. for Cocktails and Conversation with Cherríe Moraga!

Click here to register

At the inaugural #MsBookClub meeting, author and activist Cherríe Moraga will join Ms. digital editor Carmen Rios in Los Angeles for a conversation about her memoir Native Country of the Heart.

The reception will feature custom cocktails from Yola Mezcal. The event will include a book signing.

Join us on April 17, 2019

6:30 PM: Doors Open + Reception Begins

7:00 PM: Q&A begins

…at the Ms. Offices

433 S Beverly Drive

Los Angeles, CA

$10 for Ms. Members | $20 for Non-Members

Non-member tickets include admission to the reception and book signing with Cherríe and a one-year membership to Ms.—including print and digital access to the magazine and discounted access to future Ms. events.

About Cherríe

Cherríe Moraga is a writer and cultural activist whose work serves to disrupt the dominant narratives of gender, race, sexuality, feminism, indigeneity and literature in the United States. A co-founder of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Moraga co-edited the highly influential volume This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color in 1981. After 20 years as an Artist-in-Residence in Theater at Stanford University, Moraga was appointed a professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2018—where, with her artistic partner Celia Herrera Rodríguez, she instituted Las Maestras Center for Xicana Indigenous Thought and Art Practice. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Theatre Playwriting Fellowship Award and a United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature.

About the Book

In her intensely moving new memoir, Native Country of the Heart, Cherríe Moraga writes with piercing intimacy about her mother’s past and her own coming-of-age in a half-Mexican, half-Anglo household, where she struggled to come to terms with her own burgeoning queer identity within her family’s Catholic community. “Who needs Juan Preciado or Pedro Paramo when there is Elvira Isabel Moraga and her daughter?” author Myriam Gurba wrote of the “double memoir” in the latest issue of Ms. “As Moraga demonstrates compellingly, they are the stuff of literature, too.”

About Carmen

Carmen Rios is the Digital Editor at Ms., co-founder and Contributing Editor at Argot Magazine and co-host of Trigger Happy, a weekly feminist webseries on Binge Networks. Her writing—which has been published by outlets including BuzzFeed, BITCH, Everyday Feminism, ElixHER, GrokNation, GIRLBOSS and Feministing—spans the political and personal, emerging from her own background as a mixed-race queer woman of color raised by a working-class single mother.

 CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR TICKETS

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday April 17!

Lisa Niver, Ms. Magazine contributor

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Connecting Emptiness (India)

Found him alone in a nearby Church. Beads rolling n lips chanting. All by himself. As I click, I watch emotions n purpose as my subjects. Here he was perfectly fitting my frame.

In absence of my A7III I went out today, on Christmas of 2018, with my Canon EOS 1300d n kit lens.

Clicked it and transferred it to my mobile. Then I edited it with my Dramatic BW and Snapseed Apps.

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