Rebirth: How to be humble

A journey from “expert” to deconstructing everything

They explained gently and with the sweetest love, that the government projects for running water, houses, electricity, all of that was designed to pull them away from connection with the living breathing life support system.

Humility is an uncharted path. It is one thing for our minds and another thing for our heart. But sometimes we need to be put in our place by unexpected teachers.

It is a process and it is never what you expect. But always what we need.

I was recently interviewed by Savio P. Clemente for Authority Magazine on resilience.

It was a deep conversation. As someone who usually asks the questions, it was a welcome change. Many of his questions made me reflect in a way I truly needed. It was a beautiful practice for a Mercury Retrograde.

He asked me, “What was your biggest lesson you learned in your career as a diplomat?”

There are many I could have shared:

how to stay calm when a war erupts,
how to be relaxed (not distracted) by security challenges when an armed gunman starts shooting at your workplace,
how to deal with microaggressions because you are different,
how to be unique when you are not supposed to stand out.

I pondered the question for awhile and remembered — the subtle is always the most important. Why? Because it hides in plain sight.

My deepest insight from global travels is: Sometimes we do not know what we do not know.

I don’t mean to sound like Yoda. You might be asking yourself, what does that mean?

Perspective Requires Distance

Well, when you are immersed in your world, you may be lacking the perspective you need to see what is true.

Without this perspective, we cannot see the impact or results of what we are doing. I was so intent on “helping” that I was not able to question if helping was actually helping.

This is why a variety of experiences and perspectives are so important. I thought highly of my development projects in Colombia but could not see that I was just perpetuating an agenda of anti-poverty. You may be questioning, isn’t that a good thing?

It sounds benevolent and almost friendly, yet, the anti-poverty agenda is just a veneer. This is a deep topic. (If this interests you, please do follow me and mention this in the comments. I will be writing more on this in my next article called — the Danger of Playing God.)

I now teach on development economics and the true ways to actually end poverty that do not involve humanitarianism but rather different economic trade policies and forgiving debt from predatory structural adjustment loans. (from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank)

The Poverty Paradox

There are gingerbread crumbs everywhere in society of this intellectual delusion.

→ A perfect example from my world, is the time I met the founder of the boutique coffee line, Blue Bottle at a somewhat Hollywood-style donor lunch of an indigenous-focused non-profit. There were so many discrepancies to integrity in this model — prance the indigenous natives onstage to make guests donate.

I managed to convince the founder to buy coffee from indigenous wise custodians from the Sierra Nevada of Colombia. I was so excited to share this opportunity with the tribe. It took a few months for the opportunity to arise. I was so proud of my accomplishment and anxious to see their lives “transform”.

When I finally spoke with their political representative, he listened very patiently until suddenly I was interrupted with a question I never had considered.

My heart stopped.

He asked me, “Do you think we incarnated in this lifetime to grow coffee for white people?”

My ego was stunned.

On paper, this was a classic “economic growth” activity. It was how you get people out of “poverty”. Entire institutions function on this model. It was a bit of an existential crisis for me at the time. I realized that it is us in the Global North, the “developed” world, who are poor because we lost connection with our spirits and original power.

This is not just any tribe; we are speaking about a pristine lineage of indigenous wise elders who exist purely to maintain balance in the world.

This is their one and only purpose. And they are punished by Aluna, what they call the Mother, this intelligence behind nature, when they violate her rulings. No joke.

Decolonizing the Colonized View of Poverty

To consider them “poor” only shows how colonized the education and socio-economic systems are. They exist in a different paradigm and universe than the colonized world pursuing money.

Wealth is defined differently. Success is defined differently. Intelligence is defined differently.

In a matter of a few moments, everything I knew to be “true” about the world was stripped away. I was able to see how I had been swept into this paradigm of white saviorism that has spiked the office kool-aid.

How are you supposed to reciprocate or “pay” as they say, to the water source or the energy source when it just comes in automatically?

Remembering how to engage with nature

We all once lived in connection with nature, reciprocating rather than just benefiting from her. And yet, somehow we are in a world where trillions are invested in self-driving cars that are begging for an unscripted accident, and where billionaires speak on colonizing the moon.

I keep remembering the Cree proverb —

when the last tree has been felled, the last fish eaten, the last stream poisoned, we will realize that we cannot eat money.

I tried to actually write this into an Ambassador’s speech for my environmental project in Bosnia. Not surprisingly, it was cut out by the Public Affairs Department — a bit like the PR agency of the U.S. Embassies.

In one fell swoop, I had the ability to see precisely how colonized my mind had become with the paradigm of the western world and values.

The power of reflections

My takeaways are that everyone need a reflection of their own hubris. My mentors taught me that not even a Mama, a wise elder navigating time and space to bring balance, is able to see the top of his own head.

We all need reflections.

We all get deceived.

We all need a bit more humility and grace to be more in tune with this sacred frequency of nature.

Conflict, deception, and darkness (gisé) is there to keep stirring up that which is unresolved in us.

It creates more and more separation when the truth is we are all one.

The greatest gift I have been given, was after stepping into this privileged world of diplomacy and prestige, to have any attachment or pursuit of it removed.

Sometimes we need to be put in place by someone who can see pure truth — it is a frequency. All we can do is ready ourselves to hear this challenging message. Since then, I work with clients helping them to break down limitations and preconceived notions about life, people and how the world actually works.

We all need a mirror to see what we still need to work on. Sometimes it comes in the form of a challenge, pain, circumstances, and sometimes people.

When we have strong reactions to something in front of us, it shows us what we may be hiding in ourselves. It can be scary to be authentically true. Many structures in society try to make sure that we are not too unique and promote conforming more than you might think.

Thanks to Roo Benjamin and Kristin Austin for encouraging my voice and telling these stories. Much thanks to Bryan Dijkhuizen and Lee G. Hornbrook.

To read the full article:

https://medium.com/authority-magazine/rising-through-resilience-stephanie-hilborn-of-catalyzing-inspiration-on-the-five-things-you-can-92b3c8d84129

About Stephanie Hilborn

An SF native and speaker on wellness, trauma reduction, spiritual ecology, global issues, debt relief & decolonization, Stephanie Hilborn is a former diplomat, educator and transformational life coach.

She has extensively mentored with elders from the Colombian Andes for over twelve years. With her company, Catalyzing Inspiration, she guides clients in reconnection to nature and their birthplace so that they can soothe their inner monologue and act with purpose.

She is creating a course for adults to learn inspiring stories about global challenges and mentors them to create social change.