Elizabeth Lesser: Say your truths and seek them in others
إليزابيث ليسر: قل حقائقك وابحث عنها في الآخرين
Elizabeth Lesser helps her readers and students transform their lives after brushes with pain, adversity and life's myriad problems. Full bio
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for all of them.
throughout my 20s.
طوال فترة العشرينيات من عمري.
valuable and sometimes surprising things,
ومثيرة للدهشة،
بعد منتصف الليل.
who's fainted at the sight of blood.
من رؤية الدم.
that stuck with me or guided me
أو التي أرشدتني
and started other jobs.
وبدأتُ وظائف أخرى.
with a unique worth.
بقيمة فريدة من نوعها.
to describe that spark,
that comes close to naming
التي هي قريبة لتسمية
as a snowflake,
of things happen to us
eccentricities and authenticity.
في السابق --
of our time uncomfortable in our own skin,
غير مرتاحين مع أنفسنا،
authenticity deficit disorder.
إضطراب نقص الأصالة.
from laboring women.
it has to stretch from this
that would happen
of the universe took notice
or painful things happen to me
أو مؤلمة
what I learned from the mothers:
from Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein concluded
experience of life
كدوائر مفرغة
is this whole other dimension
هو هذا البعد الآخر بأكمله
and the future merge
this state, this dimension,
هذا البعد،
hours and hours,
من الرهبة المقدسة.
I took with me from midwifery.
من وظيفة القابلة.
or painful, try to stay open.
حاول البقاء منفتحًا.
step off your hamster wheel
عجلة حياتك المكررة
throughout my life,
important job of my life thus far.
حتى الآن.
came out of remission
من فترة انتعاش
was a bone marrow transplant.
زرع النخاغ العظمي،
we found a match for her,
I was my sister's perfect genetic match,
أنني المطابق الوراثي المثالي لأختي
there's lots of things.
هناك الكثير من الأشياء.
and there's protection.
ويوجد الحماية.
assembling many of those first layers
العديد من تلك الطبقات الأولية
is pretty straightforward.
in the cancer patient
في مريض السرطان
marrow cells from a donor.
من المتبرع.
engraft in the patient.
في المريض.
transplants are fraught with danger.
أن يكون محفوفاً بالمخاطر.
through the near-lethal chemotherapy,
العلاج الكيماوي شبه القاتل،
a long history of love,
of rejection and attack,
من الرفض والهجوم،
to bigger betrayals.
إلى خيانات أكبر.
the kind of the relationship
in all kinds of relationships,
في جميع أنواع العلاقات،
the dangers of rejection or attack,
الرفض أو الهجوم،
transplant up to the doctors,
إلى الأطباء،
to call our "soul marrow transplant?"
"زراعة نخاع روحنا؟"
we had caused each other,
كنا سببناه لبعضنا البعض،
I turned to my parents' holy text:
إتجهتُ إلى النص المقدس لوالديّ:
why we should visit a therapist
معالج نفسي
and transplanted into her body.
في جسمها.
I made up in my head."
كونته في رأسي."
in our heads that kept us separate.
جعلت منا منفصلتين.
of each of those cells
for the rest of your life,"
our relationship."
do all sorts of risky things,
تقوم بكل أنواع الأشياء الخطيرة،
or jumping out of an airplane
to undergo the bone marrow harvest,
للخضوع لحصاد النخاع الشوكي،
of harvest and transplant,
with another human being,
مع شخص آخر،
our vulnerable souls.
أرواحنا الهشة الضعيفة.
after the harvest.
بعد الحصاد.
farm-to-table event --
الريفية إلى الطاولة مباشرةً --
more and more time together.
والمزيد من الوقت معًا.
مرةً أخرى.
this kind of work.
of real life and important work.
وعملنا المهم.
and the financial cost --
seems to have forgotten all about.
قد نسيت كل شيء.
was the best year of her life,
كان أفضل عام في حياتها،
مطلقًا،
we had done with each other,
she'd always needed to say.
كانت ترغبُ دومًا القيام بها
with the people in my life.
حقيقية مع الناس في حياتي.
I sought the truth of others.
في الآخرين.
the final chapter of this story
midwifery had trained me.
قد دربني.
the doctors could do.
أكثر مما يقوم به الأطباء.
a couple of months to live.
to the pain of our past,
من ماضينا،
with just one of them.
مع شيء واحد منهم.
for a life-or-death situation
that matter to you,
of first responder,
من المستجيب الأول،
the first courageous step
أو محاولة القيام بشيء ما
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Elizabeth Lesser - Wellness specialistElizabeth Lesser helps her readers and students transform their lives after brushes with pain, adversity and life's myriad problems.
Why you should listen
Elizabeth Lesser is a bestselling author and the cofounder of Omega Institute, the renowned conference and retreat center located in Rhinebeck, New York. Lesser's first book, The Seeker's Guide, chronicles her years at Omega and distills lessons learned into a potent guide for growth and healing. Her New York Times bestselling book, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow (Random House), has sold more than 300,000 copies and has been translated into 20 languages. Her latest book, Marrow: A Love Story (Harper Collins/September 2016), is a memoir about Elizabeth and her younger sister, Maggie, and the process they went through when Elizabeth was the donor for Maggie’s bone marrow transplant.
Lesser cofounded Omega Institute in 1977 -- a time when a variety of fresh ideas were sprouting in American culture. Since then, the institute has been at the forefront of holistic education, offering workshops and trainings in: integrative medicine, prevention, nutrition, and the mind/body connection; meditation and yoga; cross-cultural arts and creativity; ecumenical spirituality; and social change movements like women's empowerment and environmental sustainability. Lesser is also the cofounder of Omega's Women's Leadership Center, which grew out of the popular Women & Power conference series featuring women leaders, activists, authors and artists from around the world. Each year more than 30,000 people participate in Omega's programs on its campus in Rhinebeck, New York and at urban and travel sites, and more than a million people visit its website for online learning.
A student of the Sufi master, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, for many years, Lesser has also studied with spiritual teachers, healers, psychologists and philosophers from other traditions. In 2008 she helped Oprah Winfrey produce a ten-week online seminar based on Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth. The webinar was viewed by more than 8 million people worldwide. She was a frequent host on Oprah's "Soul Series," a weekly radio show on Sirius/XM, and a guest on Oprah's "Super Soul Sunday." In 2011, she gave a TED Talk, "Take 'the Other' to lunch ," in which she called for civility and understanding as we negotiate our differences as human beings.
Lesser attended Barnard College, where she studied literature, and San Francisco State University, where she received a teaching degree. In 2011 she received an honorary doctorate from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, in Palo Alto, California. Early in her career she was a midwife and birth educator. Today, besides writing and her work at Omega Institute, she lends her time to social and environmental causes and is an avid walker, cook and gardener. She lives with her family in New York's Hudson River Valley.
Elizabeth Lesser | Speaker | TED.com