Anastasia ARusPro 

Today I am remembering these lines from a song by my favorite Russian rap band "ГРОТ". The translation goes like this:

If you really try to 'feel' these lines, what kind of feeling will you get from them? Sadness? Frustration? Disappointment? Feeling of injustice? Maybe, sorrow? The common denominator for all these feelings is Pain.

In the context of recent tragic events in Moscow, I've been thinking a lot about human pain and its role in our lives. Naturally people perceive pain as something negative, whether it's physical or emotional pain. Something that nobody ever wants to experience. But if you think about it, pain is a great mechanism that shows us that something is wrong with our body or psyche/soul, and we need to work on that.

In case of emotional pain, a loss of a loved one is definitely a common source of it. No matter how strong we are or may seem to the outside world, we still hurt inside when we lose someone we love. It's not always death that takes away our loved ones. It could be a breakup, which is often very much like death. The death of a relationship or friendship. The end of a connection.

From my experience in dealing with emotional pain, I have learned a very important lesson. Pain is a type of energy, and this energy is the energy of Love. Even though it may not seem like that when we have just fallen in pain, if we are honest with ourselves and we don't hide it, eventually it will give us as much energy and strength as falling in love. If you have gone through all 5 stages of acceptance, you should try to start thanking God / the Universe for this pain that He brought into your life because it is really a gift that shows you what your heart is capable of. It shows you all the Love that you are capable of emanating and sharing with the rest of the world.

Continuing the topic of ice skating, I have recently received another insight. Or, to be more precise, I already knew this, but the story of one famous Russian figure skater just showed me once again how much wisdom there is in Life and in each lesson it's giving us.

Pyeongchang, South Korea. 2018 Winter Olympics. Despite the sanctions, Russian athletes keep proving that they are the best in figure skating. Being deprived of the honor to wear the Russian national flag and emblem and sing the Russian national anthem, they still come out on the ice rink for the whole world to hear their Russian names and see how undefeatable they are.

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I've always had mixed feelings about our athletes participating in world sports events in a "neutral athlete" status. On the one hand, I judged and reproached them for agreeing to participate on such humiliating terms. On the other hand, if all of them refused to participate, who would demonstrate the Russian unbendable spirit and talents to the young generations in the entire world? Perhaps, going against the system sometimes requires accepting the rules of that system and slowly changing it from the inside. Anyway, it's a topic for another post, which I should probably write later.

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Going back to figure skating. 2018, Pyeongchang, South Korea. Two extraordinary figure skaters Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva are competing for gold in ladies' singles. At that time Evgenia at the age 18 was already a two-time Russian national champion, a two-time European champion and a two-time World champion. Author of a few world records. She was on the peak of her career, one of the brightest and artistic skaters in the world. She was a favorite to win the gold medal. Alina, who, by the way, was born and raised in my hometown Izhevsk, was 15 and was also a very talented skater but didn't have as many awards and titles as Evgenia had at that time.

I went ice skating today. I haven't done it for 14 years :) So, of course, thoughts like "What if I fall down and break something?" did enter my mind. The fear of "falling out" of your normal daily life for weeks with a broken arm/leg is much stronger when you are 33 than when you are 19. Especially if you are not a very good skater.

However, I am now entering this stage in my life where I learn how to be more positive and easy-going, how to take everything easier, how to trust God, the Universe and my inner Self and how to accept my unique life path. I am like a child again, a happy child that is curious, that has an open heart, that wants to try everything new. So I was more curious and happy to try ice skating again than I was anxious about hurting myself while doing it.

So I went to our local ice rink with my aunt, my sister and her two children, my niece and nephew.

At the beginning I was a bit clumsy but after an hour on the rink I grew in confidence and was able to get to a higher speed. And here is what I noticed (lately I've been noticing a lot of parallels in life).

When you are new on the rink, you are not confident in what you are doing. Of course, after a bit of practice you get the trick: bend your knees slightly and keep your body leaned slightly forward if you don't want to fall. However, many people just stop at the stage "I don't want to fall." Those people have that kind of a mind that is too controlling. Such mind keeps their body too tense by throwing in thoughts like, "Be alert, or you will fall down!", "Watch out! There are so many people here, make sure you don't hit anyone!", "Don't ride too fast", etc. I felt that too, I caught my mind doing that and I noticed how such thoughts or signals from my mind kept my muscles in too much tonus, which made my movements stiff and clumsy. Yes, I was moving forward, but too slowly because my only purpose was to escape the fall.

Hello! I am Anastasia from Russia. I come from a cold land where winters last from 4 to 6 months, and in my first post I would like to contemplate on how the place where you were born influences your character and your overall attitude towards life.

I have been teaching Russian as a foreign language for almost 10 years now, and I have always found great pleasure in telling people from other countries about Russian culture and the way we view the world. As a linguist, I have always been fascinated at how the language reflects people's worldview. The most enjoyable thing for me has always been explaining difficult points of Russian grammar from the worldview perspective. I can tell you a lot about it, but this post is not about Russian grammar. I have a whole YouTube channel devoted to grammar explanations. In this post I would like to talk about something else. An insight that has dawned on me recently.

Recently I realized why I enjoy so much what I am doing. Not because I am a linguist and have an in-born love for languages. Not because I love teaching and influencing the students' minds in a positive way. I realized why I have chosen to teach Russian to foreigners, and not English for Russian speakers.

The answer to that is Suffering. You may ask, "What?!" I know it sounds strange, but I'll explain.

One of my favorite cities in Russia is Saint Petersburg. I wasn't born there, but I lived there for some time. As soon as I came to this city, I felt this tremendous historical vibe, and my heart responded to it as if I finally returned home after a long journey. I couldn't stay indifferent to the old buildings that I passed when I was walking in the center of the city. It seemed to me that every building spoke to my soul the way a grandfather speaks to his grandchild. Strikes, the Revolution, change of power, the Siege during WWII, everything that Petrograd / Leningrad / Saint Petersburg saw throughout centuries, all the pain and suffering of the people, all that just reverberated in my soul so vividly that I was stunned and glued to this place.

I hadn't realized before how strong my Russian heritage was inside of me. I didn't fully realize that it was the reason why I enjoyed teaching Russian so much.