Live it to Give it Interview with Poet & Life Coach, Pedro F. Báez

facilitated by Kayce Stevens Hughlett

Today's very special guest is my dear friend and colleague, Pedro F. Baéz. Pedro and I met several years ago during our life coach training program. He is a man of great depths with one of the biggest hearts I've ever come across. He is a rocking example of the phrase "live it to give it" and I'm thrilled to have him share his spirit and words of wisdom here today. Trust me, you won't want to miss a word he has to say! 

Kayce: Pedro, your quote about “As I Lay Pondering” being “oxygen for the soul” is one of my favorite expressions. It's a prime example of how a poet's heart can capture an essence in just a few words. Please tell us, what is oxygen for your soul?

Pedro: Being authentic and being me is oxygen for my soul.  Being of service and having people around me is oxygen for my soul. Loving and being loved is oxygen for my soul. Beauty, family, friends, living! It’s all oxygen for my soul. They are all necessary, indispensable elements in my life. Without them I feel numb and lifeless. Without purpose, joie de vivre and passion I feel un-me and lost; I cease to exist as the man I have come to be. That’s why I chose a healing profession, a healing art, to express it more accurately. 

When I said that “As I Lay Pondering” is oxygen for the soul I meant it precisely in this sense. There is so much reflection, so much passion, so much mysticism, so much contemplation, philosophical fodder and compassion, and at the same time, so much mindful joy and aliveness that it cleanses, cradles and heals the soul effortlessly and deliciously in sort of an integral, organic catharsis.

Kayce: Ah, I so love seeing my book through your eyes. Merci beaucoup, mon ami! Now... what’s one of your favorite readings from “As I Lay Pondering”?  

Pedro: Oh, you should know this! I am completely and proudly biased for Pedrita The Flying Piglet. She’s my marmoset (my intuition) and my inner compass. She’s my constant and loyal companion. I even have her on my desk, as a soft magnet attached by the nose to a small desk lamp in a lovely shade of pink, wings outstretched and eternally flying.

She’s a gutsy gal, that Pedrita! She went and flew against all odds, bets, predictions and expectations. She’s a hero in the classical and strictest sense of the word. She’s also a miracle, a metaphor and an undying source of awe and inspiration for me. You gave her so much life, such self-determination and self-generated dynamism that I had no choice but to surrender to my own challenge, since it was my challenge to you as a writer that motivated you to write this delightful parable, because that is what the story of Pedrita The Flying Piglet is. It’s magic! Pure, delightful, storytelling magic!

Kayce: {blushing} I still remember when I asked my readers to give me a writing prompt and you asked, "When will pigs fly?" Pedrita burst onto the scene, like she'd been waiting in the wings for her introduction! (For those readers who haven't met Pedrita, I've included a special treat... come back & watch after the interview).

I am fascinated with the uniqueness that each of us brings to the world and our innate ability to impact the world for good. So, please tell me… what is your super power and do you have a sidekick?

Pedro: My salient, dominant superpower is to make people feel at ease, safe and seen. I seem to attract people who are seemingly extroverts but who, like me, are in reality highly adaptable and socially successful introverts, sort of ‘in the closet’ and feeling terribly mistaken, misrepresented and misplaced. Therefore, many times there is an identity crisis: the perceptual and the regularly practiced versus the real, authentic and genuine nature and essential self of these people. It’s fascinating and I can completely understand and empathize with them. It’s very easy for me to be front and center and even dominate and rule with certain charm and grace over a sizable crowd. But the toll is invariably and overwhelmingly painful. I feel drained, depleted and sort of violated at the end. Self-violated, that is. I do this to myself. 

 And so, I understand people like this and they feel comfortable and seen and validated in my presence. It is all at an energetic, usually unspoken level. I suppose my aura attracts theirs and vice versa. I also love to make people laugh, especially at those thoughts, experiences and situations that seem to be so onerously damming and serious and then turn out to be just scarecrows, shadow-play; phantoms…

Kayce: No wonder we get along so well! I, too, am one of those introverts that plays along the ridges of being an extrovert. My Myers-Briggs score falls right in the center of introvert/extrovert.

Pedro: My sidekick? I’d have to say that’s my shadow-me (speaking of shadows!). It’s the other Pedro. The one not so playful and not so open that sometimes (oftentimes, would be more accurate) has to seek silence, quietness and stillness in order to center, reaffirm, and balance himself…

And sometimes, it’s not pretty. I fall into these kind of contemplative, very dark, almost catatonic and ascetic states where there are very few allowances for the light, playful and trivial and where my mind becomes a fortress surrounded by the hungry crocodiles that my very fertile imagination and rigid shadow-me release to question, dissect and devour every thought, inspiration and concept that crosses my mind, until I find the light and breathe at the surface once again.

Kayce: Another reason I admire you... your willingness to speak of the shadow side we all have, but seem so afraid to speak of. Bravo! I've been fascinated lately with the research that shows we cannot selectively "numb" our emotions. In other words, if we try to numb or ignore our pain or "dark side," we ultimately rob ourselves of joy! Here's to living it fully, right?

SO... in closing, I’d love for you to tell the readers what live it to give it means to you?

Pedro: Live it to give it is to be experientially and morally authentic in sharing and using your own journey and life experiences to guide, propel, challenge and inspire others to do the same in terms of their own needs, their own path and calling, and especially in terms of their own unique and true authenticity.

Kayce: Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you so much for sharing this time, space, and your words of wisdom! I am grateful to have you in my life!

Pedro F. Báez was born in Havana, Cuba and emigrated to the United States in 1980, at age 19. Pedro is an accomplished and critically acclaimed writer, poet and literary essayist with works published in literary magazines, reviews and blogs throughout the United States, Cuba, Latin America and Europe, and in secondary education and college-level Spanish language textbooks in the United States. Pedro is considered one of the essential poets of the Mariel Generation of artists, writers and intellectuals that emigrated to the United States from Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980.

Known as The Negativity Whisperer™ for his deft ability to spot, dig up, debunk, dissolve, transform and turn around negative thoughts and beliefs for his clients, Transformational Life Coach Pedro F. Báez is also a sought-after Coach Mentor and Intuitive, Sex, Authenticity, Spirituality, Relationship, Communication and Creativity Certified Life Coach exquisitely developed by bestselling author, 'O,The Oprah Magazine' columnist and America's best known Life Coach, Harvard graduate Dr. Martha Beck.

Website: http://www.pedrofbaez-transformationallifecoach.com

Comments

[Sarah Whitworth]

Delghtfully warm interview. I could relate to it strongly. And you sound wonderfully compatible with your dear friend. So helpful to find that kind of easy mutuality.

Also I love your idea/perspective that Life is a glorious mess, Kayce, and yes it is, and easier to ferry, not trying to keep it all tidy. Not tidy, to me, means mistakes, and forgiving them in ourselves and others. There is a worrisome punctuality to life though, the constant aging, the thought of its end getting always closer. There's nothing messy about mortality in this world, no room for playfulness and creativity, it's simply a parameter we can't change. Nevertheless...there are transcendent experiences we've all had in one way or another, and which human beings have been sharing with each other, that is, through art, music and poetry, since the beginning of our journey as a species. Remember those hand prints on the ceilings of caves from ancient times, what were those people reaching for? Part of it must be simply a statement, I am who am, but even then, there's something transcendent there — the meaning of the Hebrew name of god too, YHWH, means exactly that. So I wonder?