I have spent my whole life using creativity to disrupt despair and accelerate adaptation.
My first twenty years were focused on finding ways to process grief during challenging times.
Oh, there were plenty of missteps, including dangerous ones.
But I was lucky enough to sense the power of creativity to disrupt my despair, uplifting and (eventually) healing me.
Stress (including what we are experiencing during this time of multiple crises) can either hinder or enhance our creativity.
Research shows that when we view stress negatively, we are more likely to experience a decline in our ability to respond creatively.
But when we see stress as a challenge rather than a threat, we become more inclined and able to address or adapt to it.
This is not a typical ¨About¨ page.
I share my big ol' skimmable story here as
an example of the power of creativity to disrupt despair and accelerate adaptation.
*WARNING: tough life challenges ahead.
The Beginning
I was adopted at two days old. My parents divorced when I was four. (When my father told my mother he was ¨homosexual,¨ she had to look it up in the dictionary.)
My mother moved with my two brothers and me to Oregon to live with her parents. Six months later, my grandfather died suddenly while mowing the lawn. My grandmother (primary caregiver) spiraled into early dementia, and attempted to kill me - twice. (She believed I had brought bad luck to the family.)
My father attempted to kidnap my two brothers and me, resulting in a ban on visitation for five years.
My mother remarried to a divorced man with four children. We moved into a garage we built in rural Oregon.
Sexual abuse began immediately. I had just turned 10.
Me at age 10.
The garage where we lived in Gaston, Oregon, 1970-1975
My go-to coping mechanism:
grabbing a pen and a spiral notebook, hiking up the hill into the woods on our property,
leaning against my favorite moss-covered maple,
and writing poetry.
The Game
At 15, I was the sole survivor of a tragic car accident. Because it happened miles from my town, both my parents and the police insisted that talking about it would only create problems for me. They made me promise not to say a word about it.
I didn´t tell anyone - not even my siblings - for years.
Silently reeling from survivor guilt, I fell into a deep depression.
Someone reached out to teach me to meditate. But it was hard to sit with such intense emotions and suicidal thoughts.
So, I created a way to turn mindfulness into a fun game I couldn´t wait to play. I used everyday cues to remind me to be present.
I did it all day long. I got good at it. And it saved me.
But I continued to engage in self sabotage.
I developed an eating disorder, and was suspended from high school for showing up drunk and high on mushrooms at the homecoming dance when I was the homecoming queen.
Smiling through the pain.
The Reconnection
At 17, I met my birth mother.
I learned that she had become pregnant at 21 after falling in love with an older married man who lied to her about being separated (his wife and son were planning on joining him once the school year finished) and infertile (he had impregnated his secretary six months earlier).
My birth mother attempted suicide twice while pregnant with me, and showed up at my birth father´s workplace with a loaded gun, threatening to kill herself unless he married her. (He didn´t.)
She never had any other children.
NOTE: Research shows that a fetus absorbs its mother´s stress hormones. I was stewing in a grief and rage cocktail for months before I was even born, and the first and only time my mother held me as an infant was to say goodbye.
Through our decades-long relationship, I developed a deep understanding of loss and the impact of intergenerational trauma.
She passed away in July of 2024 at the age of 85.
The Trip
As the valedictorian of my high school class, I got a scholarship/financial aid package and headed off to college. I double majored in psychology and Asian Studies, and spent my senior year studying in nine Asian countries. It opened the world to me.
But when I returned to Oregon, newly graduated, it was the middle of a recession. Stuck at home and unable to find a job for months, I became convinced that the future I'd imagined was slipping away.
I felt myself drifting into that darkness again...
Me with friends I met while trekking in Nepal, 1982.
The Change
I knew I needed a mindset shift and a fresh start.
So, I decided to legally change my full name.
This prompted ridicule from friends and family.
My adoptive father even ¨disowned¨ me.
I didn´t care.
I went from Greta Welchoff to Maya Talisman.
And I fully committed to believing that I was magically LUCKY.
I breathed it in. I chanted it to myself.
I saw ONLY good things coming my way.
I imagined every detail.
Now, watch how everything shifts...
My name change decree, 1982
The Co-Creation
Almost immediately, I landed a job teaching English in northern Japan.
Within two months of arrival, I met my soul mate, who grew up just ten miles from my hometown.
Two years later, we got married. Within five years, we had four daughters, fulfilling my dream of creating my own family and doing things differently.
After five years in Japan, we settled in a college town in Oregon. My husband started an import/export business with Japan, and I taught ESL classes at the university.
Newlyweds at the Nebuta Festival in Aomori, Japan, 1985
When our youngest started preschool, I opened a vintage/resale clothing store that catered to local students and international resellers.
Those were fun seat-of-our-pants years, with four young children, three businesses (including a snowboard/skateboard shop), and a long list of community activities. I organized the building of a skate park and a Saturday Market for vendors ages 10-20, and won awards like Hometown Hero and Best New Business.
Very 90s me at Retro Active Clothing Company, 1996
In 1998, we took a three-month trip with our four daughters to Nepal and India, where my husband had spent a year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student at 16. It inspired all of us.
I got certified as a mediator and conflict resolution facilitator.
I served as the national outreach director for an environmental education organization, and later, as executive director of a peace and social justice non-profit.
The Remembering
When our girls were in middle and high school, I was reminded of my own experiences at their age, including the accident and its aftermath.
And I was processing the deaths of three of my brothers (one of AIDS, two by suicide).
I doubled down on my mindfulness practice.
And I remembered my fun little mindfulness game.
Me with my girls on the Oregon Coast, 2001
I thought it might help others. So, in 2003, I created a simple online course to teach it.
It captured the imagination of those who felt they were failing at meditation, disrupting the idea of mindfulness as difficult to attain.
Through my course, newsletter, and poetry, I helped thousands of people in over 100 countries get calm, clear, and creative.
My playful, eyes-wide-open approach to everyday awareness was featured in over 150 media outlets around the world.
Three of our daughters went on their own Rotary Youth Exchange years abroad.
Next, we sold everything and moved to Mexico. A year later, we moved to Argentina.
Our daughters were graduating from U.S. or Canadian universities at 19 or 20.
People asked how they did it. I wrote a query letter, and got a book deal.
The Book
My book, THE NEW GLOBAL STUDENT, was published by Crown (Random House) in 2009.
"Funny, innovative, and meaningful...a how-to guide with heart."
The Boston Globe
"Tremendous insight...essential reading for families yearning to step off the treadmill and plunge into the world."
Daniel H. Pink, New York TImes' bestselling author of DRIVE and A WHOLE NEW MIND
¨[This book] will open your eyes, get your heart pounding and your mind racing, and maybe set you off on the adventure of a lifetime.¨
Eric Maisel, author of CREATIVITY FOR LIFE and COACHING THE ARTIST WITHIN
The Empty Nest
As new empty nesters, my husband and I bought and refurbished a farmhouse in rural Uruguay.
That was great fun, but we missed being around kids. So, we decided to return to Asia to teach young children again.
We got jobs teaching at a private kindergarten in Beijing. Within a year, I was promoted to vice principal.
Weeks later, I was recruited from a pool of creative international educators to serve as the private English tutor for the family of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, in Hangzhou.
Me teaching the Lucky Baby program I created based on the latest research in infant language acquisition, Beijing, 2011.
Cala, from my Cucina Tradicional series of 12 art tortillas celebrating Mexican Independence Day (embroidery on fresh tortilla with flour and corn) 2015
The Healing
After nearly four years in China, my husband and I moved back to Mexico, where we immersed ourselves in creating art.
During an epidemic there, I got chikungunya, a mosquito-borne virus that causes severe joint pain.
I developed an excruciating related autoimmune condition similar to rheumatoid arthritis. It came with a terrible prognosis of a shortened life due to progressive joint and organ failure. I skipped the chemo-drugs-for-life prescription and created my own healing protocol using natural methods.
Within two years, I became completely symptom-free and healthy without ever taking medication.
The Pandemic
In 2018, we moved back to Buenos Aires, where our youngest daughter was living.
We spent the pandemic there in a studio apartment during one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world. I needed to DO SOMETHING.
I started creating Nature-inspired digital art. I turned my work into NFTs that sold to collectors around the world, and donated the proceeds to organizations offering effective climate change responses.
I used a low-carbon platform, and became a vocal advocate for sustainable blockchain practices and ethical AI standards. I spoke on international panels and published articles in sustainability journals.
My digital art was shown in exhibits in the UK, Spain, France, and Italy.
Bridal, shown at Poble Espanyol in Barcelona, Spain, 2022.
The Breakthrough
It was also during this time that I started Switch Strategies for Change to offer support to women who were struggling with grief and income insecurity. It was while doing this pro bono work that I developed my creative breakthrough technique of disrupting despair and accelerating adaptation to help women over 50 (the sole breadwinners for their extended families) in 18 countries rise to new levels of confidence, financial stability, and joy by starting community-supporting projects.
In 2024, I chose to focus on helping people use their awareness and creativity to transform their despair about the world.
The Coalescing
In April 2025, I moved from Argentina to The Netherlands.
After spending several years living in the Global South and seeing again and again how those in Argentina rely on family/friends and creativity to cope with their ongoing crises, my husband and I made a decision to move to Amsterdam. Now, three branches of our family live within blocks of each other. Here, I will continue my international creative adaptation work, and learn firsthand about how people in The Netherlands are responding to challenges in informed and innovative ways.
Heading out for our first King's Day festivities in Amsterdam - 2025
Have you used creativity to disrupt your despair?
I'd love to hear from you!