Finding Wisdom Within
Lessons on Emotional Maturity from Yung Pueblo
One of the biggest rewards of being a contributing writer for Spirituality & Health magazine is that it enables me to dive into the wisdom of some truly inspirational people, and then have the opportunity to interview them and ask my most pressing questions. I loved my recent conversation with author Diego Perez—the writer behind the pen name yung pueblo—whose eloquent, wisdom-dense words have become an Instagram sensation. Diego now has millions of social media followers and two New York Times best-selling books. His third book, Lighter, was just released this week.
Diego immigrated to Boston from Ecuador with his parents and two siblings when he was four years old. In Lighter he wrote, “For the first decade and a half we all felt the intense pressure of poverty. It almost broke us. My mother cleaned houses and my father worked in a supermarket. It was a miracle that they made ends meet, but too often it was an incredible struggle that placed them under an immense amount of stress.”
Diego’s sincerity and passionate dedication to his healing journey remind me of my father, Mendek Rubin. Just like my father, Diego is focused on how the mind works and the power our conditioning and habitual patterns have over us. They also share an unshakable commitment to breaking free, and to cultivating deep self-love and self-acceptance.
Speaking with Diego face-to-face over Zoom was a lovely experience. His energy was notably solid, grounded, and calm, and I learned a lot from him. I hope you enjoy the article below, which focuses on the topic of emotional maturity. In two weeks, I’ll be sharing a second article about transforming our relationship to change.
Myra’s article in Spirituality & Health magazine
Finding Wisdom Within
Diego Perez—the person behind the astonishingly popular pen name “yung pueblo”—is only 34, but his eloquent insights, shared in bite-sized portions on Instagram, are helping millions grow in maturity and wisdom. “Avoidance is the opposite of emotional maturity,” writes Perez in his newest book, Lighter, who finally stopped running from his sadness and anxiety after driving himself to the edge through excessive drug use.
Perez hit rock bottom at 23. While lying immobile on the floor, convinced his heart would soon explode, Perez looked back at his life with profound regret. He vowed that if he lived, he would never again turn to drugs, alcohol, or excessive partying to distract himself from his truth or his pain. “Lying to myself about how I was feeling had caused disaster, so I refused to do it any longer,” Perez told me. “I felt as if I had no other option. It was either that or my life.”
That was in 2011, before Perez even knew what meditation was. “Running away from myself had led me to the worst point in my life, so I intuitively understood that I needed to figure out how to stay present with all my feelings.” For a whole year, Perez simply practiced getting comfortable with his discomfort. “I would literally sit on my bed for hours, just feeling what it felt like to crave, to feel anxiety, to feel sadness, whatever was popping up.” He quickly discovered that trying to escape from himself “took up so much more energy than mustering the courage to embrace solitude and stillness.”
In 2012, after having only formally meditated for one half hour, Perez attended his first 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. Fortunately, the countless hours he’d spent sitting on his bed had helped him lay a foundation of resiliency and fortitude. “At a meditation retreat, you’re basically just sitting with all the discomfort at a much deeper level.”
Perez, who says that he hasn’t been meditating long compared to some meditators he knows—“only ten years”—meditates for a full hour every morning and every evening. He also regularly attends 30 and 45-day meditation retreats. Perez credits his meditation practice with increased equanimity and patience as he experiences his emotions arise and pass away. “I’ve learned to honor my feelings without causing more friction in myself or throwing them onto other people, which is a big part of emotional maturity.”
Perez says the opportunity for healing is always open to anyone who seeks it. He doesn’t see meditation as the only path to personal growth, but for him it has proved miraculous. “Turning inward by practicing meditation felt like an intimate and personal renaissance. I started learning so much about myself and the human mind. Closing my eyes to feel what was really inside me opened me up to an entire universe,” Perez writes in Lighter. “Not only did I gain insight into my personal emotional history, but I also started feeling the undercurrent of impermanence that is pervasive throughout all of reality.”
Perez says Lighter is the book he’s been waiting to write since he started on his healing journey. Nonetheless, he considers himself more as a “spiritual friend” than “spiritual teacher.” His goal is to help others stay motivated on their own unique healing journey by offering inspiration, encouragement, and reassurance along the way.
An Ongoing Process of Maturation
Emotional maturation is one of the major themes in Lighter. In fact, the name “yung pueblo” means “young people,” reflecting Perez’s observation that humanity is still young, and has much growing and maturing still to do. As we collectively heal ourselves, “our actions will become more intentional, our decisions will become more compassionate, our thinking will become clearer, and the future of the world will become brighter.”
We usually think of learning as a key part of maturing, but Perez shares that maturing is just as much a process of unlearning, because we all have a lot of “deconditioning” work to do. “From the moment we’re born, we arrive with very thick conditioning, and it is accumulating constantly,” Perez explained. “When I think about meditation, basically what I’m doing is ‘deconditioning.’ Sitting with all the tough emotions that are passing through feels like a process of shedding. It’s as if I’m letting go of all that heaviness that keeps getting pulled from the past into the present.”
