One Breath, One Step: Lilian Alfaro Cavlan on Guiding Our Students and Ourselves

Publishers Note

Cafecito with SVL is Silicon Valley Latino's conversation series, coffee-style interviews with the Latino voices shaping our comunidad. In Episode 4, SVL CEO Alex Ontiveros sits down with Lilian Alfaro Cavlan, author of "Prevail: A Roadmap to Navigate the School System for a Hopeful Future," a licensed marriage and family therapist, the owner and clinical director of Mindful Practices, Inc., a member of the Latino Leadership Alliance, and a board member of the San Jose State Latino Alumni Network, to talk about guiding students and parents, the power of mindfulness, and building something that outlasts us.

Lilian Alfaro Cavlan was working at a high school when a conversation stopped her.

Some of the students she was talking with did not know the benefits of finishing high school. "I was shocked," she said. "I thought that was a thing back then." They had little information about their options for college. They did not know what to expect from life after graduation, or what joining the workforce would be like.

These were students from vulnerable communities, and they were hungry for knowledge. What they were missing was a map.

So Lilian decided to draw one.

That is where our Cafecito conversation with her begins. It is also where it keeps returning: to the belief that our students, our parents, and all of us can prevail when somebody puts the roadmap in our hands.

A Guide You Can Read Over a Cafecito

Her first book, recently published, is called "Prevail: A Roadmap to Navigate the School System for a Hopeful Future." She describes it as a short, simple guide with helpful tips for students who want to succeed. Part of it gives parents the tools to navigate school services. Part of it walks through the stages of life, so families can prepare for what comes next.

She kept it short on purpose. "I initially wrote it for when you have a cafecito, you could just start drinking your coffee while you read the book as well," she said. "It's a couple of hours. It's not too long."

Alex saw exactly why that matters. "You made it digestible," he told her. "It's not like a 500, 600-page book." Our communities, he said, are under-resourced and sometimes unaware of the processes that are out there. "Sometimes we don't know what we don't know." A guide that lays out the route from where you are to where you want to be is what we need.

The book is on Amazon now, with a digital format. Lilian hopes to get it into bookstores through Ingram eventually. Alex made a promise on the recording that we intend to keep: SVL will help promote it, so our comunidad knows where to find it. "We need to support our authors too."

The Risk of Sharing Her Own Story

Lilian did something else in those pages. She shared her own story of being a first-generation Latina student.

"It was a little vulnerable," she said, "but I wanted to do that as a way to instill hope."

Alex's response is worth repeating to anyone sitting on an idea they are not sure anyone needs. Plenty of people are authors, he said. "But the thing is, it's just taking the first step and believing that you have something that you feel will be helpful, a positive contribution to our community."

The Coach Who Got Down on One Knee

The book has a surprising origin story, and it involves football.

Last year, Lilian was invested in mental performance in sports. She sponsored a couple of teenagers involved in athletics to attend a youth flag football camp with 49ers linebacker Fred Warner. They got to meet him and train like they were training for football. She met Christian McCaffrey too.

Then came a coincidence. She met a very tall man who turned out to be George Kittle's dad, known to everyone as Coach Kittle. She did not know who he was. She was simply telling him how much she wanted to get involved and support athletes.

"He literally got down on one knee because he wanted to get to, like, my level," she said, laughing. Lilian is short, he is not. He gave her advice, and afterward he followed up with an email and a list of books. One of those books helped her tap into the creativity she needed to write her own.

"It all kinda came full circle," she said. Alex, a big 49ers fan and an even bigger Fred Warner fan, sent a shout-out to Coach Kittle for inspiring it all.

Mindfulness Is a Fancy Way to Be Focused

Lilian is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the owner and clinical director of Mindful Practices, and her practice is growing. She is also part of a project with the School of Education and the Counseling Psychology Department at Santa Clara University. The video will show how the work of Mindful Practices lines up with Jesuit teachings: serving others, lifting up those who need it, and welcoming every community. Even in private practice, she told us, she offers low fees and affordable options so everyone can reach quality services.

Alex asked her the question many of us have wondered about. We have heard the word mindfulness. What is it, really?

She learned about it in grad school and has practiced it for about 15 years. Her definition is the kind of thing we wish someone had said to us sooner. "Mindfulness is a fancy way to be focused." The practice is about regulating what we pay attention to, and regulating our emotions. The best way in is the one tool we always have with us. "Just pay attention to your breath," she said. "If we can regulate our breath, then we can regulate our attention and our emotions."

She teaches it through mindful eating, mindful movement, and formal meditation. Her favorite exercise is called one breath, one step. You take one step for every breath. At first it feels painfully slow. The point is to become aware of what is going on around us and within us. "You should try it," she told Alex.

He is going to. Alex is an endurance athlete who finished an Ironman in 2005. He started the race at 7:00 in the morning and crossed the finish line at 9:28 at night. "As long as you control your pace and your breath," he said, "you could get through anything." Our comunidad already carries resilience and perseverance. These techniques, he said, help us regulate our thoughts and emotions on top of that.

Lilian put the shift this way: moving from reactive to non-reactive. "It gives us the power to choose how we wanna respond and be strategic of what response would be the best for us, at work, in our relationships, in sports." It is the state athletes call being in the pocket. "It's a constant practice of returning."

She works with individuals and groups. She was recently invited to lead mindfulness training with the immigrant community across the United States, to build emotional tenacity "when just the situation outside of us is really chaotic." And she is working on how to support athletes.

Her bigger vision is one we hope comes true. She recently moved to Santa Cruz and has been looking at what services are needed. Someday she wants to lead mindfulness training in Spanish and hold meditation and mindful movement retreats on the beach, teaching the mind-body connection and the power of healing in nature.

Building Something That Outlasts Us

Alex and Lilian are both part of the Latino Leadership Alliance. She is cohort four. He is cohort five. The LLA, she said, built the foundation over a decade ago: education on the gaps within the Latino community, and a network of leaders in civic engagement, nonprofits, business, and education who partner to lift each other up.

Years later, she joined the board of the San Jose State Latino Alumni Network. She is a San Jose State alumna, and she had more time to volunteer. "I could just share what works for me and why not be able to help others?" She gives her time to career development, scholarships, networking, and any resource that helps students and alumni in the Spartan community.

Then came the part that made Alex proud. According to Lilian, the Latino Alumni Network is the first network at San Jose State, and the first in the university, to have an endowment. That means scholarships that can keep growing on their own, for future generations of students. At this year's Legacy Dinner, she said, the network met its goal. "We made a lot of people happy at the university." A dinner with the university's president is next.

What is next for Lilian herself? She has been invited to be a panelist at San Jose State's School of Social Sciences career summit in the coming academic year, her first there. She has long been involved at Santa Clara University, and now she is growing her ties at San Jose State too.

Prevail

Alex closed the conversation the way we hope every Cafecito ends: with an invitation back. "Always learning, always growing," Lilian said.

So here is what we are asking of you.

If you know a student starting high school, a parent trying to find their way through the system, or a young person who does not know what they do not know, put Lilian's roadmap in their hands. Support our authors, because every book from our comunidad is a map someone else gets to follow. And try one breath, one step. Slow down long enough to choose how you respond.

Our students deserve the map. Our parents deserve the tools. And we all deserve a moment to breathe before we decide who we become.

We prevail. One breath, one step.

Disclosure: Silicon Valley Latino and SVL Agency sponsor the San Jose State Latino Alumni Network's Legacy Dinner and have produced its video and photography two years in a row. Alex Ontiveros is also a personal donor.

This conversation is Episode 4 of Cafecito with SVL. Watch the full episode above, and subscribe to Silicon Valley Latino on YouTube so you never miss the next one.

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