Since forever, I remember myself as a child filled with anxiety; afraid of loss, afraid of sickness, I grew up as a girl that didn’t really like herself, to say the least.  I didn’t like my face, my hair, my body and it didn’t really matter that everyone I met told me, “you are really really beautiful”.  Those were just words as far as I was concerned, in my own personal experience, I felt ugly and not worthy.  You could say I rejected myself with a lot a lot of “love”; with the years, I grew up and with them grew my anxieties, my confusion, and the self-hatred. I found myself attracting into my life the wrong guy over and over; I found myself in destructive relationships which included completely negating myself. 

I constantly found myself in jobs that do not represent my abilities or appreciate my knowledge.  I knew how to surround myself with a lot of friends and lots of noise just to deal with my shit.  I suffered unbearable moods but especially a lack of peace of mind.  I was always stressed with constant stubborn and bothersome thoughts going through my mind.  My heartbeat was usually at the pace of a record-breaking marathon runner and I just didn’t know my place in this world.  I had low self-esteem but could present myself as the most confidant person in the room.  I tricked them all but mostly I tricked myself.  My relationship with my father was one in which I was always angry, always blaming, and where I always felt rejected by him, of course that heavily influenced my relationship with my dearest mom and tainted the atmosphere in the home, I was always angry, always blaming others but usually I didn’t know why.  My parents always wanted the best for me, always invested in me, and always gave me everything I ever wanted and more.  The turning point came when my boyfriend of three and half years decided to wake up one morning and break my heart.  I crashed, I went into depression, the anxieties went wild, the self-hatred grew, the rejection grew and basically everything I didn’t want in my life was happening in my life.  It got real bad, I felt like the most confused girl on the planet.  My mom sent me to a psychologist and suffice it to say that the attempt didn’t take because I didn’t trust her and didn’t feel she had the answers I was looking for.  Next, I went to another psychologist and I promised myself I would give him a chance…In one of the sessions, the illustrious Dr. said to me, “look I’m 50 today and I also don’t really get along with my mother, there’s nothing you can do about it”…I took my purse and said to him, “OK I’m going to go find someone who can actually help me solve the problems in my life, you are more than welcome to join me; it wouldn’t hurt”.

 

I started researching about and searching for therapy methods.  I said to myself, “come what may, I’m not taking any pills or drugs.  I couldn’t see my life dependent on a pill”.  I read about countless methods and therapists, and I searched and I couldn’t stop searching for an answer to what is happening to me.  I remember one day I sat in front of the mirror in my room, I looked deep deep into my eyes and I accepted a decision a long time coming, that I would deal with and accept everything about myself even the things I don’t really want to see.  I took a while, but the say when the student is ready the teacher will arrive.  Carmen entered my life, I can tell you that one of the things I felt about her from the start was, “wow finally I am meeting the right ears to hear my story.”  Two years on this path, Carmen knew how to take me to places I really didn’t want to go, but where the real work takes place.  We went back to my childhood, where I discovered things I hadn’t previously known; things that had a direct impact on my life now and the path I was on.  I discovered things that were the source of my anger and resentment towards my parents, and the constant tense atmosphere with them.  I can say that one of the things that kept me there in therapy within the walls of her cozy clinic was that already in the third session I felt a real change and that is what I truly wanted, change not bullshit not slogans and not being pitied I wanted real change I wanted to deal with it I wanted to start breathing again.

 

We started, Carmen and I, to dismantle my personality into pieces.  If my life was a puzzle then Carmen knew how to take it apart piece by piece and with time and the right tools I saw myself as a thousand pieces, I saw my whole life experience laid out before me on the carpet and I saw all of who and what I am right in front of my face.  This whole puzzle of a thousand pieces that painted a picture of “everything’s fine” in front of the world and society, Carmen knew how to take it apart but more than that she knew how to put it back together.  She knew from the start to tell me “you can change anything and everything” and I for the first time believed it.  We worked with a number of incredible tools and I always went home with homework.  We worked with a tool for cleansing memories (regressions), we worked with another incredible tool that Carmen developed herself over the years called “Black Screen™” which is a tool that allows your brain an opportunity to cleanse itself of childhood experiences that we as adults are not ready to deal with, which basically helped me do just that and get rid of some of the baggage I was carrying around with me since childhood.  We worked on imprinting positive information into my system and cleansing negative information. We worked with an amazing tool that gave me detailed lists that helped me understand who I am, what I am, and what I am capable of; I even learned what my Achilles heel is and I could have opened up a shoe store with my issues.  I learned how to use the logical/objective/cognitive side of my brain and give less room for my patterns which had controlled my perception most of my life.  I learned through my dreams what is actually going on in my life (another great tool of Carmen’s), I learned to meditate, to breathe, and I learned to stand up for what I want.  There were ups and down but not like there used to be and know I had the tools at my disposal to better deal with those ups and downs.

Carmen taught me that the day will come when I will be my own guru and direct my life on my own and not put it in the hands of another, which I think is wonderful.  With time I saw that I was creating the change I wanted in my own life and the change was active in all levels of my life; a new job in an industry I love, money in the bank and true friends surrounding me with real love and support and not as a source of protection from myself. By the way, I also learned to kick people out of my life that were no good for me and replaced them with people who are supportive.  The change took the shape of looking at myself in the mirror and liking what I see.  But one of the best things about this process was that I stopped blaming everyone and I took responsibility for my life which helped with the most important relationships in my life.  I am proud to say I have slowly developed amazing relationships with my father, my mother, my siblings, and most importantly with myself which was not easy as my brain mostly understood self-loathing and rejection and was cynical about loving myself and believing in myself.  But I refused to give in to those habits and I discovered compassion for myself, I learned to love my body, my hair, my smile and today when someone tells me, “wow you’re beautiful” I smile and say, “thanks” but more than that I feel it and believe it.  I learned to love anew and that, of course, had an influence on the guys in my life and my relationships (including fixing my broken relationship with my dad) and I saw that it was only getting better and understood it all for what it was, an amazing evolution.  The guys I pull to me today are a different species than what was, I learned to communicate and know what I want and what makes me happy, I learned to make my voice heard and I stopped comparing myself to others all the time because I understood that is not the way.  My anxieties no longer got the focus that moved to meditation and breathing, my focus moved to objective thinking. 

The process that I went through was and continues to be amazing, it required from me courage to say goodbye to the woman I was (goodbyes were never easy for me) but the feeling of rediscovering yourself anew and saying to yourself “OK ever since you remember yourself others have molded your personality, but from today I choose to mold my own personality and I intend to do the best way possible”.

Carmen, I have always said and I will continue to say that you’re a treasure to humanity, your intervention in my life saved me.  I will always appreciate the privilege I received in meeting a teacher, guide, moral compass, and friend like you.

Thank you for never giving up on me.