Posted on 18 December 2011 by Rev. Sonia Echezuria
Me gustaría echarte un cuento.
Desde ya hace más de 10 años me he dedicado a conocerme más y más. Paradójicamente, para lograrlo necesité encontrarme con “los otros” primero. A mí me tomó “escucharme” a través de las experiencias que “los otros” me contaron sobre sí mismos para entrar en contacto conmigo y conocerme más. Al escucharles me decía, “sé de qué me hablas, he estado allí”, o “no puedo más que imaginar lo que debes sentir porque me quedan grandes tus zapatos pero recuerdo cuando… y fue doloroso” o grandioso o delirante, en fin. Continue Reading
Posted on 28 September 2011 by Rev. Sonia Echezuria
Here we all are, delighted in an Interfaith virtual gathering. Supporting each other in remembering that we embody God, the One, the Only. This virtual space is full of God! We do have different faces and respond to different names but each of us embodies a piece of the one sky that enfolds us all, a ray of light of the one sun that warms us all, a spark of the divinity that gives meaning to our human adventure. May we always remember who we are, what we are and why we are here. Rejoicing in gratitude, we get to say thank you God and we let love and peace rule in our hearts and minds now and always.
“I am a fortunate homosexual man”, declaró Ricky Martin el 29 de marzo de 2010. Al salir del closet de esta forma tan monumental, Ricky Martin se convirtió en un ícono sin precedentes para los latinos LGBTQ de Estados Unidos. Sin querer y sin poder evitarlo, esta confesión pública marcó un antes y un después en la historia contemporánea de la comunidad LGBTQ.
Yo salí del closet 8 años ARM (antes de Ricky Martin). Para ese entonces, yo estaba casada con un hombre extraordinario con quien había compartido 13 años de mi vida. Salir del closet me tomó 6 años. Todo comenzó con un sueño. En el sueño, yo cargaba en mis brazos a una compañera de trabajo, la posaba sobre una cama y la besaba tiernamente en los labios. Recuerdo que al despertar, lo primero que hice fue contarle el sueño a mi esposo. Ambos reímos a carcajadas. Él me comentó “la verdad es que esa compañera de trabajo tuya es tan bella que no te culpo para nada.” Así termino ese primer episodio.
Pero siguieron otros. Poco frecuentes al principio. Bastante seguidos posteriormente. Comencé a sentirme angustiada. Yo amaba a mi esposo y lastimarlo, definitivamente, no estaba entre mis planes. Sin embargo, crecía dentro de mí el deseo imperante de amar a una mujer.
Me enterré de cabeza en una terapia psicológica. Le dije a mi terapeuta: “¡quítame esto, por favor!, ¿será que si tengo un hijo se me pasa esta locura? ¿Qué puedo hacer?” Mi terapeuta me diagnosticó homosexual anxiety syndrome y me dijo algo tan simpático como que si lográbamos mantener la ansiedad al nivel de la mente para que no descendiera a mi cuerpo y a mi zona genital, quizás yo podría sobreponerme a este síndrome… ¡Qué te cuento! Ese día salí de su consultorio completamente abatida y segura de que ya era demasiado tarde. Este “síndrome” se había apoderado de mi.
Para hacer de un larga historia un breve cuento, yo le pedí a mi esposo que nos separáramos. Compartí con él toda mi verdad. Le dije que lo amaba profundamente pero que yo no podía ser plenamente yo dentro de nuestra relación, que aspectos inexplorados de mi personalidad estaban aflorando y que yo no podría ser feliz si no me aceptaba y amaba incondicionalmente, validándome plenamente, incluyendo a mi “ansiedad homosexual”.
Dolor. Encuentros. Lagrimas. Desencuentros. Silencios. Rabietas. Sonrisas. Peleas. Un día mi compañero de toda una vida me preguntó: “¿cómo fue que dejaste de amarme?” Recuerdo que le respondí: “¡yo jamás te dejé de amar! Si DIOS me hubiese dado la posibilidad de elegir entre separarme de ti o morir, yo hubiese escogido la muerte.” Ambos lloramos abrazados. A partir de allí, él volvió a mí de una forma distinta y nuestro matrimonio evolucionó hacia la más deliciosa de todas las amistades.
Un mes después de separarme de mi esposo, él también salio del closet… ¡Aja! ¡Te agarre! Como ves la cosa pica y se extiende! =) Para ese momento, yo ya había conocido a la primera mujer que besó mis labios y que me enamoró al primer intento. Ella y yo estamos juntas hoy, 9 años después de nuestro primer beso. Y, entre tú y yo, somos profundamente dichosas la mayor parte del tiempo.
Adaptarme a mi condición de mujer homosexual después de ser una chica hetero tuvo sus retos. Primero, percibir las reacciones de la gente cuando yo tomaba a mi amor de la mano o le daba un beso en los labios fue entre simpático y obstinante. Honestamente, mi corazón no notaba diferencia entre amar a un hombre o amar a una mujer. Era como que mi nuevo amor se vestía distinto. Había venido con un trajecito de mujer esta vez. Tan simple como eso. Sin embargo, era evidente que en algunos lugares los gestos de afecto romántico entre dos damas causaban más impacto del necesario. Así es que aprendí a hacer un estudio socio-demográfico antes de tomar a mi nena de la mano. Segundo, salir del closet ante mis familiares, amigos, compañeros de trabajo y demás conocidos se tornó en una faena laboriosa. Antes de encontrarme con cada uno de ellos, yo ensayaba, escribía lo que iba a decir, practicaba los chistes que iba a usar, en fin, todo un performance del Circ Du Soleil. Fue muy agotador emocionalmente. Tercero, necesité transitar a través del luto que generó en mí dejar atrás mi vida heterosexual. La verdad es que después de cruzar la línea entre la heterosexualidad y la homosexualidad fue que me di cuenta de que a partir de ese momento empezaba a formar parte de una minoría y que ya no estaba dentro de “la norma”. Por ejemplo, generalmente, en las reuniones a las que asisto, mi compañera y yo somos la única pareja de lesbianas porque la mayoría de nuestros amigos son heterosexuales. También note mucho la ausencia de temáticas y protagonistas LGBTQ en películas, canciones, TV, teatro, literatura, etc. ¡Recuerda que esto sucedió hace 10 años! Todavía no había Queer as Folk, The L Word, Rent, Logo o Here TV. Cuarto, desde mi recién adquirida perspectiva de mujer lesbiana, me dolió mucho recordar que para algunas religiones la homosexualidad es considerada un pecado. Salir del closet es una de las experiencias más bellas que he vivido. Abrazarme plenamente, reconocerme y apreciarme sin condiciones y sin censuras ha sido uno de los gestos más amorosos que me he brindado a mí misma.
Pero todos estos retos gestaron nuevas oportunidades: en el 2006 yo comencé mis estudios de teología; en el 2010 fui ordenada como Ministra de Interfe y este año terminé mi Maestría en Divinidad. Ahora yo soy parte del clero y dedico mi vida a recordarnos que DIOS nos ama incondicionalmente, independientemente de nuestro género, color, etnia, fe u orientación sexual. Además, en el 2007, junto a mi amada compañera, mi adorado hermano menor y un amigo entrañable lanzamos la marca Between Angels y el eslogan Love is Always Right / “El Amor Siempre Tiene la Razón”. Desde entonces, miles de personas alrededor del mundo desfilan en las marchas del orgullo gay vistiendo el eslogan Love is Always Right / “El Amor Siempre Tiene la Razón”. Ha sido muy emotivo ver como familiares, amigos y compañeros de personas LGBTQ también han apoyado el lanzamiento y la distribución de Love is Always Right.
Te guardé una perlita para el final. Yo soy melliza y mi mellizo también es gay. Cuando yo todavía no había salido del closet, el solía decirme, “hermanita, yo soy tan gay que tu tienes que ser gay”. ¡Dime tu! ¿Me conocía o no me conocía mi morochito? Por cierto, él es uno de los hombres más maravillosos que he conocido en mi vida. Un hombre de familia, noble de corazón y muy amoroso. Sí, estoy describiendo a un hombre gay.
Así es que bien ha valido la pena vivir. A pesar de las dificultades, el amor ha prevalecido: el amor a mi misma, a mi compañera, a mi ex-esposo, a mi familia, a mis amigos, a mis compañeros y a conocidos y desconocidos que han hecho de mi travesía toda una aventura. Como escritora, como motivadora, como ministra, como life coach, como familiar y como amiga sigo a la orden para apoyar a quienes necesiten recordar cuan magníficos son. Confieso que he amado y que he sido amada. Sé por experiencia que el amor puro, incondicional, verdadero, siempre tiene la razón. I am a fortunate homosexual woman.
Ricky Martin, a ti, a nuestra colorida comunidad y a nuestros familiares y amigos, ¡dulces bendiciones!
Neale Donald Walsch shared his wisdom with the attendees of the 2011 Celebrate Your Life Conference that took place in Lombard, Illinois, from June 10th to the 13th.
In his latest book When Everything Changes, Change Everything, Neale reminds us that today changes are happening at an extraordinary rate. During his sessions at the Celebrate Your Life Conference, he invited us to take a quick look at the history of the last 125 years to realize this truth.
Fact: everything is going to change all the time, period. What role should we play in these changing times? And what do the roles we choose to play have to do with our spiritual evolution?
Neale reflected about the fact that most of the times we think that the events of our life are creating our reality. False. The events of our life have little to nothing to do with our reality. We are responsible for creating the interior reality out of the experience that we are having of whatever event. All the events are designed to open us to the truth of who we are. They are the stimulus of the experience we are having.
What creates our experience, then? According to Neale, it is created by the emotions we attach to the event. This is what produces our personal experience. Our emotions are something we can choose. What a liberating reality is to know that we can choose our emotions! We can watch the feeling come up and, literally, ask ourselves ‘is this the emotion I want to choose? Is this what I want to feel, the emotional state I want to feed?’
But… what produces the emotion? Listening to Neale, it became obvious that our thoughts about the event produce our emotions. Our thoughts are critical when it comes to how and what we feel. And what produces our thoughts? The truth that we hold with regards to the event, that which we choose to embrace as our own personal truth. Now, where does that truth come from? From our data -judged past data and factual past data. All the information we have gathered, categorized and storage in a lifetime.
That’s how Neale described the Dynamics of the Mind, where an event triggers a process that involves:
1 An event,
2 Data research and processing,
3 Categorization and labeling of data according to what we hold as our personal truth,
4 Thought formulation,
5 And the rising of emotions that determine
6 The way we experience
7 Our reality.
What’s the way out of this chain of reactions based out of past programming and conditioning? How can we choose to be more than just reacting, organic robots? During his session, Neale proposed to temporarily remove the “event” variable out of this equation and replace it with the variable “being.”
Being is it!
We cannot control the events of our lives because they are co-created by all of us in conjunction, they are our collective co-creation. BUT we can control who we are BEING. We can choose to be who we want to be. We can even choose to embrace a very high state of being: our BEING DIVINE.
Ultimate reality becomes real to us when we see it through the eyes of the soul, the perspective of the soul. Then, we change our perception of life. Perception creates beliefs. Belief produces behavior. Behavior produces experience. Through soul perspective, or the Dynamics of the Soul as Neale defines this process, we get to act instead of react. We become more than the summary and processing of our past. We become conscious co-creators and we act consciously. Our personal reality moves from distorted through observed to actual.
Imagine truth. Apparent truth. Actual truth. Distorted Reality. Observed Reality. Ultimate Reality. Who do I choose to be? Is joy a priority for me? How important is it?
Because we are soul beings having a human experience, we need to use our minds and souls to become whole. If so we choose, we get to embrace and acknowledge our sacredness and humanness, our greatest treasures, our sweetest blessings, the communion that made “us” possible and probable. How delightfully beautiful we are!
May God know itself through and as us now. May we rejoice in this process.
I am here. I am alive. I am. What am I? I don’t know.
I don’t care. I simply know I am.
-Don Miguel Ruiz
During the 2011 Celebrate Your Life Conference that took place in Lombard, Illinois, between The 10th and the 13th of June, I had an opportunity to meet Don Miguel Ruiz and his son Don Jose Ruiz and to attend the two sessions they preceded.
The 5th Annual “Celebrate Your Life” conference, which featured the country’s top bestselling authors and speakers, was held in Lombard, Illinois from June 10 to June 13, 2011. Without a doubt, this event inspired, motivated and reminded its attendees to live a life filled with gratitude and purpose! Bestselling authors Marianne Williamson, Iyanla Vanzant, Doreen Virtue, Don Miguel Ruiz, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Gregg Braden, Neale Donald Walsch, Gary Zukav and many more co-created a powerful, life-changing event. Attendees got a chance to meet their favorite authors in person, attended motivating and inspiring workshops, shopped from unique vendors, made friends from all over the world and took time for themselves!
Iyanla Vanzant, author of One Day My Soul Just Opened Up, In The Meantime: Finding Yourself And The Love You Want and Peace From Broken Pieces, one of the keynote speakers of the event, opened up her share with a beautiful song that sings “my life is not my own. I belong to you. I give myself away.” She asked us to hold hands and, while we were doing so, to remember that we were holding the hands of angels and angels were holding our hands. Powerful and profound introduction to her session!
Vanzant reminded us to “give stuff away, from a thought to matter.” Yet, to keep in mind that to give the gift of myself to the world “I need to make sure my cup is full. Then, give from the overflow. In order to heal, I needed to give away my stories, my dysfunction, my pain and limitations, my attachment to suffering,” Iyanla said.
The writer also supported her audience in remembering that all of us “have the right, the reason and the responsibility to use our voices.” God gave us our voices for a reason. When things simply don’t feel right, when abuse or injustice show up, we need to be the change we want to see around us. Sometimes, she said, “You are the teacher, even being a broken self. Speak up! And say it however it comes, fix it later.”
Sometimes -Iyanla reflected during her session- the most loving thing we can say under certain circumstances is NO. So, let us exercise our “NO” muscle!
She shared with us that she needed adult supervision to grow and heal. She needed to embrace her Higher Self, her own inner Divinity. “After all, if I cannot win an argument in my own mind, I’m lost. That’s why we need to identify our crazy, those aspects of ourselves originated by fear. And let our Higher Self be in charge, be the king and queen of our personal kingdom.”
She challenged us to ask ourselves what can we celebrate in the midst of whatever we are growing through? Look for the strawberry, for pure honey in the midst of the honeycomb.
“You got to tell your truth. The healing is in the share. Sharing with the intention to heal. Give yourself permission to be fabulous. And let God be God! I found the courage to surrender. I didn’t turn things around or heal myself. I gave myself away,” Vanzant shared.
Lastly, Iyanla reminded us that when it comes to dealing with people and their paths, we need to remember that their lives are not of our business. Whatever their souls choose is between God and them!” We cannot take their path and their healing opportunities away from them. We just need to remember that a Glorious God lives in everyone’s heart at all times and that nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.
Iyanla, thanks for everything! To you, Two Wings Up!!!
Think about this… We assumed with relative naturalness that coming from different geographic backgrounds and cultures we all developed different languages. Nevertheless, in the religious field, many have chosen to believe that their way of worshiping God is the right and only valid way for all humanity. Continue Reading
Combining my experience in the world of moving images and my need to share spiritual tools that can make our lives a worthy adventure, I conceived What 1 Can Do Social Media Campaign. Sometimes we tent to forget the power of one. Personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Maria Callas, Albert Einstein, Valentina Tereshkova, John Lennon, Marie Curie or Rudolf Nureyev remind us that we are not only magnificent but that we have the right and the duty to be radically ourselves. It is in choosing to act from our power within, in embracing our uniqueness and profound beauty that we get to give the best of us to the world. But what are we going to do with all that we are? Because we are beating, thinking, feeling, walking, creative love -that’s what we are, the embodiment of love, love dressed in flesh-, we get to call forth life. But we are also free and we get to choose what to do with our fantastic powers. We have free will to choose between supporting love and life or neglecting them. Every here and now, we get choose between an act of love or hatred. What would you choose?
What 1 Can Do is a campaign that offer us the opportunity to remember that who we are and what we do matter. We are worthy and we can make a difference in each other’s lives and in the world, one thought, feeling, and action at a time. If we choose to care for others and ourselves our personal decisions and actions could impact our lives in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine. That’s how some of the greatest names you can remember changed the world for the better and are still alive in our memories and hearts. Let us help each other remember that we are capable of doing what the great men and women of history have done: become a caring and beneficial presence in today’s world.
What 1 Call Can Do reminds us to make that phone call, period. Sometimes, we feel it is important for us to make a phone call that we have been procrastinating for whatever reason and we simply don’t do it. We convince ourselves that there is something more important than celebrating a friend’s birthday, a child’s birth or call the authorities to report domestic violence or child abuse. If it feels important to make that phone call, it is important! Let us make it! Let us trust our intuition and remember that we can make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others by making the call we may be procrastinating. Let us never underestimate What 1 Call Can Do!
The What 1 Can Do teachings are very simple, as simple as the greatest revelations we realize throughout our lives. The What 1 Can Do campaign does not teach us anything; it reminds us what we already know intuitively, that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for! The Gandhis, the Mothers Teresas, the Martin Luther King Jrs., the Tereshkovas, the Einsteins, the Jesuses, the Buddhas. If we want to experience a beautiful, peaceful, loving, caring, just world, we need to cultivate these values in ourselves first. By using our own gifts, talents, abilities and resources we can make a difference in our world. We get to choose who we are, what we are and what we do. And if things don’t go as planned, we can always choose again and choose differently! Let us never underestimate What 1 Can Do!
Combining my experience in the world of moving images and my need to share spiritual tools that can make our lives a worthy adventure, I conceived Tapping Into Kindness, a series of 5 spots that help us remember that, when facing challenging situations, we always have the option of breathing, validating our feelings and choosing a kinder response to share with the world. These on-line doses of kindness are posted on YouTube and you can access them by searching “Tapping Into Kindness” in Google or YouTube. Continue Reading
“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are.”
–Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements.
An Opportunity to meet your favorite spiritual, motivational and inspirational authors over a weekend!
From June 11th to the 13th, 2011, in Chicago Illinois, a group of angels would be offering a huge variety of workshop topics to select from, unique and beautiful vendors, opportunities to make new connections and friends from all over the world, motivating, inspiring and life-changing workshops and a great time for fellowship and fun.
Speakers such as Marianne Williamson, Iyanla Vanzant, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Neale Donald Walsch, Don Miguel Ruiz & Don Jose Ruiz and Gary Zukav, among other great souls, will be opening their hearts and sharing with all their greatest spiritual, inspirational and motivational treasures.
Let us remember together one of the most beautiful paragraphs that I have ever read in a book: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Its author, Marianne Williamson, will be one of the keynote speakers of the night.
The event is produced by Mishka Productions and it is an extraordinary opportunity to spend a weekend surrounded by people who care and love. If you are feeling down or lost, consider attending the Celebrate Your Life Conference. It may be an opportunity to turn your life around and up!
“Every decision you make—every decision—is not a decision about what to do. It’s a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do.”
Pero todos estos retos gestaron nuevas oportunidades: en el 2006 yo comencé mis estudios de teología; en el 2010 fui ordenada como Ministra de Interfe y este año terminé mi Maestría en Divinidad. Ahora yo soy parte del clero y dedico mi vida a recordarnos que DIOS nos ama incondicionalmente, independientemente de nuestro género, color, etnia, fe u orientación sexual. Además, en el 2007, junto a mi amada compañera, mi adorado hermano menor y un amigo entrañable lanzamos la marca Between Angels y el eslogan Love is Always Right / “El Amor Siempre Tiene la Razón”. Desde entonces, miles de personas alrededor del mundo desfilan en las marchas del orgullo gay vistiendo el eslogan Love is Always Right / “El Amor Siempre Tiene la Razón”. Ha sido muy emotivo ver como familiares, amigos y compañeros de personas LGBTQ también han apoyado el lanzamiento y la distribución de Love is Always Right.
Neale Donald Walsch shared his wisdom with the attendees of the 2011 Celebrate Your Life Conference that took place in Lombard, Illinois, from June 10th to the 13th.
Think about this… We assumed with relative naturalness that coming from different geographic backgrounds and cultures we all developed different languages. Nevertheless, in the religious field, many have chosen to believe that their way of worshiping God is the right and only valid way for all humanity.
The What 1 Can Do teachings are very simple, as simple as the greatest revelations we realize throughout our lives. The What 1 Can Do campaign does not teach us anything; it reminds us what we already know intuitively, that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for! The Gandhis, the Mothers Teresas, the Martin Luther King Jrs., the Tereshkovas, the Einsteins, the Jesuses, the Buddhas. If we want to experience a beautiful, peaceful, loving, caring, just world, we need to cultivate these values in ourselves first. By using our own gifts, talents, abilities and resources we can make a difference in our world. We get to choose who we are, what we are and what we do. And if things don’t go as planned, we can always choose again and choose differently! Let us never underestimate What 1 Can Do!
Let us remember together one of the most beautiful paragraphs that I have ever read in a book: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Its author, Marianne Williamson, will be one of the keynote speakers of the night.
