Celebrate El Dia de Los Muertos (the day of the dead)

I grew up hearing about El dia de los Muertos and it's celebration. Because of my religious upbringing we didn't celebrate it like most people did. 

This is a Mexican tradition that starts the day after Halloween and ends November 2nd. Halloween makes death a matter to be afraid of. But the folk celebration of El Dia de Los Muertos makes death something to celebrate and not to be fearful of.  The celebration entails honoring our ancestors, and celebrate their life with happiness, at times inviting their souls to visit us.  

Today I will be celebrating El Dia de Los Muertos with a twist. I don't need to wait for a specific holiday to remember and honor the souls and life of my ancestors as I remember them every day,  and the impact they left in me is felt in the same manner. What I will celebrate today with joy is the passing of bad feelings, bad relationships, bad friends, bad jobs, old wounds, negativity, despair, hopelessness, betrayal, traumatic experiences, and all those feelings that accompanied them, because if we keep holding on to them they will hold us back like an anchor holds a boat at sea. Those feelings that contaminate our soul and spread to others like a wild fire. Yes, today I will celebrate their passing. I will not invite them back, but the imaginary altar that I will make is one that reflects the learning that resulted from experiencing those feelings, and the new feelings that emerged as a result, and they are peace, love, resilience, empathy, joy, patience, self-control, kindness, gentleness, strength, wisdom, etc. I will celebrate that the passing of those feelings wasn't in vain. I see the passing of my loved ones like a transformation, and the same way I see the passing of those feelings. They didn't only transformed themselves but transformed me into a different kind of being. 

Celebrate El Dia de Los Muertos your own way, and always remember that life is a constant dead and revival. 

Feliz Día de los Muertos! 

Happy Birthday Ms. Ortiz!

I was born on October 13, 1968, so today is my 45th birthday. This day has always been special to me. It is like my Christmas, and not because I get material gifts, but because I get the greatest gift of all...to live one more year, to celebrate life.

At my age I feel totally accomplished as a woman, a professional and a mother. I am in a good place, that place in which I made peace with myself. My whole life has been a metamorphosis, a constant process of evolution, but my biggest growth didn't start until I was 39 years old. When I realized I wasn't who I was supposed to be. I had been entrusted with a life and I wasn't being a great caretaker. I was given gifts that I kept to myself and didn't share. I was unhappy in most areas of my life and it showed. At that moment I made the decision to change, and boy I did. 

I let go of the past and welcome the future, decided to enjoy the present and the now, decided to embrace myself, even the qualities that I deemed unflattering and decided to own my actions and consequences of it. I stopped putting so much weight on other's opinions because at the end of day it was mine the one that really matter. I gained a new appreciation for my children, as they are my most precious gift, and a new perspective for life. As I get older I realized that life isn't so much about me, but about the imprint that I leave in the world I live in, and how that will impact the ones around me. It is all about the bigger picture, and I am a small but important part of it. 

I am stronger than I have ever been, and more selective with the people that I choose to be around. I surround myself with people that contribute to a richer life. I have great friends that make my life richer and challenge me every day to be a better person. I could have never asked for a better life, and I deserve it. I am at the top of my list and because my needs are satisfied I am a better mother, a better daughter, a better sister, and better human being. I don't need to live my life through others. I lost that sense of selfishness that is attached to the younger years and found joy in giving to others, without expecting anything back.

No birthday will be complete without a birthday wish and I have a few:

1. Peace for the world

2. Long, healthy and productive life for my children

3. Social equality

4. A partner that loves me for who I am, without trying to change me, and that loves my children like if they were his own.

Happy birthday to me!

1990                     2013

The story of a broken heart

I was recently talking to a friend, someone that I care for deeply and respect tremendously. With her permission and not revealing her identity I will share our last interaction. Her story affected me in a way that made me question my own relationships, especially the ones with men.

My friend has been in a four year relationship with a man that she loves deeply. She fell in love like in a fairy tale- "at first sight". She even said "his charm knocked me off my feet, and his sexual energy drove me to insanity". The relationship has been rocky due to complications that are outside of her control.  Despite the time spent together she has been unable to reach a level of intimacy that would have benefited the relationship by making it stronger. It seems like the relationship grew like a ground cover, spreading around but not developing strong, deep roots. She has felt insecure about this man, and he has not been able to understand her insecurity and the depth of it; nor has he helped her feel secure and safe. At times she doubted his love, but stayed, because "it may get better if I give it time".

Without analyzing my friend and because I work in mental health, I decided to explore, not with the idea of judging but with the curiosity of a detective trying to solve a case. She revealed to me that she feels unworthy of being loved by anyone. I was surprised by that statement. She had quite a few mishaps in her love life, that has kept her from getting marry. She mentioned that her father was never in her life, and she always felt guilty that he abandoned her because of something she did. "Perhaps I wasn't good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or didn't help enough..." For years she carried the fear that as her father left her, every man will do the same..."It was a matter of time". After a recent argument with her boyfriend, she heard the words that perhaps she expected but didn't want to hear and they were: "I gave up", meaning he gave up trying to work the relationship. She was heart broken, wanted to cry but couldn't. She felt validated, in the most negative of ways. She told me that she felt like her wings were broken, and she couldn't fly anymore. She answered using the same words, like she was a mirror reflecting the image she saw.

Negativity set in, and she felt she was strung like a pearl necklace...felt used,  unappreciated, inadequate, unloved, and vulnerable. That last one has always been her greatest fear. I understood why, because as I remember growing up vulnerability was the place to avoid, it was seen as a sign of weakness. After that incident, she went into her safe place, -isolation and emotional disconnect,- a place that has become too familiar. What's the problem with this? Just like chemo damages the good cells while killing the cancerous one, emotional disconnect not only disconnect from negativity but also from the good experiences and feelings.

I felt connected to her in many ways. I thought of my own fears about being vulnerable. I now know that vulnerability is unavoidable, and instead of a sign of weakness is the total opposite, its the courage to take risks. Vulnerability exposes us to life opportunities that will help us grow and learn life lessons, so it should be embrace. For someone to be fully vulnerable it has to be met by empathy, which is that deep understanding of the other person's feelings and struggles.  When empathy is out of the equation, shame will set in. The fear of shame is toxic and will not allow vulnerability to express itself, and that will stall our growth.

It is unbelievable the way that life experiences connect to each other like a chain link. Our experiences aren't not bigger than us...we are bigger than our circumstances. Like the links in a chain serve the same purpose, so our life experiences. Just like the artist that messes up their canvas correct its course by adding color, we should correct course when life gets messy. We may like our final product better than the original.

A day in the Life of a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner

My work days are always filled with stories. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner I considered myself a professional listener, a very good one indeed. During seven to eight hours I sit and listen to the stories that patients choose to tell me. I listen to each one like a treasure that I was entrusted to keep. I hear stories that cover the whole spectrum of emotions. Today was no different, but for some reason those seven work hours were filled with saddest of stories.

The day felt heavy. I  heard  the horrors that mankind is capable of. I even wonder, how are we capable of inflicting such pain to another human being? How can we show such disregard for someone else's life? I remember as a kid when my mother read the Bible she mentioned a passage that read:  "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,..."; and another one that said: "brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents..." I guess Someone was able to foresee that the Homo sapiens had some character flaws.

Today, I saw the pain, that pain that awakens in you a deep sense of compassion. I felt the grief that only humans are capable of experiencing. The  grief that as a deep lake you can't see the bottom, or like the open ocean in which you can't see its boundaries.

As the positive person I am, I decided to focus on the person that I had in front of me, and not the stories. What I saw, moved me to my core and it made me renew my faith in mankind. I saw resilience at its finest. I questioned how could someone go through so much, and still strive every day to manage to cope, to raise children, to go to work, to go to school, to attend church and to cook dinner. If someone sees them when they leave my office they will think they don't have a care in the world. I saw strength, to a level that I envied. I saw love, love for a life that hasn't been fair. I felt blessed, because I was there for them, because I was able to listen, so they could release some of the pressure; because I held their hand while they cried, because I didn't judge, because I was able to give them comfort and hope, and because I was able to help them open a window to their soul so they could peak and see their strengths. 

I have so much to learn from my patients. Today my love for my profession was renewed, and my day experiences reemphasized why I do what I do. 

Tonight, I will pray for them, because I could only do so much, but there is a Being that has no limits. 

National Suicide Prevention Day

    Did you know that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States? Sadly, in the year 2010 United States lost 38,364 lives to suicide (MCSP). 

    Suicide usually happens when the resources to cope cannot manage the impact of the stressor. To prevent losing one more life to suicide we should become aware of the magnitude of this problem as well as the warning signs, because at some point we will encounter someone that is at risk, and we may help conserve a life and contribute to decrease human suffering.

 Who is at risk? 

Everyone is, but there are some groups that are at higher risk than others and they include:

1) Males 

     a) Males are more like to complete suicide as they use more lethal methods, but females attempt suicide             three times more frequently than men.

2) People who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse disorders

      a) Some sources identified that 90% of the people that died by suicide had a mental health        

          issue that could have been diagnosed.

3) Family history of suicide or mental illness

4) People who have experienced a loss (loss of a child, a wife, a friend, a job, etc)

5) Victims of trauma

6) People with poor or inadequate support network

7) People who have access to means (drug, forearms, etc)

8) Victims of bullying

9) People experiencing life transitions (retirement, college, divorce, etc)

10) Medical illness including chronic pain

   Some of the Warning Signs are:

1) Hopelessness, helplessness 

2) Loss of the sense of purpose

3) Isolation

4) Extreme changes in behavior

5) Increased depression and/or anxiety 

5) Giving away possessions

6) Wreckless behavior

7) Preoccupation with death or suicide

8) Sudden cheerfulness after a period of depression

9) Increase alcohol intake 

     If you know someone that may be at risk reach out, asking about suicide will not put ideas in a person's head, by contrary it may give them hope that someone care. Most suicides are preventable, so please help someone stay alive.

Sources of information:

www.suicidology.org

www.stop-suicide.org

National Suicide Prevention Life Line: 1-800-273-8255(TALK)

Samaritan's Statewide Number: 1-877-870-4673

If imminent risk dial 911

 

It took me a while but I found peace

     A Daddyless Daughter

One morning I woke up and realized,

 that I have been a daddyless daughter all my life.

It hit me like a brick, and the pain knocked me out,

just to realize all I have been missing out.

I will never know with certainty,

                                                                          all the experiences missed.

     Because how can I miss 

    the gift I never received?

There’s been such emptiness inside of my soul,

for years yearning to experience daddy’s love.

My soul has been healed by the power of God,

  as He has given me the greatest gift of all.

One day my soul just opened up,

and allowed me to see how much I have been loved.

A wonderful mother that took care of me,

and made sacrifices,

just so I could be.

There is no more waiting for daddy’s love,

as I had it all along.

The love of the Heavenly Father has been always with me,

and He has allowed me to be filled with peace.

By Maribel Ortiz

Punitive Society

This week I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about the passing of the young Glee actor- Cory Montieth. This young man died from alcohol and drug-related causes. It's kind of sad to lose another young man to substance abuse. The radio host was sharing some of the remarks and words said by family and friends during the memorial service. After he was done, he expressed comments that I thought were degrading and offensive. I can't quote all his comments but he couldn't understand the reason for the remarks because this young man "was just a junkie".

Does someone that has substance abuse issues stops being human? Is their dignity vanished with the effect of the drugs? Do their good qualities depreciate as a result of the substance abuse? Are they not deserving of a dignified farewell from this world? 

I have never used drugs, not even see them. I never had to say 'No to Drugs' because I was never asked. I had treated and treat people with substance abuse, and I had family members who struggled with the issue. Let's don't forget that someone that dies or suffers from substance abuse is someone's child, someone's brother, someone's father or mother, someone that means the world to another person. 

Society is full of hypocrisy, by trying to make others believe that they are accepted no matter what. We live in a punitive and judgmental society, and that only brings division, resentment, anger and pain. Why do we feel we have the right to judge others? What is our level of arrogance to believe that we are above the issue? Shouldn't we treat others like we want to be treated?

When are we going to stop being so judgmental about someone else's issues? It's so easy to point fingers when we are not emotionally invested in the situation. We don't have to agree or approve the matter to be able to show empathy and respect. 

On another note, I just heard this morning of the Tweeter war bashing Marc Anthony for singing God Bless America at the Major League All Stars Game, because "he wasn't American enough". How does American enough looks like? He was born in New York city, so this is not only about being born in continental USA. Is this concealed racism? When Celine Dion sang it, they didn't question her "Americanism". Nobody wants to be called a racist, but its very hard to find another label for this war of words. 

Society seems to be moving backwards. We put more emphasis in looks, than in values. It's sad and difficult to raise children in a society that is so toxic, and that creates division and segregation depending on your looks, place of birth, your weight, your religion, your skin color and many other senseless reasons. We talk so much about human rights that we don't have the time to put them into practice. 

Before you put judgement on another person, put yourself in their shoes. Stop and think, if this was my son, brother or daughter will I think the same way? We could do better, and we will when we start seeing and treating each other as humans. Let's help heal wounds, instead of opening new ones. This is a country built on differences, lets don't allow those to separate us. 

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". 

We have the power to create change and unite...what will it take for you to start moving?