Karina, a warrior of a thousand battles

March 8, 2024

"I declare myself a warrior of my thousand battles, because healing and loving is only for the brave."

After embarking on this adventure of healing, journeying inward, discovering myself, forgiving others and myself, it is gratifying to be able to say: I have won! I have won because, after facing the most difficult human struggle — the struggle with yourself — I must tell you that I have emerged victorious.

What struggle is it?

I believe we are all born with battles to fight. There are many examples, and each person experiences them differently.

A battle can be dealing with an illness, abuse, addiction, the loss of a loved one, poverty, or divorce; even dedicating oneself to a career that does not make you happy just to please your parents. There are even those who struggle to start from scratch in a new country, while others suffer from not being able to return to it.

In short, there are so many times when we feel like we are fighting against the world, that we only dream of that moment when we can finally plant the flag, look up at the sky and say: "I made it. I got out of this."

But not all of us are willing to stop to discover what that battle is or to see it in such a way that we can address it. Many times fear blinds us and prevents us from recognizing it to keep us in the illusion that we have everything "under control", when in reality it is nothing more than a way of denying ourselves.

Now I will speak for myself.

Four years ago, I found myself in my own battle, and although I had often thought I was in the middle of one, this time I felt something different. I felt that for the first time I was willing to do everything necessary to respond to it in another way.

Instead of confronting, suppressing, or ignoring all those emotions that arose in moments of difficulty, I decided to give myself the opportunity to get to know myself.

It is complex to explain, because my conscience, still weak and immature, somehow told me that there was no point in feeling the way I felt: empty, different, abandoned.

There were many nights when I asked myself: "Why me? Why me?" I struggled without any answer until my tears vanished into the pillow or until I fell asleep.

Then I decided to accept my own challenge.

I needed to surrender to those emotions.

But surrendering did not mean doing nothing. On the contrary, it meant committing to deep work, one in which I would need to travel to the darkest places of my life to demolish them with light.

I traveled, as if in a whirlwind, to moments of great pain; those where anger, abandonment, and injustice somehow settled in my heart to tell me the false story that feeling empty, different, or abandoned was precisely what I deserved. And, later, they led me to make decisions that reinforced those false ideas or tried to convince me that nothing was worth it anymore.

But my effort to fight against all this was not in vain.

From dark shadows and shifting feelings, I reached paradises of light.

There I visited my mother and was able to have the conversation that, after thirty years, would have healed me so much.

Her fleeting passage through the world is now easier for me to understand, and every day I reflect on it, I find a new lesson.

I grew up believing that my mother had lived too short a time to say goodbye to her three-year-old child, but now I understand that she lived, among many other things, to show me that love is infinite.

Today I understand that it is her legacy, that strength of love, that sustains me.

How do you define the process of healing?

I could say that healing is like the singing of birds: a song that does not expect to receive credit or applause from others.

Saying "I have won" is not just because the diplomas of completed courses prove it. No.

The true gain goes far beyond that.

Healing is an intrinsic celebration, especially when in the end you find yourself surrounded by incredible people who, between smiles and tears, bring their hand to the center, not to raise a champagne glass, but to unite them one on top of the other and raise them in unison with a cry of freedom.

Having won was daring to use my voice and clinging to the struggle for a free song, because in the end that's what I want to be: free.

You are free when you let go, not only of any attachment or addiction, but also of the desire for acceptance, of others' approval, of dependence, of competition, of comparison, and of the fear of failure.

That is how being able to say "I have won" has become my freest song.

It is free because I feel that, thanks to this whole learning process, my desires, my voice, and every letter I bring into the world hold harmony, light, compassion, clarity, and love for those who, for some reason, dare to receive me with an open heart.

So, where do you keep the credit?

By credit, I mean those memories, those indelible imprints that we all return to in order to appreciate ourselves from the outside.

My gain in this battle is imprinted within.

In the wounds that can only be revisited with courage to mend.

In the peace treaty signed with myself after coming face to face with shame for all that I know I could have done better.

My gain is in recognizing the perfection of my being within the humanly imperfect.

In reconstructing the pieces of a soul with broken trust.

In the courage to return to every moment of pain, not only to regain control, relearn and build my own path, but also to take responsibility for the reality that I am capable of creating every day.

I know the journey has just begun.