My most faithful companion

My most faithful companion

has been by my side all my life

February 7, 2017

By: Gina Yoryet Román

In my culture people are very apprehensive of el muertito – a dead person that comes to haunt people every so often to posses them. They affirm that it is a lost soul that is not at peace and for that reason, it comes to claim a life. They are panic-stricken about the so called muertito. This abstruse belief is implausible to me, what can dead people do? They are no longer alive, like the word itself describes it. There are other things I am battered by. When I was a teenager, a rebel with many causes, the reason underneath it all was, my insecurities, the bleakness in my future. I was daunted by the unknown. Long ago, when I was hit by a car while riding my bike to work, devastation brought me down after I was told that my spinal cord had been severely damaged and that I´d  never be able to do any competitive sports. I turned around and proved those doctors wrong! I went on to become a competitive athlete. 

Later in my twenties I was afraid of not being able to rise to the occasion professionally, financially, spiritually, physically. Yet, all that angst was fruitless because I prevailed through God who has always lit my path. I was also coerced by my own uncertainties since I never came acquainted with the word believe. There´s no one to blame, it is simply my stoic culture, my upbringing. Something that I will always be disapproving of particular aspects. I also distressed about not finding a lifetime partner some day, but at the same time, that was the last thing in my mind.

Later in my thirties, there was something ticking inside of me stronger, clearer as time progressed, yet I was anxious to take the first step. But I did. I embraced my fears for the first time, and walked hand in hand with them. I decided to use them to my advantage and do the best I could. I joined a few other business and professional women and contributed to HERspectives - Rules and Tools that Build Successful Women. How I Achieved Work, Life, Balance, a powerful accounting about the challenges of creating and sustaining work, life, balance. A chronicle that aims to help women solve the universal challenges we all share. This forthright narrative describes the hurdles of ordinary women who have thrived and prevailed amidst it all. I was also reluctant to become a simultaneous interpreter, face Mike, and do public speaking…but I did. I am still as terrified as day one, but the difference is that I get a hold of myself, each time I save myself through prayers, and through my ABC's.

Each day fear is manifested to me through marriage, through the loss of Victoria Esperanza on January 2016, through my mother´s illnesses. Sometimes I am awakened at dawn and I can´t help and think about failing at my marriage, being jobless, failing at success, all the world crisis, crime, violence, corruption, my own internal crisis. Every day I am caught off guard when I become acquainted with the unknown, about what the future holds, whether I’m meant to do this or become that. I am dismayed about failing spiritually, physically, financially, personally, professionally. My most faithful companion has been there from day one, and I don´t think it will ever depart!

I fear about my past clawing its way out, and that nightmare that haunted me almost every night during my adolescence. On one hand, I can be daunted by these dreams, but on the other hands, I know deep down, that I have a very resilient mind. Despite of it all, I challenge my fears and hold on to hope in the midst of this mundane gridlock…For my flaws and apprehension make me stronger, and they push me to thrive higher, smarter and better. For this reason I have done everything I have set my mind, heart, soul and spirit to, by making fear one of my best allies. 

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”

Georgia O'Keeffe 

“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 enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And 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.” 
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"