El Amor de mi Vida

THE NEW LATINA BREED

The New Latina Breed

Latinas today are a new breed, claiming their lives, grounded in their roots. Latinas have learned from adversity and the hardships of the old Latinas, and many have turned their lives around to cultivate their whole selves, rounded, with emphasis in all the elements that entail a woman’s life and a woman’s soul. Many Latinas today have come to understand they are women and because of so they are entitled to a life defined on their own terms.

New Latinas are gifted with incredible qualities, abilities, and skills which make us different and special. Our cultural and ancestral reality have vested upon us a unique way of seeing and living our lives. We are a fusion of races in which the best of each and all has transpired to award us with exuberant physical beauty, great intellectual potential, and noble hearts. We are the result of the old history, seeded in us to harvest a new and improved one, with a promising future in which our presence is latent and evident in all corners of the world.

The New Latina is the sculptured, polished, and finely finished product emerging from the legacy of the old traditions of the women before us. We are strong women who carry in ourselves the heritage of the past in a present full of different challenges than the ones old Latinas faced, but that we face without dimming to reach our highest ideals. We are dreamers of a better and brighter future, dreams that we work hard to realize. There are many Latinas that have decided to claim their womanhood to build the present and the future they dare to envision, and those I salute. There are many more Latinas yet to realize they have the key to open up a new and limitless world, a world of abundance, prosperity, harmony, and power. For those, my encouragement to let go of the fear and begin a journey toward becoming a New Latina.

DO YOU DARE? ¿TE ATREVES?

In the last few weeks I was able to get to meet a lot of exceptional people, mostly women, who are doing what it takes to have the life they want. As I was talking about my own life in reflection of how hard work and determination are key to fulfill one’s life, I could still see in some faces the shadow of the doubt. Many women do not feel they have options when it comes to defining the life they want. Many women do not dare to dream, objecting their own thoughts of progress, growth, and goals with the reasons why those cannot be accomplished. For many, life has been already laid out in front of them without any say in the matter, and they feel obligated to follow the pre-determined path, even when it leads to unfulfillment. I saw the hopeless faces of some women thinking that it takes luck to have a better life, and that the life I was talking about, a life self-owned and lead, belongs to someone else, far away from their reach.

I began to think about what Joan Rivers once said trivially about physical traits: whatever you don’t like about yourself, change it! I have adopted and adapted that say to: whatever you don’t like about your life, change it! I have written before about the old script: how our lives begin with a pre-written script we learn by heart and play by. When the old script does not work anymore in our favor it is time to re-write it. We own the blank notebook and the pen to write our own script. When we write it we get to be the protagonists. When we let others write it for us we can only be co-protagonists, guest stars, make special appearances, or be extras pretending to be part of the play without any special role in our own lives. The question is: do women want to take the responsibility for their own lives, take the pen, and have the guts to write their own script in spite of the old? For many, the old is like invisible chains that prevent any possibility of new growth. Those chains, though, are only in our minds. For those who want to break away there is always a way. The principal ingredient in shaping the life we want is COURAGE.

¿TE ATREVES?

En las pasadas semanas tuve la fortuna de conocer a mucha gente excepcional, en su mayoría mujeres, que están haciendo lo que se requiere para tener la vida que quieren. Estuve hablándoles de mi vida en reflexión de cómo el trabajo arduo y la determinación son esenciales para alcanzar una vida plena, pero sin embargo todavía vi en algunas caras la sombra de la duda. Muchas mujeres piensan que no tienen opciones para definir sus propias vidas. Muchas mujeres no se atreven a soñar y objetan sus propios pensamientos de progreso, crecimiento y sus metas con las razones por las cuales no pueden alcanzarlos. Para muchas sus vidas ya están pre-determinadas, piensan que no tienen nada que decir al respecto y se sienten obligadas a seguir con sus vidas pre-fabricadas aun cuando esa condición conduce a su infelicidad. Vi las caras sin esperanza de algunas mujeres que piensan que se necesita un golpe de suerte para tener una mejor vida y que la vida de la cual yo les hablaba, una vida apoderada y manejada por nosotras mismas, pertenece a alguien más y está fuera de su alcance.

Pensé entonces en lo que escuché a Joan Rivers decir una vez acerca de la apariencia física: lo que sea que no te gusta de ti mismo: ¡cámbialo! Yo adopté y adapté ese dicho: lo que sea que no te gusta de tu vida: ¡cámbialo! Anteriormente escribí acerca del viejo libreto: cómo nuestras vidas comienzan con un libreto pre-escrito el cual aprendemos y vivimos de acuerdo a él. Cuando nos damos cuenta de que el viejo libreto no trabaja más en nuestro favor es tiempo de re-escribirlo. Poseemos el lápiz y el papel para escribir nuestro propio libreto. Cuando lo escribimos somos los protagonistas. Cuando vivimos de acuerdo al libreto que otros escribieron para nosotros solo podemos ser co-protagonistas, artistas invitados, hacer una aparición especial o ser extras pretendiendo ser parte del acto sin ningún rol especial en nuestras propias vidas. La pregunta es: ¿quieren las mujeres tomar responsabilidad de sus propias vidas, tomar el lápiz y tener el valor de escribir su propio libreto? Lo viejo y lo tradicional es como una cadena indeleble para muchas que previene cualquier posibilidad de crecimiento. Sin embargo, debemos darnos cuenta de que las cadenas existen solo en nuestra mente. Para las que quieren romper con lo viejo y ser libres siempre existen nuevas posibilidades y opciones. El principal ingrediente en construir la vida que queremos es CORAJE.