Process of Transformation and Therapeutic Recommendations
According to the model of the psychology of Enneatypes, character is structured with rather specific and describable traits, the formation of which is influenced by a series of social, relational, and intrapsychic dynamics. Throughout growth, every aspect of life—such as thinking, expressing oneself, feeling, suffering, and loving—becomes conditioned and, therefore, not chosen. The personal process of self-awareness, which exposes these dynamics, necessarily leads to change, as it activates some choices regarding how to be and relate to others.
This change is a longer journey than life itself, taking place as the person begins to detach from more ego-driven and limiting character traits. Furthermore, it is a path that goes
backward at times. Many times, the same existential knot is revisited, though with a different perspective that tends to expand as the journey continues.
Thus, the transformational process is fundamentally one of self-awareness. It begins when a person starts to understand that they themselves are the main cause of their difficulties, even though they may have been influenced by various social, cultural, and educational pressures. This process occurs when one, more than wanting to change (creating a new ideal self to meet both their own and others' expectations), assumes the task of "becoming what they are."
This has to do with the task of gradually reducing and eliminating the discrepancy between their actual self and a more artificial, defensive personality or way of being in the world that is not as honest. In this sense, the person, in relation to the image they had been constructing of themselves, begins to prefer being what they are, which leads to a transcendence of the ego. This does not mean an annihilation of the self but rather becoming who they truly are beyond manipulations.
This involves a voluntary choice and conscious effort. The person stops believing they are completely free and fully formed, and they no longer consider themselves entirely conditioned by external influences, as if they were just a product. They take responsibility for what they are (also as a product), and layer by layer, they shed everything that no longer belongs to them.
As one testimony puts it:
"The work of behavioral change was very frustrating for me because, rather than changing, what I experienced was a downward process into the real world... a painful journey toward discovering who I was. E2 phrases from Guillermo Borja helped me a lot: 'Pathology is the denial of what one is, and guilt is a small child who refuses to take responsibility.'
I worked for a year specifically with the mantra: 'I am what I do, not what I feel or think I am,' and my self-image crumbled in the face of the evidence of my avoidances and denials. I couldn’t even take refuge in the disconsolate feeling of being nothing, as that would represent a retreat into negative narcissism: I was the worst of the worst (a noble title). I had to face the hardest thing: being normal and ordinary... having my ups and downs and, above all, experiencing this intermediate zone that, anonymously, was opening up before me and represented everything I had been rejecting in my life." — Toni Aguilar
Often, E2 Enneatype comes to consider its dysfunctional traits as qualities, and when it perceives suffering, it avoids it as quickly as possible, using fleeting bursts of enthusiasm or
emotional outbursts and a generally optimistic attitude, which is more a result of denial than of true trust and acceptance.
However, when the work of self-revelation starts to show what lies behind the facade of kindness (often accompanied by an apparent and satisfying self-sufficiency), the dismantling of the more immature aspects of narcissism begins. At this point, it becomes genuinely difficult to continue feeling so special and remarkable, and a voluntary, intentional change begins in relationships with others. Thus, E2, who initially throws itself into the forefront in an exhibitionistic, even invasive manner with the attempt to capture or at least corner the other, starts to step back, to feel shy, and to abstain. If self-awareness work is combined with meditation practice, this ability to refrain can increase, freeing others from such an invasive attitude.
Beginning to take steps back from an inflated image of exaggerated self-gratification (which alternates with another self-image of dramatic and exaggerated self-deprecation) leads to an awareness of one's own vulnerability. This vulnerability, especially in the sexual and Social subtypes, is precisely well camouflaged with the idea of being indispensable and magnificent, which translates into a compulsive drive to give (help, advice, gifts, maternal care that drains others with an overabundance of love) and to display attitudes that initially seem altruistic but actually allow the individual to maintain a sense of superiority, standing on a pedestal from which they can offer and offer.
Even the certain haughty disdain that the Sexual 2 sometimes displays, making the other feel indebted, can be seen as a form of giving, in the sense that it also offers its distance, from a position of supposed superiority: "I don’t want to have anything to do with you; you don’t deserve me."
The rebellion of this character is exactly linked to this disguised sense of superiority, since "you don’t deserve me" is also: "you limit me," which causes many relationship breakups. In fact, the Sexual 2 seems indulgent, but it is extremely demanding, and what it demands is a constant supply of fuel for its ego, for its inflated narcissism.
Unmasking oneself sincerely as a calculatedly altruistic person full of pretensions shatters the pedestal, forcing them to recognize their vulnerability and personal misery (based on exploiting the needs of others), putting them at the same level as everyone else.
It's as if E2 character, despite its yearning for freedom, is trapped in infatuation with itself, in light of an ideal of emancipation that is more about defending the ego than about true liberation, as it is unwilling to pay the price.
However, it does pay a toll: an overvaluation of personal autonomy or at least a distortion of the idea of autonomy, as it is based on fantasies of confronting (even through seduction)
that "other" who is potentially experienced as an oppressor. In this sense, rebellion in the 2 does not refer so much to the relationship with authority as to submission, which, for the Sexual subtype, occurs mainly in the partner relationship.
Yet, just as compulsive and destructive traits of the character can be outlined, some traits of transformation may also be sketched, which are expressions of what in Enneatype psychology is defined as virtue, which in E2 corresponds to humility.
For a change to occur, those ego wounds that the Sexual 2 fears most are precisely the ones that can become potential transformative resources because they help to shatter pride. In this sense, if arrogance gives way, humiliation paves the way for humility instead of provoking the typical and conceited offensive reaction.
For this to happen, the person needs to accept the opportunities that daily life offers them to take responsibility, for even the simplest tasks, with a learning attitude and the capacity to delay gratification. Humility in this Enneatype can manifest as a tendency to adopt a tone that is slightly below how they have always been, even though, on the other hand, they maintain that pinch of pride without arrogance that sustains personal dignity, the ability for self-criticism, and that sense of justice toward oneself that is entirely different from self-indulgence.
As the Sexual 2 sheds the veils of its ego defenses, it starts to realize the insidiousness of its character and the painful lack hidden under that apparent self-donation. They begin to be aware of the fatigue and damage caused by certain relational and survival strategies, and they start to take responsibility for their character traits.
In an initial phase of awakening, E2 collapses into the sadness of self-disillusionment, coming into contact with their innermost lack. This is a delicate passage in the transformation process because, over and over again, they fall into their own deceptions, unmasked through certain furious statements of the ego, which certainly do not help soften their armor.
In this case, the person might even act counterproductively, assuming what they are with the same arrogance that once unconsciously cloaked their powerful character defenses. In this phase, the Sexual 2 might show much less kindness and become more connected with their cynicism, worsening their behavior and displaying rude and vulgar ways. Their search for pleasure may become more personal, rather than being mediated by the compulsive drive to give pleasure. They may no longer feel "okay," but care less about anything. They may realize the passage between the need for tenderness and love, and pride as a defensive mechanism to prevent the frustration of that need from occurring again. That frustration, which once generated the feeling of injury and lack, now hardens their defenses again.
They discover their envy of love and all the poverty beneath it. Therefore, they may adopt egoic traits similar to those of E8, but if they are conscious of their further defenses, this could truly be the last gasp of their dying character.
The Sexual 2 then lives their dominant instinct (relationship), starting to separate it from its passionate distortion (pride), and seeks a clear confrontation even with the aggression underlying the impulsivity that characterizes them, openly and without disguise. They may interrupt their drive for conquest, to feel "special" and desired, and no longer worry about the effort of appearing altruistic in order to feel a step above others. Their mood swings also start to moderate, as a natural consequence of greater internal coherence.
They begin to see themselves as a fool in the arms of their delusion, or as that insignificant smallness they have tried to avoid being all their life. They recognize their disillusionment with themselves, but without clinging to the grandeur of guilt and the hunger for forgiveness, which would only trigger all the illusionary compensatory mechanisms of lack, through a destructive movement that would lead them to the egoic traits of E4. In other words, they would identify with the lack and the impoverished comparison of their value.
If this dangerous regression is also traversed, the Sexual 2 begins to accept their limits without pretending to be what they are not, seeing others and things as they are, without exaggerating them in their imagination. Consequently, they take on responsibilities toward others and face the various challenges that come their way without false and grandiose promises. They become less accommodating and, therefore, more sincere. Then, everything that was excessive gives way to a resized measure, and they accept having simple needs, just like everyone else.
Ultimately, they realize they have lived life as a figure, through a constructed image, rather than as an expression of what they simply are. It's enough to let it be.
Love remains a crucial aspect for this subtype, but they no longer exhibit it as much, living it with a more intimate dimension, with genuine interest in the other as they are, rather than seeing it as terrain to stand out or as an object of their pseudo-altruistic compulsive behavior. Rather than perceiving love as a romantic adventure, they experience it as a deep exchange between equals.
In this new state of transformation, monogamy no longer represents a constraint to avoid impatiently, but rather expresses the joy of being with the other. Additionally, the fear of being abandoned in love or friendship is reduced as a consequence of a less indulgent and accommodating style of relating and a more confrontational one.
Ultimately, love remains very important for the Sexual 2 subtype, but what changes is the way they understand it. They do not love less, but love more authentically and express it in
a less dramatic and shaking manner, because their reference is no longer the romantic model of an unalterable, timeless, and unique ideal, but rather a real person in whose limits they recognize their own. Ultimately, this is connected to compassion.
As for themselves, the Sexual 2 becomes more capable of expressing their being simply, including their needs, and thus accepts their limits without self-pity or shame. Naturally, they remain interested in themselves, but less in their image, and learn to ask without demanding, also accepting no.
At the same time, they recognize that the compulsive search for approval has nothing to do with the human need for love, which satisfaction does not depend on their exhibitionism. Therefore, they also learn to say no, without being dominated by the fear of humiliation or disapproval, and thus not being unloved. They transform the romantic idealization of love into true intimacy, which is something simpler and humbler. Sensuality no longer stays relegated to sexual conquest but extends to the pleasure of contemplating a leaf, a stone, a ray of light, or listening to the murmur of water or the roar of a storm. By no longer being a slave to the pursuit of intensity and pleasure, they discover small and simple joys.
The focus on wanting to be the center of others' desires and admiration gradually gives way to a new perception of oneself, of being simply "nothing special." This also involves the ability to slow down, modifying the voracious pleasure of always-new and intense stimuli with the enjoyment of small pleasures.
Such a transformative self-awareness process, which involves the crumbling of arrogance, leads to phases of confusion and passivity that, from a psychopathological point of view, may be confused with depression, but from the perspective of the psychology of Enneatypes, these are expressions of certain movements of integration of the more introverted and modest characteristics of the E4.
The confusion also depends on the fact that others notice the change and do not always appreciate it. These more or less subtle modifications do not make the Sexual 2’s life easier, but they do make it more transparent. The sense of identity is always the result of a continuous adjustment and negotiation in the relationship with those from whom some kind of recognition is expected, but this adjustment no longer comes at the expense of one’s authenticity, as the person is no longer attached to external recognition.
The need to relate remains, but the style of relating changes. The flattering and indulgent aspects toward others begin to fall away, along with that inevitable degree of hidden hypocrisy that accompanied them. The person expresses themselves more directly and sincerely, no longer having the same need to be approved and admired, and begins integrating some aspects of the E8 in their evolution. This may generate some distance with the people they usually relate to, who may perceive them as less available. This is
understandable because the romantic relationship (in a broad sense, not just with a partner) is no longer governed and deteriorated by a seductive and indulgent style but instead develops openly and without pretensions, while still including a sincere recognition of vulnerability and both personal and others' limits.
There is one last aspect in the transformation process of the Sexual 2. It seems like a character capable of living in the "here and now," but only in its most superficial and hedonistic aspect, and with less commitment. However, there comes a moment when they realize that the "here and now" implies a "there and then" and a "later," which they may put in parentheses if needed, but cannot completely abolish.
At that point, they have no choice but to stop living day by day with the old dose of irresponsibility and instead live each day as it comes, with all its implications, without so much emphasis or nihilism.
———————
I was born in a small town in Cádiz, La Línea de la Concepción, on August 2nd, with the sun in Leo, at noon. I am the firstborn of four siblings, and I came into the world at the beginning of the 1960s.
I felt loved and valued in my childhood. From the beginning, I was a daddy's girl. "You're just like your dad" was a phrase repeated often by my mother, my grandmothers, and my aunts. Since I was little, I admired him, he was my love, I felt passionate about being with him, and I valued his world, his ideas, his qualities... which seemed much more numerous than my mother's. He would come home from work, whistle from the gate, and I would run to throw myself into his arms, and he would greet me saying, "You’re the one who loves me the most." I felt that he compared me to my mother, and that I was better than her.
My mother, with her Three sexual character, presented the image of an ideal wife and mother to the outside world, but behind closed doors, she often became very angry. She had periods where she felt very weak, overwhelmed; she would get dizzy and become very nervous. I remember my father's voice before leaving for work: "Take care of your mom," and I felt responsible for her. This didn’t translate into me doing many chores around the house, but rather into a feeling of emotional responsibility that, in fact, implied a sense of superiority: feeling capable of taking care of my siblings, a "I can," "I am stronger," "I have enough to give..."
With his gaze, my father made me feel bigger than I was, more responsible, more mature, special; and this attitude was emphasized when I was with my mother because she would act like a little girl in front of my father and me. I perceived her weakness, her nervousness,
her mood swings, her dependence on my father. She became small, needy, and I learned by her side to not need, to not ask, to feel abundant in my resources, in my self-sufficiency, in my superiority. A physical, emotional, and cognitive superiority that grew under my father's gaze. I remember myself as a cheerful child, with no problems, doing things on my own, never missing the family, feeling comfortable anywhere.
At six years old, the teacher told my parents that I was very good at studies and that they should give me the opportunity to attend a better school. My parents took me to the Teresianas, which at that time were known for applying innovative pedagogical methods that were more modern than what was usual in that Francoist Spain, in the far south.
At seven years old, my father took me to the new school, which was far from our home, so that I could learn the way and later go alone. It was the first day of the term, and my mother was supposed to pick me up. The time arrived, and she didn’t come. I waited for her, feeling fear and anxiety, but I didn’t show it; other mothers and girls asked me, and I told them it was fine, that my mother would come. I waited, but she didn’t come, and without telling anyone, I started the journey back home, trying to remember the path I had taken with my father. I arrived home, and everyone cheered: "Look at the girl, how grown up, she came alone," "this girl is unique," "whatever she can’t do..." My mother told me she had forgotten, but the signs of recognition silenced my fear, my anger, my sadness. The abundance hid the lack, my smallness, my need, and my frustration. How could I get angry? How could I cry in front of so much appreciation? From then on, I went to school alone every day, and later, I would take my sister Lorena and my cousins, all under my care, and I would be the leader, the guide, the big sister.
Since I was little, I liked going up to my grandmother's house, being with her and my aunt. They taught me things that I had to memorize, I accepted it, and they told me how smart I was, they gave me a lot of affection, they pampered me, they laughed with me... I was starting to look for a place to stand out, a place to feel loved outside of the family core.
At that time, between the ages of three and five, my father worked in Gibraltar, and we didn't see him for months. My mother was very depressed. My brother Fale, who was born when I was sixteen months old, cried a lot, and my mother was very worried about him because he was born with an umbilical hernia. I didn’t demand attention, and I learned to do what I would continue to do throughout my adolescence: go away, seek outside what I wasn’t given inside the house.
And I was happy with my grandmother and my aunt upstairs. They taught me new things, like the capitals of all the countries in the world, and they applauded my achievements, giving me affection and recognition.
I was five years old when a girl, around fourteen or fifteen, was in my house helping my mother with chores. I would lock myself in the green room with her, where no one usually went, and I would kiss and hug her passionately, in secret. My memory consists of these sensations, but now I ask myself: How is it possible that a five-year-old girl would take the initiative in sexual games with a fourteen-year-old? I don’t know how it really happened, but that’s how I remember it. I feel like I was the one taking charge, taking the initiative in those childhood games. Surely, what lay beneath it all was a deep need for my mother’s love and attention. I think I assumed my father’s role with her, trying to do what he did to win her love.
I remember my father’s affectionate and desire-filled treatment of my mother and how she resisted. It was something always present in their relationship, though not in an obvious way. To me, it was clear that my father deeply desired my mother, while she remained more passive. This dynamic left a profound mark on me, shaping my sexuality and how I experience it. It influenced my attraction to women and my more active role in relationships—taking the initiative, seeking connection as a substitute for love, or rather, as a way to feel love.
A little later, we had to move due to one of the many financial failures that plagued my father throughout his life. We had no money, but we were still living in the large, stately house my grandfather had built. Now, we had lost it.
There was deep sadness in the new house. My great-grandmother died of grief, and my mother, already battling depression, couldn’t overcome her loss. To her, my great-grandmother had been more than just a mother figure. My mother had experienced a chaotic childhood—her own mother had to leave for Gibraltar to make a living, and she never knew her father, who died in the war before he could marry. Later, my grandmother married an alcoholic man, a reckless womanizer who never cared for my mother, quite the opposite.
The only person who had ever loved my mother unconditionally was my great-grandmother. When she passed away, my mother wanted to die too. She found refuge in my younger sister, Lorena, who was still very small. This experience would profoundly shape both my sister’s childhood and her life.
At eight years old, I began to flee from all of this. I spent as much time as I could outside—on the streets, at school—anywhere but home. My father came home late every night, working all day to revive the family business while also taking on a second job just to make ends meet.
It was a sad time, and I withdrew. I couldn’t bear my mother’s sorrow, and at the same time, I felt deeply responsible for her.
At eleven or twelve, we moved again, this time to my grandmother’s small house. There, I could hear my parents making love—sensations, sounds, words… I felt excited, frightened, and ashamed, but I never forgot it.
At that age, I had a good relationship with my body. I saw myself as beautiful—harmonious, tall, slim, attractive. One day at the pool, I flirted with a friend; he looked at me, and I enjoyed the feeling—tingling, blushing, a sense of seduction. I swam, feeling the water caress my skin.
That summer, we went on vacation for the first time. My little brother was still very young. We played in the waves, and I felt something close to happiness—but was it truly happiness or just euphoria?
The sea has always marked my life. I carry within me my father’s maritime heritage—his experience of freedom, his longing for vastness, his courage, his desire to go beyond, to submerge himself in the intangible. The sea represents pleasure, cleansing, and a return to myself.
I swim down to the ocean floor until I sense danger. But when I do, I keep going. I realize nothing bad happens; in fact, the sensation is even better. I want to keep swimming, never stopping. Out there, solitude doesn’t bother me—on the contrary, it feels sublime. In those moments, I experience my first sensations of infinity, spiritual longing, and being part of something immense.
I have always been a strong swimmer, a skill I learned from my father. I would have loved to compete, but at the time, traveling and training were too expensive. So instead, I became a champion among my friends and cousins.
One day, my father organized a swimming competition at the beach. I was the only girl among all the boys. I swam until I was exhausted—but I won. The joy of beating them all, of climbing onto that podium, of being the best for him, for my father, was indescribable. These small childhood victories gave me strength—a rush, an euphoria that masked the underlying feelings of emptiness and the lack of maternal support. Despite my achievements, I was still just a small child in a world of adults.
Then winter would come, and everything felt sad again. At home, it was hard to grow up. I felt different. I wasn’t like my mother; I didn’t dream of being a proper young lady, finding a good husband, and getting married. I didn’t know who I was, but I did know that I didn’t want that.
Perhaps my only defense was my defiance toward my mother. I wanted to leave, to go far away. I dreamed of being a journalist, a teacher, a historian. I felt trapped, but I knew nothing about the world beyond the borders of my small town.
I am thirteen years old and 1.68 meters tall. I slouch because I don’t know what to do with a body that has suddenly become so long and strange. I feel ugly, inadequate—I don’t understand the meaning of being a woman.
My father distances himself from me; I am no longer his little girl, the chosen one. My mother sees me as so different from herself that she doesn’t know what to do with me. Since I was little, she has put hydrogen peroxide in my hair to lighten it, hoping I would be blonde like her. She makes me walk through the hallway with books on my head so I stand straighter, enrolls me in child modeling classes so I learn to walk like a model… But I feel like I disappoint her. I have tried, but I don’t fit into that mold: I will never be that feminine, blonde, slender, and graceful young woman that she once was—well-mannered, demure, and so attractive to men.
I didn’t measure up. Next to my mother, I felt monstrous and ugly, but I had pride. I didn’t show my pain or my need for her to embrace me, accept me as I am, and be there for me. Instead, I turned my back on her, rejected her, and saw her as inferior to me.
The best part of my life was school. There, I learned, I was valued, I was loved, and it gave me opportunities to travel and leave La Línea. I participated in summer retreats where I met people different from me. I connected with the Teresian nuns, fell in love with my teacher, and, out of love for her, I was drawn to faith, to religion, to prayer.
I sublimated my awakening sexuality through religious experiences. I started reading Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa, memorizing the poems that moved me the most. I saw myself in mystical ecstasy—a love I felt filled with sexual undertones, even though I didn’t yet understand my own sexuality.
Now I understand that I was attracted to women, but no one had ever spoken to me about it. So, I sought deep intimacy with certain teachers and also with friends. I exchanged love letters with them, though I never admitted to myself that it was love.
Looking back, I can see how my passion for intimacy began at that time—how I longed to form a deep, exclusive bond with someone I chose, how I needed to feel completely special to that person. I felt unacknowledged jealousy that made me suffer.
I started writing poetry, keeping a diary, creating an intimate world of fantasy, sadness, and solitude. In my room, I imagined my life, told myself that I was different, that my parents and family didn’t understand me. I wandered through unknown cities in my mind, picturing myself as the protagonist of a unique life—one unlike my family’s, unlike the people around me, and yet wonderful.
But the adolescent in me felt lonely, sad, disoriented—carrying a desire I didn’t know where to place, trapped in a body I rejected. There was no one I could talk to about what I felt, and I had no role models.
My friends were starting to like boys, but to me, they seemed crude, rough, aggressive. I couldn’t share my inner world with them. I was thirteen years old, and I was trying—I went to parties, danced, let myself be touched, joined in with the group… but I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t enjoy it, I wasn’t myself.
Who am I? What do I need? What do I want? What do I desire? Where do I belong?
In the year before university, I began to open my eyes. I enjoyed my classes immensely, my studies satisfied me, and I was doing well. Learning had always been a source of joy for me, a passion that remained constant throughout my life. I believe my grandmother and aunt instilled this in me when, as a little girl, they would teach me the world’s capitals in the upstairs room of our house. I retained information easily, showed curiosity, and was valued for it. That recognition made me feel loved and gave me a deep sense of achievement and self-worth.
My father also enjoyed teaching me things. He taught me how to swim and helped me present my school assignments. Those moments made me feel like his daughter, like I belonged. Later, I had teachers who believed in me, supporting me in accessing better education. All these experiences built my confidence but also provided a structure in my otherwise deeply emotional life. I was blinded by my need for love, and developing my intellect in an environment that lacked intellectual stimulation gave me stability. It became a lifeline, helping me navigate the emotional storms that would soon define my youth.
When the moment finally came to leave for university, I felt the thrill of long-awaited freedom. It was my chance to escape from my parents, from my small town, from the narrow-minded society that, I felt, looked at me with suspicion and never truly accepted me. I needed space, movement, distance—to leave in order to find myself. I chose to study Philosophy and Education Sciences at the University of Seville.
My first years were centered around the residence hall, where I could continue the kind of happy life I had experienced in my early school years. I thrived there, holding a leadership position, earning the affection of my classmates, and gaining the recognition of my tutors. I felt completely at home, devoting much of my time and energy to maintaining that sense of belonging.
In the university classrooms, however, things were different. Although I had no academic difficulties, I no longer felt as comfortable. The world was larger than before, and I couldn’t control it the way I had in the past. Men, in particular, remained a mystery to me—figures I
viewed with distrust, people I competed against rather than connected with. I had not yet learned how to navigate relationships with them, how to engage with them in a way that felt natural. I felt they weren’t interested in me, so I made a decision: if they didn’t show interest, neither would I. I shut them out of my world entirely.
During this time, I had my first intense romantic experience. I fell in love with a classmate, loving her with the passion of a first, forbidden love. I craved intimacy with her, and when I couldn’t have it, I felt devastated. In our moments together, we shared affection, deep conversations, and our ideals. But we never discussed what it meant to be two women in love. In that environment, it was an enormous taboo, and we weren’t prepared to confront it.
And then, for the first time, I experienced heartbreak.
She left me for another friend. It sent me spiraling into the first great crisis of my life. I stopped eating, lost twenty kilos, failed my exams for the first time, locked myself away, and cried in solitude. I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening to me because I couldn’t even admit to myself that what I felt for her was love.
The pain was unbearable, like claws gripping my heart. But beyond the pain was something even worse: incomprehension. I couldn’t understand how she could do this to me, how my love—so deep, so pure—had not been enough. My pride and arrogance refused to accept reality. It was impossible that she could love someone else more than she loved me. If my love was passionate, devoted, and absolute, then she had to reciprocate it.
I never showed her my pain. Instead, I pretended to be indifferent, acted as though I was handling the situation with ease. I believed that if I remained strong, she would come back to me—that my resilience would win her over. I convinced myself that showing her my neediness would only push her further away, that if she saw my vulnerability, she would reject me. I had to appear whole, complete, above it all.
That heartbreak was the first great storm of my adult life.
I endured my personal hell alone, trapped in my own pride. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing me hurt, needy, or broken. But life had struck me down, forcing me to step off the pedestal I had built for myself. I was twenty years old and had no real understanding of myself, my emotional patterns, or how intolerable I found frustration. Yet frustration imposed itself upon me, and I had no choice but to endure it. It made me more human—more real.
If my mother had been my first idealized woman and had abandoned me, if she had failed to recognize my worth, if I felt that she had withdrawn her love from me, then here it was
again—a woman to whom I had given everything, abandoning me in turn. Something inside me broke.
The illusion that love, if given fully and deeply, would always be returned began to crumble.
And that was when the animal inside me awoke. The beast emerged from its cave, demanding its place in the world. I shattered my religious commitments, walked away from the sheltered, all-female world of the residence hall, and threw myself into the pursuit of men. I wanted to prove—to myself and to the world—that I could seduce them, that I could love them, that they could desire me, and that I could find among them the great love I had always longed for.
I began a relationship with my friend’s brother—if I couldn’t have her, I would have him. Then came Pepe Luis, who had always been present in my life. I started doing theatre at the university. The world around me kept expanding, my experiences multiplying.
Pepe Luis was the first person I betrayed, the first person I hurt without scruples. I didn’t know what I wanted—I was pure impulse, driven by desire and an insatiable hunger for fulfillment. Then, I fell in love with my acting professor, a man much older than me, already in a committed relationship. But that didn’t matter to me. Nothing could stop me now.
Theatre became my god, my vocation, replacing the religious beliefs I once held. I broke away from my past life and immersed myself in the dark labyrinths of bohemian nights, excess, recklessness, sex, and independence. Choosing theatre as my profession meant defying my father’s wishes for the first time. He withdrew his moral and financial support, and I felt the pain of his rejection. But by then, I was caught in the whirlwind of a new life, a storm pushing me further away, pulling me into madness. And I needed it.
During this time, I was determined to be the best in my theatre school, the most beloved by my professors and peers, especially by the most elite group. And I succeeded. I was one of the best, and one of the most admired. I had a deep need to stand out socially, though I was too proud to admit my competitiveness. This attitude drained my energy and made it harder to reach my goals. I wasted time avoiding struggle and confrontation because, in the end, my greatest desire was not to win—it was to be loved, to seduce everyone around me.
Sex entered my life with dizzying speed and intensity. I was focused on conquering, not on pleasure; on feeling desired, not on fulfilling my own desires. My sexual experiences during those years were deeply self-destructive. My body became a temple desecrated by my own need to have every man who crossed my path. It was as if I were trying to erase, in one swift motion, twenty years of virginity and my former belief in the purity of love.
I continued my relationship with my professor, who had a partner and was unwilling to leave her for me. But all of this only made him more attractive. Once again, I found myself immersed in a story of forbidden love, intoxicated by the thrill of conquering the most difficult and unattainable.
During those years, I had boyfriends, I was unfaithful, I learned what it was like to be a mistress, to live the clandestinity of love, to do whatever I pleased, and I never felt guilty about it. I felt alive, as if life only existed in compulsion and intensity. It was a time of drugs, alcohol, unprotected sex, and endless nights. I removed the stopper, and the monster inside me demanded its freedom—it was intense, wild, and wanted everything.
I was twenty-two years old, at my parents’ house, showering, when my mother walked in. She held a piece of paper she had found in my room—it was a medical report about my IUD check-up. I was naked when she looked at me and called me a "whore." Once again, I felt my mother’s rejection.
I didn’t defend myself. I simply told her that she knew nothing about my life, and from that moment on, I visited home less and less, distancing myself further. These scenes were imprinted deep in my memory, reinforcing guilt, the stigmatization of my sexuality, and the way I chose to live it.
Only now do I realize how much my relationship with my mother has made me suffer, how much I distanced myself from her, how hard I tried to not need her. I placed myself in a superior position to ease the pain of not receiving her recognition. As a child, I was never the daughter she wanted. In adolescence, I became a woman so different from her. My religious devotion to the Teresians wasn’t what she expected of me. Later, when I started being with men, she saw me as a disgrace. When I chose theater as my profession and way of life, she disapproved once again. And when she later found out that I was attracted to women, that was the ultimate betrayal in her eyes. How could she have a daughter so unlike herself?
Her rejection was never explicit. There were arguments, fights, confrontations, but beneath it all was something more insidious—a silent criticism, a look of disapproval, of contempt, of disappointment. And her rejection chipped away at my self-esteem, my strength, making me feel wrong, making me feel ashamed. That was the word—shame.
Whenever I visited my hometown, I hid my way of living. I changed the way I dressed, tried to lead a life more aligned with what I believed my parents expected of me. But this pretense only made me unhappy and filled me with anguish, so I distanced myself even further. In moments that should have been significant, where a daughter would normally be present—my mother’s surgery, my father’s operation, moving houses—I was absent.
I never spoke about this to anyone, not even to myself. My pain drove me to reckless, destructive behavior. To my friends, I always spoke highly of my parents and siblings, presenting an image of an ideal family. I never admitted, not to them and not to myself, that my relationship with my family caused me suffering. Acknowledging that pain would mean facing a void I couldn’t bear.
I had to go far away to start questioning my childhood and my family dynamics.
I started making a living from my profession. I worked in a theater company, I was an actress, fulfilling a dream—this was my life now. I learned so much about the hidden workings of the theater—production, distribution, stage management, assembling and dismantling sets, loading and unloading trucks—everything that goes into a performance. I traveled on tour while rehearsing the next production at the same time.
Experiencing theater from every angle gave me structure, knowledge, and strength. It became a true vocation, something worth fighting for despite the obstacles, the lack of funding, the absence of support. I learned to push projects forward through sheer hard work, and earning my living from it gave me strength.
But there always came a moment in my life when, without fully understanding why, an impulse drove me to break away from what I had and pursue something bigger, something unknown. I felt a calling, and I followed it without hesitation. It happened when I left my hometown for Seville to study at university. It happened when I left the residence hall. It happened when I defied my father’s will to dedicate myself to theater.
And now, I felt it again. I had to leave Seville, leave the company I worked with, the boyfriend I had at the time who loved and cared for me, everything I had built there—friends, my home. And so I did. I wasn’t satisfied with my performances; something was missing. I felt artificial, like a fraud.
I met Carlos Gandolfo at an acting seminar, and his work captivated me. I decided to apply for a scholarship and travel to Buenos Aires to study at his school. Later, I understood that this was just the external reason—inside, my soul had far deeper motivations. This was the beginning of a journey with no return, a journey of leaving to find myself.
I was twenty-seven when I arrived in Buenos Aires. There, I began discovering the actress I wanted to be and the kind of theater I wanted to pursue. I traveled through South America, my eyes opened to the overwhelming force of nature and the people I encountered. I fell in love with a woman, and for the first time, I allowed myself to name what I was feeling, to be loved in return, and to stop hiding.
The relationship was intense and possessive—I suffered in love, and I suffered with the fear of losing it. But I also began psychoanalysis and started working through my relationship
with my parents, revisiting my childhood, and allowing myself to feel the pain and anger that my inner child had never been permitted to express.
I made many friends in Buenos Aires, lived intensely, absorbed everything the city had to offer—acting classes, bodywork, voice training, and, above all, theater. I immersed myself in artistic expression. I met Juan Carlos Corazza, we became friends, and our artistic connection would later play a major role in my life in Spain, both personally and professionally.
Moving in with the woman I loved rekindled my passion for intimacy. Love was something I experienced physically and, at the same time, with a halo of romanticism. I was convinced that what I felt was the most special love of all, that this love story was unique. It was my life, but it was also a novel, and I was the heroine. I truly believed that my way of loving was powerful, authentic, and devoted. Love became the center of my existence.
But soon, I ran out of money and decided to return to Spain to figure out my future. The separation was painful—I left behind my love, my friends, my life there. But I knew it was time. In the moments when I was about to lose everything for a passion, something would always pull me back—a grounding force, reality hitting me with a jolt.
Buenos Aires was in crisis, while Spain, at the end of the 1980s, was flourishing. Culture and art were thriving, creativity was everywhere, and hope filled the streets and the nights. It was a golden era. I wanted to be part of it.
Returning terrified me. I had changed so much, and I felt estranged from my friends, my family, and the life I had left behind. I feared they wouldn’t accept me as I was now. In Buenos Aires, some of my masks had started to fall away. What I had once believed so fiercely, I now questioned. The old version of me—the one from Seville—was no longer certain.
Now, I knew I loved a woman. I knew I wanted to live theater differently. I didn’t want to go back to my old life—I wanted to bring back what I had learned in Buenos Aires and transform everything. More than anything, I wanted to change the people around me.
This pattern repeated itself throughout my life. Every time I discovered something that changed me, that made me grow, I wanted everyone close to me to experience it as well. I stopped seeing them for who they were. I had done this with my partners, my siblings, my parents, my friends, my students. I believed I could help them, save them from their suffering. But beneath my well-intentioned superiority was something else—a deep discomfort with witnessing others’ pain without being able to fix it, an inability to simply be present without intervening. It took me years, many failures, and a long inner journey to understand this.
I continued the relationship with my professor, who had a partner and was not willing to leave her for me. But all these factors only made him more attractive. Once again, I found myself immersed in a story of forbidden love, caught up in the excitement of conquering the most difficult and unattainable.
During these years, I had boyfriends, was unfaithful, and knew what it meant to be a lover, to live in the clandestinity of love, to do whatever I wanted without feeling guilty. I was alive; I could only feel alive in compulsion and intensity. It was the time of drugs, alcohol, unprotected sex, and the night. I removed the stopper, and my monster came out, demanding its freedom. It was intense, wild, and I wanted everything.
I was twenty-two, in my parents' house, showering, when my mother walked in and showed me a paper she found in my room about my IUD check-up. I was naked, and she called me a "whore." Once again, I felt my mother’s rejection.
I didn’t defend myself. I simply told her she knew nothing about my life, and I kept visiting home less and less, continuing to distance myself. These scenes stayed with me, ingrained in my memory, nurturing the guilt, the stigmatization of my sexuality, and the way I lived it.
Now I realize how much my relationship with my mother has made me suffer, how much it drove me away from her, and how much I did to avoid needing her. I placed myself in a superior position to ease the pain of not receiving her recognition. As a child, I was never the daughter she wanted. During my adolescence, I became a woman who was different from her. My devotion to the Teresians was not what she wanted either. Later, when I began being with men, I became a "whore" in her eyes. When I chose theater as a profession and a way of life, she disagreed again. And when she found out later that I liked women, that was the last straw. How could she have a daughter so different from herself?
Her rejection was never overt. There were arguments, fights, and confrontations, but it was never obvious—it was buried beneath a silent criticism, a look of disapproval, of contempt, of disappointment. And this rejection chipped away at my self-esteem, my strength, making me feel wrong and ashamed. That’s the word: I felt ashamed of myself.
When I went back to my town, I hid my way of living, changed my way of dressing, and tried to live a social life that I thought would make my parents happy, but it caused me a lot of anguish. I distanced myself from them, hiding the truth of who I had become.
During important moments for them, moments when a daughter should have been there—my mother’s surgery, my father’s surgery, moving houses—I was absent.
I never told anyone about this, not even myself. My pain led me to destructive and reckless behaviors. To my friends, I always spoke highly of my parents and siblings, portraying an ideal family. I never admitted, to myself or anyone else, that I had problems with them that
caused me suffering. I fled from that suffering because acknowledging it would force me to confront a void I couldn’t bear.
I had to go far away to begin questioning my childhood and my relationship with my family.
I started living off my profession; I worked in a theater company, I was an actress, and I was fulfilling a dream. This was my life now. During that time, I learned a lot about the intricacies of theater: production, distribution, stage management, building and dismantling sets, loading and unloading trucks—everything involved in a theatrical performance. I would go on tour with one show while already rehearsing for the next one.
Living theater from all its angles gave me structure, knowledge, and strength. It became a true vocation, something worth fighting for, despite the obstacles, lack of support, resources, or money. I learned how to push projects forward by working hard, and it gave me the strength to make a living from it.
This could have gone on for a while, but there always comes a point in my life when, for reasons I don't fully understand, I follow an impulse that leads me to break away from what I have in order to aspire to something bigger and unknown. I feel a calling, and I follow it because I can’t stop myself. This happened when I left my town for Seville to study at university. It happened when I left the residence hall. It happened when I defied my father’s will to dedicate myself to theater.
Now, I felt that I had to leave Seville, the company I worked for, the boyfriend I had at the time who loved and cared for me, everything I had built there—friends, my home. And I did. I wasn’t comfortable performing my roles. I felt like something was missing. I felt artificial, like a fraud.
I met Carlos Gandolfo at an acting seminar. His work captivated me, so I decided to apply for a scholarship and travel to Buenos Aires to study at his school. Later, I understood that this was the catalyst, but deep inside, I had many other reasons. This was the beginning of a journey that would never turn back—the journey of leaving to find myself.
There’s a spring inside me that drives me to follow certain impulses strongly; I don’t stop to analyze them. I simply follow my intuition and let it guide me without thinking twice.
I was twenty-seven when I arrived in Buenos Aires. There, I began discovering the actress I wanted to be and the kind of theater I wanted to create. I traveled through South America, and I was awakened by the vastness of its nature and its people. I fell in love with a woman and allowed myself to name what I was feeling, to be reciprocated, and to stop hiding it from others.
The relationship was passionate and possessive. I suffered in love, and I suffered from the fear of losing it. But I also began psychoanalysis and started working on my relationship with my parents. I revisited my childhood and allowed myself to feel the pain and anger of the child who had never been allowed to feel them.
In Buenos Aires, I made many friends. I lived intensely, taking in everything the city had to offer—acting classes, bodywork, voice training, a lot of theater. I immersed myself fully in investigating my artistic expression. There, I met Juan Carlos Corazza, we became friends, and we started an artistic relationship that later, in Spain, would have a major influence on both my personal and professional life.
When I moved in with the woman I had fallen in love with, once again, my passion for intimacy resurfaced. I experienced love very physically, but also with a sense of romanticism. I was convinced that what I felt was the most special, that this love story was unique. It was my life, but at the same time, it felt like a novel, and I was the heroine. I truly believed that my way of loving was powerful, authentic, and devoted; I wanted to be a great lover, and love became the center of my life.
However, I ran out of money and decided to return to Spain to rethink my future. The separation from my love, my friends, and my life in Buenos Aires was hard, but I felt it was the right time to go back. Suddenly, in moments when I could have lost everything to passion, a jolt of reality brought me back down to earth. Common sense, the power of reality, awakened me with a shock.
The situation in Buenos Aires was bad, and in Spain, by the late 1980s, doors were opening for people; culture and art were in a golden age, creativity was thriving, and hope filled our streets and nights. It was the "prodigious decade." I felt that I wanted to be in my country at this moment, to be part of this resurgence of freedoms. I returned with a lot of fear; I had changed so much, and I felt very distant from my friends, my family, and everything I had known in Spain. I thought that, as I was now, they wouldn't accept me. In Buenos Aires, some of my masks had started to fall. What I had fervently believed about myself no longer held as true. The version of me, the Consuelo from Seville, was now in question, and some veils had been lifted.
It was now clear that I loved a woman, that I wanted to approach acting differently, and that I didn’t want to return to what I was before. Instead, I wanted to bring what I had learned in Buenos Aires here. In the end, I wanted to change the people around me.
This is a recurring theme in different moments of my life, a leitmotif. I discover something that changes me, that makes me grow, something that I’m passionate about, and I want everyone around me to discover it too. In doing so, I stop seeing or considering others. This has happened with my partners, my siblings, my parents, my friends, my students. I
believed I had the power to help others, to solve their problems and suffering, and this came from a well-meaning sense of superiority, from a desire to save them. There’s a will to help, but also an inability to bear the other’s conflict without having a solution, a difficulty in being present without acting. Realizing this took years, many blows, and much inner journey.
Finally, I land in Barajas; by then, I had become someone else, and there were my closest friends: Jose, Manolo, Mati, all transformed into "eighties" people. Faced with the fear of their rejection and judgment, I gathered strength and confronted them, showing who I was now and expressing all my criticisms of their way of understanding life and theater. I would call it spiritual superiority, like when, as a child, I felt superior to my parents and siblings, superior to the people from my town. Underneath it all, I experienced a desperate need to be accepted and loved. How much patience my friends had with me and how much loyalty they showed!
At that time, I didn’t know how to deal with my fear. I didn’t recognize it and had compulsive and counterphobic reactions. My body showed signs of distress—fever, muscle pain, tremors, chills, rashes, diarrhea. It was my way of feeling my limits. So, I told my boyfriend that I had fallen in love with a woman, I told all my friends, and I managed to bring her from Buenos Aires to meet my family. All at once, without any process, without thinking, just pure impulse, emotion—this was who I was.
The most important thing was what I felt. I couldn’t see the other person; I couldn’t feel the pain I was causing this man who had waited for me. In that moment, I trampled everything that stood in the way of living the life I wanted to live. Me and my life, me and what I wanted in that instant; but above all, me and my passionate love story.
I was offered a job related to production and organization at the Andalusian Theater Center in Seville, and I accepted. In a short time, I was able to bring my partner to live with me in Spain. I found a good job, a position of power, money, and I distanced myself from acting, from the reason I had spent years studying in Buenos Aires. I neglected my deep desires, focused on her and on our status. My renunciation of my ideals was justified: I had to take care of her, because at that moment, she needed security, or at least, I believed that was what she needed. I arranged for a friend to marry her so she could obtain Spanish citizenship and be able to work and settle in Spain. Once again, I had the overwhelming compulsion to give so I would be loved, to give physically, emotionally, materially because deep down, I feared she would abandon me. And so, I abandoned my essential self, my center, my creativity, the inner child who had accompanied me throughout my life. At the core, the figure that emerged in the shadows was the woman who didn’t feel worthy of being loved as she was, with her fragility, incompleteness, and fear. And the crazy idea was:
“If I don’t have anything to give, they won’t love me.” That’s the false abundance I experienced.
This crazy idea has marked my life, bringing illness and much suffering, both to me and to the people who truly loved me. The figure in the shadows, the woman who doesn’t feel worthy of being loved simply for being, has been pushing to come to light throughout my life. There are still days when I realize that I’m not facing it because my stomach hurts, or I’m excessively tired, or I feel depressed, and tears come at night when I’m driving home alone.
And then, when I thought I had given her everything, she left me for another woman. I went through the most desolate and sorrowful year of my life. I was thirty years old and wanted to die. I had been twenty when I experienced my first great love crisis. With the loss and betrayal, my entire life collapsed. I became ill, lost weight, and didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. I felt lost and needed to find meaning.
I left Seville, the job, the house, my friends, and moved to Madrid. I needed to find myself, desperately. I wasn’t happy. I felt miserable. The angel had fallen from paradise. I descended into the dark pit, which at that moment was feeling human, vulnerable, weak, and hurt. That’s when a great tower of pride fell. How was it possible for her to leave me, someone who had loved her so much? I couldn’t believe it, and it took me a long time to accept it. At every moment, my pride reared up, and I kept thinking, “She will come back.” But she didn’t. It would take years for me to become more aware of the traps of my love, of how what I called love was actually pushing me away from love.
This period of loneliness, inner dryness, and heartbreak felt much like how I had felt in adolescence—isolated and alone in my world. And once again, that yearning for God, for spiritual search, appeared. This time, I channeled it into yoga and began meditating. The anger and resentment were hidden. I had a meeting with her and her new girlfriend. The madness was that I tried to get close to them. I was so good, so exceptional that I could handle such a situation. And my shadow remained hidden. It would reappear later, during a new encounter, when I slapped her in public. I felt so much violence because I couldn’t make her come back to me.
I felt very depressed, the sadness frightened me, and I resumed psychoanalysis. I began to realize how love is blind. I had lived under the ideal of this great love, mine, the best, the one I had always sought and longed for, and in doing so, I hadn’t noticed the person standing in front of me, nor her shortcomings, nor her needs. Therapy grounded me, clarified me, and strengthened me. Clearing away the cobwebs from my mind, created by my overwhelming emotions, was always healthy for me. Clarity strengthened me and reconnected me with joy, with the desire to live, to reclaim my artistic vocation.
I searched in the night, still in a compulsive manner, for stories with women who made me feel desired, attractive, seductive, but something changed. It no longer satisfied me. It didn’t make me happy. The void of love was still there, but my wound, little by little, was healing thanks to the balm of love for life, for art, and the longing for the search.
Juan Carlos Corazza came from Buenos Aires, and we created a theater project together. Later, I continued my training in acting at his studio for actors. My life seemed to take a direction. I could keep growing and learning, which gave me confidence. I regained a little faith in myself and in my relationships with others. I returned to doing what I love most in life—acting, doing theater—and it redeemed me, renewed me. I entered a new phase, feeling stronger inside. The pain had softened, and I was reconnecting with my inner child. I had the will to live again, and I was regaining my excitement.
In the summer of 1991, I had no job, no money, and no love, but I was beginning to find my rhythm again. At that moment, I was offered a job in Seville, and I returned to making a living as an actress. Theater wanted me. I spent two years touring Spain with two plays by Federico García Lorca, especially playing the role of Adela in "The House of Bernarda Alba," which gave me the opportunity to grow a lot as an actress.
In September, rehearsals began, and I
fell madly in love with Susi. This marked the beginning of the most important relationship of my life. Every obstacle that Susi put in my way to conquer her was a precious gift that struck my pride with a devastating effect. She didn’t trust me, so she wouldn’t give herself to me until I passed all the tests that a sexual Five can set for their partner before giving themselves. I had to fight and, above all, be honest and open with her, loving her while accepting both my limits and hers. Her heart slowly began to open, and I began to appreciate what isn’t ideal, nor marvelous, but simply human and imperfect, yet kind. The cloud of false affection began to clear, and I entered the thorns of everyday love, of deeds, fidelity, and perseverance.
The journey of this relationship will unfold over the years of this autobiography, but at this point, I can say that it was here that a love story began, along with a story of pain. By Susi's side, I have experienced my maturity as a woman, and I have had to face many of my shadows—those that are harder to see because they are decorated with good intentions.
The greatest obstacle was always believing that I was on the side of love. And how do you question someone who believes they are on the side of love? How do you enter into crisis? That’s why my greatest falls have been related to love failures. The only thing that makes me question myself is the loss of love, the frustration of feeling that the person I love doesn’t feel loved by me, that it confronts me in my way of loving. With Susi, it was never enough to seduce her, nor my ability to wrap her in passion and ecstasy, or to show good
intentions. My histrionic, loving performance never won her over. She always confronted my falseness, always distrusted my excessive affection and contact, my display of love, even in our intimacy. This was very painful for me because I didn’t want to see my shadow, my manipulation, my need for control, and my disdain for her, even though I loved her so much. But it was so neurotic. I wanted to keep feeding the image of an ideal, romantic, generous love, free of sin... and she, from her mistrust in the exaggeration of my performance, examined me with scrutiny and never fell for my seductive game.
This attitude from Susi has sometimes been very confronting and painful, but I have always felt her love, and it has given me the opportunity to see my shadow, my selfishness, my difficulty with compassion and admiration. For a long time, I felt I was the important one in our relationship, the one who deserved to be served. Seeing this part of me was intense and painful, but also liberating. It came with the unmasking of the seductive image and the courage to be loved for who I am, to open my heart to compassion for my own smallness and for others’. And with that, I could admire Susi, her greatness, her talent, her qualities, and be small in front of her, to enjoy the admiration for the person I love so deeply, to feel that she is better than me in so many things, and that this does not make me unworthy, but fortunate.
Continuing the thread of the story, through Susi, I met Claudio Naranjo, and together we began working on the Enneagram. Almost at the same time, I started my Gestalt therapy process, diving deeper into myself, discovering who I truly was, recognizing myself, shedding the mask, the suit of seduction, overabundance, and omnipotence, and getting to know my shadow, which was, for me, a great unknown. This marked the beginning of the hardest yet sweetest journey: the fall from paradise, from what I was, or from what I had wanted to be until then. It was the journey of completely losing myself and, little by little, exhausting the familiar roles to encounter my essential self, my soul.
In 1994, Juan Carlos Corazza offered me the opportunity to collaborate with him in his acting school by teaching acting classes. It was a great offer for me at the time, as it meant professional recognition, economic stability, and being part of a project I believed in, which would allow me to grow. However, it also felt difficult, as it meant making a choice and losing that sense of freedom I had always sought in life—feeling like I could go anywhere at any time and do whatever I wanted. I grounded myself: I was thirty-four years old, and I hadn’t known how I would make ends meet for a long time. During this time, the burden of household finances mostly fell on Susi. I needed more stability, to put down roots, to commit to life, to the everyday, to the little things, to the people around me, to my partner, and to our home. So, I started working every day with a set schedule, and that’s when I stopped being an aspiring great actress and became just another worker. I committed myself to the school, to my students, to pedagogy, helping people act, helping them develop their gifts. Suddenly, my work was no longer focused on myself but on others, and
it merged my artistic training with my university training as an educator. The daily work helped me become more aware of my limitations and how to deal with them. This gave me, at that time, before turning forty, more consistency as a person, a more certain sense of security, and the dignified satisfaction of earning a living doing something good.
It was fourteen years of total dedication to education and the project led by Juan Carlos, alongside my colleagues Lorena, Manuel, Catalina, Rosa, Francisco... We sought to bring humanity to acting, working with new techniques while deepening self-awareness so that students could know themselves as human beings, becoming actors capable of conveying both the light and shadows of characters and stories. Now, there are many schools in our country, and much progress has been made in the way of acting, but at that time, there was a greater gap in training, schools, and techniques that could renew and nourish the actor’s work. The Corazza Studio was a pillar, and the team of professionals who gathered around this project saw it as a mission given to us, guided and inspired by Juan Carlos’s mastery and by our love for our vocation. There, the foundations were laid for the work I would later develop in theater and acting. These were years of intense professional activity, while my love life was also stabilizing. I also began to make more space for my social instincts, which had always been strong but had been put aside due to the intense emotional turmoil in my heart.
However, a new hurricane was about to hit my life. Absorbed by work, I neglected the relationship, and I didn’t realize it. Once again, the ghost of abandonment, of betrayal, of not being the only one, appeared. Life battered the shell of my pride, hurting me where it hurt the most. It broke me inside to accept that Susi wanted to leave, and it hurt even more to accept and live with my demon: recognizing that she was leaving because I hadn’t known how to love her.
Being left hurts, but knowing there’s someone else hurts even more... and “everything that hurts is ego,” Claudio always told me. I suffered for myself, for feeling betrayed and abandoned. But Susi’s sincerity and transparency helped me take a step forward, crossing through humiliation, offense, wounded pride, and opening myself up to the pain of awareness. I began to see my part in things, to understand how I offended, abandoned, and despised her. This sense of failure in love, this romantic catastrophe, tempted me to give up and throw myself into the madness of unrequited love and destruction, but I wanted to understand what was happening to me with love, how I could heal my heart; I wanted to learn how to live in a partnership. And so, I committed to a process of review with Susi, a therapy, and, above all, I committed to letting myself be questioned, to allow criticism in, not to defend myself, to let the water flow through the crack, to open the dam. How hard it was and still is for me to face my false love, my selfishness, my tendency to not see the other and to want to be the center of the relationship; my tendency to possess, how I turn the other into a slave to my service until they have to flee, suffocated.
It was two years of a deep review of our life together: entrenched roles, lies, manipulations, boundaries, questioning what each of us wanted from the relationship... For me, sex had been possession, impulse, genitality, a search for satisfaction, covering the anxiety and fear of not being loved, my eternal confusion between being desired and being loved. Sex had also been histrionics, a mask hiding my vulnerability, my lack of desire, my frigidity, my insecurity, and my fear of emptiness, of not acting, of spontaneous and deep intimacy. This was a major issue in my life, and until that point, I hadn’t paid attention to this difficulty, to the anxiety that pulsed inside me, contaminating my relationships. The wound opened, and I began to bleed... and also to heal. As I approached forty, it was a time when I felt I was at the abyss: pain, repair, and surprises. It was also a time of rediscovering Susi, of listening to her, seeing her, learning to love her in a way I still didn’t know how to. The simplicity, the sweetness, the not knowing, the not pretending, walking together without knowing where to go, allowing ourselves to discover together what our relationship was at that moment.
This has marked the history of our relationship. I suppose that, as it has been long, it has accompanied our maturation and the discovery of how everything changes over the course of life. Being two women, everything is more open, less predictable, and my yearning for love was an illusion full of idealization and myth, a movie that hurt me and kept me away from the other and from my true capacity to love. Believing I was special in love, idealizing the love encounter, were conditions that left me without freedom and real spontaneity in living love.
During that crisis, we received much help from several psychotherapists, especially Suzy Stroke, who was always a friend and an inspiring teacher for our love. We also received support from Antonio Catalán and Mamen Duran, our therapists, who so committedly accompanied us through that journey.
This crisis was followed by others that accompanied us: separations, not knowing if we could truly stay together, if we could continue the path we had started... And the underlying theme was always the same: I want it all and don’t value what I have, I step over things, I don’t pay attention, I don’t care, I don’t stop to listen to her needs, to respect her times. She feels lonely, she feels that when she gives herself completely, I don’t take care of her, I stop seeing her, and she withdraws, entering the cave of her distrust and intransigence, and I feel abandoned, punished. Breaking this dynamic has been the greatest challenge in our relationship, and we continue with it. We’ve changed a lot, we’ve come to understand each other, and it’s difficult because, at our core, we are very different. Deep down, we’re a bit alien to each other, but when the spark ignites, we burn, and as the great poet Rumi says, “Let the heart burn—that is what I want. Burning is everything—more precious than an empire in this world because it secretly invokes God in the night.”
However, I needed her. I no longer speak of fidelity: it is something spontaneous, genuine, intimate, a treasure, a great act of freedom, accepting what we are as a couple and what we want; our mark, the jewel of our intimacy, of our bodies that transform, change, slim down, grow fat, begin to sag... The mystery of loving your body alongside another’s as you grow old together.
I return to the thread of the story and must talk about the loving encounter with my parents, something that propelled me into life and opened the doors to love for myself. When I began working on my relationship with them, I was already aware of the issues I had with my mother, but I was still far from questioning my relationship with my father. To see all the negativity they had transmitted to me, to lift the veil of internal censorship, the one that tells us it’s a sin to accuse our parents, freed me and opened the door to greater awareness of who I was and why I was like that. I remember how, in my first therapeutic work on parental relationships, Enrique de Diego made me confront my father’s figure, with all his mechanisms of seduction and manipulation over the child I was, and how I refused to see it, because I couldn’t recognize his shadow. The pain was too great; if I desidealized him, what would be left of him in me? What would be left of me in myself?
Seeing his shadow was also seeing mine, the manipulation behind affection and kindness.
I continued this healing process in the SAT program, and it was key to understanding myself and, thus, understanding them: their history, their pain, and their shortcomings. To feel the pain and hatred of my mother, the loneliness of that helpless child, full of wounds she couldn’t express because she had no one to turn to. To know the suffering and anesthetized anger of my father, to feel him so alone, so unprotected and mute before his parents. It filled me with love and compassion toward them, toward my grandparents, and all those who had come before me. That was when I felt the divine grace of love for my parents and the immense gratitude for giving me life. But it was a long process, one that began to take shape and make sense within me and lasted several years. Little by little, I saw them more clearly, I related to them more sincerely. Better said, I stopped lying to them, which is what I had been doing until then. The guilt began to disappear, and with it, the games and manipulations, both mine and theirs. My siblings began to take up more space inside me. I started treating them as equals and, above all, I needed them. I began to show myself and share my problems with them, not only my successes and capabilities.
One day, it happened. Suddenly, I felt the need for my parents and siblings, their love, wanting to be close to them and tell them about myself. It was a feeling I hadn’t remembered, one that pride had torn from me when I was still a child. I had related to them from a place of superiority and overabundance; they were the ones who needed me, and I was going to help them solve their problems. From my self-sufficient loneliness, I bore the burden, the weight of everyone, without leaning on anyone, keeping myself distant from
their love, from their protection, sustained by my omnipotence. Little by little, things started changing. Our way of relating changed, and it was mutual: I changed, and so did they.
The final turning point came when Susi asked Claudio to marry us; we needed to continue shedding layers in every area of our lives, to share our love, and open it to the world. I traveled south to ask my parents for their blessing. I felt I was about to experience one of the most crucial moments of my life. I bared my heart to them and spoke to them about how important the step I was about to take was for me. My mother opened up, cried, and shared all her feelings and contradictions regarding my sexual choice. I continued to open up, shedding layers; we listened to each other without judgment, without criticism, accepting our differences and misunderstandings with compassionate pain. It was the first time I could stand before them with all my truth, without needing to do anything to be loved. That night, my mother came to wish me goodnight, hugged me, and gave me her blessing. I felt that something that had been separate joined together inside me forever: a very powerful warmth filled my heart, and I slept as deeply as I did when I was a child. Feeling the love and acceptance of my parents for everything I was pushed me into life with a new strength, full of sincere love for myself.
In the summer of 2001, Claudio married us at the Casa Grande of Quintana de Valdivielso, and there was a great celebration shared with many friends. It was a moment of glory, celebration, and joy, preceded by a lot of hard work—the work before the commitment.
This period of crisis in our relationship, between my thirty-seven and forty-two years, which culminated with our commitment, was also marked by the consolidation of my SAT process and my inclusion in its team of teachers. It’s true that, when one grows inwardly, one also grows outwardly, and life brings you what you need to continue growing. Life was very generous with me. Claudio asked me to collaborate with SAT in the area I knew best—working with expression, with theater... What a great gift to continue my process while contributing my small part to the great work of my teacher! And, more importantly, to be close to him. This was a turning point in my life: to feel his love beyond my mistakes and my brilliance.
After a regression session in SAT, I lay on the floor like a rag. I felt like I was missing life, unable to move. I had the sensation of being the fallen angel, of dying. At that moment, I saw Claudio as enormous and majestic, like a great patriarch who approached and descended from the heights to me, who was perishing in hell, in a world of pain and darkness. He helped me get up and told me, “I love you as you are, for who you are.” At that moment, my heart opened, and I could feel my pain, believe in my sorrow, and return to the realm of the living. If the teacher loved me this way, stripped of all seduction, without any attribute of beauty, power, or intelligence; if the teacher loved me as a creature devoid of everything, even the primal impulse for life, what could I do? What other proof was I
waiting for to feel worthy of God’s love, to bow before Him and recognize myself as His daughter?
And so, I began a journey toward pain and, therefore, toward love. Until then, I didn’t know they went hand in hand. But this new path was no longer about romantic relationships, successes and failures, or the squabbles of this world. This path was about meeting my essential self, being who I truly am, becoming what I came to be, and walking toward my destiny.
The experience, for a while, was hellish: to understand it, to broaden my comprehension of human suffering, to feel human and mortal, to crumble and bring awareness to the subterfuge of my pride. One day, during an experience led by Claudio, I underwent a strong loss of control; I had no sense of space, time, or what was dream and what was reality. I only perceived chaos. I felt death, the terror of dying, of not returning, of doing it alone. I believe that in this loss of control, the deepest mechanisms of my ego dissolved, and I couldn’t bear it. I resisted, but the wave was so strong that it broke me. I was stripped of all defenses, forced into unconditional surrender, reborn. I had lived some experiences of cycles, of fullness, but this time, after experiencing hell, I didn’t go to Heaven but to Earth, among mortals. I felt human and sisterly, I felt the need for others, and I was grateful to be here, among them. I remember leaving the room and contemplating the furious and wounded nature, just like me; I had aged, yet I felt much younger. I sat next to my companions, Vicenç and Muriel, watching the mountains at sunset, already in its decline. The grey snow covered the peaks, moving, the air was fresh, and my hands intertwined with theirs. Pure tears of humanity rolled down my face. I recognized that I needed others, and I felt relief from being mortal and being with my brothers in this world.
From then on, small revelations began to surface day by day: more sobriety, being more inward, fewer words, and less need for contact, yet at the same time, more need for others. The hell of pride unfolded all its violent and destructive force, resisting, not letting me yield, surrender, when only in surrender could I find the peace I so desperately needed. For a time, I was very afraid of this hell, fearing I would encounter it again as if God thought I had enjoyed life too much, and now it was time for me to suffer, to be cast aside. Later, in another therapeutic experience, I began to understand that there is no hell, that we create hell, that after death, heaven comes for all without conditions, and that each one goes through their purgatory and hell in this life, for both are part of it.
My path of redemption has always passed through pain, through embracing it and living with it, becoming its friend, savoring its sweetness. After a painful experience, where I could feel my pain and the pain of humans, my brothers, my heart opened. I became a sponge, surrendering, enjoying human contact, body to body, the fire of love. Here, I recovered my deep spontaneity, the joy of being, the love for others and for myself. The
surrender to what I am, to what I feel, to my genuine expression, the acceptance of all and of my everything.
I am forty-five years old, and I write: For me, the spiritual experience is about shedding the solemnity of pride, letting go of the written script, and rediscovering my genuine spontaneity, the spontaneity that doesn’t need to be displayed, that just is. In my world of relationships, this reflects a sincerity free of manipulation, without burden; flowing, being light and clear like water, saying what I think without attachments or density, letting what springs from my heart express itself, and letting laughter and humor always be present. I remember once the teacher asked me, “If you became a Buddha or a saint, how would you be?” At that moment, I was very focused on “being very humble,” and I said I didn’t want to be a saint—a response, by the way, quite arrogant. Today, I ask myself and begin to understand what Claudio teaches us: that passions can be transformed into wisdom. Thus, my Buddha is love; he burns in love, is pierced by the arrow, and surrenders to the arms of the Beloved. He is generosity and surrender without display or expectation of return. He is compassionate and benevolent. He has a joy for life that is contagious. He has a vocation for service and helps those in need without putting himself above them, from closeness, accompanying, doing what he can without trying to save the world. He is a fighter, and he does it with strength and determination because he is moved by a greater force, a purpose, a dream. He can make you laugh and cry; authentic expression is his gift, and teaching it to others is his destiny.
As Claudio says, “The struggle against the ego is one stage, not the whole journey.” What I most desire at this moment in my life is to stop doing so that the miraculous can appear.
And the miraculous appeared.
March 2005: during a check-up, I am diagnosed with a tumor in my left breast. Everything happened very quickly: I was operated on, and due to the nature of the tumor, eighteen lymph nodes were removed from my armpit. In the biopsy, it was found that the first in the chain was contaminated. A good doctor left my breast almost scar-free in an "artistic surgery." And that’s when my journey with illness began, something I hadn’t expected, the fall from the horse.
From that moment on, everything became surrender and renunciation. At first, I didn’t understand that my life would be turned upside down and that from that point on, nothing that had been would remain the same. I remember insisting on going to my first SAT in Brazil, telling myself to wait for the chemotherapy, hoping it would strengthen me and give me light. But it wasn’t the time to hold my destiny in my hands, nor to make decisions. It was the time to surrender to that painful force, that devastating hurricane called cancer and everything it brings. In May, I began chemotherapy treatment, the ordeal of destroying my cells, my immune system. In each session, I had to face my anger, my confusion, and my
fear. With each session, I cried out, “Why?” and with each session, I fell deeper. I had several hospitalizations due to very low white blood cells and everything that comes with it. There was only one thing: my body, which, fragile and in pain, was pointing the way, the path of the fall...
Susi was by my side throughout the treatment and everything that came after. These are the moments when you feel the strength of great love, the support of someone who loves you in everything you are. How hard it is for me to understand that, even in this state of weakness, of feeling helpless, without resources, without strength, there is someone in the world who can love me and care for me! Susi, with the truth of her love and unconditional surrender, was breaking down my lack of faith in a love that expects nothing from me, that simply cares for me because I need it. She would often tell me in those days, “You needed chemotherapy to surrender to the illness.” And it was true: without chemotherapy, I wouldn’t have taken the path I did...
After the fourth cycle of chemotherapy, I wrote:
I feel that, for the first time, I am not climbing onto the horse of my mind’s mechanism, doing more than I can, emboldening myself and going beyond my limits. This cycle has been the hardest. I have fallen into the dark pit of extreme weakness, of powerlessness. Not a drop of strength, eight hundred white blood cells, neutropenia, my candle was burning out, and there was no way out. I was so exhausted, so without the breath of life, that I didn’t want kisses or caresses, just to curl up within myself, just to listen to my body crying, asking for help, not even having the strength to complain. Fever, sharp pains, loss of appetite, exhaustion... falling, physical suffering, and, at times, feeling a slight improvement and wanting to get better, getting excited, only to fall back into the pit. My body told me, “Let me fall, I can’t go on, let me fall completely, respect my will, I can’t go on.” And I fell with it, and I became a baby again, defenseless, sick, needing everything, food, a hand to guide me, unconditional love from a mother, her care. And I felt fear because there was darkness, catastrophic thoughts, physical deterioration... And Susi was my pillar, my strength, my sister, my friend, my mother, my love, my nurse, my counselor; she brought me back to life, supported me, and I leaned on her, fell into her arms, cried on her lap looking for her comfort, took refuge in her belly and her eyes. I walked this Via Crucis by her side, and I could feel deep within me the strength and authenticity of her love.
It was a process of shedding my strength, of vulnerability, of losing control over my body and my life, that led me to surrender my heart to life. It was this process that led me to feel love, the love that I could no longer buy with seduction, charm, effort, generosity, and abundance. The chemotherapy left me like a little bird, with no energy for anything; it was the closest thing to dying, although I still don’t know what that feels like. And truly, in chemotherapy, our young cells, the strongest and most vigorous, die if they carry the poison
of cancer, which reproduces so quickly. With it comes the damage to our liver, our kidneys, our spleen, our skin, our eyes, our hair... At that time, I had a long mane of hair that represented my identity, or at least I thought so. When the oncologist told me I would lose my hair, it was the first time I cried during everything I had been going through. And so it happened: Before my hair fell out when I combed it, I shaved it all off with a radical cut and dyed it to comfort myself, to play, to rebel against the stigma of the sadness of the illness. I made a wig similar to my hair, as recommended. When it started falling out, Susi bought a razor, and every time the fuzz appeared, she shaved it off to zero. Bald and clean, I wanted to be, without weight. I never wore the wig, and I removed the scarves that hid my baldness. What a relief to show myself without eyebrows, almost without eyelashes, and without hair, naked with my illness! What a relief to stop hiding what was happening to me! And why did I want to hide it? To not scare people, to not appear weak, to be afraid I wouldn’t get hired to work, for so many reasons without reason.
When we are sick, we fear the rejection of others. We live in a world that turns its back on illness, and we feel stigmatized. For a long time, I felt guilty for being sick, as if it were the consequence of not having done things right; in truth, I experienced it as punishment. How much omnipotence I found in my mind! As if I had the power to avoid illness, as if I were God, as if in this life there was a law of cause and effect. I thought that if I had done this or that, or if I had stopped doing that, if I had taken better care of myself... My thoughts were racing, wanting to grasp the formula of life, of being well, to know where I went wrong. So much suffering! How exhausting! So much resistance to my destiny, to recognizing that everything was in the hands of something greater, a great mind that orders and disorders! How much rage and guilt, how much shame!
Little by little, these thoughts began to dissolve; in vain, I tried to control the mystery of what was happening to me. One day, Claudio said to me, “Are you taking this as a punishment or as an opportunity?” His words and the meditation opened the dam. There was nothing to do, only to live it as I could, not even to be grateful for it: to live it, bowing before that powerful force that was breaking me down. And so, I began to enjoy the small things, the big events of my daily life: waking up with the desire to eat a little, the juice that still tasted like something, reading in the hammock and feeling the ray of sunlight coming through the window of my bedroom, the visit of a friend, being able to do a little yoga with Pepe, stepping out onto the balcony to get some fresh air, watching people walk by, listening to music, the contact with Susi’s hand, her gaze... Everything was slow, fragile, silent, and I was living each day in an intense way what I had avoided all my life: feeling needy, receiving without doing anything, without giving anything in return.
There were two moments in this process that I want to share. During the fifth round of chemotherapy, Susi had a film shoot in Valencia. We needed the money, and I didn’t want her to miss that experience; I felt she was giving me all her life, all her time. So, I had to ask
my younger brother, Roberto, to come and take care of me. How hard it was to ask him and let myself be taken care of by the “boy” of my family, the one I had always cared for and advised! To put myself in his hands, to let him see me so weak, to have him accompany me through the process of chemotherapy, to help me recover, to fall down, and for him to be the one to comfort me. It brought us much closer, with a more sincere bond. And as life does what it wants, with a mysterious wisdom in the events, I spent my last round of chemotherapy with my parents. And this was one of the most healing experiences of my life: to go back to being the baby I once was, the one who needed everything, to be a sick daughter who needs her parents, not the self-sufficient, superior daughter I became when I was only five years old, but to be a daughter in need of consolation.
I am in bed during one of the down moments I had in the ten days following chemotherapy. I cry out of despair, crying because I feel so deprived of the strength of life, and now I realize that, at that moment, I cried so that they could comfort me and feel their comfort. And my mother, at the head of my bed, runs her hand across my forehead, and my father gently strokes my feet. This scene healed one of the wounds that had built up the tower of my pride, the denial of the deep need that a child feels for their parents: that bottomless pit we all feel, which I filled with pride, superiority, and abundance. It moves me to recall how those days filled me with hope, with my father’s cheerful voice throughout the house, giving me encouragement, and how the nervous attention and care from my mother did me good. I had them all to myself again, as it was during my first year of life, without having to share them: me, their daughter, and them, my parents.
Fifteen years have passed, and I realize that, among many other things, the illness brought order to my life, put things in their place. The doctors were doctors, and they were there to heal me, and I was there to let myself be healed; my parents were my parents, my siblings were my siblings; Susi, my wife, my companion, the family I created. I felt the friends who were there for me and those who couldn’t be there. The teachers were more than ever the teachers, and I needed them to bring light to the darkness that engulfed me.
Meditation and the fragility of my body connected me with the divine; action gave way to contemplation, to a more subtle perception, to the emotion of beauty. There is a flower in my garden that represents that fragility. Tall, slender, it stands by itself, swaying with the wind’s movement, that is its dance, offering no resistance, letting itself be carried away... That is its balance, and that is how it survives. Any aggressive movement could break its stem and end its existence, but there it is, offering its beauty to the world, fulfilling the mission it was given. Her beauty overwhelmed me. I was sure her life would be short, that it could be broken at any moment by an animal, a step, a drop of rain... but she had gifted me her beauty, offering herself in all her splendor in that moment to die afterward. A life that lasts only a few hours, a life made into an offering so that I could contemplate it, to contribute to the beauty of the world. Then I thought: “This is what I want to do with the
life I have left: offer myself in the beauty of my essence, without holding anything back, without pretending, without seeking to remain, without clinging to it.” And that day I sighed, I found meaning in what I was living.
In an ayahuasca experience in Brazil, a year after I started treatment, when I began to recover, I encountered my death, which told me: “Look at me, I am here, take me seriously.” To take it seriously wasn’t to fight with it; it was to give it its place, to look at it face to face, and know that it is there, that it has been very close to me. To take my life very seriously.
I had a dream. I arrived at the sea. There was a boat with a boy and a man who had previously approached me. The man was sleeping on the deck, and the boy was in the lotus position steering the ship. I jumped onto the boat and grabbed the mast. We sailed toward the open sea, and I noticed the wind picking up, and there was danger. I warned them I was up above, the sail broke, we sank, we were rescued, there were a lot of people, and we were on a large shore; I felt a pleasant sensation, even though I had gotten wet and there had been danger.
“Decisions arise when something more essential than our own ideas breaks through, through the clouds of our desires. At that moment, we don’t look at the price, nor do we determine the result.” (Peter Brook)
When I started to recover, the hardest and most glorious moment arrived: realizing I was no longer the same and that I couldn’t continue doing what I had been doing up until then. The call for freedom was so strong, the call of my instinct, of my heart, that I couldn’t ignore it; it was genuine. My body was speaking to me in every cell. A clear and powerful voice said: “Consuelo, do what you want. Now do it, because you are in harmony with yourself, with the life that has been gifted to you again, and with your destiny. Now is the time for your holy freedom, and it’s not selfish, nor capricious, nor neurotic. It’s life, it’s the call of the blood.” And I felt the deep conviction that I would follow it. My battle scars became my reasons, my strength. I have rarely felt such a deep conviction in my life. I didn’t yet know what I wanted, but I was certain of what I didn’t want; I knew I had to go, even though I didn’t know where or have any plan. And so, my process of leaving the Studio began, the project I had been linked to for sixteen years, and professionally separating from Juan Carlos, my teacher and great friend.
In few moments of my life have I felt so alive and so present, so clear about what I wanted, so authentic. I suffered a lot, and they didn’t make it easy for me; it was painful for everyone: for me, leaving, and for them, letting me go. From time to time, my seductive energy, my need to leave without them being upset, to do everything right, was put to the test, but I had an alarm inside me: I couldn’t betray myself because my life was at stake, and I was coming out of a very difficult illness process, so I wasn’t willing to change my mind to please others or fulfill the great expectations that, I thought, the group had about me.
After the solitude, the emptiness of plans, the vertigo of the future, not knowing how I would make a living, came the wonderful experience of being free again. I remembered the moment I left the Andalusian Theater Center at the age of thirty and traveled by bus to Madrid with a million pesetas in the bank and no idea where I was going, but as free as a bird, taking the initiative on my path. I needed to be in that blank space, with no plans. I needed time to feel that emptiness, that not knowing; I needed to stew my soul, give space to my desire, to let the meaning of this new life be revealed. And it revealed itself without making plans or projects, without building anything, simply living. Time of uncertainty, of fallow ground, and now I understand what I discovered in that time, what that permission brought me, knowing what the essence of my path was. From that moment on, I do only what I truly want, and fulfilling my deep desire is the greatest commitment I can make to myself and the world. I can no longer escape because when I stray from this path, when I get distracted, my body springs into action and gets sick, or I begin to wander like a soul in pain, and I know I am not being true to myself.
I always sought to be free, with a neurotic freedom that was about doing things my way, capricious and selfish. I have a memory from my childhood when I wanted to go on a school trip. My father told me he didn’t have the money, but I convinced him: I was loaded with good reasons why I should go on that trip, and in the end, I made it happen. Today, it saddens me to imagine my father’s sacrifice and my inability to renounce and feel frustrated. But now I was understanding something deeper about freedom. It is a challenge to be faithful to the deep desire, to the calling, to take responsibility that my choices sometimes lead to the rejection of many, to stop being good for everyone, to accept that my choice may not please everyone. It is a challenge to take the path of doing what truly makes me happy and what nourishes my soul, the holy freedom, and when I align with it, my life is good for me and for others, and its fruits are good for all, even for those who didn’t like my choice.
This need clearly arose from all the time I spent working at the Studio, sacrificing myself to maintain the status of being the right hand of the teacher, living for his gaze. I fought hard to convince everyone to do what I wanted, what I thought was best. It was an immense effort to insist on being right, and this started to poison my relationship with Juan Carlos and my colleagues; a dark time of fighting for a community project, in which I wanted to fulfill my dream without leaving, convincing them to accept my dream as their own. And suddenly, I realized I didn’t have to convince them of anything; I simply had to let them go and pursue my dream, alone. When, for many years, you’ve built yourself around a group and have a tribal sense, it hurts, and you feel deeply attached, and it’s hard; you feel like you’re betraying your family. Who are you outside of this group? It’s like quitting a drug; you have to go through withdrawal, let go, and walk alone. But once you get through it, the sensation is wonderful. I realized how much weight I had been carrying in my backpack, and how light I was starting to feel now...
After a therapy session, I wrote:
Before, I wanted others to do what I wanted, that was freedom for me; in that feeling, I was a slave, and my life was built around seduction and manipulation to get it. Now I do what I want, without expecting others to do the same, and this is true freedom.
I’m shedding my skin, it’s joyful to feel it, but I also feel very naked, and it hurts. Today, I deeply believe that following my path is my choice, my freedom, my right; it’s the way to respect my dignity.
I want to continue discovering myself, finding myself. This is living, feeling my life. And my true freedom, listening to the desire of my soul and following it. I tell myself, "Do what you want," and hearing myself say it makes me very happy, I feel my cells dancing joyfully, celebrating this initiation. Yes, “Do whatever you want” contains a great freedom and a strong commitment to my life.
At forty-eight, I began the most creative stage of my life, where I have grown and expanded the most as an artist. It was about letting go, and everything started to open up: exploring texts with acting groups the way I wanted, diving deeper into my work, realizing how much I could help others when I was true to myself, how far I could go with others when I was faithful to my deep intuition, how magic appeared, and, curiously, how being deeply myself is linked to letting go of myself and becoming a channel for something greater. Until then, I had been a sketch; now I was painting intensely the picture of my existence.
Then, the path to fulfill my dream opened up: to act again, to grow as an actress, to develop. The great roles came, not because the projects were important—some were, others less so—but because the characters were: they came at the right moment for me to take a step forward, to reveal myself to the world, to go beyond myself, to face the limitations of my character, and the lack of confidence I had about myself as an artist, disguised as omnipotence. How many times I said, "I don't want to work this way or with that person because I am special, because I am a better artist." These thoughts hid a deep lack of confidence in my abilities. I had spent so long searching for excellence in art that I had not given myself the chance to bite the fire and confront the great ghost that haunted me, that crazy idea: "You're not good enough, you won't be able to do those great characters." But the opportunity came, to take the risk, and I did, over and over again. And I realized, time and again, how much humility it takes to do great things, how much inclination, how much strength to fall and get back up, to fail and keep trying; how much love to make it all about not the comfort of my ego, but to get it dirty, to make it resist, to throw it back up so it can be struck where it hurts most. Art doesn’t allow ego; art is surrender, it's biting fire, mud, and effort. It's like a substance: you either surrender to it, give it all, and go without resistance, letting go of control, or it throws you out, rejects you, and
you become a functionary of art. But that is not my path; my path in art is to put my fire at its service, the fire of my hunger for love, my intensity, my lived experience of life. And, finally, I was able to do it. What a relief!
One summer, I was talking to Annic Chevreux and Claudio about my work with the character of the mother in Bodas de sangre, and Claudio said, “You were able to put your fire on the stage.” And that's how it is: to honestly bet on what I can give in art so that art can distill it, refine it, and shape it...
I have just turned fifty-one, and I am rehearsing El Proyecto Laramie. The rehearsal room door opens, and it’s Susi bringing me the news: "Your father has had a very serious accident." The ground opens beneath my feet. "No, it can’t be, I’m not prepared." My father was run over while riding his bicycle, at seventy-eight years old, healthy, good, and happy, just as he was. When I think of his death, I remember Mayte Martín's song: “Never think about death... and never be sad while the sun repents, and die suddenly, on the day least expected, the one I always think about.”
Thirteen days in a coma, thirteen days for us to get used to the idea, to say goodbye, to cry, to comfort each other, to communicate with him through tubes and cables, to talk to him about so many things, to say goodbye. E2 people per shift, with my mother broken, devastated... Thirteen days to feel the greatness of this little great man, this wonderful father. One morning, my brother Fale and I, together, gave permission to remove his life support. The doctor told me he didn’t know how long it would take. I said goodbye and caught the train to Madrid, for rehearsals. How could I leave? I left, I escaped... On the train, I called Claudio, told him my father was dying, wanting to tell him because he had become my other father. I arrived in Madrid and received the call from my brother: he had already passed... And back to Cádiz with Susi and my brother Roberto and my sister-in-law, traveling all night, such a hard night, to arrive and find my mother sunk in pain, shattered, dead from the fear of losing her husband, her love, the foundation of her life.
I was left an orphan; until then, I hadn’t realized. How much greatness, how much life, and how much love there was in my father's presence; how much absence he left.
When I met with Claudio, a few months later in Mexico, I spoke to him about how I missed my father’s gaze, how I realized that before, everything made sense because he was watching me. I had been left an orphan and hadn’t had time to say goodbye, to appreciate his presence. And now, for whom would I do things? Who was looking at me? I felt apathetic, as if life had lost its meaning, with no desire to live it. Claudio told me to try to communicate with him, to speak to him, and he shared a moving dream in which he had met his father and felt his love in every part of his body.
I feel and still feel how much my father loved me, and I can perceive his love in every part of my body, in every cell. Now that he is gone, I feel that deep down he always loved me just as I am and that he continues to embrace me from the stars.
It was two years of mourning, of internal process, of acceptance and working through the loss. Accompanying my mother was and still is the hardest thing. Being by her side is being next to despair, the desperation of loss, and it’s very hard for me to be with her; I want her to stop being like that, I want her to get better. The pain of my mother breaks my soul and makes me feel powerless. In one experience, I opened myself to feel her pain, and it was immense, heartbreaking. After that, I was able to feel more compassion for her and less burden, less responsibility. I could be by her side without wanting to change her, respecting her sorrow.
E2 years after my father’s death, I met the Yoruba priest José Vilas from Cuba, and I asked about him. He told me: “He’s right here, with us, and he wants me to tell you to go and buy many flowers that he liked and throw them in the place where you scattered his ashes. It’s what he needs to start his happy journey toward the light.” As soon as I returned to Spain, I went down south, and in a small boat, my brother Fale, my mother, and I, loaded with flowers, threw them into the sea, where we had scattered his ashes, celebrating his existence, honoring that good man. This ritual did me a lot of good: fulfilling his last wish, filling him with flowers, and knowing that he was happily running toward the light, and that we would always have his legacy.
These last years have been intense. Entering my fifties, the loss of my father, a strong relationship crisis, a separation and a reunion, much professional growth... and again, from time to time, meeting my fragility, feeling the limits of my body, getting older... The fragility! My soul is in it, in its acceptance, in living it, smiling at it, rocking it, accepting it; that is me. And now, more: It’s not like before; suddenly, the awareness of age, of what getting older entails, turning a year older. My pride struggles against time and my body because inside me there’s an unbeatable "I can, I won’t be like the others, I can do more." Learning to live without control, with this fear, with my body’s needs, smiling at my fragility, are part of the journey. “In the acceptance of weakness lies true strength.” I believe this is a healing mantra for a proud person. Contact with weakness is wisdom, it’s a guide, it illuminates us, it brings us closer to our essence, to love.
How is my life now, at fifty-six? What is it like to work, travel with this body, with this soul, with this age? What is it like to accept fatigue, the joy in the small things, in the contemplation of life? I always wanted to be present, but it was a presence that got lost in pleasing others, in proving my worth to them, in doing, which got lost in the gaze of others, in my own grandeur, fleeing from how small I felt. It was a life that found meaning in intensity.
At this moment, I am finishing this story of my life in a faraway and lost place beyond the seas. The journey has battered me, I’ve gotten sick; I’ve felt insecure, tiny, and what I want most is to go back home, sit in my room, and not move. I remember the story Claudio told about the experienced seeker who doesn’t need to leave his room to find the coveted blue bird, a metaphor for knowledge, because everything he seeks is right there, in that center, in that simplicity. And, along with this need that comes and is distilled, I feel inside me the fear of losing my strength, the fear of the abysses, and, at the same time, a great need to live intensely, to devour it all.
After my illness, I had years of Heaven, not wanting to return to the world. It was a time of leaving this world, it was the most spiritual time of my journey. After fifty, it’s as if life once again devoured me, with an immense desire to squeeze it, to live it. It’s beautiful to feel it because the quality of my experience has expanded, but from time to time I get tired, I want to stop, calm down, contemplate, stay still, feel the beat of my existence, and prepare myself to let go.
I understand more deeply the practice that Claudio teaches us: Observe the thought, be the observer who observes one thought after another. I am not used to it; I observe more the emotions. Now I observe the thoughts, and I realize how heavy all those thoughts are, the slavery of the mind. Everything is in my mind, even if I don't bring awareness to it, and it roars and conditions my life. And it’s my path to be more aware of my mind, to become more aware of the shadow of my mind; because that shadow conditions my actions, my emotions, my behavior.
In another therapeutic experience, I could feel in an extreme way the presence of the mind, the uncontrolled movement of my thoughts. I could see them as if I had a magnifying glass that amplified them: their voices, their noise, their chaos... And I realize that it is awareness that frees that space. If I can be more aware of that mental movement every day, it will begin to open up more space: Meditate, observe the mind in the breath, and see if slowly more space is created between each thought. In these spaces lies the liberation of the mind, there lies happiness.
And I realize that, in my time of meditation, the intention is to calm the mind, to soothe it, but not to observe it. My concentration is focused on the body, on the sensations, on the emotions and some understandings that come, but there is no specific attention toward knowing the mind, toward its darkness and its light. And, little by little, humor and awareness alleviate me: the awareness that the noise of that mind is an unbearable torment that pulls me away from my true life, from the peace I long for...
When the body decays, the time comes to illuminate the mind to understand the Mystery; it is the moment to feed the spirit and let myself be guided by it. The soul is needed to walk
in this life. May my soul not be lacking; I want to feel it at every step. Why decipher the sea if the waves return it to you without thinking?
And I finish this story of my life with the inspiration of the words of my teacher, Claudio Naranjo: "No one can perceive the blue bird except with the eyes of an experienced seeker. Experience and the pain of the journey are needed to penetrate the invisible that was always there."
Four years later, I write this epilogue.
I didn’t dare to write this epilogue. I still resist, but the delay in publishing this book, and the four years that have passed since I finished this biography, give me the opportunity and the impulse to do so.
In October 2018, I return from a trip to Amsterdam with Susi. The relationship is severely damaged; it’s as though we no longer understand each other at the essence level, as if we speak different languages. It’s hard but necessary to acknowledge that love is not enough, that sometimes paths diverge, and the needs of two people who love each other do not align.
Susi had been sensing this for a while, and I also knew the idea was there, though I refused to name it or give it space in the realities my mind decided to let in. There is nothing to say or do: she tells me she’s leaving, and when I return from a SAT course in Russia, she’s gone from the house. I find the home empty of her and half the furniture. An empty house, reflecting my existence at that moment. The greatest sorrow of my life has a name now: it's something I can talk about, though it’s something that still costs me, still hurts.
On January 1, 2019, I wrote to Claudio to tell him everything, and I share his reply here: Dear Consuelo, I’m still in Italy, and I don’t even use the phone since my last hospitalization here, concentrating on finishing my writings before my body, which is failing me more and more, lets me down. I’m so sorry for your suffering after your separation from Susi after twenty-seven years, and I wish for you not to avoid it, so it can serve you to the fullest — because, it seems, nothing gives us as much as what we lose. Big hug until a little more time... Claudio.
His words became a healing mantra for me: "Don’t avoid the pain so it can serve you to the fullest," and "nothing gives us as much as what we lose."
More than a year has passed, and I still haven’t separated inside, nor stopped loving, nor untangled myself.
In July 2019, our teacher passed away. And again, the question that I asked Claudio when my father died arises: "Who is watching me now? Who is witnessing my life?" The father is gone, the teacher is gone, the beloved one is gone. Who watches me now? For whom do I live? Yesterday, I told a friend: for God, for myself, for that essence that has been with me since I’ve existed, for my soul.
But within this experience, there is a profound loneliness. Almost every night I wake up and feel an enormous, ungraspable void, which hurts, bites, and pushes me into the abyss; I fear dying alone, and despair takes over. Everything is gone, everyone is gone: the illusions, the person I thought was the love of my life, the life I imagined. And I keep asking myself, for whom?
Of course, I know the meaning of life is life itself, unconditional surrender to fate without asking for explanations. And I keep in mind the path of the heroes, although I wish I had more heroines to look up to, even though there are fewer examples of them. I think of Oedipus, who didn’t begin to see within himself until he gouged his own eyes out, and I remember Claudio’s words when I got sick: “Have you taken this as a punishment or as an opportunity?”
I know that what hurts is ego, feeling the failure of love when I believed love was everything in my life, feeling that word: separation, feeling left, abandoned; feeling like everything has crumbled. It is ego because it stems from the belief that I am someone, that I am the cause, that I could have avoided it. If I could feel the sweet humility, there would be pain, sadness, but no anguish or suffering.
I wrote these words after an intense therapeutic experience in Brindisi last year: I realize that everything is dying, that living is dying continuously. I remember the dream I had when Claudio left, in which I asked myself why I didn’t accompany him on his passage. And the answer was in the experience: I stayed here to learn to die. Everything is dying, and we don’t know how to do it, or at least, I don’t. And living is that dying every moment, with every bond, every tie, every experience. It’s stopping holding on, possessing; it’s simply letting go, letting it go, and receiving the new that comes, to let go again.
I’m about to discover what love is after letting go, after releasing, after detaching; but the bond doesn’t disappear; what disappears is the attachment, the tie, the knot. The grief, the letting go, the walking in solitude. Being in solitude, without a partner’s love. At times, a pleasant sensation of finally being truly alone with myself, for the first time in
my life. Listening to myself and allowing myself to be myself.
At times, a feeling of newly discovered freedom, deep spontaneity. A me with me, alone, and enjoying it.
But suddenly, anxiety takes over: loneliness, death, illness, feeling deeply and too fragile, and making my heart strong to move forward and go to the theater, study, talk to my mother on the phone, go outside, catch a plane, give a course, return home, go to bed, cook, buy clothes, see people. It’s all very strange and, at times, very difficult.
Inside me, there’s a continuous struggle, with a tendency to let myself go, to want to disappear, to cry and not stop. And suddenly, life, the sun, the balcony, the park, the little dogs, and the theater; theater is saving me.
Being able to channel desperation, rage, frustration, helplessness, desolation, and also love into art. Because I feel love. And I feel very sensitive to the small expressions of love from others, and I value them more than ever. The small things. And feeling myself as I am: a small being. That would be the cure. Renouncing grandeur.
And yet, I continue reflecting, delving into this holy freedom, in this essence of warrior, rebel, wild, animal character. How do you transform sin into virtue, passion into a gift, error into talent? How do you not deny the essence, that jewel that the child I was once dreamed of, full of innocence? Yes, be what I am, embrace fate without shame and without pride, with humility and gratitude. Taking the gifts, creating with them. The joy of being!
And poetry helps me; it helps me read it, recite it, work with it, and write it. “One word, and everything lights up,” says Mouawad. Thus, I want to finish this story with words that inspire me, light me up, heal me, and fill this journey with meaning, where I feel out of control, thrown into the abyss, and only poetry and theater, which is also poetry, hold me up.
I usually write from texts that move me; I like to make them mine and add my own words. This way, I merge with Sophocles, Lorca, Gioconda Belli, Virginia Woolf... They are all in this
last poem, and I, with all of them: Make way for the woman who feared neither the tides of love nor the hurricanes of disdain...
I need the strength, the energy, the jump, the resistance, to feel like the mistress of my life, to recognize myself in my face of two, of thirty, of forty, of fifty years. Now I am Orlando, and I live the gift of having been in the twentieth century, in the twenty-first century, and, why not, in the twenty-second. I walk through history, I am an actress in Greece, in the great Dionysian festivals, I give voice to Antigone and tell this patriarchal civilization: "It is you who paint the margin that distorts the image of what has always been just. Should we obey a law that is inhuman? I don’t know, nor is it relevant whether divine forces, living nature, or the power of the universe created the immutable and unwritten laws, the unforgettable and eternal ones, arising at the same time as the brilliance of consciousness, which differentiates us from beasts, which oblige us and bind us, resonating with a distant voice deep in the soul. I will not obey you betraying my nature."
But I tell Antigone that beasts are more merciful than the laws of our civilization, freer and wiser. I would like to be a beast and recognize myself in my animal, and surrender to the limits of my body, my age, my ailments, and be content to contemplate, to say goodbye, to hug myself and retire, to stop fighting, like the elder animal that I am. And yet... oh!, yet... “hope bites me like a dying wolf.” I resist, I rebel, “Dance, tap, I undress, you wrap me, I wrap you...”
You asked me, what remains to come? I don’t know, because I’m still in this transition. Amazed at the metamorphosis of my body, my flesh, my blood, my bones. I fear and tremble for what is to come. And you respond to me: love. And I say to you: not even that, silence. The metamorphosis will be that of silence, the liberation of silence, the calm, the disappearance of effort, the ray of sun that simply warms, the listening of all my secrets, the deep embrace, the love I love, the love I love you without needing you to love me, the joyous heartbeat, the anchored conformity, the dance without effort, the surrender to becoming without conditions; the metamorphosis will be life, life, life, life, the time of the soul of life!
And then, we will travel there, where Antigone and Orlando went, Oedipus and Tiresias, and Juan, my father, and Claudio, my teacher; there, where we all go, to the last metamorphosis. I fly toward death. Without wings. Without eyes. Without a body.
Lady of the stars with burning breath, master of nocturnal songs, possess me with your frenzy, show me the light in the darkness. Mom? Dad? Love of my life! Help me!
"Silence hardens. I am flesh of stone. Soon only dust. Maybe this is what must be: between being and not being until nothing is."
"Live without yesterday, live without tomorrow."
I dissolve into you, Lady of souls. A part of the whole that is everything and is nothing. Scattered in the wind. Liberated. Make me dance. Make me dance. Make me dance.