TOWARD ONESELF.

In some ancient cultures for a member of the community to be called a sage or the sage of the community, it could be among other things that they go through a time of confinement that was considered a process of spiritual initiation, which aimed to create a space to increase the internal experience and the way to remember old wounds, thus shaking the emotional world of the individual, leading him to contact spaces of his own psychism until now unknown, in this process the courage of the aspirant was proved, the ability to waive the status quo. This type of sacrifice promoted that within the person there is something valuable, which would change forever. Then emerged wisdom, a knowledge beyond the intellectual, which shows the person answers that only have surgical problems of having walked the path of their own suffering and having survived it.

Today we are around the world in a compulsory confinement, a 
confinement that tries to protect our own survival, and tests our 
temperance. 
We are facing loss, we have lost our lifestyle as we knew it, we 
have lost daily contact with the outside world, there are no longer 
meeting places available for study, sport or art , not at all. 
Those affinities that linked us to others in meeting spaces are 
simply not possible. 
This is a time of giving up many issues considered normal in our 
world before. Now, however, they become a longing for the moment 
unattainable.

This is the sacrifice that is demanded of us to give priority to health, 
to life, with a high price to pay. Sacrifice is also related to 
uncertainty in several ways, including knowing how long it will 
last and the impact it will have on an individual and global level, 
dealing with uncertainty tests all the internal resources we have to 
maintain sanity in the face of crisis.

That is the question we will have to answer each one, the 
confinement leads us to moments of silence, moments in which the
only voice that is heard is that of oneself. ¿What does that voice tell 
us?, ¿ What is it talking about? The running of the bulls puts to the 
tests the pleasure that we can have with our own company, the little 
boy who in his crib entertains himself playing with his own foot is 
a beautiful image of being happy with oneself. ¿How do I encourage 
myself every day?, ¿What do I provide for my own happiness? We 
are also facing the daily routine, those tasks that are proper for the 
survival of each day, cooking, cleaning, etc. ¿Can I take care of 
myself?, ¿Can I invest my time in what is basic and fundamental 
every day?, ¿With what attitude do I do it? The confinement also 
puts us on the troubles of coexistence and the contact that we can or 
cannot maintain with who is in the distance. ¿How much does the 
other matter to us?, ¿What is related between us?, ¿What separates us?, 
¿What can I share?, ¿What can I tolerate?, ¿With whom and 
how are we relating?, ¿What is the least I expect in this relationship? 
Everything is being put to the test, simply because there is no place 
to which we can escape this reality, and we are forced to face it

We are being shaken by a situation that is in no way in our hands to end, we are being challenged by our own pending issues, by our own forgotten longings. It is an opportunity to transform ourselves and find within ourselves those unshakable values that make up our personality, that which cannot be taken from us for any reason, not even for a situation as harsh as the one we are experiencing. Perhaps we can find what gives value to our existence in this world, which has nothing to do with what can be socially shown, because now from the confinement those things that gave status no longer matter.The suffering of isolation inevitably leads us to the essence of our being. Awareness of that which nourishes or hurts us, that which contributes to our joy or generates sorrow, leads us to clarify what about oneself and what relationships we have built give us the feeling of belonging, fulfillment, and happiness. If today were the last day of our life, and today we are faced with that possibility.  ¿Is it enough with what we have lived, what we are living today?  Crises do not transform everyone, because everyone has the last word to allow themselves to be transformed. As time goes by we will see what we have allowed to happen in the depths of our being.

DRA. ISABEL AYALA VERA 

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

COMMERCIAL ENGINEER

JUNGUIAN ANALIST

+593996050245

The original article in Spanish has been published on April 21, 2020, 
found at www.paolaayalavera. jimdo.com, this has been translated for t
his publication, the rights to the text and the photographs are by 
Paola Ayala Vera. This article can be cited with the proper reference.