JourneyTalks Podcast
Your favorite podcast to reconnect with gratitude and inspiration.
JourneyTalks Podcast
Journey Talks Podcast with Dr. Armando Garcia: Embracing Psychotherapy and the Heart's True Journey
Have you ever stood at a crossroads between the life you planned and the life your heart yearns for? Join me and my friend Armando Garcia as we unravel his transformative leap from the path of medicine to the soulful realms of psychotherapy in Spain. His story is a beacon for anyone navigating the seas of change, reminding us that the pursuit of passion can alter not just our careers, but our very identities.
We then shift our focus to the poignant experiences of working with unaccompanied minors in the U.S., a role that demands immense emotional resilience. Armando shares the intricacies of walking alongside these brave young souls as they seek a safe haven, weaving through the legal and emotional intricacies of their situations. Each narrative weaves lessons of acceptance, the art of gratitude, and the profound impact of rewriting our personal stories for greater self-awareness, offering insights that resonate with anyone looking to make sense of life's tapestry.
In the concluding segments of our heart-to-heart, we touch on the universal quests for paternal approval, the healing journey of self-reflection, and the transformative embrace of practices like yoga. Armando's candid reflection on the scars left by absent fathers and the hunger for their acceptance paints a picture that many will find familiar. We close contemplating the soothing balm of yoga and the joys of pet companionship, wrapping up an episode that's an ode to the resilience of the human spirit and the quiet strength that lies in vulnerability and growth.
#gratitude #inspiration #psychology #humangrowth #jtpstories #transformation #yoga #resiliency #psychotherapy #manshealing #manspirituality
Host: @journeytalkspodcast
Guest: Dr. Aramando Garcia PhD. Licensed Clinical Psychologist
The Journey Talks Podcast, your favorite podcast to reconnect with gratitude and inspiration, hosted by Jorge Gonzales. Welcome to Journey Talks Podcast, your favorite podcast to reconnect with gratitude and inspiration. My name is Jorge Sayago Gonzales and I am your host. I am convinced that behind every gratitude, there's a powerful story waiting to be told and through this space, I want to create an opportunity where we can share these stories and help each other out why and how, by embracing and remembering the beautiful gift of our shared humanity. So, as you know, we all share this experience. We call life and we go through situations. We meet people that somehow they live a footprint in our lives, right, and some of them, some of the situations, have a prolonged state in our lives. Some of these people come for a very short period of time, others hang in there for a little longer. The question is how these people have somehow opened doors for transformations and that had given us an opportunity to discover who we are, or given us an opportunity to step up to the beauty of the gift of who we are and to discover what that is. My hope is that, through these conversations, we are reminded that we have access to this place, that we are granted this beautiful gift that we call life, and when we tap into that space of our shared humanity, we find so many beautiful gifts, and that is the experience and the gift of seeing ourselves in each other Through this podcast. My hope is that we can connect right, and so today's guest is someone that I'm actually very excited to reconnect with.
Speaker 1:As you might have heard, in the past, I always ask at the end of the podcast to my current guest who could be a potential future guest on the podcast, and a few weeks back, I had an opportunity to interview my friend and actually our friend my guest, as we share this friendship in common Rosarito Rosarito. As you remember, she's a professor of theater in Texas, and she said you know what you should have, armando Garcia. And today I have had the honor and the privilege to have Armando Garcia with me. Armando, welcome to Journey Talks Podcast. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Thank you. I'm really happy to be here with you talking and reconnecting, and this is like a huge catch up that we've had in the past few days connecting, and all that because we haven't seen each other in. I don't know, maybe in 20 years or so maybe 15 years?
Speaker 2:I don't know, yeah, and the fact that you have this project is very inspiring as well. So the moment you call me, the moment Rosarito told me about it, mentioned it I was very happy immediately to know that this is the path you're on and you're creating this space for people to share their stories. So very happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you. So, armando, we were chatting and, in our catch up, you were able to share with me that you, your journey, your training and your educational journey brought you through, to talk, you, to many different places, and my understanding is that you pursue a master's in psychotherapy and that you went to Spain, to the Universidad Complutense in Spain. Right, what was the motivation to go to Spain and to pursue this career?
Speaker 2:It's interesting. I was doing my bachelor's degree and throughout my bachelor's degree, which lasted seven years. It's unusual. Yeah, it took me a while to decipher what I really wanted to do and, honestly, I decided to do something else.
Speaker 1:I started studying biology because I wanted to be a medicine doctor and become a psychiatrist eventually.
Speaker 2:But I shifted to psychology.
Speaker 2:So I started my bachelor's degree in psychology and I abandoned it as well.
Speaker 2:I started studying French and other stuff and by the end of my bachelor's degree the one that I chose, which was in social sciences, research I thought maybe I should just finish psychology, since I only have like maybe two or three courses left I think it was two semesters, maybe eight courses.
Speaker 2:So I decided to finish it and throughout finishing it I decided to study psychology some postgraduate degree on it and that's where I found psychoanalysis as a theory of the psyche and the human condition. So that inspired me to the level that I decided to go to Spain and do a master's degree, something that no one in my family has ever done, lived abroad so far, especially not in the United States, and the idea of living in Europe was something that I couldn't stop thinking about. So it was a very moving story because some of my friends who were finishing the bachelor's degree at the time with me, on the same year, were going abroad as well, some of them to Argentina, to the Netherlands, some of them to Britain, some of them to Spain. Even so, I remember going with a friend who was applying for her visa to go to Spain to do the master's degree that I was interested in, and I came back home thinking how come?
Speaker 1:I'm staying.
Speaker 2:I was so sad. I remember my mother's son was so sad. She said do you want to go? Is money the obstacle? I mean, we'll do whatever, We'll support you. And this is a very moving story, because I don't come from a wealthy family either. And I said, yeah, I want to go. And this is something that has been like this. This has been a pattern in my life where my family see me embarking on some project that comes out of nowhere and there's no model before me.
Speaker 2:I'm creating a model of doing something. So that's something that repeats in my life a lot. I take a trailblazer.
Speaker 1:I was going to say yeah.
Speaker 2:I had to regard like a pathfinder.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I went to Spain thinking that I was going to be there for two years. That was the agreement to do the master's degree, which lasted two years. I decided to stay there one more year to see if I could finish my thesis there, and I did. And something interesting about this is that for me to remain in Spain, that entailed a lot of myself in terms of having to work maybe four jobs at the time. Being a waiter was something that was constant when I was there. I think almost every year. I spend there six years and I was a waiter for five and a half probably, and I was also an English teacher and I was also a psychotherapist, so it was interesting to see throughout the day I was assuming so many roles at the time, yeah, wearing different hats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, wearing different hats. It was really interesting and obviously expanded my way of seeing life as well and seeing myself what I was capable of. So it was very challenging, but at the same time, I grew a lot. So I decided to come back to America and started a PhD in clinical psychology and I made it work. It was hard Coming back to Puerto Rico after being in Spain for six years. I also lived there from age 24 to 30. So that basically shaped my adult mind, absolutely, absolutely, and it was really, it's been really hard. I've been back since 2011. We were in 2023. And I still have part of that. It's my foundation. As an adult, I didn't know how to cook or do laundry or take care of myself, so I learned all those things in Spain.
Speaker 1:A broth, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from my mother's house to a city that I didn't know anyone there and actually learned through experience. It was hard, but in the end it made me who I am and I'm grateful for that Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. I've had other Hispanic Latino guests on the podcast and we all share this dynamic of the fact that in most Latino households, it's okay for you to live at home with your parents until you, rather, have your professional career done and then you can move on or you get married Very contrary to the norm in North America, where, once you're 18, parents are excited to see you go, and you can interpret that in many different ways. But the truth is, yeah, that period of your early 20s up to your 30s, for people like us it becomes a very, it's a moment of transition. It is a moment where we also find ourselves in a new light. So I'm glad that you brought that up and that we can remember this story and we clarify the meaning of it. Right, because it does. It is a big change in your psyche and understanding who you are, and the responsibility is that artists just come with the package of adulting, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Now you also part of your job. Correct me if I'm wrong, armando. You were in Spain, you served as a psychotherapist and all of that. But when you moved to the States, you had an opportunity. You moved to Phoenix Arizona and correct me if I'm wrong you had an opportunity to provide your services to unaccompanied miners and their shelters. Can you tell us a little bit about what it does like? What is, what was the role of someone like you in those situations, and a little bit of your experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, it was really hard for me to find a job in Puerto Rico when I came back from Madrid and, although I started the PhD program, I really felt the need to work, to earn money doing what I know how to do. I was doing Spain, you know. So I wanted to be a psychologist or a psychotherapist, and it was really hard here to do it because I didn't have a license yet. So at the time I remember finishing my coursework from the PhD and you know how life presents you with opportunities that you are not looking for. I went to this, you know, to this recruiting center here because someone told me to bring my resume there because they had a, they were going to have an opening pretty soon, pretty soon. But they were going to do it through this recruiting center. So when I left my resume and I was leaving the office, the recruiter stopped me and said hey, I know you didn't come here for this, but this there's an opening for, for a job in the United States. Would you be willing to relocate? And I was like, well, let me, let me see what is. You know what is about. What that's about? And it was.
Speaker 2:It was a job as a mental health clinician working with an accompanying minors in shelters. So basically, these, these children cross the border without the company of an adult and ICE apprehends them and puts them in in, basically, detention centers near the the border, but they have like three days is the maximum they can stay there if it's a minor. So after three days or within those three days, they need to be relocated to a and on a company minor shelter to be, you know, to receive all the services a minor in the United States would have to receive. By law and this is a Supreme Court decision from the 1990s Is Florida versus Reno. That's the. That's the case that opened the opportunity for for for this to happen, because in previously, minors were were detained with adults or mixed with adults and lots of very, you know, difficult and horrible things happens happened to those children and minors there. So, based on that case and a lot of advocacy from from, you know, human rights organizations and and grassroots organizations as well they were, they were able to win the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I worked for, you know, the company that recruited me. It's it's the biggest in the United States and working with working with an accompanying minors, and they have presence in three states California, arizona and Texas. The majority of the programs are in Texas and Arizona. For this specific company that I worked for is an NGO very big. You know. This is a profitable field, but it's also a very humane work and that's actually what moved me. The salary was not great, to be honest, but that was.
Speaker 2:It was an opportunity that came, you know, to me. I wasn't looking for it and that's something that I sometimes, you know, if I, if I look at my life, I've made many decisions based on that and what life is offering me Right, yeah, so I, I went there. I didn't know anyone in the city. I decided on Phoenix. I had the opportunity to go to Houston or to go to South Texas or Phoenix. That was the three options they gave me and for some reason I decided Phoenix and off I went, and it was. It was really hard in the beginning Because the American culture is very different from what I lived in Spain and from Puerto Rican culture as well. So it took time for me to adjust. But there is something about that type of work and the environment of those shelters that brings you down to the human condition.
Speaker 2:And that actually was very enriching to me, not only as a human being but also as a psychotherapist, working with children and youngsters that were coming to the United States to follow a dream that they have of just overcoming poverty, improving their family's conditions back in their countries. Most of these children are Guatemalan, I have to say. I would say maybe that 90% of the children are from Guatemala. It's very impressive. I can imagine the generational shift that's going to create there with all these adolescents and children coming into the United States. I don't know how that's going to affect that society there, because there are a lot of children and adolescents coming. It's impressive. Some of them don't even speak Spanish. They speak dialects and you have to use interpreters to work with them.
Speaker 2:That's also a layer that's added. There's a lot of uncertainty in their lives because they are there for a while until they can be reunified. So basically, the shelters have basically two missions. One of them is care provision, so welfare and safety, and the other one is for them to be reunified with someone in the United States and the clinician the mental health clinician is part of that process. They basically understand what's going on, adjust to the shelter environment and sometimes even more, even strengthening those relationships with the people that left behind, because that's actually a healing process as well for most of them, and also reconnecting or connecting with someone that sometimes they have never lived with. So it can be maybe an uncle they saw one little. It can be a family friend as well, and there's a lot of assessments that you have to do to avoid or prevent human trafficking. There's a lot of that also going on, and most recently I think, there's been an opening to the foster care system.
Speaker 2:So now most of the children are not deported. They stay in the United States and although it is a system that has a lot of flaws, it's also the best in the world. I have to say that no other country in the world offers what the US offers to immigrant children, so I learned a lot from them. Most of them, especially when they are above 12, they live as adults almost in their countries, so some of them even leading farm work in their family field. They know very much about agriculture and that's what they are looking for to work in the United States. So that's why also the human trafficking aspect is so important in this area. In terms of therapeutic work, there is so much you can do also with children that are not necessarily too educated. To be frank, they finish maybe the third grade or maybe sixth grade, most of them the sixth grade, because they need those children back in the field working for the family to be able to eat.
Speaker 1:Those are such harsh truths that it's so easy for us to be disconnected from, and it sounds like you had a very profound and special opportunity to reconnect with a really complicated aspect of life, and I'm so glad that you were able to be a soldier in it with these young men and women, and you were able to provide a safe space for them. I think one thing that you're training and my training reminds us of is the power of the presence, and when you have someone that is present with you with no judgment, someone that is able to create a space for you, to listen to you and for you to discover new things about your life, that is a really special, sacred place I would call, and I'm very fortunate that you were able to tap into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this type of job. It's great that you bring that point of creating a safe space for these children. I had so many breakthrough experience working with this population because for you and me, for example, having a safe space to express yourself is something that you really value, and that's why people go to therapy or talk to someone that they trust very much and they become vulnerable in front of them. But when you become vulnerable in the first place and at the same time you don't know these people, you don't know this culture, you're not used to sharing what you feel, because these children are not necessarily allowed to share how they feel.
Speaker 2:That's not important because they're in survival mode and there are other things that come before that and they are embarked in this idea that they have to provide for their families and being able to offer that space. I remember one of the children that I worked with. He was very traumatized by the experience of being in the desert for two days. This is 2016. He tried across the desert, to go across the Sonoran Desert, and he was left alone for two nights, so sleeping in a cave and all that stuff, and you could see the trauma. He was very evident in the trauma and I was thinking what can I tell this kid for him to step out of that traumatic scenario that he's seen? He hasn't left the desert.
Speaker 1:In his mind.
Speaker 2:He's still there. He's still in a cave, he's in the coyotes at night, fearing the worst. And I remember telling him yeah, I understand everything that you're telling me, but you don't want. You arrived so kind of trying to tell him your journey is over and you are in a different space. The moment I said that, that kid started crying, that kid was able to calm down. His body language changed and I told him you're in the same space. Nothing is going to happen to you here. Fortunately, you made it. You made it and you should be proud of yourself. You survived and this is something that's going to have an impact on your life and you will never forget it. But you'll also be proud of yourself because you were able to survive and make it here, yeah, and that you should never have to go through that again. And I think those words, in a way, kind of brought not only safety to his mind but also hope to his being Right right, armando.
Speaker 1:We have already dive deep into what this podcast is all about, which is sharing stories of gratitude, and not the superficial gratitude, but the gratitude that comes as a response of pivotal moments in our lives. I mentioned earlier about how the situations where people live a footprint in our lives, and you're just actually describing the footprints of your own journey, and I'm so thankful that we are already in this place in our conversation. Can we go deeper? Can we just dive into the questions with you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, that's where I live.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's do it. So, armando, let me ask you this. It sounds like a very superficial question, but it's actually, in my opinion, a very profound question what is your relationship with gratitude, and what are you grateful for?
Speaker 2:I think when you ask it that way, when you put it that way, the first thing that comes to mind is something that I've been living with for many years. I read a book that had a huge impact in my life, which is the First man from Albert Camel. It's actually an autobiographical story, and in that book I read something that really touched me and has remained with me for all this time, and it's that I think I learned and this is very related to gratitude, you know because you are grateful for whatever happens in your life, whatever you're able to be aware of, and, and I think I learned to love the inevitable. So I think when you establish a good relationship, or a healthy relationship, or a relationship of gratitude with the, or an attitude of gratitude with the inevitable, I think you're in a better place with life, because you're able to hold space for the unexpected and to hold space to kind of have some question mark in all the ideas that you have about life that they are not set in stone.
Speaker 2:And the plans that you have for yourself, the way you push yourself into the future using your imagination, and that's an exercise that we all do, and we all have to do, because we're narrative animals.
Speaker 2:We're just pushing ourselves into the future, putting ourselves into the future with using our imagination, but we forget that life is also happening and that's the journey. Right, you are basically walking a path that you created in your head, trying to be coherent with yourself to the best of your ability, but life presents you with stuff that you were not expecting and learning how to love the inevitable. Sometimes you just have to sit and say, okay, this is it, this is what's happening. I need to accept.
Speaker 1:That radical acceptance.
Speaker 2:That's a concept that is very it's of common use. Yeah, that attitude of radical acceptance. This is inevitable. There's no way I can change this situation right now. The only thing I can do is just process it understand it and see what opportunities are offered in this situation.
Speaker 1:Can we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's my relationship with gratitude.
Speaker 1:But no, I love it and thank you for being so honest in just unpacking the juxtaposition right Of accepting life. I think that that realization gives such liberation to us as humans, cause our psyches, we're so prone to look at life from the negative, from the survival mode, and that's A-OK. That means that our brains are working. But for us to I don't wanna say master our brains or our minds, but to get to know ourselves at a deeper level, where we can then have an awareness of our reaction to what life is and, in spite of all that, get to this place, like you're describing as accepting it for what it is, and that acceptance relieves you from this reactive way of going about life.
Speaker 1:I mean and maybe a reactive way is not the best way of saying it, but the way in which we respond to situations right. But I'll be curious to hear more about what you have to say about this Cause as a psychotherapist. We are the result of the experiences and the circumstances that in our upbringing and the tools that somehow we've been given along the way to make meaning out of these situations right, and so I don't know anything else you can add to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean your reaction is very stimulating and it's bringing a lot of ideas that I wanna share, one of them being that you know life would bring events and you will approach those events from a perspective, but there's also a lot of editing on that too. You know the way you're narrating your story, the way you're creating your story, the way you're creating your narrative basically can be edited. So and I think that's the magic of psychotherapy and any you know self-awareness process- you know, and I think there's opportunity for you if you exercise that.
Speaker 2:that's basically an exercise that you have to be able to have into your head that, the same way you had a narrative in your head imagining yourself into the future and life changed that, and life event changed that and puts you in a different position, that doesn't mean that you have to, by accepting what happened, you know, and having a loving relationship with that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to give up.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So there is a thin line there between self-acceptance. Self-acceptance, I mean well self-acceptance as well, but radical acceptance which includes, you know, self-acceptance. You have to accept what's going on, but you don't have to give up. You don't have to say, well, this is life, life is a bummer, you know. Life is just something that I cannot deal with. Life will break my plans every single day. So there is a obviously, like you were saying, a negative approach or a survival mode approach that puts you into a fearful you know standpoint and you can approach that life from there. And sometimes life pushes you so hard that you fall and you don't wanna, you know you don't wanna stand up again because you're fearful of falling again. Right, right. But the exercise of life is not, you know, it's not necessarily standing all the time and walking all the time or being on the floor all the time. It's basically the process of knowing how to fall and knowing how to step up.
Speaker 2:Right right right, right, and I think that's a metaphor that I use a lot. You know it's not about just, you know, succeeding every single step of the process, because that's not gonna happen. Failure teaches you so much, so much, if you're open to it, if you're open to it for sure. And that's one thing. And the other thing is speaking about journey. You know I use this image all the time about the GPS. You know, you gotta know where you are in order to move somewhere.
Speaker 2:You know, and even to use a map. You need to look at yourself, you know so where am I? What am I? Where do I wanna go? And I learned from a psychoanalyst in Madrid a long time ago something that was very like mind blowing, and this is also an image that helps me greatly, and it's the fact that you know you can go with your mind wherever. Wherever you want, you can go with your mind, but your body brings your mind wherever you are.
Speaker 1:So there is something. Oh yes, that's nice. Can you say that again? Can you say that again? I love that Of course there is a.
Speaker 2:The mind is unlimited in the sense that you can create anything with your mind and you can take yourself in your head with using your imagination. You can take yourself anywhere, good or bad, you know you can use your imagination for good things or for bad things?
Speaker 2:you know, Right, right, and you can create these scenarios that can be catastrophic or it can be idyllic, you know, or utopia or utopic. So you can either take yourself to a utopia or to a dystopia. So right, but necessarily, necessarily, your mind has to go to where your body is. There's no, there's no mind without body, and you have to be where you are, and that's part of you know, receiving life as it comes. You know, like, yeah, my mind was there.
Speaker 2:You know, I saw myself with a PhD diploma in my hand when I started it, because that's how I imagined myself. But in between, you know, from starting to finish it, lots of things happened and there's no way you can avoid those things. You have to live through them and that's part of the path, you know, that's part of the path that you have to take your mind through, and that's something very important and very powerful If you are able to be, you know, open to that idea and to, you know, allow yourself to think through it, not rushing yourself, but just accepting the fact that you are existing in a body, and I think that's part of the metaphor, right?
Speaker 1:there. Yes, you know, I've heard this a lot lately and it's how, which I am so excited to hear this in so many different conversations, armando and it's how the body brings you back to the present moment and how being with the body, because your mind could go, like you say, it can go to outer space, but your body is always gonna bring you back to earth, to this present moment, and developing this relationship, this attuneness with our bodies, to allow and to respect what our bodies are telling us, which I think, oh my goodness, I can see how this conversation can take hours, you know, because if we start unpacking the layers of how the body responds to certain circumstances, stimuli, how the body is trying to protect yourself, and the relationship between mind and body, that's, there's so much talk about it, but it did. Your statement just reminded me of how the body is just a wonderful reminder of the present moment You're here right now and how much we can learn from that. Let's just keep that in the back burner. Let me ask you something, armando.
Speaker 1:So you talked about failure. You talked about failure and how failure can teach us, and one of my questions for you is can you recall a moment, a situation in your life that, looking back, you now realize that you know yourself better because of it and that you can look back at it with gratitude? And I'm actually what I'm asking is is there a moment of failure in our life, in your life, that now, looking back, you realize wow, this was shitty as hell, this was really hard, but I have such a deep and greater awareness I mean self-awareness about who I am and hopefully this allows me to show up in life and for others in a different light, in a different way. What would you say about that?
Speaker 1:Let me think, Think but this is what this is for. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think the you know I'm gonna open up myself a little bit here because there is no other way.
Speaker 1:You have to be vulnerability. We're gonna talk. We're gonna be vulnerable together. Let's do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, in order to hold the conversation you know the way you're posing the question that this is something David White, which is a boy that I admire a lot and has a great influence in who I am right now. For the past few years I think it was 2019, I discovered or 2018, I discovered David White's work and he has had a very like a huge impact in my life in terms of how I see myself and as a not only as a human, but also as a man, and he talks about the beautiful questions of life. And also, you know how you hold the conversation. You know how you answer those questions and how you keep talking. You know how you sustain that conversation and in order for me to sustain this conversation that we started, I need to be a little bit more open and maybe share something very private.
Speaker 2:But, at the same time, in recent as well, I think what I would say was the most impactful, like failure, that I had. It's a relationship that I had with a woman, like a romantic relationship that I tried to make work for approximately four years on and off, and he was very challenging for me as a man, as a human being, even though I thought about myself. You know, in such a successful way in terms of relating to others. I have great friends, friendships that I have sustained throughout the years. I'm very good friends with my well not necessarily close but I ended up with my previous relationships in very good terms, but this one I couldn't you know, and I think that's because, for me, the most important thing was not necessarily to sustain that relationship over time.
Speaker 2:You know an endless relationship, you know, until death.
Speaker 2:You know that's not the way I saw the relationship, but I think she was thinking about the relationship for it to be long, lasting, and to me it's part of the journey. You know, when you are in a relationship, you embark on a journey and you keep each other company. You know, and you help each other grow and if that's sustainable over time, that's beautiful. But to me, the most important thing is to be walking, you know, with someone beside you, and I think events that happen in the relationship, I think put us both in adversarial mode. You know, instead of walking, one next to each other, facing forward, looking at the same path, we were facing each other and unable to walk, just unable to walk, just engaged in competition, just engaged in adversarial, you know conversations, who was right, who's wrong, and who did well, who didn't. There was a bunch of other layers that I've been able to understand after that, but that basically put me in a position of failure in terms of not knowing what to do, like I don't know what to do and I'm a problem solver.
Speaker 2:You know, Like I face a problem and I put my head around it and I normally I'm able to find a solution, you know, and a viable solution and a sustainable solution. That's how my brain works and that's how I see myself as well. So, not being able to solve that, because there was no problem to be solved, I had to live through my emotions and I was blocking them. Just, I just put myself into my head, I just brought myself into my head wanting to have logical solutions to something that is relational. I had to open myself and I opened my heart, man, and it was being very hard because I was so scared.
Speaker 2:I was so scared of being hurt or being manipulated, of doing it wrong, as well of missing stuff. And in this, you know, I don't know, fight or fight response.
Speaker 1:You know like right right, right right.
Speaker 2:And trying to protect everything and just, you know, thinking also that I was responsible for every single thing that happened in the relationship and that comes from my background and my family as well that I somehow ended up thinking that I was responsible for lots of things that I wasn't. I laugh at myself because that's the only way you know. Like when you see yourself in those positions, you say why were you there? Why were you?
Speaker 2:thinking that way. So you know all these things, you know, sum up and basically taught me a lot, you know, in that regard, Because I can easily say right now that I had a perspective, that I was approaching life from a perspective of wholeness and I thought myself as a whole. You know, in my head I pictured myself as a whole human being and we were all partial. You know, we can only do so much, right? I think that's an American expression that evaluates a lot. You can only do so much. You know there is a reach to your arms. You know you can stretch your arm and that's where you, that's your reach. That's it. This is code.
Speaker 2:Always, in every mission, there is a scope. You can't do everything. You know you can only do so much, and that took me into a journey for it, and I think again, life takes care of you. Like, I left the relationship in doing something that I don't feel proud of. I basically ended the relationship in a conversation that was kind of rushed, to be frank, and, as I said, I was not connecting with my feelings.
Speaker 2:I was also hurting myself not only the other person, and that's something that you learn through relationships that when you are in a relationship with someone, whatever you do affects the other person, you know, especially if it touches those person, that that person's expectations and ideas of the relationship.
Speaker 2:So it's really hard to listen when you're always talking and when you don't silence yourself in your head it's really hard to listen to the other person, and that happened to both of us. That happened to both of us. So if you don't silence those voices in your head, it's really hard to listen to the other person's story and it's really hard not to hurt them and not to end up hurting yourself. Because when you don't silence that voice in your head, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're listening to yourself. That means that there is some aspect of you that is tirelessly putting you in fear, that is tirelessly putting you in your egotistic mode, and it's really difficult, especially for men, I think to step out of that and actually dive into your heart.
Speaker 2:And fortunately enough, fortunately enough, I moved to Phoenix. Back to Phoenix and looking for to have some sort of redemption through my career, like OK, I didn't succeed in relationships, so let's go and try career. So it's also very of our times and very manly. And if I went, you know what happened, Monty I lost the job three months. I was fired. For the first time in my life I've never even had like a verbal or a written reprimand at work, never in my career.
Speaker 2:And I lost a job, nothing related to my performance, fortunately, but I lost my first job as a licensed clinical psychologist because I had recently licensed, became licensed, and that pushed me into a path of self-reflection inevitably, and that put me in front of the mirror for a while.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, and that's also why it's now looking back the way I approached the end of that relationship was a failure, and I felt like a failure through other relationships as well, I have to say, not knowing what to do, not understanding what I had to, what moves I needed to make, what adjustments I needed to do with myself and how I was, you know, inhibiting myself from learning actually how I felt and who I am in my emotional self. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And that's something that came to me in a way that I wasn't expecting. So I was alone in back in Phoenix, not having a job, not knowing what to do, so I decided to stop. I said no, I don't know where I am right now, I don't know who I am right now and I put myself in this situation. So I take accountability for it. I'm not going to blame anyone, not even the people who fire me and brought me to Phoenix, you know, offering me a job that was supposed to be to last a lot, a lot of time, and they basically were financially, you know, unable to maintain me as an employee. So something in life, you know, changed and inevitably put me in the front of the mirror.
Speaker 1:Um-hmm, armando, I think it's. I am so grateful that you feel comfortable with me to open up in the way that you have. I'm hearing so many different things in this brief story of yours and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know what it. I know it takes courage to open up and to be vulnerable. Yet we know and I'm just going to echo Brene Brown's work you know when the beauty and the gift of being vulnerable creates such a unity space amongst ourselves, amongst humans. And so you know I mentioned it earlier at the beginning of the podcast this whole, my goal with these conversations is to really highlight the aspect, the important aspect, the intrinsic aspect of our shared humanity. And you said two things in this story that caught my attention and this allowing yourself through, feel your emotions, you know.
Speaker 1:And then this whole notion of your masculinity and the and the, and our conversations prior to being together today. You really, you really expressed to me that you have an interest in unpacking this a little more, and I think this is the perfect segue for us to go there, just because I think, from what I'm grasping and understanding from our conversation, we're not, we're talking about the masculinity, of the male energy of wisdom and understanding. And women out there, you know that you all bring something so beautiful that we men have a hard time with, and that is getting to know yourself, your intuition and being wise. For us men, it we, the programming that we've had and bad programming that we've been exposed to have prohibited us from really acknowledge that we have to access all. I mean getting in touch with all vulnerability and with our and with our wounds, with our failures, in order for us to be human. At least that is my personal experience and and and I'm hearing a lot of that in that story I'm hearing, armando, that that life put you in a situation where there was no other way and no other place to escape from but to get to face who you are and see that person in the mirror and to befriend that person in the mirror, because I think what we have done in the past is to hate that person, to repudiate that person. We are embarrassed of that person. These are we're seeing and looking our shadows. We're face to face to the things that we don't like about our personalities, that sometimes we don't have language to describe, right. Yet we know how it feels. We know the, the repulsive body responses that we have when we are in places of shame, of being embarrassed.
Speaker 1:I, for myself, recognize that I didn't have those tools, and and when I was confronted with somebody putting a mirror in front of me of my areas of growth, my reaction was I was aggressive. You know, I was. I was so embarrassed and I actually the word is, I was so prideful that I couldn't tolerate and handle that that moment of shame, that moment where I was not living up to the idea of the man that I was supposed to be, of the man that I thought my partner needed me and wanted me to be. And so this process of of, you know, developing a healthy masculinity and and getting to know ourselves and love ourselves for who we are, with the good, the bad and the ugly, that is quite the journey, you know, and and so I'll be curious to hear more about how do you impact that for yourself, who, who, who have been the voices that have, sort of like, guided you throughout this process?
Speaker 1:You mentioned Richard Rohr. I was so excited when you brought Richard Rohr, because Richard Rohr has been a wonderful companion in my journey as well, so can you, can you, tell me more about it. I mean, do you think I'm putting my finger on things that you really were trying to express?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, certainly, certainly, yeah, absolutely, and I think you brought even more beautiful language to it. You know, like, because I. There are so many ways you can say these things, you know and you chose your, your, your word choosing was really, really good and I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, because it puts me in a space of calm as well. You know, I feel understood and that's something very important in our conversation. You know, I I feel understood and that helps me even open up more so. So I think, what is that? My experience as a man in this world? You know I have to talk about my lineage, inevitably you know, so my father's father died when he was seven years old.
Speaker 2:My father was seven years old and my father died when I was 14 years old and, honestly, I didn't have a lot of men to look after, you know, in terms of the model and I and I lost a few friends as well growing up.
Speaker 2:So that has been very present in my life in terms of an experience. You know, having that relationship with, with my lineage, and understanding myself through that was was really hard. And then on my maternal side, my maternal uncle was, you know, went through a lot of you know, there's a lot of you know hard things also there on the men's. On the men's side, my, my mother, lost her brother when she was maybe 14 years old and and he drowned saving my youngest uncle. So there's a traumatic story there on my mother's side as well, really to men. So my, my youngest uncle, became a heroin addict from a very young age as well. So you can imagine when I, when I, you know, look around and see the men in my life and my lineage, it's who am I, you know, no, no one around. I don't want any of these paths. I want to, I want to create my own.
Speaker 2:And I think that's that brings me back to, to Albert Camus and the first man. You know that, that someone that's creating, you know, himself using whatever he has available and and and trying to make the best out of it. I think I also had a difficulty to step aside of those stories. You know and, and most recently, as I was, I was I was mentioning to you before we started recording. There is a story about my maternal family that actually impacted me recently and also put me in perspective in terms of you know who I am as a man and what I'm called to do with my family, because you don't know what your role is in your family entirely until until crisis happened. You know, and and and that thing that's very, very important.
Speaker 2:I, you know, in 2021, I I had to respond to an emergency with my uncle, my maternal uncle, the one that you know had a heroin addiction. I found him on the floor in what it, what it seemed to be an overdose situation, and I had to carry in, you know, my arms, out of the bathroom. He was a six one man.
Speaker 2:I'm only five, eight, so he was big and I had to call 911 and I had to not only you know what it respond to the crisis, which was in itself very difficult, but also to tell my uncle's story in the hospital. I think that was the most impactful thing to me, yeah, and that's where I learned even more about my lineage. And so basically the story is you know my, my uncle was an addict and he was, he was imprisoned for for for most of my childhood I remember going to jail, to see prison, to see him, to visit him when I was a child and and and seeing. You know all that atmosphere there growing up and and also you know having. When they asked me, are you his son? I was like no, his son died at age 19 in the middle of a shooting.
Speaker 1:right, you know it's impressive, ironically enough in in in a, in a in a housing project right across the street from the hospital.
Speaker 2:So they probably took him to that same hospital after he died, or or, you know, try to try to save him. So we're talking about my youngest cousin at the time who was murdered. Basically at this is this man's son and and he also had a daughter when he was very young and that daughter died as well. So we're talking about a very difficult story that I had to tell again and again. I mean, I didn't have to go into details, but they were asking all these questions and how he lived and where he lived, and you know, and, and it was so difficult and that's what you know, that's where, where life, you know, puts you again into the inevitable, you know in front of the inevitable and asks you to respond, you know this is your role here.
Speaker 2:So, what, what? What was my calling there? You know, like to unite a family that was broken through, you know, due to addiction and due to trauma. You know the pieces were disconnected and I had to somehow or I did, I don't know now, I don't know how I did it I think I had to start opening my heart and say I had to do this and I had to do this to the best of my abilities, and this was a very difficult situation for my family and I was the one who had the calling to respond and basically be the leader of this. So I had to tell my grandmother the bad news, to my grandmother, who lost another son.
Speaker 2:It was really really hard. It was really really hard, and that put me in a path of reflection. And who am I as a man in this family? What distinguishes me from, from my cousins and my brother? My brother? I have an older brother, who's who's from my, from my mother's first marriage, and he is his father is a liar. I'm not only one who, you know, didn't have necessarily a father figure since I was very young.
Speaker 2:And that kind of spoke to me greatly. I need to take care of this. I need to take care of this lax that I have. I need to take care of this, of this situation of of understanding that, even if I challenged myself to be the greatest, I need to acknowledge where the gaps are in terms of who I am as a man and what have I chosen, you know, as symbols or models in my life to create myself as a human being, but mainly as a man, and that really that was very powerful. Obviously, I had to be the leader, and sometimes, when you're called to be a leader and you believe that you are not to share your emotions, you are not to share your. You know how challenging, emotional, this is for you, because people are looking at you, you know for direction and it's really hard to cry and point to where you have to go next.
Speaker 2:So so basically, I had to keep my composure and at the time I thought well, I know these people have taught me a lot, you know. I know this side of my family have taught me a lot and have taught me a lot about, you know, struggle. I've taught me a lot about trauma, you know, and I need to acknowledge that and cherish it. You know this is what life offered me as a human being, so I need to cherish it and I need to do something beautiful with it.
Speaker 2:And that's what I challenge myself with.
Speaker 1:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and it speaks back to what I said before, you know about, you know, loving being editable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's very interesting to hear your story and connect it with the person that you are today, connected with the psychotherapist that you are today, hearing your process of taking your life story, the inevitable, and how do you turn it around into something that can provide wisdom and to something that can provide a greater and deeper self-awareness and knowledge of self, right? I'm curious to hear a little more about this whole concept of, because I heard a couple of things. You know, I heard this one thing that I also heard this one thing that I also I mean, I must also, I will be vulnerable with you and with the audience. You know this whole concept of the wound of the father, right, and so you know what. I correct me if I'm wrong, armando, but I heard a story of a young man who's models of men, of good, positive male figures, was a bit, was struggling a little bit, and, if we are honest, we know that there's a story behind it.
Speaker 1:We're so quick to demonize these stories and to say, oh, you know, well, my uncle was a drug addict and so you want to separate yourself from those things, right? Because you, well, you know, a part of yourself says, well, this is not a good example for me. I don't want to be close to any of this thing, I don't want this in my life, but the truth is that these difficult situations, they become teachers, you know, and if we develop the courage to start a different relationship with these aspects of our journey, we gain something new. So my question to you is you know you mentioned Richard Roart and you mentioned in our conversation how. I mean, one of the things that he talks about is is this process of we have a bunch of men, sometimes in their 70s, that have not had an opportunity to weep and to cry and to recognize the suffering that they have been caring for so long.
Speaker 1:And then the flip side. He also mentions that, you know, sometimes you have this old souls, with people that are rather young but they are able to tap into, understand and to love themselves in such a way that they can, you know, tap into some wisdom there. What, what, what have you learned about yourself? Because you talked about the roles that you took in your family and the role that you had to embrace. But what did Armando learn from this experience? What, what part of yourselves do you feel like you can look with compassion and then go into this family situation or to any situation and you go in from a place of self experience and compassion for yourself and compassion for other people. What would you have to say about that?
Speaker 2:Thank you for that question and I'm going to start with Richard Rohr and I'm going to continue to answer this question, so I'm going to link both things. So I think there are several aspects of Richard Rohr's work that spoke to me. You know that I resonate with me, Right that resonate with me as a man, as a human being. He talks about father hunger.
Speaker 1:That's a father hunger, that's. That's the expression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he talks about father, hunger, and that you know, in the events that he creates for men, for men to, to, to kind of tap into their spirituality. You know he talks about that and he also talks about rituals, rituals, that in every culture there's a ritual for you to become a man. Maybe in Latin American cultures we have for women it's more evident, like the quinceanera, or even the period. You know the period arrives, you know it's like well, you're a woman, now there's a body, bodily, you know situation that puts her, puts them, you know, into, into womanhood. So they're not, they're no longer a child, they're now a woman. You know they're becoming women and and and the quinceanera is more symbolic, you know, you, you present this, this young woman who's possibly, you know, had her period already.
Speaker 1:So yeah, she can be, she can be, yeah, she can bear children basically. Exactly, that's pretty much I was. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:She can bear children. So she's a woman, you know, a woman in process, but basically she already had a biological process that puts her in that position. So we women don't have that Right. So it's it's. It's also a symbolic aspect of it. You know, there's some, there are some things and I think, work, you know, we've been able to work and to show yourself as someone who can work, who can perform a job. I think that's that's very much into masculinity in that. In that regard, as a ritual I mean, or as a symbolic, you know, step that you take for miles.
Speaker 2:But there are other rituals that are more subtle and I think Richard word taps into them very beautifully and I encourage everyone you know to listen to his, to his podcast interviews or read his books and, if you can afford it, go to one of these. You know, retreats, but he talks about, you know, men that have been even successful at work, you know, and and that still experienced that father hunger at the age of maybe 50 or 60. We've been asking for their father's acceptance, for their father's forgiveness, for their father's love and understanding, and most of them didn't get that and that's a wound, the one that you were talking about before and Richard word talks about in other terms, in terms of that father hunger, and you can see that you know, and you can see that even more now that you hear so many stories, at least around me, of men that have been successful, of men that I have a lot of female friends who are single mothers, you know, and they're those fathers are completely absent of those children's lives and that's also leaving marks right there.
Speaker 2:So this is also a calling to whoever you know listens to this and don't have a relationship with their children because they're divorced or they're separated from their children's mothers. I think there's there's a lot of thought that needs to be, that needs to be put on that. So, yeah, I think, ultimately I never felt accepted by my father the way I was, and even though I was a very successful student up to maybe seventh grade, eighth grade, he died when I was in ninth grade. So right before you know that middle school part, I think, I never saw in him any sign of acceptance or even pride. You know, be proud of me, so that I took that, you know, of myself and in terms of challenging me to be better. And then there's there's never enough, you know.
Speaker 2:So you have this boss inside my head that's challenging me all the time and that's telling me you could have done better, you could have done better, you could have done better. You could have done better. You could have done better, you could have done differently. Oh yeah, you failed there. You know like oh, you didn't take this into account. What were you thinking? Oh, you were thinking about that. Oh, so I you know, that's a presence in my head.
Speaker 1:Shame. Not good enough, not enough. Yeah, that's not enough.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's interesting because I challenged that with what I said before and I'm going to say differently now. I challenged that with good enoughness. You know, there's only so much you can do. There's only so much you can do, and it is not. It's not giving up, it's just hey, I'm not going to, I'm not going to beat myself up with this, because you can use experiences, you know, as a whip. You know, and whip yourself with it, or you can, you can put everything on a table and say, oh, let's look at this, let's look at this and let's see if it can do, if it can be done differently not necessarily better, but the fact that you're thinking about doing it differently, it's all in itself, it's better, absolutely.
Speaker 1:If you're passing.
Speaker 2:You're taking time because if it's important, it requires time. Important and urgent are not the same thing. Absolutely. There are things that, yeah, there are things that require, you know, an urgent response, a sense of urgency. But the really important things in life, that entails you know processes and relationships and decision making that is going to shape your life. You know those important decisions that you make. It takes time. There's no, there's no shortcut to that. Absolutely, yeah, especially if you're you know moving or getting married or you know whatever. You know whatever marriage you're talking about. Right, because David White talks about the three marriages you know the marriage with yourself, the marriage with your work and the marriage with your partner. You know there are three marriages. They're all entangled, they all speak about who you are as a human. You know.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. There's no separation of them.
Speaker 2:It's the same person living in three marriages, in three commitments that are very important. And that relationship, that relational approach to life, I think is very beneficial to think about yourself how am I showing up in this, how am I showing up in that and to whom? And what's the conversation I'm having with that, you know? And when you ask yourself those questions, I think that inevitably you're going to gain some wisdom, and that's what. I think I've been doing in the past year and now.
Speaker 2:I think the last part of your question was mostly related to what have I learned through that path, right, right and one of the things that have impacted me in terms of who I am as a man. I started reading Jorge, I started reading about masculinity, I started listening to podcasts and I started asking myself stuff and I identified, I was able to identify this self analysis that I did Many things that I hadn't thought about, mostly through writing.
Speaker 2:journaling was very beneficial to me and I didn't write every day, but there were some things that were so thick in my head that I had such a hard time this entangling and handling. It's like.
Speaker 2:it's like if you're you're dealing with some material stuff, you know you're touching it and it's really hard to handle it so you have to put it somewhere because it's hard to hold it in your head and deal with it and solve it in your head. So put it somewhere. That's what I told myself every time. It was like this is like I'm ruminating about this. It's really hard for me to have like a nice conversation with this. Let's put it somewhere and then I'll have some distance from it and Approach it from a different perspective and have a different conversation. Maybe let's start a different conversation, let's start over.
Speaker 2:So I Did that a lot and and I think I was able to identify so many things about myself and and also, and also through that process, because when you're sad, you forget about when you were happy and and and when you feel miserable, you forget about what actually you know has made you feel important in life. So, and I think you know shifting between those trying to bring balance, you know trying to bring balance a little bit to it, and One of the things that I, one of the tools that I created for myself, and I think this this touches a lot with with the path I I started with yoga, doing yoga Almost a year ago, march last year.
Speaker 2:And that the relationship I've created with my body. I had been doing fitness for four years before I started yoga, so fitness is a whole different approach. It's approach about strength and about accomplishing something. Very you know how can I say this? Very imperialistic, like, very like. I want to dominate this. You know, I want to have more muscle, I want to have more strength, I want to weigh more. You know, more pounds. You know like, do more reps.
Speaker 1:And do it. It's a completely different approach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do it more days.
Speaker 2:You know like it's never enough, you know when you're in that, you know not enough in this mindset. Fitness is beautiful for that. It kind of creates that that terrible condition for you to hide from yourself when there is a wound, when there is something that is actually calling for you to pay attention to. So when I started yoga which is the other thing, that this is a whole different approach and and I'm gonna quote my teacher here it's like you, you, you put yourself in a hard situation, but you approach it from a calm perspective, as a yoga poses. You have to breathe through them.
Speaker 2:So you're read, you're reprogramming your nervous system, you're putting yourself in a pose that is challenging and it's hurting and it's creating all distress, but but you're breathing through it. Nothing's gonna happen. You're gonna survive this and and and tomorrow you're gonna be able to do it again, calmly, calm, and and you do it to the best of your ability without hurting yourself. You know and and that's life, you know. You can translate that you know into so many things, aspects of your life, and that's the beauty about yoga, if you approach it that way, for sure, there are so many things you can do with yoga, you know, but if you approach it that way.
Speaker 2:I think it's very beneficial and that's part of the things that I've learned. You know, to be compassionate with myself, to not beat myself up that much, especially with yoga, because I reached to that point in which I was beating myself with yoga, I didn't do enough, I Didn't go to the studio today, like, and I hurt myself Physically, I injured myself when I was approaching it that way. So it kind of, you know, the process itself Speaks back to you and and that's also a metaphor or For what life is as well you know when you, when you don't approach it healthily, you're gonna hurt yourself and and and you gotta be able to hold that wound and and being open to heal, doing less or doing differently, and and and I think that's what I've learned.
Speaker 2:Honestly, jorge, because I you know, I could keep talking and bringing more examples, because I think I it brought more awareness. I'm not infallible, oh yeah, absolutely. Just open. You know, I'm just open to it. Open me up. It opened me more. I'm sorry right. I feel more connected with myself. And also I adopted a dog, who, who's a love digger, you know.
Speaker 2:So she did love every day in me, so she brings out, you know, my, my parental self, basically and and and also it is very moving sometimes when I, when I see myself as a caregiver, you know, and and Processing those fears that something's gonna happen to her, and I adopted a female dog and a very small dog, very like, docile dog, very beautiful and care, you know, a loving dog and and in spires so much love in me that you know my heart has a gym already, you know there.
Speaker 1:My, my, my loving heart.
Speaker 1:You know I'm under it sounds. This is a perfect way for us to sort of like, go back to, to gratitude and and and perhaps, you know, bring this to sort of some sort of closer, because I know we can be here for a long time, but I love the fact that that that you bringing you know, whether it was intentional or not, that this beautiful gift of your dog, an animal, your companion, is Giving you the space for you to access all these different Layers of yourself as as a human being and your masculinity as a caregiver. And it's funny, right, cuz I mean, for all those dog lovers out there, we all know, because I'm a dog lover myself, and, and and it's so beautiful to develop this relationship because they love us unconditionally, and and and I don't know if you feel the same way, but, um, I Didn't discover what it was like to love unconditionally Until I had an opportunity to, to, to really deepen in my relationship with, with my dog. Yeah, and, and it's just a different way.
Speaker 1:You know, and, and I this this brings me. You know this makes me think of parenting and all of the stuff. You know I'm not a parent, you know, so I can only imagine what this does for other people, right, and for other humans. But anyways, um, thank you. I want to say, armando, you have been so brave, you have been so courageous, and and I love the way in which you brought your you, not your inquisitive mind, but your critical mind into our conversation, you know, and and the way in which you Allow me to to enter and to walk with you, along with you and Remembering certain pivotal moments in your life. For me, this is very important.
Speaker 1:This is honestly what this podcast is all about, which is journey talks podcast. Right, this talks about the journey and, and the dynamics and the things that we learn along the way. Um, so, piggybacking on that, I always ask people who, who, what's a quote? Who's the person that you are that has been a north for you, or a quote, or someone that you're really vibing with lately that is helping you in this, in this process of life?
Speaker 2:Well, lately my yoga teacher has been. She's had an impact in my life that I don't. I don't think she's aware of, to be honest, but the whole channel that she's opened up to me as a human being has taken me to start reading about what a stanga yoga is and that path you know and that's basically what?
Speaker 2:my life has been in the past eight months or six months and and I've been looking at life through that lens and In looking into that, I think I tapped into, I found this this Spaniard teacher, yoga teacher as well. Jose Carvallar. His name is and, and he's he talks about yoga in Spanish, which is something Spanish is my first language, so it touches differently, absolutely, and he's very and he's also like Someone that's communicating that a lot. My teacher does it in the studio, in the shala but, he's.
Speaker 2:he's public, he was an actor, so he's a professional actor, so people know him as a public figure and he he's always like publishing, posting and and and doing all these interventions online that that are very Powerful and that teaching that teach me a lot. You know, in a very simple way, yeah, so I think Ashtanga yoga has been a teacher, and then my teacher has been you know just great and Someone like my, like a lighthouse, you know like something I that guides me.
Speaker 1:So lots of gratitude to all of our teachers, right? Yes regardless of what they look like.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and and and how they come to our lives. Yeah, all right. So then, one one thing I always ask people at the end of the podcast is this which is the reason why you're here Is who do you think could be a future guest here on Journey Talks podcast?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm Karen Kelly who's my yoga teacher. I think she'll do great. I also think that Barbara Guzman was also someone that graduated with us from high school.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say that and I was familiar.
Speaker 2:Barbara, and I think she would do great, great addition to your, to your project. And and I can't think of my cousin whose name is Jose Bernardo Marquez I think he also might be a good addition also from the Cipulos, also from the same high school that we graduated, same high school.
Speaker 1:Well, here we go. Well, friends, this has been another episode of Journey Talks podcast. Armando, I want to thank you for this amazing time, for this amazing conversation. Thank you for listening, thank you for giving me the gift of just sharing this space with you and and thank you for your trust in me and Hosting a space where we can just share these stories. I look forward to having you again in the future, if you're open to it, because it sounds like we have More conversations that we can follow up with, you know.
Speaker 2:Let's keep that in mind, All right sir, sorry that this is this is just the beginning.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, wonderful friends. Like I said, this has been another episode of Journey Talks podcast, your favorite podcast to reconnect with gratitude and inspiration. I look forward to connecting you again in the future. Take care. Thank you for listening. Make sure you like, follow and subscribe to our podcast, share your feedback, hit that notification bell and let's keep the conversation going.