Small revolutions of the readers: Carolina and Maria

CAROLINA TINAJERO: «I have a small revolution that has helped me a lot.

»I have always wanted to have inner peace. I was wondering, how can I do it? What can bring me inner peace? I realized that sometimes I did not have peace because I felt a certain resentment towards many people every day for little things. I understood that my departure was FORGIVENESS. From that moment I have a morning ritual: I write to all the people, things, situations that I want to FORGIVE, even myself. Then I visualize them, I apologize and I forgive them. I imagine sending a light of love that falls on their bodies. I imagine them as if they were children. From the moment I started practicing this, my tension and irritability levels have dropped. ”

MARÍA: «I am a teacher in a neighborhood in Barcelona, ​​and I can assure you that it is not always easy to deal with what you find in class: unmotivated students, lack of discipline ... You have to constantly look for tools to try to comply well with the task that we are entrusted to teachers. Last year, a boy came to my class who tested me over and over again, questioning my authority, and violated his classmates with out-of-place attitudes, within a group that was not easy to lead. Although I had only been a teacher for two years, I thought I had enough experience to manage something like that, but I remember that I had to take a deep breath to avoid losing my nerves. Until I realized that I couldn't continue like this, that an empathy exercise was necessary to try to understand that boy.

"I hung out with him to talk to him. He refused, because he said he didn't see the need, but I insisted. And then I understood many things: their family situation was complicated, with a father without a job, a chronically ill mother and two little brothers. But what moved me was when he told me why I worried about what would happen to him, if no one ever did. That he felt very lonely. I put myself in his shoes and understood that it was not easy to live all that with fifteen years. Empathy and compassion, that's what I felt. I tried to give him my point of view, what I would do if I were him, but since I was thirty years old, and, above all, I told him that he was not alone, that if he ever needed to vent, tell me. It goes without saying that his attitude in class and with classmates changed. Putting yourself in the other's shoes ... No one teaches us how important he can be! ».