Health. Well-being. Personal development

Interview Kathleen Macferran “Our global ecosystem is inextricably linked and our survival depends on our cooperation”

 

Kathleen Macferran is an author, facilitator, and Certified Trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She travels internationally working with individuals, families, community groups, businesses, schools, and prison inmates.

For 20 years she served as a workshop facilitator for the Freedom Project of Seattle, WA, an organization that supports healing and restoration inside and outside prisons through Nonviolent Communication, mindfulness, racial equity and anti-oppression.

Prior to her work with nonviolence, Kathleen spent much of her life bringing harmony to communities through music, including two decades as a classical music conductor and leader of a nonprofit organization, and seven years as a public-school music teacher.

Kathleen is the author of Calling In the Dawn: Shaping Our Future through Authentic Dialogue, and co-author with Jared Finkelstein of Choice: A Field Guide for Navigating the Polarization of Our World and Living Interdependently. Her two children’s books How Giraffes Found Their Hearts and How Giraffes Got Their Ears, and her CD Giraffe Tales can be found along with her TEDX talks on her website www.StrengthofConnection.com.

In our interview we talk about the state of the world, Nonviolent Communication and how we can be more emphatic towards each other and make a difference,

“Our humanity is shared and deeply dependent on one another”

 

 

1.Kathleen, we live in a world, dare I say, more polarized than ever, locked in our algorithmic bubbles. How can we listen to all sides of a problem and avoid being manipulated?

a) These really are challenging times. The speed of change; the inequity in access to resources, education, medical care, housing, etc; the global interdependency without matching multi-cultural understanding; the trauma from generations of violence; simply the complexity of it all sets this time apart from any other.

b) Starting with personal and societal humility to acknowledge the complexity and that we have much to learn from each other around the world is a huge step toward a willingness to listen. Understanding as well that our global ecosystem is inextricably linked and our survival depends on our cooperation is crucial.

c) There are learnable dialogue skills that provide tools to get to the heart of what is important quickly and empathically, while also standing strongly in one’s integrity. To see all sides of a problem we need to speak bravely and listen courageously, act with dignity toward all, and then invite innovation and creativity without predetermined conditions.

d) I think of manipulation as tending to one’s own needs at the expense of others. As open, courageous dialogue unfolds it becomes apparent that our humanity is shared and deeply dependent on one another. As it becomes clearer that it is impossible to fully meet your needs at the expense of another’s needs (and vice versa), then trust slowly builds over time. The more trust, the less likely there will be manipulation. Communities can also co-create systems of accountability to the needs of the whole that makes manipulation an ineffective option.

My choices have potency and impact, so I want to choose responsibly.

 

“I am part of an interconnected universe. What I put out into the world is also what I take in”

 

2. You defend a peaceful, just and sustainable world, which some can consider idealistic or even a utopia. Can you prescribe actionable steps that people can take towards to this goal?

a) For me, I always want to stay grounded in the world I want, the principles that give my life meaning, the qualities I deeply value. My actions follow my attentions, so I try to place my attention on my principles and vision, moving in the direction of love, peace, justice and sustainability to the best of my ability in any given moment. That is supported by a daily practice of self-connection and self-care.

b) I remind myself as often as possible that I am part of an interconnected universe. What I put out into the world is also what I take in. That makes me pause before lashing out in pain at the expense of another. It also reminds me to not hold back on my joy and celebration. My choices have potency and impact, so I want to choose responsibly.

c) Another actionable step is to learn to listen deeply to what is important to others- specifically their feelings and needs behind any word or action no matter how they are trying to express that. Learning to hear underneath judgments, hearing what someone cares about, what principles/needs are important to them can help find common ground and a sense of shared humanity. Once there is clarity on the underlying motivation, then there can be dialog to find strategies that meet needs for all rather than meeting some needs at the expense of other needs.

d) Dialogue can be more productive when there’s a willingness to be honest and vulnerable with one’s own feelings and needs. Putting your heart on the line about what matters invites more connection and collaboration. Honesty can also bring more clarity and efficiency. There usually is more of a sense of shared humanity which invites a sense that we are all in this together.

e) It has been important to me to cultivate the ability to ask in specific, concrete terms what I want myself or others to do to attend to needs that have been identified. Linking the need/principle we are reaching for to a specific action makes it much more doable and more likely it will happen.

f) Finally, I remind myself regularly to do the best I can based on the information/resources/capacity I have in any moment, and to be flexible that I may change in a different moment if there is new information or feedback available that calls for a change. This has helped many groups and me personally to move forward rather than stay stuck in looking for a perfect solution.

“I now feel confident it is possible to move through conflict of all kinds nonviolently”

 

3.You also work as a Certified Trainer for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC). Can you explain what it is for those who don’t know? What did these studies and practice teach about the world and especially about yourself?

a) The Center for Nonviolent Communication (cnvc.org) was created to support the work of Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD, who founded the practice of Nonviolent Communication around the time of the civil rights movement in the US. As a Jewish boy in Detroit, Marshall grew up with racial tensions and would ask the question, “Why do some people stay connected to compassion in the midst of violence and others don’t?” His quest to answer that led him to study philosophers, religions, communication methods, social scientists and eventually to become a psychologist and social advocate himself. Now the Center for Nonviolent Communication is an international organization with over 750 certified trainers worldwide. CNVC offers trainings that support understanding across differences; and action within oneself, between individuals, and within social structures to help co-create a world that works for all.

b) The practice of Nonviolent Communication transformed the way I looked at the world by helping me understand that all words and actions are attempts to meet universal needs. That allowed me to expand my world view far beyond my own social location and start to see common ground across all differences. It also helped me appreciate our differences and enjoy a depth of connection and creativity that enriched my life so much. I now feel confident it is possible to move through conflict of all kinds nonviolently in ways that inspire learning, growth, creativity and connection.

“Empathic understanding and honest expression without judgement is a complete game changer”

4. You also work to promote healing and restoration inside and outside prisons. Do you feel that hurt people hurt people and there’s a better way to recondition their brains and their perception of life?

a) What I have learned in a couple of decades of work with my brothers, sisters and siblings, who are incarcerated is that we all are impacted by the conditions in which we live and use the options available to us to try to meet needs. I believe we all experience hurt and harm during life, yet not all to the same degree. We don’t have the same access to resources for support when harm happens. How we respond to hurt can trigger additional hurt to oneself and/or others, or it can move in the direction of healing and learning. Over and over, I’ve seen Nonviolent Communication be a framework to empathically connect with the needs one was trying to meet when they did what ended up in hurt/harm and then learn different strategies to meet those needs in ways that are nurturing and safe. It has also been a framework to make sense of the violence one has experienced and to help address the internal trauma in ways that can lead to healing and healthier habits. I’ve known Nonviolent Communication be a framework that helps repair relationships ruptured by violence and helps bring self-understanding and forgiveness. So often the experience of empathic understanding and honest expression without judgement is a complete game changer in how one experiences the world and works to build a new future. I believe we rewire our brains with this work.

“We are all in this together”

 

5. At last, your site is called Strength of connection. When do you feel the most connected and how can we cultivate this spirit more from now on?

I feel the most connected when I’m in spaces where people are being real and vulnerable about what they care about. One person can get that started in any group. When I see people’s humanity emerge through their vulnerability, I get this sense we are all in this together and our connection is fundamental to our survival. The key qualities for me that cultivate connection are curiosity, humility, a willingness to see the world through another’s experiences and a desire to learn. In spaces where all perspectives are valued, creativity naturally emerges and the power of love becomes unstoppable.

 

Paula Cristina Gouveia

Interview Elina Auriel “Music has helped me heal”

 

Elina Auriel was born on 21st May 1992 in Greece. She is a singer, songwriter, voice specialist and energy healer. Elina studied piano, classical singing, learned European and byzantine music theory, flute and saz. She owns a studio in Germany where she currently lives, and is an accomplished and multifaceted artist with a 4 octave range. She has released the records “Alchemy” (2019), “Once upon a Christmas dream” (2021), “Revival” (2022) and the EP “Brand new eyes” (2024).

From rhythm gymnastics, to playing Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera” and Mary Magdalene in “Jesus Christ Superstar” to two metal bands to a more ethereal and spiritual sound and a recent last name change to Elina Auriel, we discuss all these subjects in this interview.

 

1_ Elina, you were doing so much in your teenage years from being a pro athlete for 11 years to protagonist in multiple theater plays. Do you feel they went by too fast as you were taking so much responsibilities? Or was it something you loved so much you didn’t think if you were being an overachiever?

 

I knew I was an overachiever and even when it was often at an unhealthy pace still I was proud of it because this was valued within my family. I definitely threw myself into all those activities to survive living in a very complicated parental home; the interpersonal and interfamilial dynamics were very difficult. There was psychological and physical abuse under the guise of discipline and there was a lot of fear under the façade of a perfect family. I was molested by two cousins of mine when I was 8 but I didn’t feel safe to tell anyone. So of course, I was constantly focused on escaping from my life and as long as it was through music and sports it was OK. Growing up in Athens, Greece I saw that most young people were consuming substances or doing crazy things to escape their reality – which I don’t judge – but for me it was always an inner understanding with myself that I will never touch substances. I have never even smoked a cigarette in my life or drank alcohol really. In fact I was always made fun of as a teenager for not doing those things. People actually did not invite me to do things together. I was very lonely as a teenager but on the outside I would excel so it balanced things out. I had my own world of being creative and focusing on mastery in a way. So for me, music and creativity were my substance abuse, so to speak. It took me to great places but at the same time I didn’t have the same experiences as everyone else my age so it was very difficult to bond with other teenagers when I was on stage and being celebrated on the weekends and then back to school on Monday being treated like a nobody. To survive feeling excluded I would go and achieve something else. It kept me sane because everywhere I went I was bullied and excluded so I needed something to steady me since also at home you were only appreciated if you were overworking yourself. Finally when I was a grown up and no longer under the authority of others, I was able to screw back the tempo and work within myself to find value in me just being a human being and not needing to overachieve to justify my existence. I hope that answers it.

 

2_ You tried different musical genres over your career. What pushed you to the sonic landscape you are in today and the themes of survival, betrayal, pain, heartbreak, fight and renewal?

 

Well, no matter if I was doing metal music in my earlier days or with my debut solo album as Elina Laivera and my currently in-the-making music as Elina Auriel, I always had this focus on themes around death and rebirth. I feel that my life experiences just made me so interested and intrigued by the concept of personal transformation and alchemy as an esoteric process. I consider myself an alchemist in the sense that I have been through very extreme things in my life and yet I didn’t allow any of those things to stop me living my life and creating and being free from other people’s authority – this is so important to me and it is even the reason why I have been self-employed, I do not like having anyone on top of me. I always found a way to bounce back even when it took me years of personal healing and there is beauty in that. I want to show that what is broken can always find itself back to wholeness and to honor the dark parts of the journey just as much as the bright ones. Everyone likes to share only the bright days. I like to remind there is magic in the times we are broken because it is a place that requires learning to surrender to something greater than your ego and it takes great self-responsibility and spiritual strength. So I like to speak about these things in my music and I also love genre-hoping in my personal discography as that allows me to create around those topics using a different sound palette each time, like a different perspective each time.

 

3_ Your voice is very beautiful and unique with very a precise whistle register. Having studied at different institutions you are also a vocal coach. What would you say are the most common mistakes people who want to sing do?

 

Thank you so much, I am currently at a point where I also like my voice. I think the most common misconception is that to sing higher notes people have to squeeze themselves or they have to push or blast their vocal cords to sing louder but you don’t have to do any of that. Of course, I speak a bit from a convenient place because I am a soprano coloratura and high notes naturally happen for me but with belting especially I had to learn to drop into my body in a very relaxed manner to achieve high power notes. You just need very good support from your core with your diaphragmatic breathing and supporting even all the way down to your pelvic floor and then how you use your head cavities like the dome at the back of your skull to create this amplifying effect. So focusing on unlocking the throat and then you don’t have to get louder because with the right support and placement the sound gets bigger by itself because you create this big dome of sound at the back of your head while you have a good core support and all that with almost minimum muscle tension. I always say to my students: “You have to imagine you just woke up on a casual morning, you are walking into your kitchen and your body is having a relaxed yawn, almost even like you are bored – zero tension”. All the intensity and emotional explosions you see happening on stage is just performance, it is not technique, we actually do it on top of technique to spice things up.

 

“When we heal, we step into our creator power and that is why I do what I do, to help others”

 

4_ Singing is technical as a passage of air through the vocal folds but it’s also an expression of the soul. In a world where so many mental ailments proliferate how has music helped you heal in your particular journey?

 

Enormously! However, in the past I abused music. I used to make music to help me cope with pain instead of addressing the pain head-on and resolving it. So music was like a drug, it helped me escape but it was not helping me actually heal so that I don’t need to escape my life. Now I know to sit down and work through my emotions and resolve the pain and then I go back to write music about the experience. Personally, I do not believe in receiving counseling, but I believe in self-healing. I absolutely struggled with severe depression for years before I discovered tools such  as EFT (emotional freedom techniques), meridian tapping, EMDR, journaling, prayer, listening to ALPHA brainwaves (specifically 10.6 Hz), hypnotherapy (especially the Simpson Protocol) and finally going to a naturopathic healer to run checks on what is going on with my gut health and fixing those issues like food allergies that were flooding my system with stress hormones and depleting my neurotransmitters, vitamins and minerals. So… there are all those issues that music alone cannot fix. We need proper tools to help us and I found those I mentioned to help me process emotional energy that had been stuck in my body. After that, I vowed to never again use music to numb pain and to instead look at self-expression as something that needs me to be healthy on all levels – mind, body, psyche. Music cannot be used solely as escapism. I used to do that when I felt my life was not in my hands and others had power over me but even there I had a choice even if it was a tough one – I left a super abusive relationship and set myself free and since then I say to myself that if there is something I do not like in my life, I have to find a way to change it. Music is not meant to be used as a bandage to cover up the festering wounds. But it does help move emotional energy as you navigate healing and implementing changes in real life. Myself as an artist, I make a point to say that I am not here to entertain you so you can escape your life, I am here to make you think and reflect on your journey and your power, to help you feel things that maybe you suppressed because there was no safe space for you to feel those things truthfully… and that is the beginning of the healing journey. If you allow yourself to feel it, you acknowledge it and can start thinking about how to resolve it and create a life you don’t need to escape from by consuming more than you produce. Because the truth is that when we heal, we step into our creator power and that is why I do what I do, to help others step into their creator power whether through art or through making changes in their lives.

 

5_ You have your own studio in Germany where you record your own music, give classes, organize chants and are also a meditation coach and energy healer. What have you discovered in these realms linked to faith, identity and creativity?

 

“Creativity is the bridge: it connects all of that and ourselves back to our inner essence, and at the same time, it connects us to each other”

I would say it has taught me that music and energy healing are not separate practices but different expressions of the same truth. Faith, for me, is the trust that when I show up—whether in the studio, in a class, or in a healing session—something authentic will emerge. I’ve discovered that identity isn’t fixed; it shifts every time we dare to express ourselves fully. And creativity is the bridge: it connects all of that and ourselves back to our inner essence, and at the same time, it connects us to each other. Our studio is such a versatile space – you have an orchestra recording in the morning, then a band is doing songwriting, then I come in and do hands-on energy healing in the evening. It is crazy sometimes how high-vibrational this place stays but we also protect it a lot energetically. It used to be a bunker from the 2nd World War so there was quite some dense energy there at the beginning but I actually get paid to go to people’s places and even businesses like hotels and restaurants to do spirit releasements and so I knew what to do for the studio when we realized we had a full-blown haunting (believe it or not), and we haven’t had any issues since I energetically cleared the place. We are very selective with the kind of people we let enter. We do not entertain drinking or substance use in our spaces as this tends to lower the vibration of a place and we want the studio to be a safe space for artistic or healing processes. It has been such a blessing that we rolled our sleeves up back in 2018 and built the studio together with my man, Jovan Ducret-who is also the only person I entrust with my music, he has produced everything I have done since 2017… and it was the funniest thing ever renovating this beast for 9 months with zero knowledge, just watching YouTube videos on how to drill holes on 5 meter walls that have iron enforcements in them. It was madness but when we finished and opened our doors in February 2019, we were overjoyed. Having this studio, the way it looks even with those wooden floors – I dreamt of this since I was 12 singing karaoke in my bedroom and pretending I was in such a studio. So I also learned that when dreams are to be made manifest, the right people and circumstances will line up.

“I am grateful for how the Divine has always placed the right stepping stones along my path for me to bridge over to the right things each time”

 

6_ You moved from your original country from Greece to Germany. What was the reason behind that decision? Did you feel you had to exercise all the muscles of your courage?

 

Oh Gosh, Germany has been wild, are you ready for this? Because I could write a book about it but here’s the story very briefly and very honestly because I am proud of my journey and the things I had to rise above. I just knew I wanted to move away from Greece – I never felt at home there – the culture was very particular and if you are not into that culture, there’s no space for you. It definitely took courage to leave at 19 and I am grateful I was so naïve back then with stars in my eyes because knowing what I know now, my plan was crazy, I had nothing set, I had two suitcases and that was it – and thank God my parents had put some money aside for me to survive for a while since I had been pestering them since I was 14 that I wanted to pursue music abroad. At first, I went to England for a while, just testing the waters, singing for the band of a friend for some time and it was one of the most beautiful times of my life, it was very healing just to mingle with the British people, the culture, the spirit of the land. To this day, they have my heart, I love England so much. But financially it didn’t work out. Now, before going to England, I had been in another band and we were thinking about relocating to Germany but I ended up being forced to walk away because of interpersonal dramas – which was a very common theme in my journey, unfortunately, until I learned to have good boundaries and to honor myself. So I ended up going to Germany by myself and it was just months before moving when I got together with a guy who was from Germany himself. I really took this as a sign like what are the odds. I believe this was something like a karmic connection and not a coincidence because when I shared my plans with him, he was overjoyed and offered to assist me with my music, as he claimed to have some good connections in the music industry but if I have to be honest even that didn’t matter to me because I was just so in love with him that I wanted to make Germany work just to be with him. I tell you, something WAS calling me to Germany and I feel this person was how the Universe lured me to move there because right after I moved, things started to fall apart and there were huge red flags everywhere around mostly infidelity and dishonesty but I ignored all that because… I was in love! In hindsight I also see that this person was highly emotionally manipulative and always managed to explain things away so it took me a good four years to realize he never intended to keep his promises to help me with my music – he literally parked me in an empty apartment to figure out things on my own in a foreign country while he was going around often using my financial resources, doing his life and coming back to me when he had nothing better to do, evading confrontations around him failing to help me with my music. Soon he became openly psychologically abusive, and I would find his indiscretions openly on his phone. It was heartbreaking to realize that my years between 21-25 had been wasted in false promises of love and assistance – and back then I believed these would have been my best years, especially because I was thinking in music industry terms. But I also felt very empowered to take my situation into my hands. I decided to leave that man but I had to wait for him to go through with an important audition because I didn’t want to ruin his chances at a better career so while he was away for weeks at a time and I waited for his return, I started writing my first album ‘Alchemy’ and that kept me going during that difficult time. Literally the same day that he came back from his audition and I was determined to break up with him, I met the love of my life. So I went from heartbreak to a miracle that healed my heart. So Germany has felt like a crazy ride and it definitely flexed my heart and also my intuition like really staying quiet to listen to the divine guidance at every step. I could not make those things up, how organically everything fell into place for me to be here now, doing music on my own terms, with true love and health in my life and structures that I built from the ground up – I feel my best years are now and those still to come. Germany changed my perspective on everything. It’s been the land where I had huge spiritual awakenings, where I created a different world for myself, I found my gifts, found incredible love. I believe I had to be here to experience all those miracles and that relationship with that man was probably the Universe giving me a reason to be here. I am grateful for how the Divine has always placed the right stepping stones along my path for me to bridge over to the right things each time.

 

“We heal with each other because most of us the very trauma we have is relational trauma so we need health new relationships and communities to help us heal”.

 

7_ We creatives are highly sensitive people who tend to overthink and sometimes stress over the smallest things. How has energy healing and meditation has helped you calm down the noise of your own mind and help others calm theirs?

 

Yes, creative people are nothing but channels, we are very sensitive, many of us even incarnate on this Earth plane with a different genetic predisposition to be perceptive and highly empathic. We have come to change a desensitized system from the inside. So of course this system tries to pathologize our profound ability to feel and to attune and to channel. This creates rejection and distortions emerging from that can look like depression, anxiety, dissociation, not being embodied because we do not feel safe to be in our bodies. It is crazy to me how even when I used to work at schools I started noticing the last years how they started medicating the kids for being childlike and curious and energetic. They want robots. And this is imposed onto adults as well. Now imagine, as creatives and sensitives, we don’t do well in such structures. That’s why structures like what we have created at our Studio are so important. We need more spaces for energetic rehabilitation. People walk around holding it all in and now even creatives are being censored – you can’t say this, your expression is too much. For me this kind of life was unbearable so I made some very tough choices and exited those spaces where I was being addressed this way. I do things now my way at my own spaces. But healing from the trauma of trying to exist in this sick society is what lead me to become energy healer and at first really I was just learning things to help myself. I never thought I would end up helping others, as well. And there is healing that we find also in community. We heal with each other because most of us the very trauma we have is relational trauma so we need health new relationships and communities to help us heal. So often even in the psychotherapy space they pathologize your nervous system for being ‘too sensitive’; they tell you ‘oh you are dysregulated, here is a pill’ instead of looking into what happened to you to make you so hypervigilant? This society doesn’t like to acknowledge trauma but it likes to inflict it without accountability. What this means for us, sensitives, creatives… we have to stop pathologizing ourselves and tend to our nervous systems. I mentioned earlier a few tools that helped me but also as quantum energy healer I work with Archangelic energy and this is something that can be measured – it affects the auric field of the person, to clear excess static and psychic smog and to help recalibrate the quantum field around the person so they can tap back into their self-healing ability. These practices will be our guiding light into the future and we want to commit to tending to ourselves if we want to see a healthier life for all of us – sensitives and those who are still catching up with their ability to feel empathy. But seriously, it is important for us, to be clearing our energy daily. There is a lot that we absorb as sensitives. Most of the stress you mentioned is not even ours. We pick up on things because we heal others around us by proxy so often. Many of us are transmuters but we don’t have to accumulate it all on us. Burning white sage, palo santo, juniper, mugwort or doing grounding or shielding meditations – I love the 12D shield by Lisa Renee (there is a guided visualization video on YouTube), making sure we do cord cutting, addressing personal trauma through journaling or shadow work or meridian tapping, working with aromatherapy, sound healing, quantum energy healing, clearing out our relationships – these are non-negotiables at this time because yes, being sensititves we often get so overloaded that we go crazy with stress over the smallest things – this is when you know you have some energies on you that are not yours and you got to clear them. Stress to me, is a signal that our nervous system is dealing with something that is not organically native to it. So I work with prayer or smudge my aura or do some light-language and stress is gone. Coincidence? I think not. Looking into the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton or Dr. Joe Dispenza – these people have even measured scientifically the impact of energy healing practices like the ones I mentioned. This is not wishful thinking.

 

8_ What do expect to accomplish in the following years with your new projects and in your personal life?

 

Honestly, my number one priority at this time is to always move in alignment with my inner guidance and not the whims of the world around me. That means I could have a plan or a goal today but tomorrow I receive from my intuitive guidance that it is best I change course. I respect that. I follow through with my intuitive guidance I receive. It has led me to great happiness and health. This means I must have people around me who also operate this way and do not judge me for who I am. I cannot have people close to me who spend time in my energy and go ‘oh right, she’s crazy’ – so definitely I am hoping to accomplish to continue being this selective about those I allow close to me because this can make you or break you and for me this upholds health in my life and work. This is why I only work with Jovan Ducret, he is like me on this matter, he is a highly attuned person, spiritually and very grounded into healthy embodiment. I would love to keep on creating beautiful music with him and I am starting to consider putting together a tour to take my music on the road again. We almost did my first solo tour in 2020 but COVID came up. Currently I am in the studio finishing a project that doesn’t have my name on it and right after I am looking to go in the studio to finish my own new music. I have been off social media since May so I am right in incubation phase with a number of projects coming out – some of them are for other artists I write for like some ghostwriting projects, licensing for movies etc. I want to go back to Scotland and do more energy work there. I am also considering relocating again at some point in the future.

 

9_ You changed your name to Elina Auriel. What does it mean to you emotionally and spiritually to step into this new phase of our career and life?

 

I’ve always gone by my family name because I wanted to make my family proud like make this name justice. But in the last years I found myself not identifying with the name anymore. It had become this very heavy, full of responsibility thing that I felt its weight drowning my self-expression. I do not create to make anyone proud. I create because this is my primary impulse as an embodied being. I am not my surname. I am me. If I try to define me, this is also very hard to do. But I identify with equal doses of light and darkness. So I was sitting in meditation inquiring what was my name to be as an artist from now on. And the word Oriel came to me which I researched, it actually is a type of gothic architecture for windows so it means a window through which bright light is pouring. I like the concept because you would find an oriel window at a gothic cathedral – these are usually darker places and the oriel windows are the only source of light. So me with my music and my creativity – I thought – this is what I want it to represent, a window out of darkness into the bright light. It is very voluntary, you can choose when you want to emerge from the darkness and look to the light. I didn’t want it to feel pushy like ‘here come the light’! Because sometimes we like to know that the light is there awaiting for us but we still want to dwell a bit longer in the darkness. And that should be OK. So it is pronounced ORIEL but written AURIEL so now the meaning is golden light from AURIS meaning gold. Golden light to me is representation of the cosmic Christic light. Not Christ as in religion, the Christ consciousness is non-denominational and means to be anointed, to be blessed. I decided to keep my first name, Elina, due to its direct connection to light (it means ray of sun).

 

10_ Finally, do you believe like your album says that love is the ultimate alchemy?

 

Back when I wrote the song ‘Alchemy’it was about trying to love someone who is… not making it easy for you to love them yet you still try and try and you end up doing alchemy in the sense that you mix and match but it never really works (at least historically we are being told that the alchemists never managed to actually turn lead into gold so I used that connection). But today yes, I believe that love and self-respect is the ultimate alchemy. Generally, taking something and making something better out of it. And if something is not salvageable to leave it be and make something better out of yourself because ultimately you are all you have and those who come into your life they better be at that same level so they are adding positively to your process of inner divine alchemy and not acting as an obstacle to your organic path.

 

 

 

 

Paula Cristina Gouveia

Beloved Shakira

 

Shakira was born on 2nd February 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia, in South America. She has Lebanese and Spanish descent. Her name means “thankful” in Arabic.

William Mebarak Chadid, Shakira’s father, says all her career was built in overcompensation. Her oldest half-brother was killed in a road accident when Shakira was two years old and the aftermath became one of the singer’s earliest memories, by always seeing her dad with dark glasses.

Shakira learned to write and read very early and wrote her first poem “La rosa de cristal” to her mother at age 4, and her father even registered it officially.

She knew she wanted to perform when she heard a doumbek, a traditional drum used in Middle Eastern music, when she was in a restaurant. She declares herself obsessed with movement and later with applauses, when she began showing her dances to the Catholic School where she studied.

Singing came right after. She wanted to join the school choir, but the teacher said she sang like a goat. Her father encouraged her to keep going saying she had a powerful vibrato.

When her father went bankrupt, he took her to the park to see children in worse condition than ther sniffing glue and walking barefoot. It had a deep psychological impact on her.

At 15 years old, she bought her first car with money she had saved from music performances over the years, including television performances where she showed excellent posture and entertainment skills.

She participated in Festival Viña del Mar (1993) in Chile, with the song “Eres” and come up in third place.

After two records that didn’t sell well and participating on a soap opera, Shakira created an album who would be completely congruent with her vision: “Pies Descalzos” [Barefoot] and a foundation of the same name to help kids with education and nutrition. She was only 18.

Tragedy stroke in her hometown, Barranquilla, in the Estadio Romelio Martínez, which was overfilled in capacity, resulting in the death of three people by being stepped over. The singer questioned her career in such dire circumstances but decided to keep going.

When preparing her next project, her suitcase containing the lyrics and demo recordings for it, was stolen or lost in the Bogota airport. The prospect of losing material is one of the biggest nightmares for artists but Shakira bounced back and released her aptly titled second major album “Dónde están los ladrones ¿” [Where are the thieves].

She decided to color her hair red after seeing the movie “The avengers” (1998). She gains her first Grammy in the category Best latin pop album with her superb MTV Unplugged.

Then it was time to do the crossover, which Shakira describes as a huge mountain to climb as she wasn’t fluent in english yet. She decided her black hair was “like a prison” and she didn’t look “too shabby” as a blonde so she went for it. In her musical presentation she was increasingly seen as very talented performer, who could sing, dance, without missing a beat. Or a breath. “Laundry service” came out on November 2001 and was a big success, followed by extensive touring. She retreated to Bahamas afterwards and released the works “Fijación Oral Vol.1” “Oral Fixation Vol.2” in

Shakira was always pro-active in taking care of her mental health, having at a time two psychologists from different schools of thought.

When she released “She wolf”, she admitted she was suffering from loneliness and a bit depressed. The outcomes were not as desired and her long-term relationship with Antonio de la Rua was disintegrating. He would soon become “persona non grata” after suing her in million of dollars after they broke up. She would find love again in Fifa World Cup 2010 (who could escape her song “Waka waka (This time for Africa”?)”, with Spanish soccer player Gerard Piqué, with whom she would have two sons:  Milan (born 2013) and Sasha (2015). Her album “Sale el sol” reflected that positive state of mind.

Becoming a mother would change Shakira’s outlook on life completely. From a nomad artist, she would settle in Barcelona and music would become a hobby in her life. After the release of “El Dorado” (2017) she sustained a vocal hemorrhage and choose to stay silent until her vocal cords healed on their own.

After the tour, seven years went by with just single releases here and there. Then life gave Shakira lemons. Lots of them. The Spanish authorities prosecuted her in reasons of tax evasion, Piqué left her for another woman destroying her dream of a perfect family and her dad had two falls at her place, one of the injuries requiring brain surgery.

Shakira is someone who has dealt with a lot. Coming from a country with lots of difficulties, from being betrayed, a bit of everything, good and bad, seems to already had happened to her. But her resilient spirit carries on. In tour for her latest musical project “Las mujeres ya no lloran”[Women no longer cry] (2024), Shakira says nobody can tell her what to do. And we listen.

Paula Cristina Gouveia

Mindfulness over perfection: Getting real on mental health with Wondermind

 

Wondermind is a site full of resources, interviews and articles that can be filtered by feeling, founded by artist Selena Gomez and her mother, Mandy Teefey.

This panel “Mindfulness over perfection” that is available to watch on Youtube had also the NFL athlete Soloman Thomas and Dr. Corey Yeager, marriage and family therapist. It was moderated by Jessica Stern, psychologist and advisor at Wondermind.

Some ideas that I found useful are the following:

Be aware of the language we use to talk to ourselves. Avoid being punitive and don’t say things you wouldn’t say to a friend. Give yourself grace. (Dr. Corey Yeager).

Soloman Thomas said it’s important to talk openly about suicide, to which he lost his sister, Ella. He thinks instead of saying “committed suicide” the saying should be replaced by “died by suicide” like any other disease. He wants to challenge the notion that a man that talks about his feelings is weak or crazy.

Mandy Teefey talked about the importance of journaling as a self-care practice and a way of finding answers about what you are going through

Selena Gomez said this project comes out of her personal struggles and wanting to help other people. She also talks about the benefits of therapy and especially Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), which is designed for people who feels emotions very intensely and aims to regulate them.

Depression is defined by Dr. Corey Yeager as rumination about the past, anxiety as excess of future and the present as being here and now, the only way to truly live.

Wondermind is described like an ecosystem, an ecotone full of variety, soon to be an app, and that is open for everyone who needs any kind of help in mental health and that can be visited in: https://www.wondermind.com/.

 

Paula Gouveia

 

Beloved Jennifer Lopez

 

Jennifer Lopez has defied boxes in her long career. From dreaming of being an entertainer in her Bronx neighborhood to becoming a professional dancer (a Fly girl, having to move from New York to Los Angeles). She started securing soap opera roles, transitioned to movies and polished her craft as an actress. When people told her to stay in her lane she decided to become a singer too.

From “Selena” (1997) to “Out of sight” (1998), Jennifer became the highest paid Latina actress and the first woman to have one movie (“The wedding planner”) and album (“J.Lo”) number one at the same time.

But this is not about Jennifer Lopez’s career highlights, it’s more about her character and her heart.

“This is me… now: A love story” (2024) opens with the ancient Puerto Rican legend of Alida and Taroo, two lovers from feuding tribes. As the drama unfolds, Alida is changed into a beautiful red flower and Taroo into a hummingbird.

We then see a motorcycle going too fast and crashing, an abusive relationship and a feeling of having a broken heart no matter how hard one tries to put it back together.

From just wanting to be in love as an adult, the conclusion of this piece is that reality requires self-love, connecting with our inner child, self-examination, therapy and a long hard look at our decisions. You can still go on believing in love and the surprises that life throws your way.

The accompanying documentary “The greatest love story never told” shows the blood, sweat and tears that went into making the film possible. We see Jennifer in casual clothing, investing 20 million dollars out of her own pocket to finance the project, handling stress to make sure everything is right and fulfilling her artistic vision. It was something Jennifer just had to express.

Now that she has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck it’s easy to attack her relationships or her latest endeavors altogether. But Jennifer Lopez follows her instincts and is a hard worker, I’m sure she will continue to believe that love will one day grace her way. There’s nothing to be ashamed about for trying twice with the same person. At least now she knows she can move on with her life being aware of all she is capable of.

 

Paula Gouveia

 

Beloved Cameron Russell

 

Like many people on this planet, when I was going through girlhood, I wanted to be a model. Tall and lean. In one occasion I drank so much milk I ended up throwing up. I was appalled in the next years when other people would made comments on my body (that I was rounder and that my body was deceitful when I was buying a pair of pants).

I always looked up at models for inspiration from Gisele Bundchen to Cindy Crawford. So when I heard the viral talk “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model” I was blown away with the candor with which Cameron Russell talked about a profession that didn’t always made her happy.  I never thought of models as insecure beings and hearing so was a revelation because indeed having to worry about your appearance and body all the time can be an exhausting task.

Fast forward when Cameron created Interrupt mag, a very plural magazine designed to help change the status quo, I wrote a small article about loving my wrists (which could apply to my arms in general) because in my many weight fluctuations they tend to stay basically the same. I was so excited to receive my magazine in the mail with amazing stickers and a t-shirt. I felt like I belonged someplace.

Seeing her organizing work in Model Mafia and the Instagram campaign # My job should not include abuse made me in awe of her pursuit of a world with more justice.

I read voraciously her memoir “How to be agreeable herself to everyone” and the first few pages were like a punch in the stomach. I fell for that 16-year-old who only wanted to please and move forward with her career in a world of adults that told her she was utterly replaceable. It was like I was inside the mind of that model with a unisex name that turns into a very smart woman caught up in the nuances of the fashion industry. The one that knows that is paid very well at face value, that the garment workers do their job for a miserable wage and that, by her moral compass, is just not right.

Cameron, who tells everyone she wants to be one day President of the United States, hints sometimes at dissociation, which is a state when we are not fully present and suppress feelings and emotions. It’s like body, mind and spirit are not in sync.

Cameron talks from the get-go about her need to feel tough which applies in the fashion world where it’s valued “a girl that would do anything” and not any demonstrations of being upset which can be quickly labeled as weakness.

Being a part of something both aspirational and detrimental to mental health, Cameron Russell emphasized in her Ted Talk she just won a genetic lottery and that is not a career path, that more admirable would be a ninja cardio thoracic surgeon poet.

Nowadays along with being a mother, model and climate change activist, I think Cameron is aware of her voice and her power (her Ted Talk is one of the most viewed of all time) and she was recently on Moma on the panel “Grace under pressure”.

In the last chapter of her book, she talks about the family tradition of making quilts: out of something old we can always reshape, transform and create something new. Maybe we are all fragments of our past that conduct into our present for us to make sense. Writing is a way of making sense and sharing our stories. Acknowledging and owning it.

Cameron, thanks lovely lady!

 

Paula Gouveia

Beloved David Archuleta

 

On 4th July 2019 I had the honor of publishing an interview with David Archuleta in my digital magazine (you can read it here: https://humanamente.pt/en/interview-david-archuleta/). I felt incredibly lucky to have this opportunity, as a small Portuguese outlet (which is still small by the way), it doesn’t happen very often.

In the interview, David wrote to me about dealing with fame following his participation as runner up in American Idol, mental health, and his two years as a volunteer in Chile. I realized immediately his intense devotion to God being raised within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Born and raised Roman Catholic, I had my experiences with religion as well and to this day I always believed God exists. The problem with churches, of any kind, is the set of rules and the paradigms of good boys and good girls that can be incredibly oppressive (more on that later).

I could hear in some songs that David seemed a bit on a war with his mind like “Paralyzed”, “Numb” or most notably “You worry” and “Just breathe” from his album Therapy sessions.

Following the immense privilege of interviewing him I kept following his career. I was really glad when David came out. It felt like he released a huge burden of his shoulders and is setting himself free from many expectations placed on him. On a recent video interview I saw his eyes shine, his smile wider than ever before. He is dancing, he is releasing honest heartfelt songs: it’s a pure joy to watch as a fan this evolution.

I’m sure it took a lot of courage for David to make this decision, one that certainly implies some form of grief of our former self and thought models that no longer benefits us.

I think people should be able to love whoever they want to love, no question about it. I’m glad to see Catholic Church being more open and acceptant towards it, especially Pope Francis. But let’s not forget that until 1973, homosexuality was considered a mental illness, and it was only in that year that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed that diagnosis from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Let’s not forget there’s still conversion therapy going on in certain parts of the world, namely the United States of America, which must be a mental torture for the person involved. Let’s not forget the pain and traumas that come with repressing your sexual expression in a world that is a judgmental as ever.

I remember when Italian singer Tiziano Ferro came out, at 33 years old, after suffering terribly of guilt because of his catholic beliefs. I remember more recently when Spanish singer Pablo Alborán revealed he was homosexual and that there was no problem, everything was okay. Lastly there was Swedish singer Darin (also a runner up in American Idol from Sweden) said he was proud to be gay.

I feel the outpouring of love and creative expression from my favorite lgbtqiap+ artists: so unique, so special and with so much to share with the whole world.

After the storm and the existential crisis, one can always find the faith, resilience and spiritual fortitude to be who he/she/they really are.

David, I wish you all the best, embrace the positivity around you, know that you are touching lives of people that care and love you truly. Keep going strong!

 

Paula Gouveia

 

 

Beloved Britney Spears

 

I became a fan of Britney Spears when I was 12 years old and saw the music video of “Baby one more time” on my tv. So many of you can relate, right? I bought the album soon after and played it often. Britney was my company, a friend that brightened my days and make life better with her music. I listened to her before my math tests which caused me a lot of nerves (I always had to make a lot of effort to have positive grades), I danced, I dreamed and learned english at the same time.

“Baby one more time” was like the perfect adolescence for me. It was not very relatable because I was going through a lot of pain (bullying, rejection, the death of my grandparents) but Britney was supremely magnetic, her wide smile and talent granting her a global acceptance.

As she tried to advance her career, the press started to dig into her privacy and everything from her body to her personal relationships seemed to be fair game. It was like she was just a product, a commodity, not a human being.

When I was 19 years old I have my first nervous breakdown (which had many causes and I won’t try to explain as this is about Britney, not me). When I started feeling better I asked my older sister why nobody in the world seemed to be helping Britney Spears, to which my sister replied “Britney is so rich. I’m sure she is being helped”. I felt like having bright flashes from cameras everyday on her face must had been a nightmare, along with everything else that unraveled.

I always felt connected to Britney and prayed for her well being. It made me sad to see her work so hard and not being able to have control of the money she made. She was explored to the bone. I experienced the other side of the equation, being treated well most of the times but having difficulty in earning money.

At the end of 2021 I was hospitalized in a psychiatric yard for my bipolar disorder and anxiety. When I’m discharged on 12th November, I learned that the conservatorship that Britney had endured for so long was over. I was so glad.

About Britney’s use of Instagram I think most of the times she is just having fun and using her independence. Sure she can dance better than just doing circles but maybe she is just gaining confidence again in her own body (she had her knee injuries and I read reports of damages on her nerves). She has been processing a lot emotionally since her freedom, such as her miscarriage, and seeing other people try again and again to profit on her story must be infuriating. She says she feels liberated when she posts revealing pictures and her content is not curated to make her look like her past self. This is Britney now. I remember an interview for an Israeli outlet where Britney said if she had a hair strand out of place she would experience overwhelming anxiety. So yeah, I enjoy seeing Britney act carefree, almost childlike because at least she seems joyful.

As a fan what I would like for Britney? That apart from a cd, book or other business ventures, she continued where she left in The letters of truth, to show her soul bravery to the world. She mentioned writing a ghost story, she has the creativity and imagination for that. I hope she continues healing in any way possible by prayer, art, loving relationships and so much more. All emotions are valid as long as you express them properly. She is beautiful and has an extremely sensitive heart (let’s not forget how Britney composed “Everytime” on piano, for instances). She deserves to be treated better. We’ve been failing her for more than 14 years!

Bottom line is: Britney was there for us when we needed her the most.

No one in the world has been more criticized, judged, punished for the state of her mental health than Britney Spears. Let that sink in, truly. And please, the next time you see her face show more empathy. Not pity because she doesn’t need it, but try to understand everything she has been through and how she came back stronger, just reclaiming now a sense of normalcy and showing the real fighter that she is. Long live Britney!

The velvet rope

 

That we live in a world full of dichotomies, it’s not a surprise for anyone. Whist some of us live very luxurious lives, the majority struggles to get a roof under their hands, pay the bills, bring food to the table and so on. Oftentimes we fall into narratives like work harder to earn harder and never mind the rest. Quality of life takes the backseat, and we will pay the cost in terms of heath sooner or later.

It’s not easy to navigate so many stimuli, so much information, so many images of cruelty and violence that pop in our screens daily. What can we do to avoid falling in the same pitfalls of previous generations, how can we make the world a better place, a place where we can thrive and feel fully alive?Read more

“How we manage anxiety” with Becky G, Normani, Christina Milian and Rhonda Richards-Smith

 

We all go through problems, obstacles and challenges that may cause us some degree of anxiety. In a Facebook Audio Room event from last month, three artists and a psychotherapist meet to discuss mental health and the pressures of life, of living in this world.

Becky G, an american singer and actress of mexican descent, starts by saying how when she slows down from work and is triggered “things catch up to me that I thought I overcame”.Read more