Ana Lombard: "The recipe for living happily with oneself and with others contains at least three basic ingredients"
In this interview for Claves de Mujer, Ana Lombard spoke about the following topics:
You can find the full interview here .
The therapist specialized in stress and emotional management, Ana Lombard , maintains that the mind helps heal the body. When it is well, regenerated, calm, that is when it allows us to develop all our skills and values. Today , an element that can prevent us from doing so is stress. For this reason, the author, based on her experience, has written the book #Positivestress (Ed. Terapiasverdes), so that we know how to channel this silent disease, increasingly common in our daily lives, in a positive way. In this interview that we have done from Claves de Mujer, he gives us some guidelines.
Why did you decide to write a book about stress?
Because I am convinced that many people can be helped through personal experiences. I have always thought that a good example is worth more than an hour of sermon 😃. We live to transmit, and for me, It is best to transmit solutions and not only problems. Stress, in addition, also helps us overcome difficulties and achieve objectives and challenges, we just have to know how to dose it well. And that's what I convey in my book #POSITIVESTRESS.
One of your recommendations to be at peace with ourselves is that we learn to love ourselves. Why is it so difficult for us to love each other?
I say it in chapter 3: “Open your heart and love yourself.” To love yourself, you need to know yourself and for that you need to spend time with yourself. We have to relearn how to be with ourselves through tenderness and love.
In chapter 4 of #POSITIVESTRESS I explain how, through a very personal experience after having to be in the hospital for 9 months due to a traffic accident, my meditation teacher Xin told me: “ You need to reconcile with yourself , and then You will see that it will be easier to transform what you think is negative into positive learning.”
It is vital to consider yourself a good person, that is where our self-esteem begins!
Why is it so difficult for us to manage our emotions? Do you think it is something that should be taught, for example, in schools?
Managing emotions is complicated, because it leads us to reconsider what we do, how we think, how we act, and how we should act. I have invented a word that is “emotional laziness” 😀: we know what we have to improve in our way of thinking and being, but that is more exhausting than continuing to do what we do, therefore, we fall into a state of “laziness” and go for what is easy.
Identify without blaming ourselves that we are doing something wrong, try to reflect to improve that action, and for that we need to know what emotions we experience, that we perceive, and then put words to those emotions to be able to verbalize them and then improve our action(s). (s). Finally, it is an emotional education, and for that you need to have an affective vocabulary. So if the question is: should it be taught in schools? The answer is, without a doubt, YES. There should be the subject: SELF-ESTEEM AND EMOTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 😀
Do you think that in today's society values have been lost and that is why it is so difficult to define those that should be part of our lives?
Society is a group of people, society is us, and I hope we can all return to the essentials: Live in peace with oneself and with others . Everything we do, we do it against ourselves or for us. I like to think that we are all born with a pure conscience, without prejudice, without evil, and it is throughout our lives that it is up to us to transform our experiences into something of good learning.
Each one must be proud of himself , knowing how to share, knowing how to receive, being compassionate, understanding and exchanging. These are values that we all have, but due to strong/hard experiences, many of us have turned to self-protection and out of fear of suffering, we often act in inappropriate ways. Which is human, but painful.
The definition of happiness is very relative, but how do you advise from your experience that it can be achieved?
I explain it in chapter 6. Giving meaning to the path (of our life). I believe that happiness is something different for each person and, furthermore, it always depends on the moment we are living.
The recipe for living happily with oneself and with others contains at least three basic ingredients that, for one, can be altruism, tenderness and kindness (these will be mine as I say in my book); for another, kindness, resilience and generosity; and for another, different ones.
I suggest you find yours. Write down below what your 3 ingredients would be to be happy:
……….….………… + ……….….………… + ……….….………… = Happiness
Happiness is knowing how to be in the present and recognizing that we are living what we are living with satisfaction, love and joy.
In the book you give a lot of importance to meditation and relaxation, but if you are not used to them they are difficult... What do you recommend to start practicing it?
Meditating is simple, it is knowing how to be with oneself from tranquility, perception without fear, without prejudices. Be connected with yourself with your sensations, your emotions, and your breathing.
Meditating has nothing to do with a posture or a religion, nor does going to Tibet. This is how I explain it in each of my chapters: sit with yourself, breathe slowly, let your thoughts flow freely, incorporate what those thoughts want to tell you (don't try to make your mind go blank) and try to understand them. Talk to yourself to understand yourself and then be able to decide what you have to do, how and when. This, in itself, is already a great meditation and reflection 😀
Imagine that you can do these small exercises every day for 5 minutes. Your life would change positively, your self-esteem would also change and your health would improve a lot.
Good meditation.😀
