This year I decided to attend Tierramítica’s ChoiceOS workshop in Romania.
I stopped being a teenager not long ago, and by mentioning that I am so young and that I allowed the Tierramítica team to guide me, I run the risk of not being taken seriously and thinking that I am just someone extremely manipulable. I hope that whoever reads me does so with an open mind and takes my words as what they are, a personal experience that deserves to be considered and heard, because if we were all willing to listen before judging we would not miss out on everything that life has to offer us.
During my adolescence I suffered from severe depression and anxiety, too many problems fitting in or in loving myself, and I allowed this stage of my life to be clouded by bad experiences and memories. When I left high school I faced the world without direction, with anger and distrust. At that time I had no expectations for having a life after the age of 20.
I met this community at the “Mythic Party”, a free painting event open to anyone who want to attend. Once there I fell in love with the vibe of the place and their family, I had never met people so happy and proud of who they are. After meeting them and sharing the event with them, another opportunity appeared for me, for the first time in years I felt hope, hope to have an incredible life full of happiness, because until then I only believed that human beings were condemned to be miserable. The second time I attended I became closer to the people there, I made incredible friends who did not hesitate to share with me some tricks to improve my life and become who I wanted to be, however, they always recommended that I attend the workshop to fully understand what they were referring to. I’m not going to lie, I had serious doubts that a workshop can change your life, after all my philosophy at that time was to not trust anyone because people might and will hurt you. Also by just attending the “Mythic Party” you can’t really get to know Miki, who is precisely the man who runs the workshops. At the “Mythic Party” I didn’t really get to know him, I just got to observe him, and yes, at first glance he is someone intimidating, you can see that his character is really strong, that’s why if you’ve never had a conversation or personal approach that helps you really get to know him it’s very easy to judge him. Even so, with all the doubts and suspicions, I decided that I had to go to the workshop at least to try, because I was tired of feeling like my life was going by waiting to find meaning and I wasn’t willing to waste more years trying to discover who I wanted to be and what I wanted in life, so I went.
I’m from Peru and I had to go all the way to Europe for this, I’ve never felt so alone, far from my family, in a completely strange country, and knowing that I would be left alone with strangers for two weeks!! I was a little girl compared to everyone there, completely independent adults with a life made, I didn’t expect to be able to understand them, much less be their friend, that’s why I still find it incredible the family atmosphere that we all created, between Miki, his team and the workshop participants. The first few days were definitely difficult, we all had to face what we disliked the most about ourselves, but exposing yourself like that is so necessary, since that’s what makes you get closer to everyone, that was what showed us that we were all damaged and that we had felt alone, unhappy and misunderstood all our lives, and yes, it’s really hard to see what you hate the most about yourself and even harder to let others see it, but once you face it is when you really know what it is to be free; free to be whoever you are and free to love yourself. In essence, all the participants experienced the same thing. We exposed what caused us the most conflict and discovered that those around us saw the incredible human being that we really are, not the creep, boring or awful person we might think we are. We showed ourselves that no one cared about judging you for what you least liked about yourself. We showed ourselves that we could love and respect each other by being totally ourselves.
I think that all of us as teenagers have come to feel that the world will hate us and judge us for being ourselves. That is where many lose part of who they are just for the idea of fitting into what is believed to be a functional adult in this life. We live criticizing ourselves for not being enough. In this workshop you find the family that teaches you that you do not have to be something you do not want to be in order to be loved, to be successful and to be happy. That is one of the best gifts that they gave me.
It has been 8 months since that experience. And I’m not going to tell you that it’s a magical solution, that you attend the workshop and all your problems disappear, that’s definitely not what it’s about, the truth is that the work begins after leaving the workshop since it will be time for you to put into practice all the teachings that they gave you and begin the mission of achieving the goals that you set for yourself. This half year I have continued to have problems, yes, of course I have, but years ago I would’ve given up, I would’ve cursed everyone and locked myself in my room to cry, but after the workshop I came out with such great hope, love for life and confidence, no matter how hard it is for me, I have the strength now to face everything with love, for my loved ones and especially for myself. Little by little I am achieving things that I never thought possible and I feel really proud of that. What the workshop gives you is clarity about what you want, about who you want to be, it gives you the determination to go after what you set out to do, the hope and love that are needed to appreciate life, and a family that no matter where life takes you, they will always be there whenever you need advice.
I really love this family, thank you for showing me that loves comes more natural to human beings than hatred.

Note: This review was edited to correct over-capitalization, but has otherwise been left in its original form.