We spend our lives pursuing happiness and meaning, but often end up repeating old mistakes. Understanding why we do this is the first step to change and healing.

While writing my upcoming memoir — which narrates my journey from repression to liberation, mirroring Spain’s journey from dictatorship to democracy — I have figured out the hardest riddles of my life: why I kept sabotaging myself and the people I loved, what parts of me stayed hidden behind an impenetrable wall, and how deeply the roots of trauma infiltrated everything I did.

I hope my memoir will offer you, dear reader, some insights into the complexity of your own life, and encourage you to reclaim your whole, beautiful, imperfect self.

I’m also working on a collection of personal essays about the many things we leave behind. Growth and loss are interconnected, but it’s not always easy to let go. (Take a peek at the collection with this story about an irresistible dress, published in The Penmen Review.)

Aside from writing, I help other people tell their own life stories as a ghostwriter, editor and writing coach though my business Vida Now, which I launched in 2017.