I have always questioned things, always wondered ‘why’. This was my beginning of my path, the path led me to know myself.
I have a degree in Psychology. University training has given me the theoretical framework and discipline, then life has taught me the rest through experience. Since I was little I wondered about everything at a very particular level, I was interested in knowing the essence of different cultures and people. I started as a volunteer at the age of 15, to be allowed to travel outside of Spain. Summers I worked as a volunteer with different social issues and with different government entities and NGOs. I worked with serious disability in Fatima, Portugal. With different children’s orphanages in Romania and in Mombasa Kenya. These were some of the destinations to start leaving my parents’ house, while perhaps I adjusted my karma balance, i did began to learn little about what life was all about.
I have always been interested in freedom, the essence of the human being and the keys to being healthy and balanced. Starting with, myself, who back then, was not. My journey had begun by learning about darkness, the hidden face of the human being, mental disorders, addictions and prisons. It plunged me into the depths of existence. One of the best experiences of my life, which I keep in my heart, was working with young people in jail in the Nicaraguan Criminal Court of Central America. It was an experience that forever changed my life. I was able to see the light and understand the lower level of our society, where the kids are that nobody wanted to look at. Even there i found light and love. This was a great experience and a cure of brutal humility. Fresh out of University, I discovered that the therapies were not enough and the pain was very deep. – “Psychology does not heal the wounds of the soul.”
After this, I took some time off this path, experiencing and simply dancing in Berlin. This was an eye opening experience that marked me, and brought me back to the path of self-knowledge but now from another perspective, again the same themes, the limits of freedom and the direction of life. This short period helped me rethink the meaning of substances and the alteration of consciousness that results from the chemical modification that occurs in us. All this then led me to study the biology of the biochemical alteration of consciousness.
I was trained in “Psychopharmacology and Substances of Abuse”. I was hired by one of the leading research groups that specialized in addictions from a multidisciplinary scientific perspective. For more than five years I worked in the scientific field, with people with severe mental disorders and it’s relationship with their immune system, – The relationship between the psyche and biology. At the C. Haya University Hospital, I publishing more than 20 articles in international journals with a major impact. I defended my doctoral thesis in Psychopharmacology and Substances of Abuse, Cum Laude, from the Complutense University of Madrid, while working as a research psychologist. This stage was very interesting but hard at the same time, because I began to understand that western psychology was only the tip of the iceberg. The information was in the entire body, in our memories, we could not make the change only from the mind. It went much further, much deeper.
I then began my training in Gestalt and Systemic Therapy (New Constellations). Mainly I was looking for therapies for me, which was not good. I was getting a good salary, I had recognition and everything seemed perfect but I was not coherent. At the same time my reality slowly was beginning to crack. I always thought that there had to be something else, something more. After a deep process of personal change, I began to follow the true interests of my heart, which at that time seemed to make no sense. After defending my Doctoral Thesis, I had to start my own line of research, and everything that interested me was out of the known paradigm. I studied Gestalt Self-Knowledge and all the mechanisms of the personality, the repetitions of our behavior and the influence that comes from our Family Tree. And after all this, after all these therapeutic loops, now what?
I wanted to feel good and healthy, coherent, balanced, i wanted to be Happy. To do what I had come to do in this life. My purpose. I thought: I want to investigate what is behind all of this. It was like following a trail that was unknown, I did not know how to name because it did not have a name. I imagined many new things that at the time I did not know existed. All of this had been a necessary process.
I decided to integrate everything I had learned and embark on my own line of research, based on my published articles and my new vision of life. I wrote several projects to define this new line of research, from experience integrating polar opposites and finding the master lines to connect it. – I want to investigate in spirituality.
To bring all this to reality i began reading, training and integrating various therapeutic techniques of ancestral healing and spiritual development into my life. Everything led me to be aware that I am a woman. The books of various spiritual streams from which I was formed, were all written from a male perspective. I knew from my studies and experience that biologically we, women, were different. I then started working with Sacred Plants and Ancestral Communities, all my visions led me to the importance of the Sacred Feminine.
This was the beginning of my line of research. I was looking for new treatment options from the paradigm of self-knowledge, including the female perspective in the equation. I wrote several projects, traveled to the United States seeking funding, and this path then led me back into South America where I began to learn in Native American Communities. For several years now I have been part of a female community led by women, “grandmothers” of various origins who transmit the original ancestral knowledge (Nahuatl Mexika and Lakota). I am very passionate about this brilliant source of wisdom, I have integrated western psychology with native ancestral knowledge, and thanks to this, we are re-connecting with the wisdom of our European ancestral lines as well.
In Personal Therapy as well as in FEMININA workshops, I integrate psychology, native techniques and ancient rituals into one, and the results speak for themselves. The experiences are spectacular and the results are truly a gift. These are very effective techniques and we are observing deep and long lasting results. I have held Workshops in many environments, with different cultures, co-creating with other women and joining together their own knowledge. Some locations have been in Berkeley California, Brooklyn New York, Bishkek Kyrgyzstan and Hamburg Germany. We also have a few annual workshops like Maro, Malaga and Barcelona, Spain. These are some of the gatherings where women of diverse origins have come together to share in these various techniques and to connect with our essence and ancient wisdom. We use art as a lubricant, using music and above all the joy of living, supporting in a beautiful and enriching space for personal and group research. The goal here is to connect each of us with our own inner guide.
I currently live a coherent life, just north of Malaga, in the south of Andalusia, in Spain The months of March, April, May, September, October and November we receive groups and perform monthly ceremonies. I work with Sacred plants with the Kofán people, organizing an annual retreat, a truly transformative experience. We also host meetings and workshops from other people and other communities. Our home is a bridge between cultures, where the most advanced academic base and ancestral prayers go hand in hand, creating miracles, spiritual technology at the service of a new humanity. A humanity that we create among us all.
Any collaboration and recommendation is welcome.
– María Pedraz