Marian Rojas-Estapé: "To forgive is to go back in time and return safely"

Marian Rojas Estapé is one of the best known psychiatrists in our country, and it is not surprising if we take into account that, despite her youth, she has spent many years investigating the mind and trying to understand optimism, brain, stress, happiness and well-being to be able to help your patients.

You know that managing well is the key to be happy And that is precisely what he talks about in his book, a pleasant read that will lead you to enjoy the present, overcome the past and look forward to the future.

At MAPFRE, we have been with her and this is what she has told us ...

Is it true that the brain and emotions can make you sick or heal you?

One of those that exist for the brain and to be healthy is to have a sense of life, a life purpose.

Nowadays, people do not know why they get up in the morning, we are automatons, we let ourselves go and we must have that capacity, what some call the proactive life or the proactive attitude, which is despite the fact that what I want to do is lie down on a sofa, or do nothing, or devote myself to eating potatoes and not thinking about anything at all, that makes me sick.

However, when I take charge of my life, when I decide to do things with a meaning, because I help others, because my work has meaning, because I smile at the people around me, because I take care of my parents, my brothers etc. we have seen that the immune system is strengthened.

What is the best antidote to suffering?

I think that the best antidote to suffering, pain, stress, disease, etc. is love. So much love for oneself, the self-esteem, love as a couple, love for others, and that can be both friendship and solidarity.

I give a very important value to doing things for others, I even recommend it in consultation, because I consider that there are few things that heal as much as help people who suffer.

The love of ideals and beliefs ... we all know historical, political, social, religious figures who, due to their ideals, without reaching fanaticism, have been able to overcome any pain or suffering. An example of this is Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Tomás Moro ...

It is also very important the love of memories.

Can memories heal?

The power of memories is impressive… The 87th Nobel Prize in Medicine Tonegawa discovered a few years ago that the power of memory is capable of activate the same areas in the brain than when that situation happened in reality.

That is, when one relives the situations that one liked, that one enjoyed, such as their wedding, the birth of a child, an economic or professional promotion or some especially important event, the brain and the body secrete the same substances and they make it revive and that is why it helps a lot.

When you live off of and are hooked on the past, you can get sick

Can you forgive everything?

One of the most important moments in my life was when I went to Cambodia and was working with prostitution girls. I always say that I was in hell, it was terrible, a very very hard experience, but on many occasions very rewarding in which I learned a lot.

I helped as much as I could, but the feeling was one of brutal unease and it was a very hard time. A 12-year-old girl told me how she had overcome rape, and she told me that I had learned to forgiveIn the book I tell it in detail and she explained to me that the forgiveness in her had arisen trying to understand her mother, her grandmother, the rapist.

Does understanding things help you forgive?

To understand is to relieve. When you understand or try to understand why people have hurt you, you feel relieved and you can enter into forgiveness.

Forgiveness is for you, it is not for the other. We know that when one is not able to forgive, in his life they settle resentment, hatred and revenge, which are poisons, which can make you sick, and which are today at the base of some diseases.

When they say "", it is that you you can get sick with hate. Therefore, when you forgive it is because of you. To forgive is to go to the past and return safely.