Breaking Free from El Tóxico: Reclaiming Your Power and Self-Love

Welcome to Un Verano con Self Love, Manis.

This is a special 5-part storytelling series where I’ll take you through five love stories, some romantic, some platonic, some about me, some about parts of me. Each one reflects a different Wound of Calladita Culture® and what it means to reclaim your voice, your worth, and your heart.

These aren’t perfect stories. They’re real. They’re tender. They’re here to remind you that healing can be messy, funny, painful, and beautiful, all at once.

So grab your cafecito, get comfy, and let’s begin your summer of self-love.

If you want to know more and be part of Un Verano con Self Love program, you can join here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
So for me, Ola sopam and welcome to our Mergarito,
the place where we showcase the brands that believe in
us and help us make the show possible. Let's meet them.
We all know this. Talking about money is not always

(00:26):
the most comfortable. Better, our friends from save Ladies make
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(00:49):
is La Lina, Gratis Bara and bunts their free financial
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financial expert. Whether you need financial guy in English or Espanol,
savid Ladies is here to support you. Visit save ladies
dot org. That is s A V V Y l

(01:10):
A d I E S dot O r G. But
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(01:32):
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(01:59):
Welcome to CAVAC, the bilingual podcaste Comtras Stories, Scene Sensora.
I'm your host, Bamgoruyees And this is a special series
called beanokon Self Love. All summer long, we're exploring what
it means to come back to ourselves with softness, joy

(02:19):
and radical garign from healing Kayla culture wounds to romanticizing
our daily lives. This season is about choosing you every
single time. I know the world is falling apart and
everything's on fire, and more than ever, I do believe
this is the time to tend to ourselves and take

(02:39):
care of ourselves. Let's dive in. Hello everyone, Welcome to
umberanokon Self Love. This is a five part storytelling series
where I take you through my five love stories, some romantic,
some platonic, some about me, some about parts of me.

(03:00):
Each one reflects a different wound of kaya culture and
what it means to reclaim your voice, you're worth, and
your heart. Joseph bancruyees, and remember these are not perfect stories.
They're real, they're tender, and they're here to remind you
that healing is totally messy. It could be funny, painful,
and beautiful at the same time. So grab your caffecito,

(03:21):
get comfy, and let's begin your summer of self, love
and the other. Finally, we are with the last wound, Etxico,
with the wound of power. I met a Toxico in

(03:41):
our oral calm class. How ironic He walked in late,
bouncing his basketball, and he was not traditionally handsome, but
you could feel him enter the room. He had this
kind of magnetic charisma that made people to turn their
heads without knowing why. And when he walked in that day,

(04:05):
he looked right at me, smiled, and I felt it
the tiny jolt, not love, just awareness. A few weeks later,
I gave a speech in class, and it was supposed
to be ten minutes, but you know, I spoke for
fifteen minutes or more, and my speech was about tea.

(04:26):
You've probably heard me share this story because I was
obsessed with tea in college and my professor didn't stop me.
He said that because I was so passionate and animated,
he was like, let's just keep her going because it
seems like she loves this topic. And afterwards, Duxico came
up to me and he was like, yo, you were great.

(04:48):
And he looked at my hand and said, are you married?
And I laughed and said no, I am actually engaged.
And then I got this disappointed little smirk and I
didn't know it then, but that was the beginning. Sometime later,
I broke my engagement for other reasons. Maybe that's another story.

(05:11):
I will tell you another time. And like clockwork, he
noticed he saw the ring was gone, and that's when
the game began. Without even realizing, he started according me subtly,
smoothly charming texts, perfectly timed compliments, long conversations, and walks

(05:34):
from class to class. He wasn't pursuing me. He was
pulling me in, and I hated how much I liked it.
The relationship and the details of the whole relationship are
quite blurry right now, probably because it was all very
emotionally disorienting and I'm pretty sure I've blocked parts of it,

(05:57):
but what I do remember is this. He was a
wolf in sheep's clothing, soft in the outside, manipulative underneath.
He would ghost me for days, then calling non stop.
He would love bomb and then withhold affection completely. He
played me like a yo yo, and I kept coming

(06:21):
back for more. At one point I asked him, why
can't you just be for me and literally I will
that this is something I will, I will never forget.
He looked straight into my eye and he said, because
I can't. That should have been it. I know that
should have been the end, but I was already and

(06:43):
too deep. I had fallen in love with the potential,
with who I wanted him to be, with the idea
of proving that I could make someone like him choose me,
and in doing that, I gave him my power. He
actually had a reputation and everyone knew who he was

(07:05):
except me apparently, but I actually I didn't know, but
I didn't want to believe it. And this was one
of those relationships where my friends would be like, we'll
be here next time, like they knew I would come
crying back, and I did more than once, many times
every time I would catch him cheating. Every time something

(07:28):
like that would happen, that would be like, we're here,
and we'll be here next time, And still I stayed.
Eventually I moved far, far, far far away to be
with him. I packed up my life, I relocated and

(07:49):
started over. We're going to live together. Actually, my whole
apartment from college that he moved into was moved there.
And that's where I'm meta. Ladiev, like Clatdiev, was a
friend of one of his friends. We went on double dates.

(08:11):
We hung out, we shared dinners. She was cool. She
was Mihigana from Monterrey, and when you are living in
a place that's really really far and there's not a
lot of people like you, you find someone who is
like you and you immediately click. She was quiet, she
was observant, and frankly, we would only hang out as

(08:37):
the double dates, so she was always with the other guy,
and I was with this with a tuxico. And one night,
the guys were upstairs and her and I were in
the kitchen alone. And if you've listened to the episode
called Forgiveness, this is that story. We were in the
kitchen and out of nowhere, she looked at me with

(08:59):
this scary, clear, calm demeanor and said, look, if you stay,
he's going to give you a ring. You're going to
have his babies, and then you're going to become me.
She told me how she had put up with everything,
with all the cheating, with all the manipulation, with all

(09:19):
the gaslighting. She told me she used to be soft
like me, and now she was numb. She was strong, sure,
but she was also heartless, cold, gone. And she said,
you don't have to become me. You can leave now.
And what I realized is that the other guy wasn't

(09:43):
actually her husband. Her husband was deployed really far away,
and she was having fun. And I left. The next day,
I woke up early, wrote a letter and read it
to him out loud in the car on the way
to the airport. I thanked him for the lessons, for

(10:08):
the heartbreak, for everything he taught me, even if it
broke me first. And then I got on that plane
and never went back. That moment wasn't just the end

(10:30):
of El Tuxico. It was the end of all five
wounds controlling me, at least in love, at least in love.
In that moment, I reclaimed my power. I used my voice,
I honor my worth, I remembered who I was, and
I committed to me. Weeks later. Yes, I know you're wondering, like,

(10:51):
what happened? Did he just stopped talking to you? No,
he didn't. He contacted me. He kept trying, and of
course it was like, I love you so much. And
so the true true end was when I told him, Look,
if you love me the way you say you do,

(11:14):
you have to understand that every time I hear from you,
it hurts. And if you love me the way you
say you do, you don't want to hurt me. And
so the only way not to hurt me is to
stop calling. And I want you to prove it to
me that you actually love me the way that you

(11:35):
say you do, and the only way to do that
is to stop calling. And he did. Didn't hear from
him for a long long time. Then later, many years later,
he tried again. But at that point I was much
much more strong, much stronger, and the boundary was so
much easier. So remember that power isn't taken, it's given

(11:59):
something in small, silent ways. Every time you don't listen
to yourself, every time you betray your gut every time
you fall for potential instead of presence. Because taking your
power back doesn't require revenge, I promise it requires remembrance.
So the experiment of this week is to write down

(12:22):
one thing, one time you ignored your gut. Then write
a little something something to that past version of you,
to the version of you who stayed, to the one
who wanted to be chosen, maybe the one who thought
love had to hurt. And once you've written that, you
can say to yourself, I see you, I know what

(12:45):
you stayed, and I choose us. Now, HM, read that
out loud. Let it be the spell that brings you
back to your power. Can you believe? We've finish the
five stories? MG, But we're not done. There's a bonus story,

(13:07):
so next time we are going to have a bonus
story with Elsol. So if you're tuning in on Cava Combam,
then stay tuned for the next story when it drops.
If you are binging, see you on the next episode. Share.

(13:31):
Please share this with someone you love and care about
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