Words are actions, connections build transformations.

Relational and Social Constructionist Consortium of Ecuador (IRYSE)

Diego Tapia Figueroa, Ph.D. and Maritza Crespo Balderrama, M.A.

In the therapies, in the workshops, in the classes, supervisions, and in the consultancies that we carry out, a strange paradox becomes evident: many people seem to choose to live foolishly instead of deciding to live intelligently, in their different relational contexts.

Obviously, it is your responsibility; however, at the same time, at least in Ecuadorian society, social conventions -beliefs in which oppressive and abusive hierarchies are the way to interact in private and work life- lead to accepting alienating, unproductive everyday places of coexistence (in the sense of producing futures) and they are more cruel and unfair.

The possibility of generating meaningful dialogic encounters is impoverished by the absence of a critical spirit, not to mention a self-critical spirit (increasingly, people are convinced that their worst defects and human miseries are their best qualities and that they must be applauded for their mediocrity and vulgarity); those who achieve some type of power, instead of using it to contribute judiciously to democratize it, to build common well-being, use it in corrupt ways in the human, relational, professional, economic, social and cultural spheres.

The power, which they do not deserve to have and which they do not know how to honor, which they abuse, rots them inside and they use it to violate the human rights of others, especially if they are children, adolescents, and women.

How do we see ourselves, how do we see others, how do we imagine others see us, how would we like to see ourselves and be seen? We return to the reflection about how we propose ourselves in relationships, from what place and for what. How do we contribute differently to the process of joint construction of new meanings? Are we open to the conversational process, the dialogue itself, transforming us? Working from a reflective pragmatic perspective constantly challenges us to ask questions, to question with respect and affection, to listen without interrupting, and to understand.

Definitive death is not leaving any trace of ourselves on anyone, on anything; our deep loves, our genuine passions, our sincere responsibilities, our desires, and our dreams do not transcend, and end up accumulating like garbage or wearing out in the void.

Final death is when we stop being interested (the absence of curiosity, imagination, and creativity, the lack of love, the renunciation of passions), we stop caring about continuing to look for our path; not follow the paths of others, but to find a new path, which is for us, a path with meaning.

Relational intelligence creates different worlds when it speaks as goodness

Taking care of relationships means being generous to transform them, aware that it implies choosing and deciding between covering up by being complicit in a violent state of affairs or assuming the right to express, from memory, from desire, and resistance, the responsible need to disagree and propose other ways of being with others.

How much potential and possibilities are wasted by conformity, cowardice, and comfort; how long are irreversibly dead for not committing to one’s desires; how many exhausting relationships, that do not contribute, are not useful, do not generate joy or freedom.

Life and its present do not accept the after on condition of distorting any future deserved joy and peace. Probably, you have to decide to go through the forest, walking between the trees, where there is no path.

Listen to stories seeking to provide other levels of culture, that generate dignity to begin to restore tenderness, so that the stories stop being boring because they are told from the same place, with the same perspective, without them mattering.

When the compass rose accompanies us to do our work and in a process of infinite dialogue, we are becoming different in these metamorphoses of senses; the conversations will open and create connections with rhizomes of wonder, and the questions and answers can be embraced, from the trust, with new possibilities of joy, of intelligent encounters in each different dialogue with the other.

English translation by Bruno Tapia Naranjo.