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Toxic Humility

The New Mexican Chicano has a passionate dedication to suffering toxic humility.  We see it in our addicted and violent populations.  It seems rooted in the soil of our souls.  Its as if we have a responsibility to lower ourselves con dolor. It sprouted for me an obedience, prospering an attitude of subservience.  Toxic humility blossoms leafs of self rejection, like a modest tumble weed uprooted and bouncing from barbed wire fences, when God hoped we grow into succulent cedars.

Most New Mexican communities are Spanish descended with Catholic roots.  Peoples left here, reinventing here, or who fled here.  I am describing people from the 1500's, 1600's, and into the 1700's.  We are of the gringo empire.  We are the spawn of those with ambitions for gold, who landed here, finding refuge in the pinon hills, ponderosa filled rocky ridges, sage brush mesas, and cottonwood infested valles del rios.

We are of a similar ambitious European unsettledness. A branch on the vine of Monarchies with insecure desire for power and control, acting from discontentment, causing masses to migrate, calling it exploration, and eventually conquering.  Most modern New Mexicans cannot recognize their pretentious and imperial beginnings, even though it is paraded in the glorious image of the conquistador.  That glory now lives in the shadows of the new conqueror, the innovative industrial American.  Most New Mexicans find a way to remain loyal to suffering maybe to distract from the diminished Spanish ego.  As if a honorable way to be noticed or respected in this new, foreign, and American way of life.

The conquering Spaniards withered into faith driven humble villagers. They had nothing to offer the royalty, so the withering began and their faith became valuable. And so did the land.  As the mestizo cultures began to dilute the hardened pride of conquering peoples, equally a colonial pride was stirring in the east.  This mountain desert region was only a pit stop to the riches known in the west.  With this desperate form of purpose the subservience was birthed.  This region grew from the isolation of Spanish communities.  Slowly each community displaced with a desperate grasp at having purpose in an American expansion.  Spanish speaking, crucified Christ preaching, my ancestors adapted to desert life, orphaned by Spain.  This desperation is how I can envision the conception of my subservient and maybe toxic humility.

I know the Sangre de Cristos, our regional mountains, for their ability to remain overseers of this regions visitors.  It humbled the indigenous, the conquistador, and now me.  I know their name sake represents my ancestor's faith.

Albeit a subtle hypocrisy, history tells a story of an arrogant Christ focused intimidation. We know the pueblos were coerced.   These mountains smoothed and helped a restless conquering people to tolerate a local lifestyle that looks to have grown symbiotic with pueblos.

The indigenous people were converted into Catholics, for sure not wanting to dismiss their ancestral beliefs, possibly understanding that their lifestyle is more inline with divinity than the conquering evangelists.  But now those communities are equally tired, trying to find a niche in America.  Through the conquest tragedy grew a privileged lifestyle of land grantees, farmers, and shepherds that were coerced into becoming American.  We are now a legacy of people that are enduring, ironically a similar wave of evangelists, squatters, speculators, investors, experimenters, and refugees.  We are now visitors to the richness of the Sangre de Cristos.

The suffocating conqueror privilege and new desperate desire to belong seems to have left us toxically humble.  Humble to point of believing ourselves as destined to suffer in self doubt.  I seem to see this inability to feel appreciated, praised, valued, lovable, and worst worthy of the fruits of the spirit in the New Mexican Chicano people I counsel.  The first person that comes to mind is myself.

I am my first client.  In reflection, I preferred to uplift myself with validation from others, believing they might believe in me.  When this failed I had no idea how to deal with the endless need to feel worthy.  I forgot that Jesus Christ asked me to live as he lived, free of self depreciation, judgment from and of others, slavery, and free of a toxic humility.  I now hear in my darkest moments, "I believe in you", and I wonder if that is me or Him.

I have grown to see my communities' subtle and gradual crucifixion of "hope in self", worried that this might reflect an overall inability to hope period.  A slow death by punishing the misunderstood and toxically humble masses.  I no longer want to punish toxically humble peoples.  I am for a life of gracefully serving them with spirit so that they recognize the greatness God hoped for them.

Bosque from Ditches!

I turn right onto a road my mom and I traveled almost everyday during my middle childhood.  We made the trip going to school and then wrapping it up with coming home from grandmas.  Today I am a counselor, turning onto this same road to visit a client.  I get to the side street I need to turn on and there they are, the Po Po.

That's the first thought that pops into my head, then the other internal voices chime in with "5-0" and lastly the "La Jura", but I'm unmoved by it.  I turn onto the residential street off the main road.  A street I must of looked down a thousand times as we passed heading home, never even pondering that 32 years later I might be helping here.  I notice a sheriff's vehicle is parked at the intersection. His lights aren't on.  Further up the road several unmarked police SUV's line the road, those lights are.  I look into the sheriff's car and a square jawed, blonde, and buzzed cut county deputy, sits tapping at a mounted laptop.  I looked down the road and something is definitely going down.  I don't know what's happening, and what scares me the most is that I'm not shocked or weary.

I am not judgmental of the poverty that I find myself driving through.  I haven't lived in a poor neighborhood for many years.  But this is where I am from, where I called home.  One of my many homes.  I turn into their apartment parking lot, unaware of how unaffected I am with the situation happening not even 100 meters away.

I get out of the car and ask a young vato with tattoos scattered on his neck, face, and forearms, "is everything cool?"  He shrugs and I get that he didn't know.  I look like I don't belong here.  He is dressed in all baggy black clothes, and has the burque fade.  I just don't fit anymore.  He gets on his cell phone, while pacing, and asks without asking, gesturing. He throws up to me a backwards peace sign, bringing his two fingers to his puckered lips with a quick single head nod.  I know he wants a frajo, a cigarette.  And as if I never left, I respond, "Nah bro" while shaking my head and showing empty hands. I find myself surprised that the accent I put away long ago surfaced so innately.  I only bring it out now for nostalgic reasons.  I am not home and a part of me never left.

Now session complete, I am driving away.  I am leaving the neglected sidewalk-less streets behind. I look back into memories of what my life had looked like, and now, as a visitor.  I'm jolted by how versatile my perceptions have had to be.  I find myself in tune with the progress that I have created.  I am feeling the accomplishments of my family's work.  At the same time I am dealing with the surprise for how numb I was to seeing the chaos, the police vehicles, and raggedness.  It was a norm and that hit home in a self compassionate way.

I got on the freeway leading me to the privileged, blessed, and fortunate neighborhoods.  My heart literally hurt, it hurt with remorse, like if I just learned my girlfriend cheated on me.  I still don't understand the pain.  Maybe I hurt because I can't do anything more than I am right now.  Maybe I hurt because I get to leave and they don't.  I no longer see La Jura surrounding homes near me daily.  The families I work with have to find their way through the viciousness this place can create.

I get to my office having to prepare for my next client, sitting there, amazed at how far my mom and I have come, and I cried.  It wasn't just me and her.  We had a lot of help.  We had so many chances to fail and fortunately we found our way.  I don't like to think of us as rags to riches, but I do know we climbed out of some ditches.  I am now able see how beautiful it is to be apart of the bosque, despite having to spend some time in the muck of the ditches.  I want to say we made it out, but I am more proud to say I found my way back.

A Peace of me writes!

I find this post deliberate, possibly forced, I can't tell yet.  When I write publicly, it's usually inspired by recent emotionally charged events, conversations, or internal struggles.  Today it is because I don't have the time, the space, the ambiance, and the intent.  I am busy, entertained, occupied, and purpose driven. I'm writing because I need to be intentional, grounding myself.  I want to be a writer and therefore I gotta write.  It's like the athlete in me who can't go long without fitness, my body, my pen, my ideas have to flow.  Today I have to siphon words from this stingy condition I find myself in...Peace!  

I have no gripes today, and to write from this lens is exercise. I'm practicing writing passionate words and thoughts without being driven by impulse.  A catalyst that helps my writing is my grief.  Grief heats up my rogue attitudes, invoking my independent principles, helping me respond aroused to the fervent circumstances in my life.  Now, in some joy and comfort, I worry peace is boring.  Peace is calming and I'm learning to write from this frame of reference too.

Can peace bring out the impassioned writer in me?

I'm in my passions daily, I counsel, I exercise, I create, I father, I flirt, I listen, I reach out, I analyze, I solve, I nurture, I play, and it brings out my "internal haters".  I am learning how to modestly share my attainments.  I feel pretentious when I share my success.  I am selling out to my penitent roots.  I am disenfranchising from my "toxic humility", "mistrust of pride", and "embarrassed purity".  Turning the stigma and grinding meaning from these contradictions, will provide me the nutritious motivation to write about my successes.

Bliss in my life foils my sadness' rein.  A sad, argumentative, and terrorizing tendency in me gets worried that joy will let us down again.  Maybe joy will squander the 20 point lead, the 'Bad Ass, confident, know it all' created for me. Maybe that competitor, warrior, and victim in me will have to slop up the blood and gore scattered after peace lets our guard down.  I picture the stoic part of me, doubting and infuriated that happiness is working its way back into my thoughts.  I can feel the under dog in me seething, reminding how frail fails.  My internal protector says, "We always get fucked Estrada, you leave me to pick up the pieces."  Even my loner doesn't want to die alone.

The emotions that awaken when I feel injustice are rooted in my own memories of being unable to win, be valued, be loved, be pursued, be included, and being pleased.  At the same time, these emotions of void become addictive, necessary for survival.  I know more about my tendencies to look for ways that I am weak, disregarded, hated, rejected, excluded, and ignored.  It is where I believe I function best.  It is where I have known how to survive.  I am addicted to an emotional cocktail, my version of the "good fight."  When I find love, the competitor in me gets lonely, and reminds me to look for the intoxicating dazzle of deficiency.  What a hater!

When I venture into bliss, my wounded psyche gets put away.  The competitor in me can't accept acceptance, it needs resistance, it is a pulling dog that needs a harness and sled, not knowing anything but to pull and claw, ripping and gripping.  The champion that I have always tried to be is uncomfortable with atrophy.  My tenacious qualities, are looking at new roll dogs, love and harmony.  The insecure competitor in me is no longer as manipulative.  I rarely ask my joyful side to write.  I won't let you down anger, rage, tenacity, and spite, Peace says, "I can ride the magic giant with passion too."



P.S. - The warrior in me hasn't died just taking turns and learning to share.  I think we will likely all be back andhopefully wiser.

Diamonds and Gold

Richard & Margaret Garcia
How do I, a man so caught up in interpreting moral concerns, pause to write about Valentine's day? Despite the ongoing social stage of debauchery, I can make time and find love, not only in today, but in every day. Believe it or not, I have a romantic attitude about a lot in life.  My passion isn't always delivered with spite.  I appreciate how we chose a day to look, especially, for the love in our lives.

 In this day and age, I cannot afford most types of sleek or elegant love.  I'm not a big spender, high maintenance, groomed, or class act.  I don't allure with much appeal.  I've lost that decorative feeling.  I'm not that much for gift giving or tokens of worth.  Not to say, I don't second guess and worry how I show how deep my love is.  But on this day, I wonder what's the market value on love?

I'm all for the most expensive forms of love.  I'll take the luxurious trip into the depths of those eyes, sailing past your passions, and cannonball'n into your... soul.  Maybe a classic 4 carat princess cut of forgiveness, to reflect refract the lessons learned from tiny rainbows, glimmering, as the light sparkles through your tears.  I'm not so much for love shaped hearts. But I do love me some heart felt thoughts that mold my emotions into silk cut outs, to be sowed onto your favorite pillow, so that when you lay your weary head, there will be soothing fabric to greet your pulse. It isn't so much the excitement of special events, more like realizing certain people make events special.

The most expensive gifts might be the sunsets never shared, the full moons wishfully left in stare, the celebrations that had to be kept unknown, and the dreams you don't want to wake from, because they tell the truest hints of love's deepness. It is in those moments that my ego is its weakest and I know my love's pockets are their deepest.

There are times when I fall short, emotional poverty, and overdraft my love fund. But when you invest with expensive love the insufficient fund becomes like a dividend, never to divide or end. My ability and capacity to launder love correlate an exchange rate to my willingness to be loved.  It takes courage to love, even more, when I find that love don't live here or there no more. That's the painfully expensive love.  That beautiful pain teaches me to move with a humble limp, to talk with a sober whisper, and it doesn't shine like gold, rather it's polished like a beached stone.

It's fulfilling to be loved for pleasing, while it's depleting to love unnoticed.  To be a volunteer lover, silent angel, a warrior of light, the one who loves just because, without the need for glory, without having to have day. This love is the kind of love that surprisingly tells you without words.  That might be how I recognize expensive love.

There are gifts of love that aren't sold, told, or gold.  Some forms of priceless love simply grow old.

And the Iterative Villain

Like Paul Harvey says, "Now for the rest of the story".  My last post about the iterative hero was an expression of my shadow, needing to be favored.  I provided a justification and worse a platform for the part of me that hurts and wants justice.  But it wasn't the entire story.  I also have an iterative villain.

There is more to "the question" in the post "Iterative Hero".  Leading up to the question, didn't I have any good men in my life, was a complex series of exhaustive interactions and emotions. A series of events and circumstances that were requiring a level of tenderness that I was not or maybe still not capable of.  The question came from a person who was dearest to me at the time.  I, on the other hand, had not intended to be a villain, but regardless provoked an attitude that inspired "the question" to be asked.  The question did not come from hatred but rather protection.

I have had a tough journey into parts of myself and society that have hardened my heart and softening it is taking an equal amount of discovery.  Part of this newness is an inability to communicate my discovered principles.  I have ideas that I think are worth making values, but I deliver them with carelessness.  I am confrontational, antagonistic, and a even a villain.

I have become stubbornly comfortable with who I am.  I have found that my understanding of my emotions, needs, and purpose might seem arrogantly composed, even to the point of being insolent.  I am highly reactive to situations of hypocrisy.  I have an unsociable and hostile way of proving a point.  I can be rude and abusive.  It isn't necessarily rooted in evil, but the lack of responsibility for my emotions influences my impulses to protect myself and worse my opinions.

This raw and difficult expression is my true self being as open as possible.  So "the question" is not described here so that you can understand my sadness.  I describe and write about "the question" so that I can observe how I have been immature and careless with my attitudes, especially towards those I love.  My shadow needs to be seen as a good man, and my true self needs me to be a genuine man.

The Iterative Hero

Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung are great inspirations to my evolution as a man. Their ideas on manhood help me progress through emotion and psychological pain. I was once asked, "didn't you have any good men in your life"? I could only get the implied message that I wasn’t measuring up. This infuriated me, shamed me, degraded my family, but it has become the greatest blessing in my adulthood. This led me on a search for this idea of “good men”.

I found my passion and my shadow. I reflected on the many influential men, people, in my upbringing. I looked for the blessed. The shadow in me desires to be a "Good Man". There are no good men. There are only men who make their effort at life and then they are continually judged by their peers, enemies, and loved ones. The scorecard held up at the end is more a reflection of societies shortcomings than it is the results of one man's choices. I have loved as I had loved myself, using discouraged and defeated perceptions.

I found a way to believe I am lovable, internally, without pride, and gently. I no longer feel tied to societies understanding of what a good man should be. I know there are no good men. There are men whose mistakes are denounced. There are men whose successes are romanticized. There is a preference for the later, leaving very little room for boys and men to make mistakes. I have grown to be curious of my mistakes, minus the punishment.

Becoming a polished person is a personal journey, and how a person's actions are perceived become wind in their sails or boulders on their trails. We are all trying to spend this lifetime with a sense of purpose, hoping to be accepted, included, and understood. When this doesn't happen, we, or maybe, I start to identify others as good or bad.


Jung helps me to recognize aspects of myself as facades and Campbell helps me apply the hero’s journey to the maturity of each. I was born a child with dreams. Grew into an athlete with goals. I became a student of prosperity. I tested myself to love. I shrunk and suffered in grief. Through the agony of defeat and surrender, I am blessed with new life, to start all over again, and with a little more of the hero’s wisdom. Each stage of my life reminds that I might be designed to find the Hero's Journey.

Immigrating Without Borders

      I immigrated from Albuquerque’s city life to a quieter Santa Fe.  Santa Fe is 50 some odd miles north of Albuquerque along the Camino ...