We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ingrid Castro-Campos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ingrid below.
Hi Ingrid , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My resiliency came from my family of origin. I come from a family of six and grew up in San Jose, Costa Rica. My mother has been the greater example of female resiliency in my life. My maternal grandmother, a migrant from Nicaragua, died giving birth when my mother was just a baby. My mother has an older sister and both of them were raised by their aunties. While they were loved and cared for, they did not have a estable upbringing. They had to overcome many obstacles, emotional, economic, educational, and social barriers. My mother married my father, who also had his own challenges, at a very young age. My mother is a survivor of domestic violence, and so am I. My resiliency comes from witnessing her strenght and willingness to overcome her own obstacles, and I am sure, from what we know, my grandmothers. I dare to stand by the fact that I come from a lineage of resilient women. I have overcome childhood trauma, domestic violence, divorce, migration, and loss. My resiliency comes from the life force that has found me in community, and my own healing journey. It comes from all the souls that have seen me grow and fall, and those that have stood by my side. It comes from people who believe in me and my capacity to share my story. It comes from people who have propelled me and challenged me. It also comes from my roots, my family who has always supported my own processes as they navigate their own. My resiliency comes from knowing that suffering is part of the human condition and that easing each other’s suffering is part of my life purpose. I continue to learn how to love myself and cultivate this by surounding myself with people who are in similar paths. My sense of resiliency is not mine only, it is collective and it feeds and grows from its collective ways of being in this realm.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am and will continue to keep a learner’s mind. After a long academic journey, I concluded my studies at Denver Metro State University where I obtained a Dual Degree in Applied Equity, Language and Communication, and a Certificate in Translation. Academics aside, I have been diving deeper into the world of accessible healing modalities. I am a certified Acupuncture Detoxification Specialist (ADS) and The Auricular Acu-Technician (AAT) trainer thanks to the ongoing mentorship of Avani Dilger (MEd, MA, LPC, CAS, AAT, ADS-RT). I also work as a Spanish interpreter and translator, which is a wonderful way of cultivating knowledge. My formal job experiences in different sectors, non-profit, government and for profit also add a lot to my life. I strive to using my knowledge to interact and build bridges between people. I use what I know and what I do not know to connect from a place of curiosity, mutual learning, and community activation.
I am also an independent, single parent of one. My son is a resilient young adult. We have grown side by side in the community we live in. As a migrant ‘home’ has different connotations and meanings. When I migrated to the U.S. I did not do it by desire but out of necessity. I struggled to find reasons to stay here for several years. Community and curiosity became my ‘why’. Taking distance from the known, the familiar, and my loved ones, allowed me to see areas of myself I had not yet explored and even more so, be in my suffering and heal. I started with healing the rupture between my son and his father and my place within that relationship. My soul called for healing my own wounds and that opened the door to stand face to face to my faults and strengths; and while this work is individual it can only happen in community, as others reflect areas of ourselves. I work with families and individuals with shared experiences: poverty, abuse, migrants, mental health challenges, and addiction; but also with people who mentored me and held me when I need them the most, people who overtime became my family, my sisters and brothers, my siblings, and guides. They remind me of my own resiliency but most importantly of OUR resiliency.
I started getting involved in the world of Food Access & Justice through a local non-profit called Boulder Food Rescue as a program participant and peer researcher (www.boulderfoodrescue.org). Thanks to the learnings in that participation, I got involved in the world of affordable housing and economic justice. The most basic needs of all beings, and the main stressors many people relate to.
Thanks to AcuDetox I continue to grow and expand in directions that reinforce my drive and passions for social justice and collective healing. Thanks to the ongoing support of a nationwide organization called POCA (www.pocacoop.com) and a local non-profit called Natural Highs in Boulder, Colorado (www.naturalhighs.org) I am facilitating AcuDetox trainings in Spanish and furthering the legacy of Dr. Mutuly Shakur, Dr. Michael Smith and many others who were part of the movement. AcuDetox is an effective tool to address trauma, stress, and anxiety, ease each others’ suffering in community.
As an interpreter and translator, I strive to work with and for municipalities, projects, and businesses that are in alignment with my value system. Language Justice is one of the cornerstones of my work. Communication (verbal and non-verbal) is a tool for restoration.
I feel extremely fortunate for having access to and learned from models for social change that enrich people’s resiliency, including my own. I will continue on this journey and fulfilling my life purpose.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Thethree qualitites that have supported my resiliency are:
-Keeping a learner’s mind/Infinite curiosity: the more I learn the more I know there’s much more to learn specially when I feel stuck, down, and hurt. Human suffering and pain carry messages for growth and opportunity.
-We are extremely resilient: humans are biologically built for survival! Hence hardship must be embraced and savored, the opportunity is on the flip side of hardship.
-Integrity over Ego always: challenging biases and values equals integrity and helps disolve the least healthy areas of our ego. Part of our suffering comes from being attached to what we know, desires, and poeple. Loss is universal and grief a teacher. Recognizing ourselves when in dispair and pain, it’s part of the work; recognizing which parts of our ego we need to let go is an opportunity to nourish our values and strenghten our integrity.
One of the most important lessons I have learned (so far) is that every moment is an opportunity to learning about yourself in relationship to ‘others’ and each others’ suffering. Fostering curiousity and challenging ‘what we think we know’ is a humble excercise, and a tool to nourish the roots of our resiliency.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I would love to collaborate with institutions, businesses, non-profits who serve and/or are led by migrants, and other latinx to foster community led initiatives, facilitate AcuDetox trainings (in person), and facilitate community conversations that contribute to enforcing a collective sense of belonging through accesible, equitable and sustainable models that support noursing our individual and collective resiliency.
The best way of reaching out to me is via email, at colibri.ing@gmail.com
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Darcy Kitching
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