My name is María Isbelia (Marisbelia) Tomodo. I am originally from Venezuela. I grew up in a seemingly happy, peaceful home. Dad was submissive and Mom was in control. She was strong and brave, a beautiful woman, a self-sacrificing mother who gave everything for us and for all her brothers to what she saw as her own children, too. My father was a banker, and my mother was a teacher. I am the third of six siblings, one died before I was born and that made Mom cry a lot, it was very traumatic for her. I absorbed that trauma. When I was 6 years old, my little sister who was born with neurological problems died at nine months old. These two events filled my life with fears that I have been solving in therapy, especially because I had to face the situation of my only son who was born with a brain injury causing cerebral palsy. My home was so calm, there was no talk of emotions, we were always playing, singing but, I saw my parents’ divorce when I was 23 years old which left me confused, scared, hurt and traumatized. After my father died of a deep depression immediately after the divorce, I graduated as a lawyer in a well-recognized university in Caracas. Feeling lonely and abandoned pushed me to reach that goal. I needed to feel like someone, and that title gave me an external self-esteem. Upon graduation, I married my boyfriend, a protective and kind-hearted man who has been my great teacher on the path of knowing myself. At the age of 33 we had our son, Fabrizio, in 1990.
My husband is an only child of Italian immigrants who came to Venezuela two years before he was born. He is an engineer. His work for a multinational company brought us to live in the United States, which helped us achieve the benefits that this country offers to families with special needs.
As a child I felt a deep sadness that, when left untreated, turned into a chronic depression. No one seemed to notice my childhood sadness, and by not knowing what to do with it I transformed it into anger in adolescence, thus I defended myself from the immense inner pain I felt by using that anger to feel strong and draw the energy I need to move on.
As for my spiritual life, I was born in a Catholic family, and I was educated in nun schools. Starting in my 30s, feeling completely unsatisfied and emotionally unstable, despite all my achievements, I began to participate in workshops on personal growth and self-esteem. I took courses in kinesiology, dowsing, massage, psycho-biophysics, bioenergetics, relaxation, vipassana meditation. I also participated in weekly sessions with a psychologist and at her center I practiced bioenergetics weekly. In short, I participated in everything within my reach in order to find my inner world, and with the purpose of understanding the perception of the reality that I lived, since I constantly felt an inner suffering, an invisible agony.
As soon as I arrived in the USA in 1997, I joined Mormonism and after two years I retired. I immersed myself in vipassana meditation, yoga, and Buddhism, where I learned to be silent and listen to myself and learned a lot about human emotions and the unconscious mind.
Settling in the USA created a crisis for me. I always felt that my self-esteem was high, superior, and today I understand that my "external self-esteem" was just a facade, but internally I had a voice that told me: "you are worth nothing." I began to suffer from chronic depression, insomnia, anxiety, and panic attacks and was treated as bipolar from 1999 to 2004. Disappointed and tired of searching, one day in 2004 I took the Bible in my hands and cried out to God for his help. He responded by releasing me from a very deep sadness in my reading of the Psalms. Amazed, I read that entire book in three and a half years and have three notebooks full of my daily reflections.
I dedicated myself to volunteering to help women processing soul pain at Iglesia Hispana and at Grupo EVE Center here in Cincinnati. In 2013 I graduated from the Vineyard Leadership Institute (VLI) Institute of the Vineyard Movement in Biblical Studies, Ministry Skills and Spiritual Formation. At the end of VLI I decided to immerse myself in the teachings of the Equipping Ministries International Institute where I have completed its two intensive courses and have served as a teacher of the course Listening for the love of God. I also attended the Pastoral Counseling classes in 2016 as a listener. at Cincinnati Christian University in Graduate School.
In this process of studies, I realized that to heal my own wound (trauma) it was necessary for me to know my mind, so depressed I began to treat my codependency, the wound of the soul. I started my weekly therapies and then, with the help of my therapists in 2018, I finished my training at the Institute "Healing Our Core Issues" in the City of Cincinnati as a specialist in Codependency (Relational Trauma Therapist) I work with the Inner Child in the healing from Codependency and unhealthy self-esteem. In this area I consider myself a Specialist Practitioner because of the experience I have obtained in my own life because I know that I am emotionally dependent in recovery.
In 2020 I certified as a Life Coach at ILC Academy with Fernando Celis, USA. I also certified as a Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP Practitioner with Dr. Zaida Márquez. Practicing breathing during the pandemic and experiencing its great benefit on my integral health, I decided to certify myself as a coach in Guided Breathing at the YOGABODY Institute of Spain in 2021.
In December 2020 I published my first Book: Self-esteem. Internal Search. Keys to discover it.
I have a group through Zoom where I support other people to practice meditation, breathing, and self-knowledge to cultivate calm. I lead private and group meetings where we work on the healing of the wounded inner child.
In all these years I have been a woman who has been willing to seek the answers to all my emotions, to seek the origin of my pain and to improve as a human being. I have lived through many situations that have led me to live a full and abundant life from my own inner reality and I love to share all my experience.
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