Marisol Is Me — Hesitant, Haunted, and Holding On

The journey of radical self-acceptance often begins in the most unexpected ways. For me, it started with a grandmother's stern warning: "You'll get a hump if you keep walking with your head down." What began as fear—fear of adding a hunchback to my already-different appearance with a lazy eye—eventually transformed into something powerful and profound.

Growing up with a visible difference meant learning early what it feels like to be noticed for the "wrong" reasons. The bullies, my real-life version of the three mojonas from The Ordinary Bruja, made sure I knew exactly how I differed from the norm. But somewhere between fear and spite, I discovered an unshakeable pride in walking with my head held high despite their taunts. "You are very prideful for having a crooked eye," one girl hissed at me in school. She was right—though not in the way she intended.

This final episode of "The Why Behind the Bruja" series reveals how Marisol's character arc mirrors my own transformation from a girl seeking invisibility to a woman claiming her power. Like me, Marisol wasn't created to be powerful; she was created to survive. She carries within her every person who's been told they were too weird, too quiet, too brown, too soft, too much, too broken, or not enough. Her journey from survival to power reflects the stubborn strength it takes to keep showing up as yourself in a world that often wants you to disappear.

As we close this series, I invite you to exhale fully and acknowledge this truth: you are not broken, you are powerful, and you deserve to take up space—you always have. Share this episode if it resonates, write a letter to your younger self, or simply allow yourself to be seen today. Your ordinary is sacred, your softness isn't weakness, and your story, just like mine, matters profoundly.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Have a Cup of Johnny

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny. This season isn't about hustling harder. It's about coming home to yourself, to your voice, to your breath, to the quiet truth that you're still here and you're not starting over. You're starting again. This is your space to reflect, reset and remember who to tell you why. So pour your cafecito and let's begin. She wasn't created to be powerful, she was created to survive. Hello everyone, welcome to the final episode in this month's series, the why Behind the Bruja.

Speaker 1: 0:52

This one is the most personal Because this one it's me, it's Marisol, it's the girl I was and the woman I'm still becoming. There is a theme in the Ordinary Bruja and the moment as well, a quiet moment where Marisol almost disappears again. And that's the theme for Marisol. Do I show up or do I continue to disappear and seek comfort Because she thinks maybe it's better to not be seen? And every time I go back to that moment, I think about Marisol's journey and her arc. It hits me, that's exactly where I lived for a long time, in that moment of wanting to disappear, wanting to seek comfort. I've always had this clash inside of me, this back and forth between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear, wanting to show the world who I am and what I do, while also hiding behind the safest parts of myself. And for me, that tug started young. I've said it again many times I have a lazy eye, and when you grow up with something like that, the world cannot help but stare at it and you learn quite fast, like me, what it means to be noticed for the wrong reasons. That was the first thing that people saw when they saw me. That was the first thing they saw before they saw my brilliance, before they saw my joy, before they heard my voice. They saw that. They saw that I was different than the norm. I was different than the norm, and some of them, of course, didn't hesitate to make sure I knew it, to make sure that when they saw me, they told me exactly what they saw.

Speaker 1: 3:16

These bullies, my own personal version of the three mojonas, which you will see in the ordinary bruja. They tried to beat the pride out of me, figuratively, yes, but also in a way that still leaves a mark to this day, such a mark that I wrote it in the Three Mojonas. But I stood my ground. Thankfully I did. I stood my ground Even when it was hard, even when it hurt, even when the safest option would have been to shrink and disappear.

Speaker 1: 3:55

But, like I keep saying, mama didn't raise no fool, right, she did not. Mama was very much like Mama Veling in the book. She was fierce, she was sharp. She was certainly very old school.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I remember she held my chin once after school because my sister will always report on me, meaning that she will always tell my mom, play by play, of what happened at school and who bullied me and what did. They said what they do and all of that. And in all her stories she would be my savior because she was in real life as well. She will go and beat whoever was trying to bully me. And I remember one day coming from school and just walking with my head down looking at the ground, I just I felt defeated, I felt bad. You know, I remember the emotions quite a lot, even to this day, and this is one of those core memories that I have not forgotten.

Speaker 1: 5:07

And she told me she brought my chin up with her finger and she looked me in the eyes and she was like don't you dare. You'll get a hump if you keep walking with your head held down, getting a vision of me like the hunchback of Notre Dame, and I was like, oh, I can't have that. I can't have a hump and a lazy eye that will give, like the bullies, even more to talk about. That was what I thought, that was my mind as a child back then, and so that's what I got. When my grandma told me that, you know, I was a kid and she was like don't do that, don't walk with your head held down. And it was such a powerful message, bacitos, but that's what I got, you know, as a child I was like, well, shoot, I can't make myself even more weird by having a hump on my back, so I best walk with my head held up, you know. So I had to do it. I had to do it because of what she told me, because of fear that that instilled in me. That phrase just evoked this imagination of me as a humpback and having a lazy eye as well, and that really was my waking up point to not walk with my head held down. So I walked with my head up because I was scared, you know, but I did it right, because that fear just overran being laughed at, you know, having people call me weird or calling me like a monster because I look different, you know.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Or or the last one, um, a prideful crooked eye girl. You know, that was the one of the last comments. I remember, uh, people calling me because I just I walked with my head held high. That just stayed with me and I remember it really bothered this girl in middle school and she just came up to me and she got really close. What was her name? It's coming to me, claudia, claudia, if you're there listening to me, hi, girl. And I remember she came really close to me and she pulled my hair and she was like you are very prideful for having a crooked eye. And I remember I was like, and that was like my comeback and you know, and I kind of I pull my, my hair out, you know, pull my head back and kept on walking with like that sway that I had.

Speaker 1: 7:48

That all stemmed from that moment back in Santo Domingo when I came back from school and my grandma told me that and she enforced that time and time again and that's where that started, with that fear. That really is where it started. With that fear, of God forbid, I become even more weird. So let me walk with my head held up and from that fear, I think, I developed this sense of pride in myself, because you can't help but develop pride when you walk with your head held high, through a lot of hardship. It forces you to develop that pride. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 8:39

And that pride, over time it evolved into something deeper, something louder. It became love. Something deeper, something louder, it became love. It became that radical, unconditional love, the one that you don't have to earn. And I'm pretty sure we have heard about that, because it has become like this, not this mantra, but this hype word that everyone this hype phrase. I should say that a lot of people use unconditional love, unconditional love. But what does that mean?

Speaker 1: 9:08

So I learned when I walked with my head held high and I walked through the struggle of having to combat, physically and verbally and mentally, people that didn't want me to walk with my head held high because of how I looked, but yet I did, and that evoked love in me because I was looking at myself, overcoming it. And eventually that love turned into a love I gave myself, without having to perform, without having to earn it. And that's when I learned that that was radical, unconditional self-love, because every time, somebody will come to me in a hateful manner with proof as to why I shouldn't walk with my head held high or I shouldn't love myself. I combat that with a reason as to why I should, and that reason became as simple as and so what? So what that I have a lazy eye? So what that I look different than the other people in this room? So what? And I still love myself, you see, and it just became this reason to do it, just because I love myself, just because I love myself. It's like I learned that I didn't have to come up with a reason, that I just did. And I think I started doing it to spite people, because I know that was like.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Anger was my go-to emotion growing up and all throughout my 20s and in parts of my 30s as well, until I let go and let like love replace that, and all throughout my 20s and in parts of my 30s as well, until I let go and let like love replace that. And I think it started with that as well. You know, while the walking with my head held high started with fear of turning into more of a monster, love came out of spite, because while people were telling me that I shouldn't love myself, I was like I'm going to show you that I should and I will. But then eventually it just became this wholesome thing that I just felt. And when I felt it for real, I knew it was for real, because then, even when people hated me, I didn't feel hate back. I felt love, compassion, pity for them, but I didn't feel hate for them. Pity for them, but I didn't feel hate for them. I started feeling bad. I was like wow, because then I started to understand, you know, and after reading books like the four agreements, I was like wow, you must really be hurting inside, you must really hate yourself to want to pass that on to me. You see, my mind shifted from practicing walking with my head held high, until it became automatically, to practicing radical self-love, which started from spite, but then it became something wholesome, to reading more about how I can change my mind so I can walk in this world as a full person. And from those many evolutions came this person that I'm still becoming, even to this day, that now looks at people that act like that and feels compassion and empathy. Yes, there's anger that stills linger, but it's mostly compassion, pity and empathy, because I know that there's a lot of pain there that resides in somebody that wants to also make you feel hate and pain and anger. That's why I say like.

Speaker 1: 13:26

Marisol's journey is mine, because she had to start small, just like me, not with power but with pain, not with confidence but with fear like, not with confidence but with fear. Like me. She had to survive first before she could rise, you see, and in that way she carries every girl who's ever been told she was too weird, she was too quiet, too brown, too soft, too much, too broken, not enough. She's all of us and she's me, and if you see yourself in her, she's you too. Thank you, mama.

Speaker 1: 14:17

It is something about looking at one's journey and seeing the trajectory that just it brings tears to my eyes and it's surprising, because it's something that I talk about a lot, something that is me, that is my second skin. That is not surprising at all. It doesn't shock me, at least not anymore. But it's something about just seeing my path, dissecting it, looking at it and seeing how rough it was at times and how I could have chosen so easily to be comfortable, to be invisible, to be something other than myself or just to simply disappear. But it was like this stubbornness in me to not do that and I hadn't realized it until here I am talking to you and really seeing how that stubbornness stemmed from that one woman and the women before her who ferociously survived their lifelines in a world that was, I will say, much more harsher than mine, but they survived long enough to see me born and to hand me these teachings. And that's what you will see in the Ordinary Bruja the lifelines, the teachings, the generations, imperfect, but that pass down these core memories so Marisol can do what she needed to do in that book.

Speaker 1: 15:58

So, before we wrap up this series, the why behind the bruja, I want to leave you with something to carry. Take a deep breath and let your body exhale fully and say this out loud or, if you're a little too embarrassed, just in your heart I am not broken, I am powerful and I deserve to take up space, because you do you always have. Thank you so much, vasitos, for joining me this month. Thank you for letting me unpack the layers behind the ordinary bruja. The pandemic sparks, the identity shifts, the mother wounds and the quiet, stubborn strength of a girl named Marisol, of a girl named Marisol. I hope these episodes reminded you that your ordinary is still sacred, that your hesitancy doesn't cancel your power, that your softness isn't weakness, that your story, just like mine, matters.

Speaker 1: 17:13

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it and tag me at HaveACouOfJoannie on Instagram and on Facebook. On TikTok, I am acupofjoe, underscore h-a-n-n-y. Dm me what you think or, better yet, write your younger self a letter, hold her, tell her she made it. And until next time, I'm Joa and I see your bruja glow even when you don't Bye. If today's episode spoke to you, share it with somebody who's finding their way back too, and if you haven't yet, visit haveacupofjoanniecom for more stories, blog posts and the books that started it all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, be soft, be bold and always have a cup of joannie.