How are you experiencing the birth of a book as personal and intimate as ‘Thanks to Fear’, written after becoming a mother for the first time?
It’s being absolutely incredible. I did not expect this reception at all. I am receiving so much affection, so much love, especially in the signatures. People shake my hand, tell me their story, we get emotional… I’m like in a cloud of constant love.
I suppose that reaction reaffirms your decision to make public some texts that you originally wrote for yourself, not to publish them.
It was very difficult for me to decide to publish the book because I had many fears and doubts. In its pages are my feelings, everything that was on my mind, everything I thought, everything I felt. In short, my life. That is why I am so grateful for the expressions of affection that I receive as a caress in the soul.
It is also receiving criticism, especially on social networks.
It’s true that I’m getting a lot of hate, as always, as with all the things I do, that doesn’t surprise me. But the stories that people are telling me and all the voice they are giving me is making up for everything bad.
Are you unable to shield yourself from the hatred you speak of after so many years?
It’s impossible, totally impossible. Because I am a person. As much as people may see me as unattainable because I work on TV, I am just another person. What I say is not nonsense. I have a different job than others, which gives me a certain popularity, but I am one of the others and criticism affects me to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the moment. Right now, having been a mother almost a year ago, I am softer, more vulnerable and more sensitive; things affect me more. I would like to say that I am perfectly fine and that I don’t care what people say about me, but that’s not true. It’s one thing if they talk about my dress at the chimes or my television show. But it’s a very different matter when they criticize my personal life. That’s why I had so many doubts about whether to publish the book or not. I knew what could come.
On July 14, Laia, her daughter, will turn one year old. What is your assessment of this first year at all levels?
It has been a total earthquake but for the better in everything. Almost a year later, I am still rediscovering myself. Rediscovering my new tastes, my new limits, my new priorities, my new traditions, my new times. I realize that I am different and I am getting to know myself again: how I am as a woman, as a professional, as a daughter and, above all, as a mother. This year has been a tsunami of constant love, of light for my daughter’s beauty, for that purity that she has. I have also had ups and downs that I wanted to show with the book and in my interventions. I am not the first woman who has given birth nor the last, but I am not a unique or strange being, I also deserve to feel bad or not and for people to validate my feelings. And if they don’t want to validate them, don’t validate them, but don’t give me any more shit.
Obviously she is not the first woman to have been a mother, but it is not so common to share those experiences, those raw feelings, those vulnerabilities through a book.
I don’t know if others have dared or not, or maybe they didn’t question it, or maybe they were embarrassed. As I said, I even considered publishing it myself. But I think that now that I have spent a little bit of time, even if it is just a few weeks, that I have done the right thing because I am helping other people, and I am not just talking about women, to be able to verbalize their fears, because when you are able to verbalize it, you are closer to the solution. That already makes up for everything. Deep down I have been brave.
In general, perhaps because of our upbringing, it is difficult for us to talk about feelings and emotions.
I have done it because it has helped me a lot to put my feelings into words. I thought of the book as narrative therapy, this was a thing for me. But there came a point where I realized that I had a lot of content that I could post that maybe someone would like or that would help them feel like they’re not alone. Because the stories of other women have helped me, talking to other mothers who also cried and were afraid. Simply that, even though they didn’t give me any solution. Just knowing that other women had gone through the same thing as you makes you feel like you are accompanied.
How therapeutic it can be to put what we feel on paper!
For me, it was something that I kept completely private. I hadn’t told my parents, David, or anyone. I took advantage of the minutes when my daughter was sleeping. When I felt a great sadness coming over me or the intense pain I felt inside me, I would start writing down how bad I felt and try to find conclusions. When I began to have a little more light, I began to understand everything better. It was then that I was able to go back to those notes and rewrite them to address a reader and make them understandable.
This Wednesday he is coming to Zaragoza, the city of his great friend Miki Nadal.
More than a friend, Miki is already family. I love him very much. Since I met him in 2010, he has been a part of my life in one way or another, even when we haven’t worked together. I am the godmother of your daughter Galatea and I really want to go to Zaragoza. Now I just left the program and I was telling her how excited I was to go to her city. I know that the bosses love Miki a lot and therefore I hope they also love me a little.
