00:00:01 Ester
What I observe, is when the artist is really excellent, and is playing excellently, like Isabel to also they’re downloading that from another level. The music is elevated because it’s another frequency that is much higher than the humanness. When you’re in a concert and you get goosebumps, these goosebumps is nothing else than being connected with what we call the spirit or some level of our soul. And when you’re in a museum and there is an amazing piece of art. I remember when I saw The Kiss of Kmilt’s in Vienna, I just started to tear and I stayed there tearing one hour. Some people were like, are you sad, no, I’m sorry, such an ecstasy. Why? Because a painting when you are aware and is excellent. Also, it needs to have an excellence like years and years of practice, years and years of devotion to your art, it’s like fresh air that enters into their room windows, where excellence, when there’s genius in someone’s genius, can be embodied by any human being that evolved. You have moments of this while you’re totally coherent, and to be totally coherent, you need to be in your physical and emotional, mental and spiritual or innovation. Other people will call it attuned, and then it happens.

00:01:31 Rosemary
This is The Gifts of Trauma Podcast stories of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry. 

Welcome to another episode of the Gifts of Trauma podcast by Compassionate Inquiry. I’m Rosemary Davies Janes, and today I’m honored to be joined by Ester Martinez. Ester, welcome to the show.

00:02:02 Ester
Thank you so much for inviting me, Rosemary.

00:02:04 Rosemary
Oh, it’s a delight to have you here now, Ester. Your full bio is in the show notes, so I’ll start with just a few highlights to frame up our conversation for our listeners. You are a master transformational and executive coach, a systemic and constellation expert, a psychotherapist, an individual and collective trauma therapist, and a consciousness teacher. You integrate mystical principles, psychological and body based modalities for healing. You work with leaders, organizations and communities across Europe and South America. You focus on accessing and transforming hidden parts of people for deeper purpose and healing. And you are passionate about art, music, and presence as gateways to elevated states and collective healing. That’s all very business-ey and amazing. I’m wondering, Ester, what would you like to say that isn’t included in your formal bio? What would you like people to know about who you are as a person?

00:03:08 Ester
Since I was a very young child, I was very interested in what we called the divine. I was always interested in giving. I was always interested in what’s there that is not seen, but it’s felt, and how those people don’t see what I see, what I feel. So I’ve always been in service mode since I was a very little child and this is what guides me all my life. And I’m very passionate about traveling too. I love traveling. I love enjoying with my friends. I love music. Recently I was in this tour of this violinist, David Garrett, is amazing his concerts and he was like, wow, this is very silly. So it brought me to this is so healing to bring joy into an environment. I just saw how the people raised and we when we raised the frequency, that’s an opportunity for healing trauma and for healing many things that are usually driving us unconsciously, but we’re not aware that they’re driving us.

00:04:12 Rosemary
Absolutely. It’s beautiful, and I had said… in Compassionate Inquiry, we have this practice of setting intentions before we run a session because, in a Compassionate Inquiry session, someone brings their intention and that’s the focus for the full session and you deal with things in bits and pieces. You’ve just added to my intention that our conversation actually elevates the vibration of listeners and opens them to hearing… We’re going to be delving into different realms today than I have in the past with other guests. So really that their vibration is elevated and they are open to hearing what you have to share and that it falls on their ears in a way that’s very absorbable and actionable in their lives.

00:05:01 Ester
Yeah.

00:05:02 Rosemary
What would you like listeners to be able to take away at the end of this hour of conversation we’re about to begin?

00:05:10 Ester
I would like that they can connect with a deeper sense of their heart and that the heart is always there to heal and that it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. Like Ericsson would say, it’s never late. And I’ve been seeing it with, now, I will say, thousands of clients that I have that privilege of serving, that is never late. And if we give ourselves the opportunity of looking at what seems the darkest places in us, what we call, in Thomas Hübl language, the shadow training or cargo stadium, then that light that has been hidden just shows up again and then it’s always there guiding us.

00:05:55 Rosemary
So well said. And Gabor Maté has a lot to say. He often talks about ‘the myth of the happy childhood.’ So what you’ve suggested there gives us the opportunity to recreate the happy childhood that perhaps we never had. 

Ester:
Exactly. Exactly. 

Rosemary:
Yeah. And when you spoke about your passions, my first question is around your work and how it beautifully integrates mystical principles with trauma healing. And your interest in the divine really feeds into that. So I’m curious, how did your personal spiritual journey influence your approach to trauma and transformation?

00:06:34 Ester
Oh, it’s completely the foundation. It’s the foundation, without my same practice. I’ve been practicing them for the last 25 years now. It gave me a foundation to be grounded and to have space, what we would call space, and be emptied all myself to receive another one. Otherwise, if I’m very busy with myself, I cannot listen. And to be a therapist, a trauma therapist, you need to have a very precise listening. You need to be precise because precision is lost. So it needs to be very precise. And the spiritual practices, it brings space, it brings clarity, it brings depth. And I’ve been very passionate about how energy works and how it gets stuck when there’s trauma and how, when we elevate the vibration and the frequency that now quantum physics, thank God, is saying it a lot, and it’s proof of this, how actually the whole view of a person changes, their reality changes. So for me, spirituality is the backbone, the backbone for any healing process.

00:07:43 Rosemary
Yeah, It sounds as if that’s been a fairly consistent theme. Is there a story? Did something shift at some point, or is it just always being the base, the foundation for you?

00:07:55 Ester
I believe that is connected to me as a newborn, died as a baby twice and was brought home. So I always was, like what they call very perceptive, very inquisitive because I was not here. And then I came back, and that coming back gave me kind of a gift. It gave me a big trauma because intimacy and relationship for me were scary, but it also gave me and not but, and, it gave me kind of an access to something deeper that is real and that is guiding and embracing me all the time. So for me, it’s very interesting, the deepest trauma brought the deepest healing and made me be connected to being in service to every human being like me, basically.

00:08:49 Rosemary
We’re taking a brief pause to share what’s on offer in the Compassionate Inquiry community. Stay with us, we’ll be right back. 

If you’ve been listening to our podcast and are curious about the Compassionate Inquiry approach developed by Doctor Gabor Maté and Sat Dharam Kaur, consider joining the Professional Training Program. It’s open to all healing professionals, including naturopaths, physicians, body workers, coaches, and therapists. In addition to learning how to use compassion to support your clients in their most vulnerable moments with greater empathy and authenticity, you’ll also deepen your own internal process. If you’re interested, look for the link in the show notes.  

Rosemary:
It’s an amazing story. Thank you for sharing. It’s interesting… I’ve done a lot of reading on past life regression. We’ve heard stories of people who have, perhaps towards the end of their lives, they’ve died and come back. But to do that as a baby, preverbal, it’s so different and I could see how that would frame up your life in a very different way.

00:09:54 Ester
Yes, I was always like, that bonding for me that we would call it, that trauma bond because I could not bond safely with my mother. So for me it all became, how… there must be something else because I feel so embraced by this other energy. We call it or this divine, divine embracing, that is more real than what we think. But being human it was not easy for me. And through almost 30 years of practice now, of course, now I’m very approachable and more, more relational. But it took a lot, yes.

00:10:30 Rosemary
Yeah. So you were in the world and not in the world. That was the state in which you grew up in 2 dimensions. That’s amazing. Thank you.

00:10:38 Ester
Yes. My pleasure.

00:10:40 Rosemary
You speak in your work about the importance of direct experience in inner work, about being present with what is.

00:10:48 Ester
Exactly.

00:10:49 Rosemary
Can you share a moment when direct experience radically shifted your perspective of the healing process?

00:10:56 Ester
Yes, when I’m working with clients, sometimes it happens that healing is happening in front of me. Like just expresses just this emptiness and just being listening compassionately. And also with all my being, just just start to see how that person is shifting and is transforming. And then the transformation, I do a work and then I forget about it honestly, because if not, I will be carrying everything. But then I meet the person like 2 years later and the lamp is completely different. So for me that directness is like that. We sometimes I like saying that there’s green smoothie, OK, so it’s only there is just a quick fix, but then there’s direct, precise. And that really takes years of inner exploration, inner truth, being very truthful to oneself about our shadows. And that direct knowing came in spirituality, like in spirituality because it was just an experience of being completely here. It’s a here-ness.

00:12:09 Rosemary
I’m thinking back to what you’ve already said from a being who came into this world and then for a while existed on two different planes. There’s a bifurcation there. And then through all the work that you’ve done, you were able to integrate and bring your full self into the present moment with the people you’re working with. So I think there’s a story there. That’s a huge accomplishment. Is there? Is…  Did it all click one day or am I making assumptions?

00:12:37 Ester
No, I, I just remember. No, it was progressive as I walked, and I don’t have one piece of work that suddenly, what we call ______, like the restoration. I knew it was done. And it happened with Thomas Hübl, because you know, I had a phase of training industrial and training compilation and trying many training and there was always progress. But when I committed to his training, that’s also… had some spirituality. There was a moment that what needed to heal of this death, of this lack of connection, of this not being able to be safe in connection, failed like almost dying again. There was a process in which it felt like dying again, and I just stay there and stay there. Of course, with that community is very important, but also with the teacher and also with my strength. And there was a moment when he actually told me. He told me, wow, your energy completely changed. Now it’s like, that something that we open and the whole energy is flowing. And I felt it, I think that day, everything changed in my life. I was in a different reality. It was the most direct that I remember. It was about my own healing. It was extraordinary. I’m not kidding you.

00:14:01 Rosemary
You’ve described it beautifully. It was like champagne. I’m just, I’m fizzing in the champagne right now as I’m listening. And since your passion is elevated, having spoken about that and recalled that, I want to speak a little bit about your passions for art and music. And I pulled a quote from something you wrote. And you said, “For me, art and especially music exist to elevate us as far as possible above everyday existence.” I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about how you see art and music as gateways to elevating consciousness and healing trauma.

00:14:35 Ester
Sometimes musicians are not aware of the power that they’re holding when they’re really excellent, what I call excellent, they’re not aware. I even asked, and I said, do you know that your music is healing? And the person said, for me it’s about creating an environment of enjoyment. And I didn’t answer more what I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but actually what I observe is when the artist is really excellent and is playing excellency like this, need to also. So then it’s actually downloading. I don’t know if they are aware, but I can feel it. They’re downloading. Yeah. From another level, the music is elevating because it’s another frequency that is much higher than that humanness. So that when you see when you’re in a concert and you get goosebumps, these goosebumps is nothing else than being connected with what we call the spirit or some level of our soul. Not for me. That elevation brings us back to what we can’t remember. There’s something else, like a whispering, because the higher realms is more than whisper. And this, for one. And when you’re in a museum and there is an amazing piece of art. I remember when I saw that kiss of Klimt, in Vienna, I just started to tear and I stayed there tearing one hour and there was like, are you like some people would are you, sad? No, I’m sorry. It’s such an ecstasy. Why? Because a painting when you are aware, and is excellent. Also, it needs to have an Excellency, like years and years of practice, years and years of devotion to your art, it’s like fresh air that enters into their room. So when you’re in museums, you get elevated to like when you’re in concerts. Why? Because they’re windows of fresh air. Windows where excellency when there’s genius in someone and genius, I don’t mean there’s a person that is genius. No, genius can be embodied, but by any human being that devotes, is not that you’re genius and just a genius. No, you have moments of this while you’re totally coherent. And to be totally coherent, you need to be in your physical and emotional, mental and spiritual or innovation. Other people will call it attuned, and then it happens, like in that song like in that song with that when you see these amazing, these amazing. I love this ballet or this woman that this gymnastics and this is just elevating. It’s also excellency. Is this geniality that we took from another realm?

00:17:19 Rosemary
Yeah. I love that.

00:17:20 Ester
Although we practice like 30 years for that. Yeah, I know it, when I see that is that devotion for me.

00:17:28 Rosemary
Yeah. And I think what you’ve just brought together, the practice, the expertise that you don’t get to be a concert level musician without years of devotion. I love the… like practices, one word, but devotion, I like that much better. So I think the term being in the flow is a little bit misleading because that kind of evokes a sense of effortlessness. And there is that, but it’s effortlessness on the back of devotion.

00:17:58 Ester
Exactly. It requires devotion of years and years of practice. Just like for me, I consider myself like more of an artist in the healing modality because I devoted 30 years to it, right? Like in between my healing and being a practitioner, but also through my Zen practice and my Kabbalah practice, like through the spiritual practices just get more and more refined. I don’t buy this thing that you can get a total new level of consciousness just by being in one workshop. No, I don’t believe that. I feel it needs living actually, because it takes years and years for you to get really grounded in whatever you develop, whatever is your calling. So that flow, being in that flow happens, yes. And behind it is a lot of practice and a lot of devotion, and years of really dedicating yourself to it. That’s how I observed it.

00:18:56 Rosemary
Yeah. Yeah. Very well said. I think perhaps the only way there’s a hack around that… I live in an area of great natural beauty, and I find that same sort of sacred spiritual moment can happen when I’m face to face with some astounding natural beauty. So as humans we need the devotion. But nature, she can just produce those moments for us and give us access to them. And maybe there are years of devotion behind her efforts too, but it looks very effortless from our perspective.

00:19:31 Ester
Yes.

00:19:32 Rosemary
A sunset. What does it take to create a sunset? It just shows up and it’s like elevating, just to witness.

00:19:39 Ester
Yes, when you’re open to it.

00:19:42 Rosemary
Very true. OK, so maybe, but it’s us humans that need the practice.

00:19:46 Ester
If I just said it’s very beautiful because I do believe there’s moments of grace. There’s moments of grace that are given to us like this. Watching an amazing sunset of nature that brings you to an experience, brings you to an experience, elevated experience that not necessarily is a state. I’m talking more of a state of being. So experience is yes, but experience will elevate you, but then you will come back to the level of consciousness that you’re sitting in.

00:20:17 Rosemary
Yeah, if I may, I’d like to sum up what we’ve been speaking of for the past few minutes with a beautiful quote that I pulled from one of your posts. You said, “Great musical artists, like a violin virtuoso, is one with his instrument and creates a field of coherence that transmits joy. Healers are artists in their own right and their instrument is their whole body. We refine our instrument through contemplation, prayer, deep inner work to be the clearest instrument for service, but at the end it is grace that allows deep intuition and deep knowing to emerge from the unknown. That’s what people see as deep coherence and miracles.” I think that’s such a beautiful quote. You also have made a comparison between, or a parallel, if you will, between an orchestra director and collective healing. I wonder if you could say a little bit about that for our listeners.

00:21:15 Ester
For the conductor of an orchestra, yes?

00:21:17 Rosemary
Yeah, how that parallels collective healing. Yeah.

00:21:21 Ester
I love it. When you are working in collective healing, and that I had the privilege of working with Thomas on this because he’s an expert in the collective healing. We were working a lot on ____ and German trauma, collective trauma in Germany. So there will be moments that first it is coming and then it just explodes and it’s all chaotic. But then when you really stay present to the process is like actually becomes like a body. That whole field, maybe 500 people, becomes like a whole body in which everybody’s attuning to what needs to get refined in them, to whatever needs to be integrated from that trauma. Each one holds trauma because we’re already working with 3rd and 4th generations. It’s not direct anymore, but, they are the ones that are able to look at the trauma and make the change. Because when it’s too early, it’s very traumatic. And I can see that suddenly everything is playing, like everything is coherent, and everything comes into a peak, like when the leader is there. And that team is also very congruent. It’s feels like if we’re Star Trek because we don’t need to speak and we know what’s needed. And I feel that’s a synchronization of your physical because you said the others, you’re emotional, you’re connected, your mental because it’s spacious to really receive the information. And of course, like, what we call the innovation inspiration, or I do call it the divine. And in that conductor, you just see, when he’s excellent and they’re really trained to conceive like they are like one body. They’re like one body and how he’s conducting, everybody’s playing. And it has this amazing… this amazing beauty that again, I’m very passionate about music. It just elevates me. It just gives it to me as a gift, constantly, the music.

00:23:18 Rosemary
It’s beautiful and I’m not even asking you questions about this, and I’m seeing connections because I had the blessing, a few peak experiences in my corporate life. I’ve worked with teams, and they were small teams, a number of people who were each experts in their own field. We identified the vision, we identified what we each had to do, and it flowed like we were all instruments in a piece of music. There was no need for excessive meetings. We just all knew what we needed to do. We went away, did our thing, and when we brought it back, there was the baseline, there was the melody, there were the high notes. It all came together just beautifully. So thank you for explaining the mechanics of that.

00:24:02 Ester
And you know what, it reminds me to test the liaison work. Also, it reminds me when I’m conducting, like when I’m facilitating a constellation, that representatives of a family system or organization, it doesn’t matter. You position them and then, they just start to move because they’re a body. And you can see at the beginning when there’s an entanglement, when there’s an entanglement, when there’s trauma resolved, you can see that it’s frozen and fixated. When you bring this healing, this healing phrase that Bert Hellinger very wisely brought, thank you. Or the balance or including what was excluded. Like little phrases that come there. The whole system starts to move like magic. You seem like magic. Although it’s really coming into our resonance with the client that I’m always checking that the client is feeling it. For me, it’s not so much about what I’m answering, but that the clients in his or her body can really resonate with what he’s observing. And then you see, the body of the entire begins to flow. It is such a flow because I’m also trained in craniosacral therapy so I can feel if the energy is flowing. And then he says, yeah, but when that really flows, now, guess what? That constellation heals itself. It comes into order by itself when it really hits the precise form, like in acupuncture.

00:25:26 Rosemary
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you. Now, we’ve been casually speaking about Thomas. I wonder if you could, introduce him briefly to our audience so that they have a sense of the gentleman that we’re speaking of.

00:25:39 Ester
Thomas Hübl, is a spiritual teacher that is committed to healing collective trauma and through collective trauma to heal, but also as a spiritual practice. And he’s been I think he’s been like 30 years now doing his Timeless Wisdom Training. He trained in collective work, he’s not one to one. He trains 200, 500, a lot of people to actually bring coherence in a bigger field. And it’s about first is to do your inner healing, the inner trauma, but then is collective trauma and then it’s also the connection service, that connection with the divine, we will call it. Or your purpose, we call it in the corporate world, because I’m very respectful of, of, of believers and non believers. For me, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s a congruency.

00:26:28 Rosemary
Beautiful. Thank you for filling our audience in because you and I know who Thomas is and we’re very familiar with his work, and there’s a link in the show notes for people to learn more about him as well. So this gentleman we’ve been discussing, Thomas, said, “Precision is love in healing.”

00:26:45 Ester
Exactly.

00:26:46 Rosemary
I wonder, Ester, can you explain how this principle guides your work, both with individuals and collectives?

00:26:53 Ester
Yes. For me it was through a Chinese doctor, a Chinese acupuncturist that I met in Israel, and he was extraordinary in acupuncture, right? So he explained to me that if the acupuncture needle really hits the issue, the whole system starts to flow, or the disease melts. So he really said that you need to hold that precise Meridian. So then… and Thomas also brought that,  then okay, what if we touch the meridians of the world? What if the world is a whole human body, and through touching precisely, like leaders. That’s one of the main reasons I devote to working with leaders, because how many people are touched by them. Or artists that touch thousands of people? Why? Because if they are congruent, that’s what they will give ,and that’s what they will hold. So then if it’s precise, that he didn’t, for example, when I do a really deep work, because many times I do retreats with leaders that are more private and very bespoken, only for them. So when we do this, it’s like, very intense because it’s two to three days of all work for that person. But it’s really, when that is set up right, then you can see that person gets into a very different state, also his family, but then the organization also the organization then gives feedback that actually the person is guiding differently. So for me, that’s how this system plays out into a collective healing. That’s why I do it most of the time.

00:28:39 Rosemary
Thank you so much for the work you do. I personally spent 18 years working in different corporate cultures and everything flows down from the top, everything flows down from the leaders. And given what I experienced mostly in the nineties, 80s and 90s, your work is so needed. And I’m going to get to some questions on that. But I have a couple more just personal questions before we move there. This one’s a little bit cheeky perhaps, given that this is The Gifts of Trauma podcast. Are there some gifts you have personally discovered through your own trauma and healing journey that you’d like to speak about?

00:29:17 Ester
We’re going to go beyond the ceiling right now. Is it OK? Sure, Absolutely, because through that trauma of dying and coming back, I developed what you would say more of a psychic ability, is like an ability to just be with someone and start to really receive information. But I do it in a way that is very respectful and just do it congruently and only when I’m asked. But this is something that was developed through the trauma, because if they would not have been opened, because it was my brain, it was the Fontanella that was hurt. So that really opened for me and it opened all these capacities that through life developed and through spiritual practices developed and also what this transmuter is called. But it’s actually someone that you’re with whenever you’re around, like you actually are taking the energy of the people that are disturbance, but it’s not happening to you. You’re just changing the environment through being there. And this is also another capacity that is like a gift. And I believe just that healing capacity of just that process itself. Sometimes I’m not really speaking and the person is transforming in front of me. So I feel it’s a, I think there’s much more that we’re not aware that is happening. I believe that I have a lot of helpers that  invite people around me. Yes, I believe this, Yes.

00:30:45 Rosemary
Absolutely. Yeah, lots of invisible support. It is probably the easiest way to say it. So thank you. 

Ester: Yes.

Rosemary:
Those are phenomenal gifts and you use them beautifully. Thank you for sharing about that.

00:30:58 Ester
It needs to be in service. It cannot. If it’s used for yourself, it doesn’t work. Yes, then you’ll get symptoms or you can get sick or whatever. It always needs to be giving. Always.

00:31:09 Rosemary
Exactly. Keep the flow. Keep the flow going.

00:31:11 Ester
Keep that flow, keep the flow going. Exactly.

00:31:14 Rosemary
Yeah, thank you. I’d also like to ask about your practice of Zen meditation and how that informs your approach to trauma and collective healing. Like how does your personal Zen meditation practice impact your work?

00:31:29 Ester
It first brought me to humility. I feel that humility is very important in order to serve other human beings. So Zen is very ground to air. So all that I’m talking about, psychic ability can be very airy, can be very ungrounded if you’re not grounded. So Zen for me is the foundation of my spiritual life. Because when you go to a retreat, I usually, this is the first year I don’t go because usually I go in August. This year I could not go in August. I will go other times of that year, but it really, you are in a practice of just being present with what is, constantly. You’re washing bathrooms, you’re washing, you’re cleaning, you’re in the vegetables, you’re cooking, you’re serving the community and then of course, you’re sitting. So it’s combined between something very simple, like very simple of really working, laboring. But there’s a beautiful phrase that Zen says, do it with your whole heart, if you’re cutting a vegetable, just cut it as if all your whole heart is there, just cut it like you’re totally that in service. But then there’s that sitting that’s very grounding and the sitting, if my Zan master will always say OK, that’s demons. That’s just imagination. Go back to go back and sit, go back and sit, so they could whatever you’re imagining. A sandmaster really cuts if I’m allowed to say that bullshit, or the wound for you to stay practical and grounded. So it gives me humility, it gives me grounding. It gives me through this teacher that I deeply love. She’s just an example of humility and of devotion, is just a service. She gave me this… like she, if Thomas gave me a lot of healing. This lady gave me, like, the heart of being in service and being humble and being very down to earth and very simple.

00:33:29 Rosemary
And very present, it sounds… 

Ester:
Very! 

Rosemary:
Because if there’s one thing we need in this world today, where we’re pulled in so many directions, our emotions are bounced around, but at anytime we look at a computer or hear about news, distractions, somebody’s trying to sell us something. So presence is a rare and valuable quality. Thank you.

00:33:52 Ester
For Zen is very touching because it’s not about just sitting in contemplation or in Zen in the meditation. No, it’s about in person, moment to moment, in whatever you’re doing. So actually it’s not only a retreat is in your life, when you’re walking with, you’re taking care of someone, when you are cleaning. So that that gives you, that healing work. In many, if you’re totally present, totally present for you for this two hours completely. You’re not disturbed by anything else that’s very healing and that tends to serve this person.

00:34:26 Rosemary
Thank you. You have an abundance of professional training and I want to just touch on how you weave all of these threads together. You’re a pioneer in introducing personal mastery, consciousness work, and transformational healing into the business world. And I’m curious, I know you work with organizations and leaders, but I’m guessing that was not always your clientele. So how did you come to do this work? Is there a story of how you were shifted from who you were serving, before to serving organizations and leaders?

00:35:01 Ester
If I’m going to be completely honest, I was not meant to be a healer, for my cognitive. I studied international relations. I wanted to be a diplomat, honestly, and I was giving lessons, lessons in the university in Mexico. And I started to train through personal disturbances of my own issues with intimacy and relationship. I started to do healing for myself, right? Like being trained for myself. And this  started a long, long time ago in Mexico. And when I started that, then I got the gift of meeting Bert Hellinger and constellation is a beautiful bridge for sensitivity and intuitive capacity with therapy. Why? Because you actually access another level of information. So then I trained in that just for my healing. I would never want to dare to do a constellation. It took me like 10 years of training before I dared. I’m amazed when someone wants to do a constellation after one workshop, honestly, because for me it was something so sacred. But anyway, I was there and I remember that when I came to Spain, they asked me, would you do that for pro bono for these NGO’s? That was for immigration because there was a lot of issues with immigration and I think yes, for sure. And then we were doing this pro bono and then a leader saw me there and they said, could you do… do you think it works in a company and I say, of course, in any system it works. So then he recommended me – I don’t have a web page because I don’t need a web page because it’s all word of mouth. My work is all through word of mouth and then they started to call. Then I met Thomas Hübl and then I met Amy Fox, Mobius Leadership CEO, and we’re like sisters, but it was just a connection that started all through here. Then she started to invite me more into her trainings, and then it just opened and it just happened organically. It was never… I never thought I would be a therapist. No, it just, I was pushed into it. I feel it was my hidden purpose that I didn’t even know.

00:37:06 Rosemary
Yeah, and in a way, I wouldn’t call you a therapist, even though you are.

00:37:11 Ester
Yes.

00:37:11 Rosemary
You are a transformer. You are someone who shifts from what is to what it has the potential to be. So I’m sure there’s, I’m sure if we looked at your astrology charts to go into a different realm, there’d be some very strong themes around transformation and change.

00:37:26 Ester
Oh yes, an astrologer told me that I’m connected to the Galactics, or something

00:37:30 Rosemary
So yeah.

00:37:32 Ester
Makes sense like that I’m connected to that, such shifting to, to to transforming that. Then you have told me this, but I have no clue. Life showed it to me.

00:37:42 Rosemary
Exactly. And what a beautiful way to find out, because sometimes getting into astrology is a whole other level of complexity. And you said you went to university in Mexico. I’m curious. You’re a very global person, clearly.

00:37:54 Ester
I am very global. I’m a citizen of the world, I love the whole world and I work in the whole world, yes.

00:37:59 Rosemary
Where were you born, Ester?

00:38:00 Ester
I was born in Monterrey, Mexico.

00:38:03 Rosemary
OK. you grew up there?

00:38:03 Ester
I grew up there and I studied in Tec de Monterrey, it[s a University, a technological university, but they have they have also humanities and I trained there, and then I was working with bringing ethics into the university, like trainings, and then I got a scholarship got a scholarship to study in Spain for ethics. But then they asked me if I could stay for working as director of the office in Madrid, and then I stayed there and then like life just checked in and then I had to go because I had to… I had to become more of a transformer.

00:38:43 Rosemary
Just say yes, yes. That makes sense because the Spanish language, you’d be able to support people pretty much anywhere that Spanish is the main language. And there’s a lot of countries around the world.

00:38:56 Ester
Yeah, yes. So Spanish and English, although I have an accent, I said OK, forgive my accent, but they say no, we like you didn’t. It’s very endearing, OK.

00:39:05 Rosemary
Yes, as someone who moved a year ago to a Spanish speaking country. I aspire to have Spanish as good as your English because your English is excellent. Thank you so much. You’re also a leading voice in the interiorization of mystical principles, which we’ve spent some time on with constellations work as a means for deep personal and collective transformation. Is this really what we’ve been discussing, bringing the sacred, bringing the mystical into the constellations, systemic work? Or is there more you’d like to say about that?

00:39:36 Ester
I believe Bert Hellinger in his grace was genius because he brought mystical principles that you can’t even see in the Bible into the secular world, and the secular world did not become allergic to it. Honor your father and your mother. Does this resonate? Yeah.Honor your father and your mother include what is excluded. Balance that taking and giving.

00:40:04 Rosemary
Yeah.

00:40:05 Ester
Follow that hierarchy of respect. So all of these are like the main principle in the framework of constellation works are mythical principles. So it’s so transformational because it’s not just a talking therapy. It’s principles of how to live. If we bring to ethics good life. If you follow the principles that the river can flow. If you don’t follow the principles, the river will not flow. So honor your parents or honor that is a big principle or your ancestry is like, it doesn’t mean that you because some people say, oh, but I had a terrible childhood where how I know it doesn’t mean that you say yes to everything. No, it’s just means to say yes to that life was given to you in order for you to have the experience of life. And then you can say no to many things, of course, but that principle itself is bringing humility into… and our parents, also our kids and our ancestors, also were kids. And in every story and I by now I, it’s like I’ve seen thousands of people have trauma because you guys have developmental, you can have transgenerational, you can have environmental, you can have many, but everybody holds some level of trauma. And then it brings us into humbleness to see, OK, so I’m not alone. I’m actually part of the tribe of humanity. And how can we all have the humility to look and to honor what came before and to leave it better for the world, for our children, for our grandchildren? So they’re basically principles of life. And if they’re embodied, because it’s one thing to say when it’s automatic, honor your father and your mother, but when it’s embodied that you honor deeply life, where it comes from, how it came through, then everything shifts. Your life shifts. So that’s what we refer to when we’re talking about it. There’s much more, but this is a little

00:42:10 Rosemary
Yeah. And that thank you for explaining so clearly, because as I was listening, what was going through my mind is this separation between, as they refer to it, between church and state and what you talked about principles. These are really cornerstones of our culture. Like, no matter the religion, when you go across all the great religions of the world, there are certain elements that are in agreement across the board. So what you’ve described is eliminating that divide between church and state and bringing it all back together again. Because we don’t become separate beings when we go to work and spend 8 hours in the office, we’re the same humans that leave that office at 5:00 or 6:00 or whenever and go home. So it’s really all about integrating who we are as humans and creating that flow. Everything seems to be looping back to flow.

00:43:05 Ester
And its beautiful because that system works in every place there is a system. So actually, when you go to your work, there’s a system there. When you’re in your family of origin, you’re going into the system. When you’re with your spouse and your kids that’s a system. So wherever the humans, their system and the principles work for all systems. That’s the beauty of it.

00:43:25 Rosemary
You were talking about trauma and something else you said is that we’re wired by early impressions from our time in the womb until around 8 years of age. Can you say more about that?

00:43:37 Ester
Yeah. So through the work, because I’m always in direct now, like in direct experience meaning like through many repetitions of what I see, I then discover, and now it’s also proven that a child from zero also even would take that womb. That’s a different story both from zero to 7 or 8. They’re not thinking, that capacity of making a judgment is still not there. So a child is in a hypnotic state. They’re just absorbing everything around and it’s sensation and feelings, so then they don’t make sense. If my father is very disturbed because he got fired, or his joke with my friends in Barcelona and Real Madrid didn’t win, they don’t know this. They just take it personally that actually it is them. There’s something that is not OK in me. There’s something, because a child will never ever place it to the parents. Why? Because we need them to survive, it’s a survival mechanism. So you will not put it on them to start to put it in you. So that gets imprinted and then it creates beliefs when it’s repeated. That developmental trauma, because when it’s repeated, you get these beliefs that Marissa Peer talks about a lot. That is, ‘I’m not enough,’ and,’ what I need is not available for me’, and, ‘I’m different therefore I cannot connect.’ Those 3 beliefs get commonly rooted when you’re a kid and they get really rooted because you don’t have the capacity to judge yet, you don’t. And I’ve discovered a lot of the healing is through the inner child. I love working with the inner child because it’s so powerful and so transformational that everybody, everybody gets a spark of light.

00:45:34 Rosemary
Yeah, I love how you’ve explained that, because the statement that everyone has trauma, because what you’ve described, I’m an artist and I’m very visual. So as you were talking about children being in this hypnotic state, absorbing everything, we have no choice but to be a giant sponge absorbing every liquid we encounter. But just like a sponge, we have no way to make sense of good or bad liquid. There might be a liquid we absorb that burns, or there’s a liquid that soothes, or there’s a liquid that doesn’t make any difference at all. So it’s not that our parents necessarily exposed us to anything, intentionally that was traumatic. It’s just our nature as humans that anything uncomfortable or upsetting we would take responsibility for and make about us. In a way, Gabor Maté likes to say it’s not your fault. So yes, we all have trauma and no, it’s not our fault. It’s just the nature of human beings. It’s how we’re designed. It’s the process that we go through in maturation

00:46:41 Ester
Yes exactly. And I don’t believe that parents, when you’re a parent, you’ll know when you’re a parent. Unless you’re really very sick mentally, like, I don’t believe there’s parents that on purpose will harm the kid. No, it’s true unconsciousness through patterning, through the pattern they got as a child, they will transmit that unconsciously. So it’s all about being conscious and becoming more conscious. And yeah, just like Gabor says, yes, it’s not your fault and there’s always ways to heal, and that’s our responsibility. I like when we say I love that word because it’s the ability to respond, not only to react here but to actually inquire. And this I will actually name Gabor, like in compassion, inquire with compassion. Yes, that for me in practice is also very spiritual for me because it has a compassion and the presence, like this presence with compassion, anything that can be compassionate and with presence, it’s like healing. I totally believe this and I’ve seen it. I not only believe it, I’ve seen it, like I’m witnessed it.

00:47:49 Rosemary
You’ve just given me so much hope in a vision for the future where, you know, just as we go through different stages as children, we know as young children were in this sponge-like hypnotic state, as teenagers we’re testing limits. I look forward to there being a phase of human growth where it’s OK. This is the phase where we get to deal with all the early traumas, and then we move on from there so that we can heal all of whatever we made things mean, whatever we’re carrying from our lineage, from our own personal experience, we can get that out of the way so much faster, before it keeps getting perpetuated down the lines.

00:48:27 Ester
And I believe that if schools will teach presence, if schools will teach changing beliefs and wiring kids with enoughness, wiring kids that they’re beautiful as they are. They don’t need to compare. Like if there will be a specific practice in schools we’ll have a different generation of children, that will become more conscious or that many times that trauma, not even on purpose that, but it happens. Just as we are humans and very vulnerable. We are the most vulnerable mammals in the whole Kingdom. Yeah, yes.

00:49:01 Rosemary
And I see that happening with advances in technology and artificial intelligence. There may not be a need to fill our school curriculums with English lessons and mathematics the way they are now. Maybe those spaces that are opened up by having technology take care of some of those functions will be filled with exactly what you said. The opportunities to heal the trauma, to be present, to help people be better humans. 

Ester:
Yes

Rosemary
Thank you. Phew! 

00:49:29 Ester
My pleasure.

00:49:31 Rosemary
I was very taken by a story I saw that you had written about supporting a client as she was a leader working for the inclusion and rights of First Nations people.

00:49:41 Ester
Yes.

00:49:42 Rosemary
And you helped her heal what you called her undigested life material. And I wonder if you could share that story with our listeners.

00:49:52 Ester
That’s Nadi. She was very passionate about working with Indigenous people or their rights and all of that. But inside herself, she had issues as a kid because there was deep abuse in her family system. So she made herself smaller and would not confront leaders, would not because she would always be scared of being excluded. But because she was massively abused. So when we did that inner child work, I’m bringing back that mothering here, that the mother, that younger self and the parents did the best they could, but actually now it’s her responsibility and that actually, she knows her better than anybody else and that she could actually steal it. Because it’s very important that the person is not just talking, but then it goes through the system, it goes through the physical system, it goes to the energy, the cell, then it can really be digested. So for me, healing work is just like digesting, but like digesting life material that is floating around but is not digested. And I have another client, recently, that I was very touched because we care and work like four or five years, because her background was from Germany and she was very abused, deeply abused by the grandfather and she was suicidal for many years and bulimic, both things. And she didn’t understand why already having children, already but… It all came to the Holocaust. Imagine! it all came to that great grandparents being in concentration camps. She will not receive that because it was so traumatic. And the grandfather was very traumatized So this lady through a lot of digesting what was huge in herself, like her whole life also transformed like we started with inner child work, to bring acceptance towards herself and also constellation work so that she will not follow the deceased ones, because there’s a tendency to follow those that died tragically in our system. So it was very… it was a very long process because I’m usually fast with that. Like it usually doesn’t take so long. But with her, I got very touched because it was a weekly ongoing with her because you could see the level of that trauma was the level of potential that was so hidden in her and you could not see. But then through healing that, it started to see her children shifted, their relationship with the husband shifted. Now she’s worked like that whole life, shifted. So I was very touched. I asked her, I didn’t say I would not say that name, but I asked her, but she’s a very big leader. And she said, I would say your story, would you? Because I’m going to have this interview. And she said, please say it because I’m proud that you brought me back to life. She said, no, it’s not me. I accompanied you, offered yourself back to life, and like here, I found others. That is tremendous when it’s collective trauma of the Holocaust or wars. There’s transit narration that has failed and then you can see suicidal kids have a lot to do with following deceased people from the system. And when that seals the whole it shifts completely. I know I started to touch more deep, deep issues, but this is like my day-to-day work.

00:53:41 Rosemary
I hear you and thank you for making that connection. And I’m wondering, too, it used to be a big thing in the corporate world to compartmentalize. And I’m curious, in your work with corporate leaders and people within organizations, is there an initial shielding that needs to be dismantled before people will really go inside and deal with what needs to be dealt with? Are there protective shields that they put on just to function from day-to-day? Like when you start to work with people, do you have to help them dismantle anything, or how does that go?

00:54:14 Ester
Well, totally, that it’s right on, but I’m more of that red program and folks would tell you that red problem because they have different levels of programs, they call it yellow, green, orange and red. The red programs that are transformational, completely transformational programs. And usually it starts that there’s a whole group of leaders from different companies that come together and spend a week together And we start by layer, you’re like you’re saying, very business-like very businesslike. But then as the week progresses, it’s like when I said about this coherence as a winter progresses, it’s just… I think the human side, the human heart that starts connection, deep connection and deep inquiry brings this. And then they have sessions, 3 or 4 hour sessions with transformational coaches that are private. So then I work privately with the leader, for example, and I work more in his or her more personal issues. And then when it happens, that person brings back an openness that actually is transmitted to the whole field of leaders. And then the other person that worked with another of my colleague and everybody gets that opportunity. So then starting at a super level, like very basic coaching, like ABC. It goes to a level of deep transformation that yes, actually it lasts. But my other methodology is that Amy invented this customized immersion that is just for one leader that doesn’t want to go to groups or is very private for two or three days. And then we go into very deep stuff with that person. And guess what? Usually I’m then called. And he said, can you do that with my wife and my kids? And I said, if they want. So, usually I end up working with families. So now I work with many families of the leaders because through his or her transformation, then they want more. And then the word of mouth goes to others and it goes like this. You see yeah.

00:56:11 Rosemary
Yeah, I’m almost seeing images of cells migrating in my mind because it’s almost as if you raise the level, the vibrational level, so that rather than… perhaps it’s starting out as a vibration of guardedness and then it shifts to a vibration of safety and things just keep elevating from there on.

00:56:30 Ester
Yes, it’s beautiful and we come back to that vibration and frequency that is all about that. That’s why I’m so passionate about music, because music is about frequency. So you’re bringing it together?

00:56:41 Rosemary
Yeah, you do. And what systemic patterns do you most commonly see blocking leaders’ potential?

00:56:49 Ester
For leaders, every human being is specific. I’m very particular of course, but you can see repeating patterns and in many leaders, parentification. In many leaders that they had to manage with very difficult circumstances in their family of origin and they became the managers. They became the managers of the family. They become much more mature than the parents, so they’re holding a lot and that was a trauma. But their trauma made them to be super driven, and super driven. And then when they reached the top, they are excellent already. And I’m very passionate about Excellency. They’re excellent at what they perform, but usually there’s longings in the heart, matters of the heart, but they already are excellent. It doesn’t take much. It needs a lot of precision, but it doesn’t take much, that they start to heal what they need to heal because they know discipline, they know hard work, they know leading so they can learn to lead themselves and be kinder to themselves and let go. 

So a lot is about letting go and allowing and surrendering to that there’s much more than just being driven. Being driven and then this drivenness is not enoughness in many, not in everybody, but in many because I need more for what? It’s like for what? Why do you need more? And then they usually say you’re right for what? Like sometimes they could not even ask, they just think this will of more, but because they need to prove to themself, still now, when even… when the parents are not alive anymore. So we just need to awaken to the fact that it’s a pattern. And I usually say to my clients, we need that 2.0 version, we need to change the software. But usually there’s a lot of excellency. It’s amazing to see the transformation. It happened under very discipline. So they do their homework. If you leave them to listen to meditation or you give them any practice, they will do it. Then you see again the devotion of really practicing whatever you’re learning, because to practice, we become experts to practice.

00:59:07 Rosemary
And there is another example of a gift of trauma, a coping strategy that developed as a result of trauma becomes something of a superpower in the pursuit of healing. That discipline, that drivenness, that it can help them shift their being totally when they do the kind of work that you’re describing.

00:59:27 Ester
Yes, I’ve seen it. Like for me, I had another client. I really love this person. I work with him, with the family now, even with the Home Office, and also the sisters of him, and it’s a big corporation. But I started working with him and it was fascinating because when I met him, he said to me, I’ve given up on my kids. Because he was all the time CEO, chairman, all these titles, but then lies in the family while the relationships were broken, the kids, nobody was getting married. And he said, yeah, I’ve given up on my kids. I know that my life will be OK with my spouse when I retire. And I said no, what are you talking about? And I was so convinced and he said to me. You know why I hire you? When I say why? Because you were so convinced that it could change. I said, of course I know it can change. And I’m proud to say that all their relationships are good in that family, that there’s no broken relationship. There are three kids, the first two already married, all ready for the third one to get the girlfriend. But that life can change. But he said to me, you were so convinced. I am completely convinced that healing is always possible, always. I know it. I just know it.

01:00:41 Rosemary
Yeah, and you don’t know it in your head.

01:00:43 Ester
No, I know it in my heart.

01:00:45 Rosemary
In every part of you, yes. In your whole being, yes. Wonderful. Yes, we are almost out of time. Ester, I wonder how you’d like to wrap up this conversation for our listeners. If you’d like to whisper in the ear of the world, If you’d like to share a Pearl of wisdom with our listeners that they can contemplate or pursue. So, we have explored so many topics. You’ve shared so much. What would you like to leave them with, to sit with or contemplate?

01:01:16 Ester
Do whatever you need to love yourself, to feel that you’re enough and you’ve always been enough and from that place wherever you need to undergo, do that in presence and love, and then your life will change and you will be of service because we’re happy when we are in service. 

Rosemary:
Thank you 

Ester:
Oh,my pleasure.

01:01:45 Rosemary
Ester Martinez, thank you so much for being with us today on the Gifts of Trauma podcast and sharing so much from your life and your work that we’ve gone from mystical experiences to cultural principles, to collective consciousness, systemic patterns, the possible future of healing trauma. You’ve provided so much food for thought and contemplation for me and for our listeners. It’s been just a delight to have you here.

01:02:14 Ester
Thank you so much. It was a privilege to be here. Thank you.

01:02:24 Rosemary
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, healing, transformation, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. 

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