Marta Ruiz de Azcárate was born with the rare ability to accompany without judging human fragility and scrutinizing the soul without prejudice.
With more than 43,000 followers on Instagram, this nurse, writer, speaker and Catholic counselor knows well that one cannot live without accepting human vulnerability.
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“A Catholic can cry, he can suffer, he can be angry even with God. The important thing is not to stay there. God allows us influencersin the jubilee of the digital missionaries, scheduled on Monday and Tuesday of next week.
The incursion of this Spanish – which is part of the International Association of Counselors and Catholic Psychologists (ICATC)– In social networks it was almost accidental: “I already accompanied people at very hard times, and it was my sisters who told me that if I was not on Instagram, it did not exist. And it was the man who told me: ‘Yes, enter there.'”
Thus, in the summer of 2019 his profile was born on social networks @Cambiando_el_foco that she understands, first of all, as a “mission.”
At their door they call all kinds of people, affected by pain “who are going through deep suffering for duels, divorces, diseases and situations to the limit,” he says.
But what does “change the focus”? “We are focused out, or towards an inner vacuum that leaves us more lost. Therefore, changing the focus is to learn to be who I am, as God has thought of me. Not to resign myself, but to collaborate with his plan and live in the truth,” he says.
Loneliness, individualism and self -examination taken to the extreme
His social diagnosis is that there is a lot of “loneliness” due to “exacerbated individualism” and self -examination also taken to the extreme.
“People are very overexigated, but the human being has limits that make us humans. However, the messages that fit are of the type: ‘wanting to be power’ or ‘everything is a matter of dreaming of it.’ There are people who feel that they have to be perfect, reach everything and have a great life, but real life is not so and that causes a lot of pain and frustration,” he explains while he is a mission with her husband and her children in neighborhoods.
Her voice resonates especially in a hyperexigent world that, according to her, has forgotten the limits of the human being and has flooded brown proposals of the New Age: “When they propose to leave the mind blank and have no thought, it is true that that can take a moment of relaxation, but we cannot empty ourselves because that also causes a lot of suffering.”
In his Instagram profile he offers short pills of daily wisdom: short videos about emotional management, listening, duel, interior freedom and authenticity. Although it makes it clear that he does not want to “sell advice.” “I do not intend to give answers, but to offer questions that open the heart,” he emphasizes.
“I pray for each person who accompanied before and after each session”
In fact, his listening is full because he is full of respect and is born of his previous relationship with God: “I pray for each person who accompanied, before and after each session, even if they are not Catholics. I also go to Mass Diar. It is my way of focusing.”
In her daily work, next to her digital community, the expert joins two pillars: emotional intelligence and spirituality. “Catholics play with some advantage because we have a significance and we drink from the original source that is God. But my experience has shown me that other people, even if they are atheistic, reach this same conclusion. And many times, without knowing it, even those who are not believers discover that the Word of God touches their hearts.”
And he adds: “In the end the focus of suffering is that I have not learned to love me and, therefore, I do not learn to love the other and I do not let the other love me. That is why, after the process, once the person has just ordered and heal this, God is present.”
“They do not know what is from the Bible, but they reach the soul “
One of the most surprising aspects of his testimony is how the word of the Gospel breaks into his sessions naturally, without forcing anything: he simply allows the Holy Spirit to speak. “Sometimes I say a phrase of the Gospel without naming the source, and people tell me: ‘That was the word I needed.’ They don’t know that it is from the Bible, but it reaches them to the soul. The Word of God is alive and effective.”
His profile in social networks is an invitation to live with depth, while looking at heaven. And to change the focus, which, in the end, is nothing other than let himself look for God.
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.