Rocio, a dynamic media professional with a global footprint, and Angel, a Cornell graduate whose career has touched over 65 countries, reveal the depths of their struggles—grappling with trauma, sexual abuse, single parenthood, societal pressures, and grief that reshapes the very core of one’s being. What emerges is more than a story of survival; it’s a powerful blueprint for transformation, an invitation to reclaim your own narrative, and proof that even life’s most fractured pieces can be reassembled into a masterpiece of resilience and joy.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How small steps can lead to significant life transformations.
- The importance of various healing modalities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
- Forgiveness as a journey for self-healing, not just for the other person.
- The transformative power of spiritual psychology in understanding human happiness and depression.
- Recognizing and letting go of societal expectations and limiting beliefs.
- How to transmute personal pain into purpose and a message of hope for others.
- The role of gratitude, forgiveness, and acceptance in reclaiming personal energy.
- Living an intentional life and directing reclaimed energy towards meaningful goals.
- The concept of the “Orchid” as both a book and a metaphorical retreat for self-discovery.
- Understanding that inner well-being is foundational for prosperity in all areas of life.
- Recognizing the inherent power and strength that resides within each individual.
- The importance of congruence between thoughts, words, emotions, and actions for finding joy and harmony.
- Using adversity as a catalyst for remembering personal power and potential.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS ROCIO AND ANGEL:
- Could you share the deeply personal and transformative experiences that shaped your journey, including losing your mom, a constant feeling of inadequacy, sexual abuse, single motherhood, your search for forgiveness, and more?
- How did earning a Master’s in Spiritual Psychology help you to find hope, meaning, and purpose in the face of profound challenges?
- Angel, you’ve experienced divine realizations, inspirations and guidance that brought miracles into your lives. Could you tell us some of the things that you’ve experienced?
- Rocio, I know The Orchid is dedicated to your mother. Would you like to share her meaningful story with us?
- What would you like to share about your seven-day retreat that is designed to alter people’s lives, inspiring your participants to awaken and heal, and live with intention?
- Why should healing start from within? And how does healing empower individuals to express themselves more freely and fully recognize their potential?
- How has awareness, gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance, and Intention guided you toward greater alignment with your true selves and brought more joy into your lives?
GRIEF AND REBIRTH LINKS
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How Can Adversity Become the Foundation for an Extraordinary Rebirth?
I’m speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey, and I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing Rocio Aquino and Angel Orengo, the visionary Cofounders of For The Highest Good an inspiring organization dedicated to crafting transformative narratives that ignite personal growth and empower individuals.
Rocio and Angel have drawn from their extensive professional backgrounds and global expertise to craft projects that champion conscious leadership and foster a more authentic way of living. Rocio who is originally from Mexico City and is now in Los Angeles, built an illustrious career in media and advertising sales collaborating with esteemed organizations, so Time Magazine, TV Azteca, Nickelodeon, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Anne Mundo. Her professional journey has taken her to vibrant cities like Miami, Hong Kong, and London, and refined her outstanding ability to bridge connections between people, ideas and opportunities.
Angel who is originally from Puerto Rico is a proud graduate of Cornell University. During his impressive career in global content distribution at Sony’s Pictures Entertainment, he led teams across Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe shaping industry strategies on an international scale. With experience spanning more than 65 countries, Angel has seamlessly merged his corporate leadership with a profound journey of self-discovery and purpose.
Rocio and Angel firmly believe that inner wellbeing is the foundation for prosperity in all aspects of life. They advocate that when a person is in harmony with themselves, their endeavors flow more authentically and productively leading to sustainable and meaningful results and I could not agree more. Their debut work titled, The Orchid: The Secret Code of Modern Goddesses is a luminous guide to self-discovery and inner balance. Every story within the Orchid is inspired by angels Rocio’s transformative personal experiences, chapters of their lives shaped by profound challenges from overcoming the devastating effects of sexual abuse to navigate the trials of single parenthood.
Rocio and Angel have confronted hardship with extraordinary resilience yet their journey is more than one of survival. It is a testament to hope, healing, and the power of reclaiming purpose in the wake of the diversity. The Orchid is an invitation to rekindle our connection with our inner light and embrace the timeless strength that has always reside within us serving as a reminder that self-love, gratitude, and inter clarity are the keys to achieving success in all areas of life. Again, I could not agree more.
I’m looking forward to talking with Angel and Rocio about their deeply personal and transformative experiences with sexual abuse, single motherhood and more that have shaped their lives, how each found hope, healing and purpose in the face of trauma, the series of divine realizations, inspirations and guidance that brought miracles into their lives.
The transformative lessons conveyed by the stories in the Orchid that offer a path from suffering and grief to healing and rebirth. Rocio and Angel’s seven-day retreat designed to alter people’s lives and more. For an enlightening and healing interview that will surely bring us in abundance of transformative insights and wisdom. Rocio and Angel, a heartfelt welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, Irene, for having those. It’s a pleasure. Thank you to your readers.
Thank you for having us.
Overcoming Early Trauma & Finding Hope
This is going to be wonderful. Each of you has a powerful story of grief, healing and rebirth that I am eager to share with our audience who are also grappling with grief, healing and rebirth. Let’s start with you, Rocio. Could you share the deeply personal and transformative experiences that shaped your journey, including losing your mom, a constant feeling of inadequacy, sexual abuse, single motherhood, your search for forgiveness, and more. You have had a plateful.
Yes, I agree. My mom was a single mother and at one point, I saw she didn’t have the tools for leaving. Her depression made her give up on life and it’s like, “I don’t want to leave.” She died when I was twenty. From that moment began a roller coaster because she was made stable. A roller coaster of profound feeling of, I’m not enough, I’m never good enough for anyone and feeling alone, lost in a culture who was very rigid about what it’s supposed to be. I was supposed to have a perfect life. It’s what you see on TV.
It’s all about how people see from the surface. Not about what’s going on inside, would you say? The whole mask.
Many years ago, people didn’t know what to do with somebody like me. At one point when I was feeling very sad and lonely with that connection, I tried to kill myself because I was lonely and I didn’t know how to go and move forward. My father was alive but he was not in the picture because he was not in the picture before either. I didn’t have any support. The first thing that held me back and to go move and forward was a small step.
The smallest steps that make me go out and try to figure it out and see examples of people living and are like, “I don’t know how to do it but I’m going to try my best now.” It was very difficult and I believe the divine and the universe put me through all those challenges to be here to talk to your audience, to talk to you and to let people know that it’s possible to accomplish things and give your life a total transformation. Instead of going to drugs or alcohol or avoiding, “I’m going to try to go in another direction completely.”
My small steps made me try to find a way and it took me many years to find the steps that I can pass to more people. It’s like, “You can do it.” If I do it without any help, more people can do it. At one point, I went to therapy but I didn’t take any medicine. The therapy was fantastic but was not enough. You need to understand what is the map of life to go out. That’s a little bit of that.
Sometimes, you need a group of healing modalities. It’s not one-size fits. I found that in my life, I’ve gotten something from each thing that I’ve done to overcome the trauma and the grief.
That’s why it took me many years to find the different things that were unlocking the energy that was inside of my body and releasing all the emotion and the ideas and all that was keeping me from being the best version.
Can I just ask you a personal question? You also grappled with sexual abuse and you had a search for forgiveness. What was that about? Was that in your profession that you don’t deal with people or in your personal life as a kid?
At one point, when you are sexually abused and alone, you don’t feel like you have no one to tell anyone anything.
Did this happen when you were a child?
Gratitude opens your heart to the abundance already present. Share on X
This happened when I was eighteen. Very bad luck then. I was vulnerable, lost and alone. People take advantage of that when you don’t have anyone to go and say it because the first thing is, they’re going to begin to question you. It’s like, where were you dressed? How did you did it? I was not able to tell anyone. I was able to say that to my husband because I didn’t feel proud of myself. Remember when you feel alone, the most lonely part is that you cannot share the secret with somebody else. That’s why it’s super important to have tools for people to go inside and take the shame and the guilt out of your body. I was carrying that for many years.
You had to go on a journey towards forgiveness with it also to let it go.
The Journey to Forgiveness & Spiritual Psychology
Yes. My forgiveness at the beginning, the first step was because I want to forgive somebody late in life but then that forgiveness took me to a deeper introspection. First, I want to forget somebody I love because what I know is when somebody crossed your path and they betray you, for example. What I learned was I’m going to stop talking to you. I don’t want nothing to do with you. In that case, I don’t want to fight anymore. It’s like, I need to find a solution and that’s why I go in this journey to try to find how I can forgive that person because I didn’t know that the forgiveness was about me.
For you and not for that person.
When I begin the journey, I am beginning to understand that the forgiveness that I need was me for caring so much for so long.
You had to give yourself.
When I discovered that, it’s in that moment that I go to Angel and say, “We need to share this with the world because it’s so important that transformation and alchemy that we can do. Now that I’m in another side of the bridge, it has been a fantastic experience now where I am.
The Orchid: The Secret Code of Modern Goddesses
You’re in the same situation in a way that I am, Rocio, because I’ve done so much healing. I want to say, “Everyone, gather. Come join me.” You have no idea what it’s like to breathe free from all of these things that hobbled me. I’m fascinated by the fact that you got a Masters in Spiritual Psychology. What attracted you to that? How did that help you? Where was that of your journey that helped you find hope and healing and the face of your profound challenges? Not that many people would think, “I’m going to take spiritual psychology. How’s that going to help me?” What was that journey like?
Let me tell you. After going around the world and talked to so many people, first in Mexico, Miami, and Hong Kong. I begin to see the difference between some people for what reason they are happy and another, they were super depressed. I cannot see what the common threads are that makes them different. Now, I have it clear. The beginning is for what reason they are happy and how they can do it.
At one point, when we finally arrived in LA, I see somebody who was truly happy and they are a couple. After three months, I discovered this couple were divorce but they talked in a way that they love each other so much. I went to her and I was like, “How did you did this because in my life, that is impossible.” She’s like, “Why don’t you go and do this program? It’s going to change the way you think but do it with your husband because you’re going to change completely and if he doesn’t understand you.”
I went and said, “Angel, do you want to join?” He was like, “Yes, let’s do it together.” After doing the program and experiencing this incredible release of energy, we began to read more than 200 books and going in a deep profound search. It’s like, when I begin to find the answers, I don’t want to let go. I want to know more that I can began to explain more people all the steps that they need to do for them to do it quickly.
Through your journey, traversing your pain and suffering, you’re going to make it easier for other people because it sounds like you got your steps and you know what do so they don’t have to go through the Journey that you did. It’s a short of lesson experience.
That is the point, to understand that when that is possible and achievable then, anyone can. Not especial. It’s like, “If she did it, I can do it.”
Angel’s Story: From Humble Beginnings to Global Vision
I resonate with that. Angel, it’s your turn. I love you to share some of the personal and transformative experiences that have shaped your journey, traumas you’ve overcome, and your search for purpose. You’re such an accomplished man, so tell us about your journey getting to this point and how over the years you came to recognize the interconnectedness of all human beings. You have been growing and evolving. What a wonderful thing. What’s up and all about for you?
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Thank you, Irene. I was born in Puerto Rico to a very humble family. Poverty was part of our lives. My grandfather was a carpenter and we lived off the land for several years. My mom and dad divorced when I was two, so I had no recollection of my father. The only time that I spent with my dad that I can speak to was when I was 40 years old and we spent five hours together. That was the only time he since passed.
I was sexually abused as well as a child. I don’t know the exact age but somewhere between 7 years old, 8 years old, and 9 years old. Somehow that disappeared from my memory and it wasn’t until my late twenties that it came back. It came back in the form of a dream, of a nightmare. It was like a big giant looking through a window and I was inside huddled up in a corner. All I could see was that big eye. My mom is a single mother, challenged and experience just sadness throughout her life and worked hard but always living life like a victim.
I cannot tell you what happened. I can do that now but at that moment I wasn’t aware. There was something inside of me, Irene, that kept me going. I now look back and I know I found a lot of comfort in the wisdom of sayings and somehow, they push me through. “Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are.” “Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react.” Many of these somehow were like little beacons and GPS inside of me that guided me down a path.
I couldn’t explain. Rocio and I are together for 25 years and she would ask me, “How? Why do you think the way you think?” I couldn’t explain it. I’m just like, “I don’t know.” She would ask me about forgiveness. because the same thing that somehow was deceiving for us and caused all this pain, was we both experienced it. I was able to let go and she wasn’t because I thought it was that simple. Let it go. She’s like, “I just need the 1, 2, and 3 and the A, B, and Cs of how to do that.” I couldn’t help her but I would go around the world.
As I say started looking at people, I could only see the beauty in them. At some point without the help of therapists, I was able to let go of the pain associated, not completely, but at a significant level, to many of the things that had happened to me in my early life. As I went through the world and I saw people and their beauty, I started to understand that there was something greater that connected us because it somehow didn’t make sense that it was so easily observable for me.
At that moment, I was experiencing a lot of success corporately. My career allowed us to travel so much and to see at, as you mentioned earlier in the program, a significant amount of the world. I would come home and Rocio and I would ask our daughters not to watch television, even though that television was feeding us. There was a certain amount of hypocrisy or incongruence in our lives because we knew that stories that were being told were powerful and they were having an effect in people. Ideas are powerful.
You need to understand what is the map of life to go out. Share on X
We went we once camped in Mongolia. After traveling five hours in an unpaved road on a 4×4, no one else was around and coming to a gurt in the middle of nowhere. There is a television with a satellite antenna and they’re playing a Hollywood movie. We could see firsthand the power of storytelling and how it influences people. Move forward and as my career in Corporate America was ending and Rocio comes and says, “Someone suggested I do this, the spiritual psychology Masters. Would you do it?” I kid you not. It took me a second to say yes.
Divine Realizations & The Power of Storytelling
“This is my next step,” and you just sensed it. It feels like to me.
Somehow.
You’re reminding me of my story because I’ve been guided step by step and some of the times, they were bumps in the road but they were bumping me into another direction or whatever. You’ve experienced, Angel, divine realizations, inspirations and guidance that brought miracles into your lives. This audience loves miracles. Could you tell us some of the things that you’ve experienced?
There are all sorts of miracles. I will tell you, my biological father passed away and I got a message from someone else. His brother who said, “Your dad passed away.” At the moment, there was a feeling that took over me and essentially, it was gratitude. It was a feeling of, “He came to this world to show me how to be a great dad.” Now, he chose a method and his method, I wish it would have been different but it was a method nevertheless. I saw the beauty of his life expressed through mine, even though he was absent from mine for almost the entirety of it.
It sounds to me you made a choice like a lot of people and I have the same experience in my life. A lot of people they stay in that swamp of what they learned or what they saw and then other people make us a choice. It sounds like you guys are just like this, “I don’t know how I’m going to do it but let me see where I’m being guided to get myself out of the swamp.” You chose not to be. You saw your father for his lack and you chose to fill in those blanks through yours.
We had read a book called Contracts and the contracts we sign is spiritual beings and how we come into this Earth and saying, “I have something to learn.” Irene, who is my soul mate, if you will says, “I’ll help you. I’m going to hurt you as much as you can until you forgive me.” That was very present in my life and there’s been numerous others.
I’ve had the privilege of delivering a message to a couple who had lost their child a year or two before. Somehow in the middle of nowhere, I see them and I say, “Why am I seeing these people? It’s so unusual.” I had seen them before sometime. Something came to me and said, “Tell them I’m okay.” My eyes swell now and I’m filled with emotion out of gratitude and humility that I was able to experience that.
Did you know at that time that they had lost their child?
Yes, I did. I said to this voice but I don’t know if I was speaking or in my head but we were having a conversation. I said, “That’s not enough. This people are in grief. How can I say that without proof? How do I know this is real?” It gave me one word and the word was doll. It made no sense to me. It ended there. I move on and I go to the dinner with these people. The conversation gets ignited. There’s something that said that opens the door for me to say, “I was trying to figure out why I’m here and the only thing that I came to me was that I needed to tell you a message from your daughter that said she is okay. Not to worry.”
We’re all crying at this point and then I continued and I said, “I asked for proof and the only word that came was doll.” They started bawling and they said that was her nickname. The beauty of it, Irene, as you probably know is, I’m sure your audience knows. The moment you open yourself up as Rocio was speaking before with curiosity, with humility, with the understanding that we know so little about ourselves and about the superpowers that we humans have. That is when miracles begin to show up because they’re all around us. We just start to open our eyes towards them.
There is something greater that connects us. Share on X
The Orchid: Honoring a Mother’s Legacy
If you keep healing, you’re not blocking them. I think you would agree with me with that, if you keep your healing journey because a lot of people who don’t heal are not open to receive the messages that can help them. Rocio, now it’s your turn because I know the Orchid is dedicated to your mother. Would you like to share her meaningful story with us? How was she your inspiration for this orchid that we’re going to be talking about which is a book and a retreat and all that that you’re doing?
Thank you so much for this space. Again, my mom was an immigrant from Spain to Mexico. The life of an immigrant, the first person to go to another country is very difficult. You always miss your home. You always miss your ways in everything. She grew up with this fight inside of her. Finally, she married my father and they have a relationship but my father was very difficult. It was the culture.
He was wounded also.
You have two people together who were wounded and trying to live. At one point they have three kids and I was number four. He’s like, “No one is going to save the marriage.” They were fighting a lot. He punches.
That’s damaging for you to witness that growing up.
It was very difficult to see people that you love being in that position. At one point, they got divorced because my father was a womanizer. Finally, my mom went and left. In Mexico, there was an earthquake in ‘85 and my mom lost the three things that she has for survival like the apartment’s and the business. She lost it all. In that moment, she goes in depression super heavy with four kids herself.
She was like, “I can’t do it anymore.”
She was alone. She had a family but she was alone because they don’t know how to help. In general, some people aren’t watching. She begins to get sick and little by little she gave up on life until she died from an asthma attack. It’s not like cancer or something like. It was from allergies and depression.
In a way she became allergic to life, so she got an asthma attack. it was an expression of what was happening to her.
I was sad to see somebody who was amazing give up life. I was mad at her like, “How can you give up?” In that moment, for me, it was like, “How I can help?” That’s why we did the book because the book is for somebody who they don’t like where they are now. It’s a book that I wish I have in my darkest moment. Even though that you have a good life, it’s like, how can I move forward? How can I free myself? How can I heal? What do I need to look in for?
What’s my next step? What do I do?
What is this small step that I need to do? The small step that I recommend for people to consider is the book the Orchid. Why? It’s because there we begin to see the characters, but we going to talk later about that.
Empowering Women & Strengthening the Feminine
Let me add something because Rocio and I spent a lot of time during our travels globally, looking and observing how women in many places continue to be second class citizens. We have also seen all the UN reports, everything that says that when you help a woman thrive, you help society thrive. The way I look at it now is the world is standing on two legs. Somehow, we’ve decided that only one of the legs, the masculine one is going to carry the wake of the world.
Now, that’s not good for the world. It’s not good for the masculine leg and it’s certainly not good for the leg that is not being utilized. I see and we see this opportunity as an opportunity to strengthen the feminine power in the world be it inside of us, in our relationships, in our governments or in our families or everywhere. When those two strengthen, the masculine and the feminine and they exist in coexist in a beautiful balance, we will be stronger. That’s why we dedicate it to women.
I love and enlightened man who wants to help women. My husband who is on the other side working with me on this project was a tremendously enlightened man. He loved helping women. His daughter is a very powerful woman and all that. He loved empowering women and I love that about you, Angel. No competition, Rocio.
He’s wonderful.
That’s such a wonderful trait in a man. Men don’t know that if they become advocates for women and they understand how that will improve their relationships, too.
Also, their own lives and the world so we all will benefit. For business people out there, it’s like being in a team and deciding that half your team is not going to contribute to the outcome of our projects.
Rocio, were going to say something? I want to ask Angel about those five powerful narratives that are in the Orchid that you would address with all these different issues for these people who are going to be coming to your retreat and how they’re grappling with them.
What I’m going to say is I agree with you, Irene. It’s so important to give us the space to understand that woman has been given to a way of thinking but same has been done for the men. It’s like, “You cannot cross this line. You cannot do this.” What we need to do now is how we can build the bridges for all to overcome like I need all the feminine power but then the masculinity to be healthy. Healthy to feel powerful and confident. It’s this important message that we need to understand that the limiting beliefs are for men and for women. How can we overcome this to have a better relationship with ourselves, with the partners and with everyone?
Unveiling The Orchid’s Five Transformative Narratives
Which is what you’re teaching through the Orchid and everything that you’re doing. Which of you would like to start or both of you to speak to those five powerful narratives that are shaping in the Orchid?
As we decided to write a book, we said, “It’s going to be a self-help book but it’s not going to be about us. It’s going to be a story told through the eyes of five women.” These five women go to a retreat center called the Orchid. There across seven days, they’re going to be in a fantastic five-star resort and experienced five key lessons. The first one is awareness. Observing yourself, asking yourself, why do you think the way you do? Where do your ideas come from? When we begin observing ourselves, then we opened the door for the possibility of change if we so choose if you decide to make a change out of anything that you find.
Which is a choice.
That is right. It is important to ask ourselves. Do I like the way I am? If the answer is yes, by all means, continue doing it. If you don’t, they’re still the question. Do you want to change it? If the answer is yes, then we propose a next stage if you will of that journey and it’s through three profound things that we all know. That’s why we call it the secret because it’s in front of us always. It’s gratitude, forgiveness and acceptance.
The moment you open yourself up with curiosity, humility, and the understanding that we know so little about ourselves and the superpowers that we humans have, that is when miracles begin to show up. Share on X
We all experienced those somehow, but our experience was that we tend to be quite shallow at them. When we go deep in gratitude, when you begin to experience live as a glass half-full, there come as a point where the glass is full period. You don’t even see it half full. It’s just full. That energy that forms within you expands almost every feeling of negativity and heaviness. It pushes it out because wherever there’s gratitude, there’s no room for anything else. Only room for love. After that, we spoke about forgiveness. Forgiveness is important in the Buddhism world. They say that being resentful or not forgiving is like carrying a hot coal in your hand waiting for that person.
Angel, I call it carrying a backpack. You’re carrying a backpack with you everywhere you go. That’s delt with your suffering and your trauma. If you can heal it and drop it, you’re heard.
It’s that feeling, “What?” I feel better.
There’s acceptance. Acceptance is not, “I’m not going to cross to the other side of that wall.” Acceptance is saying, “There is a big wall here. What if I step back and find a different way forward so that I’m not hitting myself against the wall?” It’s, life gives you lemons, make a lemonade. It’s that type of thinking. When you accept, you’re no longer giving your energy to things and fighting everything. What’s the beauty of these three is that when you recuperate your energy through forgiveness, gratitude and acceptance, take back your energy then it’s like you just recharge your battery.
The last stage is, what to you want to do with that energy that you reclaimed? Live the most intentional life you can live. That may be in the way you have conversations. Be intentional about the conversations you have, about the acts that you perform and the ideas that you want to develop. Those are the five, awareness, gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance and intention. We believe that through those, you can do some meaningful healing in your life. We speak of them linearly but they occur at any stage in any combination in any fashion. Sometimes it’s all forgiveness and sometimes, it’s all intention.
The Book as a Seven-Day Retreat Experience
I would say that leads a lot of people to some profound inner transformation because they come to you in one form and all the sudden, new avenues are opening up in their minds because they are releasing so much. I would love you to share with everyone this seven-day retreat that is designed to alter people’s lives, inspiring your participants to awaken and heal, and live with intention. Tell us all about that. When is that going to be happening?
It’s two parts. We are in the works for creating retreats. The retreats have not yet been created, but the beauty of it all is that the book is the seven-day retreat. What we’ve learned now a year and a half later after launching the book is that when people started experiencing it, they found themselves embedded deep into this retreat that they thought was about five women that they were reading about. These women are fictional, but by the time you finish the novel, what ends up happening is that we’re six people going through that retreat.
The book is done in such a way and we took this from our experience in Hollywood. Normally, you hear about the drama in people’s lives for about 90% or 95% of the movie or the series. It’s all what their experiencing, their pain, grieve, discomfort, and they’re fighting. The last 5%, we learned that they were able to find some miraculous secret and made a transformation and they became different. A miracle. In our book, we decided to switch it up and go back to that wisdom of 10% what happens and 90% how you react.
The book is set up, so 10% of the book is about the stories of what led the women there. Yes, the pass is important but what’s most important is what you choose to do with that information moving forward. The book, the 90% of the story is a retreat that through those five lessons that we mentioned and through exercises because there’s going to be exercises that the women go through that we encourage every reader to go through as well. Take the time and pause and do it themselves.
As they do that, the experience is that they’re going through that retreat. That is what we’re, at this point, planning for the future. There is no time yet. We are in the process of developing a small version of that we call the Orchid Experience. It’s going to be a one day in which we experience the five lessons in I would say a smaller scale but to allow people to at least have that taste.
Healing from Within: Reclaiming Your Energy
If people think that, say you’re going to be doing this retreat in a year or two or whatever, and if people are interested in that. Can they subscribe to a newsletter? It’s because we’re going to supply all those links and everything. For people who are reading who would like to have the intention to do that one day, they can click on and sign up and get information. That’s great. Since we’re speaking so much about healing, Rocio, I’m throwing this ball to you. Do you want to explain why healing should start from within? Share how healing empowers individuals to express themselves more freely which we’ve been talking about. Why should people go to all this trouble to face their pain to find the courage?
Let me tell you. Society and the world tell you that you need to go outside of you to get things that’s going to make you feel better. I follow those steps of society and told me and I was not happy at all. What I begin to discover inside of me is that I have all these different limited and pain that I went one by one to clean it. The best part is when you go there and you have the needle inside of your skin and you go, you see it. With the tools you begin to see, “That is painful but I’m going to go and do it. I’m going to face my growth.”
Instead of telling myself, “It’s going to be super difficult.” I begin to tell myself, “It’s going to be easy. I’m going to be learning. This is going to flow. The universe, God, the spirit, and all my angels are here with me helping me to pull this needle from me.” Every time that I was doing, I was reclaiming my energy back.
That you didn’t even know you had in the beginning. Now, you know that’s what you had.
It’s like you don’t know the super part is a treasure that is at the end of the process because even though in the process, I find it it’s good to spend it. Every time that you pulled out one needle or a race or give up, it’s like you are investing in yourself. The most important part when you invest in yourself is because it’s going to change your life forever. Your experience now. I know that I was grieving for my mother for a long time.
At one point, she came to me and it’s like, “Now you get it, Rocio. I went to the other side to help you to overcome all these only for you to try to pass this message to the most people possible and help them to understand that the process is not difficult. It’s not painful. You can do it more. It’s like a bee. Now that you know the game, be good with yourself.”
It’s like you’re befriending yourself. You’re giving yourself permission.
It’s like being your best friend. Instead of pulling you like, “You don’t know how to do this. You don’t believe.” Stop the noise and trust yourself because we didn’t know better. That’s why we didn’t do it before and that’s the most important part.
Finding Joy Through Harmony & Integrity
It’s beautiful. When you do that, that brings you joy. Angel, this is your question. What is your tip for people finding more joy in their lives? Is it directly connected to the healing? What would you like to tell us about that?
I believe that each one of us is uniquely different. Joy for one person maybe entirely different from another. It maybe a person who’s climbing rocks in the tallest mountains and it’s the fear of death, imminent death and that’s what’s most joyful to them. Another one maybe taking care of little kids. I believe that when I found joy is when I realized that there’s nothing more important in the world than me. I am the center of my universe. You are the center of yours.
At the core, that universe needs to be sound and nothing around me, not my wife, my projects, my children, and anything will be okay if I’m not in harmony. For me, joy is harmony and one of the ways in which I found harmony is by having complete integrity between my thoughts, my words, my emotions, and my actions. I am no longer thinking one thing and saying another. I am no longer acting away and wishing it was different because I am now acutely aware of the energy that I hold.
I take care of it. I cherish it and I respected. For example, I know that my daughters know that when I say, “I am doing this.” They know that it will be done. I live in my life in such congruence that it gives me joy because everything is in order and because I am not giving away that energy to anything or anyone that I don’t intend to. My battery is always full because I’m very intentional in how I use my energy now. I kid you not. It’s almost to the point where fear has completely disappeared and I am able to look at anything and say, “I can handle that. I’ll figure it out.”
You also know how to aim for the joy so that you know that when stuff is happening, that gives you that fear whenever you say, “I don’t have to go there. I know that I can see this but I can still move towards these other goal post,” in a way.
For everyone who is reading, I am not special. Rocio is not special. Each one of you has inside of you a nuclear power plant of happiness and joy and all sorts of wonderful things that the moment that you tap into them. Sometimes, I challenged myself about the word healing because it’s also remembering. It’s remembering that we are powerful beyond belief and that many of the things that hurt us or pain us are expectations or ideas that we’ve allowed to implant in ourselves and we’ve allowed themselves. If we decide, that idea is no longer something I am going to live with. All of a sudden, you take away that bag, as you were saying, that we carry.
You throw it out of the backpack.
That’s right. It no longer serves me and it’s okay for it to have served you before, but maybe it no longer serves you now. That constant inquiry is important no matter where you find yourself in your life.
That is so beautifully said. Rocio and Angel, you revealed that healing is a profound journey. One of reclaiming hope, embracing love and rediscovering the inner light that has always been within us. At its core, the Orchid is attribute to emotional resilience, the strength of female solidarity and the transformative power of self-reflection.
It’s an affirmation that our experiences shape us but our courage defines us and through self-awareness and acceptance, pain can be reimagined as purpose. Thank you for sharing your truth and for showing us that even in the depths of grief, rebirth is possible. I thank you for my heart for this enlightening and healing interview that is brought us in abundance of transformative insights and wisdom. Thank you again, Rocio and Angel. Many blessings to you from my heart.
Guest Links:
- Connect with Angel Orengo on LinkedIn and Instagram
- Connect with Rocio Aquino on LinkedIn and Instagram
- The Orchid: The Secret Code of Modern Goddesses
- For The Highest Good
- Contracts
About Rocio Aquino and Angel Orengo
Rocío and Angel are the creators of The Orchid, a novel designed to inspire healing, empowerment, and self-discovery. With roots in Mexico City and Puerto Rico, they’ve lived and worked in cities like Los Angeles, Miami, London, and Hong Kong.
Their global journey through media, business, and inner transformation fuels their mission to share meaningful stories that reconnect people to their inner truth.
