They Call Me Cancer - A Story of Rebirth with Serena Derea Squanquerillo - Interview by Maria Teresa De Donato

 They Call Me Cancer - A story of rebirth

with Serena Derea Squanquerillo

 

Interview by Maria Teresa De Donato

Dear friends,

Today I am pleased to host my friend and colleague, author and blogger Serena Derea Squanquerillo, whom we will be able to meet and get to know better on other occasions. I only anticipate that, in terms of strength of character, determination, and desire to help others, Serena has a lot to teach. There are so many things I could tell you about her, but, as usual, I prefer my guest to do it.

 

MTDD: Hi, Serena, and welcome to my Blog and Virtual Cultural Lounge.

 

SDS: Hi Maria Teresa, thank you for inviting me to this beautiful sharing. I'm very excited. Greetings to all readers and readers!

 

 

MTDD: Serena, why don't you start by introducing yourself, telling us a little about yourself, your studies, your activities, and everything you want to share with our readers?

 

SDS: Certainly. I was born in 1980 in Velletri, in the southern province of Rome, where I still live. I graduated from the classical high school in my city in 1999, but then, I followed more technical training in computer science and graphics for some of my needs. I started working in this field at 24, although I also worked as a secretary and in customer service for a well-known American company. For a few years, I worked as a self-employed person in a company that deals with communication and services, created together with some friends. In 2016 I left my job following essential changes in my life, such as my father's death and the need to process the legacy left by the first breast cancer I had. Unfortunately, he came back last year, but I got over that too. I am a person who periodically monitors, and I do not hesitate to ask for help.

 

Following these events, I needed to care for myself and understand what had happened. I started a spiritual path to get to know myself better, parallel with a healing direction of bereavement assistance I followed two years ago, not only for my father's death but also for the loss of parts of me, which occurred over time. Over the years, I have had health problems several times. During this personal research or relatively continuous rediscovery, I found my talents and new possibilities of living which today I am reaping sweet fruits. I have several satisfactions both for the activities alone and in collaboration.

 

 

MTDD: Life is an extraordinary thing, full of surprises, sometimes beautiful, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, and even terrible. It is useless to understand the reason because it likely does not exist or escapes us. With some people, it seems to be more forgiving, and with others, tougher. This, at least, could be our perception.

 

In one of your writings, I read:

 

"I arrived on January 14, 2012, and learned it was his 32nd birthday. I saw her blowing the candle on her favorite cake: a cream and chocolate millefeuille ... As if it were a gift, I chose to postpone my official presentation for a few days ..."

 

To this day, most people are often afraid to pronounce this word - Cancer - almost as if they want to exorcise even a remote possibility ...

Knowing you and having discussed with you about health on other occasions, I feel free to talk with you about this matter, aware of your availability and, above all, of how and to what extent you are busy helping and encouraging people who deal with this disease.

 

Would you like to tell us about your experience and how you lived it all?

 

SDS: Yes. I make a premise. As I said, I had many health problems: depression, panic attacks, eating disorders - fortunately not serious - endometriosis problems until I came to experience cancer. Before, I never spoke openly about my situation because I did not feel the need and wanted to keep it private. Something inside of me, however, changed. When the Cancer "showed up," I reviewed in front of me everything that had happened to me up to then. Fortunately, I did not have a problematic tumor, neither the first nor the second time.

 

On the contrary, the interventions and treatments that gave me various problems were more invasive, but it is certainly never an easy and light situation. It was a slaughter game facilitated by my severe lack of love for myself. It's like life has taken me aside and given me an either-or. I made myself strong and courageous to face this stranger. From that moment on, I started sharing what I felt at first in ANDOS (National Association for Breast Operated Women), where I received support and still belong as a volunteer whenever I have the chance. Finally, I wrote this story which was published in a collection for charity. Then it was distributed on two portals of Italian doctors and psychologists as a testimony of life.

 

 

MTDD: As a Naturopath and Homeopath, through my academic studies, but also and, above all, through interviews and consultations, I have tried to understand better and identify the potential dynamics that favor health and well-being and, consequently, healing, and those that on the contrary, they appear to promote symptoms and disease and, at times, hinder recovery.

I was, therefore, particularly struck by one of your statements that I always found in your previously mentioned paper:

 

"Serena is a girl who lives in a constant sense of inadequacy and fear of expressing her feelings and her creativity. The fear is that of not being held up to par. "

           

These are very profound, almost hurtful words.

 

Would you like to elaborate on these concepts?

 

SDS: Until recently, I loved myself very little. I was insecure, introverted, and busy, but I felt like I was living an inauthentic life. I felt like an alien. Dropping out of university failed me because I saw my teenage projects blown up. I couldn't study because I had to give up. I was struggling because I had a "different" learning method - as I later understood. I felt stupid.

 

Then, thanks to the support of my parents and a psychologist, I chose other paths that gave me satisfaction but were not enough. I realize that what I am about to say is difficult to hear; there was a period of depression in which, when I thought about the future possibility of starting a family with children, I told myself that the only thing that it could have grown in me it would have been a tumor ... Obviously the causes of illnesses could be many. Still, I am convinced of the importance of the quality of thoughts and words with which we program ourselves. My sense of inadequacy has implanted in me the fear of the judgment of others. I had the most ruthless judge in front of me when I looked in the mirror.

 

 

MTDD: The 'positive' note is that, by your admission, although your "Personal love [was] equal to zero ... despite the falls, insecurities, and fear, [you] always got up with strength and courage."

 

Many people confronted with cancer have said that this experience was the most powerful life lesson for them and helped them change for the better.

 

Do you agree with this view, and if so, why?

 

SDS: Yes! I can genuinely say that, paradoxically, that experience saved me from destruction. I did not allow that situation to let me give up everything: either I continued to fall into the abyss, or I went up and chose to live with love and conscience. I have embraced the second option. I have chosen life.

 

 

MTDD: Whatever your limitations have been in the past - by your admission - your willpower, determination, and awareness of your worth make you merit. To all this, a spiritual path has been added that you have taken to better connect to the 'real Serena' and, probably, also go to compare, by removing them, those aspects that were in your "shadow," to use the language of Carl Jung, famous psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst.

 

Would you like to tell us about it?

 

SDS: The self-knowledge path helped me become aware of my deep feelings. My shadow was the beauty of what was yet to come, but it was being smothered. I faced the demons who, until then, had feasted in the shadows, but when I paid attention to them, I discovered that they had screamed to be heard. I found that behind those obstacles were hidden treasures and parts of me that I needed to integrate into the puzzle of my identity. Indeed I still have to work in this sense, but thanks to the practical tools I have acquired on this spiritual path, I have learned to harmonize and understand my actual needs. I came into deep contact with the 'real Serena.'

 

 

MTDD: Due to this path of the disease and the consequent awareness and rebirth, you felt the need not only to share your experience but to do so in a way that supports those who face cancer and disease in general and might feel completely lost and even misunderstood.

 

Art, in any form, can be a means to be used for therapeutic purposes.

This year, you conducted a program – Living Your Talents - Stories of Personal Rebirth - with the Phoebus Association, of which you were the creator and host.

I'd love for you to tell me about it. It could be advantageous to our reading and reading audience.

 

SDS: In 2019, I began to pour these life testimonies into a personal blog, up to - to my surprise - the publication of three monographic books. I began to create artistic collaborations always to leave a message of encouragement to take care of oneself and to live one's talents first and foremost as a form of expression for one's well-being.

 

In July, I received an interview from the Phoebus Cultural Association, in which I talked about my experience of personal redemption thanks to my talents. Hence,  ​​creating a space would allow others to do the same with the team. I find it essential to share my personal story because it can be beneficial and help many. Besides, since it is a real-life story, the message is recognized as authentic. Finally, friendships and collaborations can also arise from these comparisons, as in our case, Maria Teresa. Thanks to your participation in "Vivere I Talenti," we met and started building this bridge of initiatives together. I am happy and grateful.

 

 

MTDD: Thank you, Serena, for participating in this interview and for being open and sharing very personal and delicate aspects of your life, which is difficult for some people to do.

 

I will be happy to host you again in the future to be able to talk with you about other interesting topics. Therefore, I wish you all the best with your health and the success you deserve in all your activities.

 

SDS: And I will be glad to be there! Thank you for this opportunity, Maria Teresa. I sincerely reciprocate the good wishes.

 

 

MTDD: Before concluding, who wants to contact or follow you in your activities? How can they do it?

 

SDS: They can follow me on my blog, https://www.dereasblog.cloud, where there is a link to the Youtube channel and on the Facebook page "La Magica Danza Dei Talenti." For those wishing to write to me, there is also the email derea.serena@gmail.com.

 

 

MTDD: Thanks again for participating.

 

SDS: Thank you. Thanks to the readers for paying attention to this part of my story. It can be of help and inspiration to someone. See you soon!

Education and Freedom (Part 1) - In Conversation with the Director of the Institute and educational writer Horst Költze - by Maria Teresa De Donato

 Education and Freedom (Part 1)

 

In Conversation with

 

the Director of the Institute and educational writer Horst Költze

 

by Maria Teresa De Donato

 

Today I have the great honor of having as a guest an extraordinary man, the Director of the Institute and educational writer Horst Költze, a dear friend of mine whose private and professional life is full of aspects as fascinating as they are disturbing.

 

There is a lot to say about his activities and publications, but I will leave it to my host as is my custom.

 

 

MTDD: Horst, thank you for accepting this interview and being here with us today.

 

HK: Maria Teresa, thank you for your invitation and your interest in the global education message.

You recognized the global importance of the educational message of my writings, which I must transmit from the source of intuition to the "children of the new millennium."

Through your interview, you open up a global sphere of influence. Thank you for this on behalf of the children.

 

 

MTDD: Thank you. Horst, you were born in 1932 in Köslin in Pomerania, which, since the end of the Second World War, belongs to Poland. You lived there until 1945, when you fled to Uetersen, a town northwest of Hamburg, before the invasion of the Red Army.

 

What memories do you have of those years and events?

 

HK: As a twelve-year-old boy, I was unaware of the fatal effect of this event when, on the evening of March 1, 1945, my mother and seven of us rushed three kilometers in the dark to the train station. I kept going, as children do. When we arrived in Uetersen, after a six-day train journey, my soul was still shaken, it felt lost in nothingness.

 

 

MTDD: How and to what extent have these events influenced your life, career, and publications?

 

HK: The experience of being tolerated as a refugee, without a real home, having only to eat and dress, and having just what is necessary to survive, has shaped my basic attitude towards life: I am fundamentally grateful for what life brings to me, for all that I could do and create.

Despite the painful experiences, these events convinced me of the significance of BEING THERE [= awareness of one's existence/living life in full awareness]. Accordingly, the Danish existential philosopher Sören Kierkegaard formulates this belief: "Life is lived forward and understood backward."

 

 

MTDD: While reading your CV, especially in the field of education, countless academic and non-academic topics and roles emerge, from teacher to principal, from principal to teacher, to supervisor and director of the institute.

 

Would you mind summarizing your activities in this sector?

 

HK: In all my different activities, functions, roles, and duties, people were always at the center of my thoughts and actions.

 

 

MTDD: In your self-portrait, we read: "Who I am. MYSELF! I always have been."

 

How important is it to understand who we are and live our lives in full awareness and harmony with our values?

 

HK: Man's answer to this fundamental question of his existence, WHO IS, decides what destiny is being prepared.

Two and a half millennia ago, the oracle of Delphi answered the question,

"What is the main task of man?":

"RECOGNIZE YOURSELF!"

 

Self-awareness, the awareness of one's SELF, is the fundamental condition for living in harmony with oneself, being in harmony with oneself, being in tune with oneself in the inner cosmos, and living in peace with oneself.

Such coherence with oneself is successful when one lives according to beliefs that determine a coherent state of being. A coherent state of being is based on values ​​that improve life. These values ​​create homeostatic balance in the organism.

Homo sapiens has the ability to create such an organismic and virtual state of being as a co-creator in their own inner cosmos with the ability to self-regulate. This primordial human option establishes his freedom and his dignity.

The basic condition is the knowledge of one's true SELF.

 

MTDD: To what extent does the educational knowledge imposed by the education system interfere with one's awareness of one's being and hinder its development?

 

HK: The prescribed knowledge and learning contradict the ontic constitution of the human being, whose main characteristic is life in freedom. The world-famous poet Jean-Paul Sartre has clear words for man's innate desire for freedom: "Man is condemned to freedom!"

 

To justify this, I will name a few details of this primary anthropological constitution:

 

This original human constitution is the basis of a democratic society.

This original constitution provokes the primal fear of every dictator.

This primeval human constitution led to the collapse of the WALL in Germany.

 

And this primal constitution is causing millions of Chinese millennials to say goodbye to the system. They live in the state of "Tangping." "Tangping" means not making yourself an instrument of others. "To go your way, with dignity. Even if you become an outsider and have to settle for less money", says the young Chinese woman, whom XIFAN YANG calls Yao Feng in her article "Uprising while lying down" in the weekly DIE ZEIT of April 13, 2022. XIFAN YANG states: "Young people do not participate more. They withdraw, go out, greet us and turn to ‘I’."

In the traditional school system, currently dominated in 76 countries by the PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment] functionalist study, children and adolescents are conditioned to adapt for at least ten years during the growth phase of the brain. The brain area in the frontal cortex for SELF-regulation is impeded from full development by forced learning. With forced learning, there is no existential reference to the person, to the true SELF. This hinders the development of the brain areas necessary for autogenesis.

At the end of school, graduates don't know WHO they are and what they actually want.

 

MTDD: On your home page, you state, "The knowledge of the school has clogged my system and overflowed my heart. I almost drowned in it."

 

Could you elaborate on this concept?

 

HK: I was "tied" to a school chair for hours, having to hear what the teacher was trying to put into my head. What was happening in my inner world didn't interest me. It was all about the subject.

Teachers are obliged to deliver the prescribed learning content in a set time and are obliged to evaluate students' learning products. Grades motivate and condition students just like mice in a Skinner box. Expected learning products are rewarded with good grades, poor learning products are punished with bad grades.

My heart was driven by fear of getting good grades to get promoted to the next grade. My salvation was that I left the "school jail" and started an apprenticeship.

 

(Horst Költze:  Anthropologically Oriented Teacher Training)

 

MTDD: Let's start by looking at some of your publications.

The first were

 

- Anthropological-oriented teacher training. (1981);

- Teacher training - Theory and practice of the different models (Ed.). (1990);

- Teacher training in transition - From the concept of technocratic to human training,

  In: Ruth C. Cohn / Christina Terfurth (Editor), Living Teaching-TCI for Schools

  (1993),

- The Pedagogical Diary - A step towards responsible training.

      In: Almut / Hoppe / Heike Hoßfeld (edited by),

        Evaluation as a process - Dialogue between self-evaluation and external evaluation. (2001)

                                          (Horst Költze: Pedagogy of Self-Genesis)

The first three titles underline the importance of training teachers of anthropological orientation.

 

Could you, please, describe the anthropological orientation, the theory of different teacher training models, and the transition from a 'technocratic' to a 'human' education?

 

HK: I'll start with a fundamental insight from existential philosopher Sören Kierkegaard:

"Man thinks in categories other than those in which he exists."

 

These two ways of being, thinking, and existing form the bipolar field of tension in human unity. Man integrates both modes of being operationally into the act of action.

Being a teacher takes place in the classroom like a live broadcast every minute, where thought materializes into action.

Pedagogically professional actions require a high degree of self-awareness and the effects on students.

Pedagogical professionalism develops only when teacher education integrates both ways of being, the category of THINKING and ACTION, in the teacher training process.

The basis of such a process of professionalization of anthropological orientation is the ontologically legitimized image of man, in which man is understood as SELF. In teacher training, through self-confrontation, awareness of the true SELF develops in the process of conscious representation.

The re-representation of the SELF is the fundamental condition of human formation.

 

 

MTDD: To what extent does third-party evaluation affect our self-esteem, and what can be done?

 

HK: The extent to which others judge our self-worth depends on our awareness of our true SELF. If the consciousness of one's SELF is underdeveloped, a virtual void arises in the inner cosmos. Dominant reference persons and authoritarian systems then prevail in this void.

What can be done about it?

As soon as the child says “I”, he can distance himself from himself and confront the SELF. This means confronting themselves in appropriate situations and promoting their freedom to make their own decisions, taking responsibility for their SELF and their fellow humans.

The anthropological justification of freedom of choice lies in the original constitution of man. Everyone has a chance to stop before reacting. The founder of speech therapy, Victor E. Frankl, acknowledged, "There is a space between stimulus and response. In this space, we have the freedom and the power to choose our answer. Our answer lies in our growth and our freedom."

This pause option is the basic condition of AUTO Adjustment. Self-regulation is successful as soon as a man has developed an autonomous standard of values ​​for himself. Therefore it is independent of the evaluation of third parties.

 

 

MTDD: How will readers interested in purchasing your publications do so?

 

HK: My books can be purchased at any local bookstore or ordered through Internet bookstores.

My essays, such as "The Evolutionary Spirit Transforms Educational Consciousness," can be downloaded for free from the Internet.

 

 

MTDD: Horst, your publications are numerous, and the topics to be covered are as interesting as they are profound. We can continue this exciting conversation about the world of teaching and learning in our next interview.

 

Thanks again for participating. It was an honor to have you as my guest.

 

HK: Maria Teresa, thank you for inviting me to this interview.

                                    (Horst Költze: School in Education Quake)