Ismael Cala advocates teaching self development in schools and universities

Cuban journalist Ismael Cala, famous for his program “Cala” on CNN in Spanish, sees the need to include subjects on the “development of the self” in schools and universities so that young people grow up with greater knowledge of themselves and be able to combat So stress and depression.

In an interview with Efe, the journalist opted for a series of subjects that were evolving over the years and included emotional and spiritual intelligence, positive psychology and conscious breathing, among other aspects.

“It really could not be missing from any curriculum from the first level to even university studies,” he considered about the need to train the youngest on the best ways to “feel whole.”

Cala believes that schools should not only study how to make a living, but also “know yourself better and invest in yourself and be able to be happy and really own your emotions and your decisions.”

In this way, he said, emotional problems and the fall into processes such as depression and drug abuse would be avoided, as if these were the “only option” to combat insomnia or stress, among other symptoms that something is not going good inside us.

Adapt and design change

Cala premieres this Thursday the audiobook version of his work “Fluir para no suffer” (Aguilar), in which for nine hours, with his own voice, he brings readers/listeners closer to the necessary foundations to “build and grow towards excellence in life.

Because for the journalist there are eleven principles for a positive life and “self-realization”: integrity, spirituality, serene strength, flexibility, versatility, passion, collaboration, exponentiality, resilience, consciousness-elevation and gratitude.

“If not, we flow to resist. And when one resists, it imposes brute force in resistance to the events (…) that life is throwing at us,” he pointed out about a negative attitude that in his opinion causes us to waste “vital energy” .

On the other hand, “flow” allows you to allocate that same energy to relax and look for a “best response to design” the change you want to produce.

And beyond her years of research and development of life strategies on issues of leadership and personal development, on which she has already written several books, Cala knows first-hand the problems that this inner imbalance generates.

With a family with a history of cerebral and mental conditions and several suicides, the journalist from Santiago de Cuba came to the path of self-knowledge “out of passion, out of desperation”, to put a stop to a process of personal thoughts that he did not “like” , which was translated at 15 years with treatment with antidepressants.

“But I said to myself, and I decreed, ‘I am going to do everything possible so that this is just that, an unfulfilled inheritance and not my final destination,'” explained Cala, who has been focused on CNN en EspaƱol since leaving CNN six years ago. in the task of disseminating the need for better human development.

An audiobook with a “powerful” message

And part of that message is brought together in “Flow so as not to suffer”, which, he explained, contains a “simple, profound and at the same time powerful message”: “We are a never-ending process in search of self-knowledge.”

So much so that he, with years of study on the subject, recognizes that he has barely reached “half” of the knowledge that can be had: “The more I realize that I learn, the more ignorant I feel.”

But that “fascination” for studying human potential and the conviction of his concept of happiness, an “inner peace that allows us to put our gifts and talents at the service of others”, has led him to see that he has evolved as a person .

“I can look back and say ‘wow’, today’s Ismael doesn’t look much like the 17-year-old, he has the best of him, but thank God no longer so much of the shadows, fears or prejudices and limitations. That adolescent who people didn’t believe enough,” said the president of the Ismael Cala Foundation, which promotes emotional leadership, vocational guidance and education programs for children and youth.

Ismael Cala advocates teaching self development in schools and universities