“It’s something I can’t help”

He had almost written fate, his thing was a non -brutal change, but risky enough to break the mold and become a woman who has managed to find her way after very introspection and trips around the world. She was born in Seville, within an aristocratic family and wore high and blonde with a beauty that led her to parade through catwalks and star in campaigns. The María de León Castillejo Today, at 45, it is still high and blonde but has something in his gaze that denotes reflection, experience and learning.

Live meaning It is her last childbirth and a perfect occasion to meet her and understand many doubts that surround us all and that Maria analyze and reflects pulling studies and teachers of all fields. Yoga, travel, meditation, religion, friendships, family … The life in the end of a woman who had it very easy but chose the complicated path. The last time we talked without a hurry was after the most elegant was chosen in the races of Ireland, a country that has become his second home. Today we talk about that and everything that reveals in this book that has many hours in front of the computer and for which he had to isolate himself from the world to find the silence he needed.

Account that began to write Live meaning The day of the Immaculate Conception and that this coincidence explains the spirit of its pages when remembering the phrase that the Virgin answered the angel when she announced that she was going to give birth to the Son of God. “Do in me according to your word.”

My greatest challenge has been to explain this book in simple language very deep concepts. Obviously there is much more about to deepen but I did not want something very biased because then you cannot read either.

Do you think that at 45 he has already reached his best version?

I find it impossible to say that I have reached my best version but I am motivated to meet and improve every day as a person. We are all imperfect and it is gratifying to learn something new daily.

He tells how his parents educated it and repeated that of “nobility obliges.” Do you think that belonging to a family of the Sevillian aristocracy has been a backpack?

It is very good question because on the one hand I feel proud of the family where I have been born, but it is true that at a professional level a backpack has meant. In fact, there are many clients have fallen thinking that people who come from a specific family do not need to work. It is tremendously unfair and generates a lot of frustration because I am a super fighter, entrepreneur and have not given me anything, my parents either since they have always been very demanding and with a military education. The prejudice of those who may think that because they were born in a certain social field you do not need to work, it seems very unfair because we do not live in the Middle Ages but in the 21st century. That your family has the inheritance of an aristocratic title does not mean that your life is easy. And that gives me sad at work level, because I am very entrepreneur but personally I feel proud. I do not want to give up or cover where I come from because it is part of my identity and who I am.

Indeed and is also very Sevillian in his.

What I am is a woman of the world. I do not like being in a closed mentality and that is why I left Seville and I dedicate a chapter to the trips that I have made and that open your mind. I was born in an area with their customs, traditions and Catholic education, but study, travel, or practice yoga have opened my mind to be more tolerant to look at other religions not in a reductionist way but integrative. It is important to be open to the thought of others. Religions are usually a reason for conflict. Chapter 9 has been very difficult because I did not want to create friction among people who may have a more conservative vision. I wanted to speak in a universal key.

How is Sevillana of those who get excited and participates in the Holy Week of his city?

I personally do not go out in procession but my father and brother are part of the brotherhood of Passion. Of course, Holy Week excites me. I have been going without going for two years but I will return and also with my mind more open because I carry in my backpack all the spiritual path route of formations that I have done as for example now that I am doing the superior course of Santa Teresa de Jesús at the University of the mystique of Ávila. It is to go more from the theory to the practice of experience, which is what she promoted, not to stay alone in dogma, but in how I can make that faith alive through the practice of prayer, of the works, of what it means to be a Christian who does not remain alone in dogma.

He begins his incursions into the world of work as a model and remembers the problems he lived with his body and hence the criticism that makes that experience.

It is true that my body generated a lot of anxiety for wanting to lose weight by not being as thin as the models of that time and suffered a lack of total self -esteem. I never had anorexia or bulimia but at 17 years I was affected to see that I did not fit with the canon of the moment and I ended up very obsessed that also meant eating with anxiety. It was not a pathology and that as soon as I finished the race I started working in communication and I recognize that I took mania to my model stage and that is why it bothered me so much that they always reminded me.

At that time he released his personality the day he refused to parade with transparencies that showed his chest with the designer’s usual disgust.

In my elegance chapter I speak of a vision beyond aesthetics. It is linked to ethics too and I speak of many concepts related to that elegance such as modesty because the more you exhibit the more you approach vulgarity. I believe that the pot is being left a lot in that sense and only notoriety is sought when they appear on the red carpets in panties. For me, elegance is timeless, mysterious, rotting. I am very sad that the trend goes to the exhibitionism and sexualization of women.

He has always been very discreet with his intimacy but in his pages he did not obviate some moments of his life as when the rumors with King Felipe, his courtship with Íñigo de Arteaga or his fleeting marriage with Juan Garaizábal arose.

The first thing I put is that I am very grateful to how journalists have always treated me. I don’t like public exposure but you have to be authentic. I cannot cover my past and if I have shared some of those aspects it is because at a given time they were public. There are people who ask me why I am known in the media and that is when I explain that it all started with rumors that related me to Felipe. It is something that I cannot avoid but what I have ever done or do is sell my private life. In social networks I do not share anything of my intimacy and if in his day I took some images of my wedding it was because at that time I worked with the firm Pedro del Hierro and I had to show the dresses. I think Juan only came out in a photo. I do not criticize whoever does it but I prefer to be on the sidelines.

Do you feel vulnerable in that aspect and hence it is protected?

I do not judge what the rest of the people do but in my case I want to share only what can be interesting. I do not want to live on talking about my private life, I do not conceive it as a job, or to sell exclusive. I feel sure keeping my intimacy plot. What I have shared in this book about my vision of so many things I have done in what I think I can help and there does not enter my private life.

One of the conclusions he reaches is that love is all in life and once again I wonder how he has not had luck in relationships, or at least that is what he appears.

When you evolve you know what you don’t want. I am lucky because I know what a person is to fall in love and live a deep love. I can die calm because I have lived to make love deeply. I have no idea if it will happen to me again but I am open but without forcing anything. My path of personal development and spirituality has helped me a lot to feel peace and acceptance for what I have had to live. I am a very restless person who loves to travel and undertake and this is not easy to combine it with a relationship unless the other understands it. It is essential that you love you from freedom although of course for me the commitment is very important. As Marta Robles said very well, love is to let the other flourish, that he takes out all his potential and many times love in a possessive vision of you are for me and such does not allow you to develop because in the end it absorbs you. I run away from that kind of love today I have not found that person. What I do have are wonderful friends.

In these years of metamorphosis I do not know if he has considered being a single mother.

Single mother I will not be. I would have loved to be a mother but the reality is that I will turn 45 and a child for me is not a product that will meet a need of mine but the consequence of the love of two people. I am traditional and I do not see myself being a single mother. It is true that I have little time left.

Has your ovules frozen?

I did it as an act of responsibility but I will never use them but for that purpose with the ideas that I have told you.

In his book he reviews the lists of elegant who are published and that openly criticizes.

I am not one of the trends because I consider the timeless elegance and transcendental traditional values. In addition there is also too much ideology in some fashions. It’s like feminism. Of course I am feminist and I defend equality but not the confrontation between men and women. It is the bad thing about politicizing everything.

Speaking of politicizations, it also highlights how at the same time you want to legislate in matters such as euthanasia and abortion while protecting the environment and animals with very demanding laws.

Of course, you have to protect the environment and animals but it seems incoherent together with the things that are done with the human being. We are placing people on the same level as vegetables or animals and the north is being lost in addition to putting the limits of bioethics. I am against that human life is not put before the animal. Although I understand that each circumstance can be different and priori if you ask me about abortion or euthanasia my answer is no.

He agrees with the expression “what is happening.”

More than resignation is acceptance. There are circumstances that you cannot change your life such as the disease that I have that I have been deaf but thanks to the headphones I can speak. I wanted to make my problem visible because I think I can help other people.

It also has a memory for Caritina Goyanes. Were they very friends?

It was not my intimate circle but we always agreed at the Mass of Father Carlos in the church of San Agustín. She made the first reading and I the second. She was always in the front row with her husband and children and it seemed like a very generous woman who tried to do my best. I was very affected by his death and wrote about her with the surprise that this message went viral. He has left a huge footprint and in the end that is the mission of human beings: to leave us a good mark on others.

Who are your referents today?

From teachers of my university, who have taught me a barbarity, to Santa Teresa de Jesus and not only in the religious but also in the human. I am also interested in people who have taken advantage of their name to do something more like Carlota Cashiragui, an aunt who could have lived from the story and has preferred to develop a philosophical path, or actress Emily Watson, who has created a reading club. As you see, I love people who have a public figure and use it to give good messages.

What have your parents in this book told you?

They are very proud and I am very happy because there is nothing to satisfy that parents can be proud of what a daughter does.