With everything that Irene Villa has experienced, few events could break her schemes. For this reason, her boyfriend decided to give a plus to an unforgettable moment and surprise her with something completely unexpected: David Serrato asked for her hand during the parade held in Ibiza that closed the third edition of the Inclusion Tour Fashion Day, the first catwalk 100% inclusive of the world. This was barely a couple of hours ago and Irene herself still hardly believes it. This is how they tell us behind the scenes of Hï Ibiza at the close of an event – for the benefit of the Adapted Sports Association of Ibiza and Formentera (ADIIF) – which was rounded off by the performance of Rebeka Brown. About love but above all about overcoming and how to face everything in life, we spoke with Irene Villa a few days before she was able to happily look at one of those rings that shine like the sun.
What is your wish as the master of ceremonies of the Inclusion Tour, which started on April 1 in Córdoba and has toured several Spanish cities until ending tonight in Ibiza?
May tonight become many more days of boasting that we are a completely free country in which we all fit: diversity, plurality and above what was previously hidden in the closet. Now is our time, I feel like the queen of flow. The time has also come for people with any disability that used to be our limiting belief and is now our power. Imagine if society has changed.
Who parades in this contest?
From Mireia Mendoza, the world's first deafblind model to people with autism, with an intellectual or physical disability, but also from the LGTBI, queer, androgynous collective... Actually, people of all kinds; we do not have to respond to a pattern or label and be included in some minority. No, we all have our potential and on this catwalk everyone comes out as they are and brings out everything they have inside, respecting total diversity.
You use the phrase “knowing that you can” a lot in your books. Regardless of situations such as those caused by endogenous depression, do you think that everyone is capable of getting ahead?
I believe that there are thoughts that help; what you believe you believe and thoughts will condition your life and how you deal with that problem, as we always say. It's not what happens to you, but how you deal with it. It is in our hands to turn the situation around and transform a life that can be bitter into one full of possibilities and opportunities. You have to deal with that mind that slows us down, boycotts us, judges us, punishes us and makes us worse, that mind that tells you that you won't be able to or even that environment that is pessimistic. For me the key in life is self-esteem and self-confidence. There is nothing that happens to us that is not in our process. I see it like this: every time something happens to me I understand that there is a lesson behind it. With the good you enjoy and with the bad, you grow.
Beyond a spiritual, metaphysical, religious or as some modern 'energy' sense, you take it as an intelligent way of dealing with difficulties, I suppose, right?
It is a form of emotional intelligence. It is a way of saying, why am I going to suffer if it's not worth it? Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. You choose to wallow in that pain and suffer. Suffering in the end is not embracing, not accepting, not understanding that life is sometimes also pain. Life is love and it is pain. The sooner we internalize it, the better. Just like life is change and life is uncertainty sometimes too. Ah, and that about energies... (laughs) I am very energetic in the sense that we are how we project and if the energy in which we are vibrating is to feel like we are a victim, few good things are going to happen to you. Or you have not slept and you are in a bad mood, with a low mood, because less pleasant things happen to us.
What is your infallible formula to be with him in high spirits?
I don't wake up every day with the batteries on, naturally, but I look for things to put the batteries on. Or I lie down on the floor to do Pilates, which no one feels like, especially when you're missing both legs. But that effort pays off: the mood rises. Or I put on some music or do sports or do exercises and it really works.
Degree in Audiovisual Communication, Humanities and Psychology. Journalist, psychologist and writer: you have published six books, no less. I deduce that communication is due to vocation, but why psychologist?
Well, because everyone told me their stories, their problems, since I was little. But even before the attack. I have always had this vocation to help and I have believed that it is better to move through life with a happy spirit than a sad one. I did it in the schoolyard: I remember that with a friend every time we saw someone sad we went to see what was wrong with him. That she tell us about her problem. I finished Audiovisual Communication at a very young age –I feel like a girl at 44, imagine at 21–, I said to myself 'But where am I going to work now?' Well, to continue studying, university life is very cool. And I loved seeing what my mother had inadvertently taught me, 'daughter, don't think about it so much: if it doesn't have a solution, why do you worry and if it does, why do you worry', plus the Spanish proverb from my grandparents at home, which has taken me out of many, led me to it. And I confirmed that everything depends on one and that positive psychology, a sense of humor, hope, believing in something bigger than yourself and sociability are predictors of happiness, empowerment and going with life in your favor and not in against.
With the tools of psychology, plus your intuition and will, have you ever been able to understand the mind of those who attacked you and your mother? Or is that exercise too hard? Or you turned the page and that's it...
As a good psychologist, I have always put myself in his shoes, in his place, and the conclusions I reached are reflected in a book called Patria. They believed themselves to be the liberating heroes of the Basque Country, they took up a weapon and began to kill. Because they thought they were heroes. I have come to understand, never to justify, someone who is completely poisoned by thinking that Spain oppresses, that Spain kills, that Spain... Those beliefs revert to collateral damage, as they said. Murders of innocent people? To them it was collateral damage. How painful for them to have mortgaged their lives to be in jail for something that didn't make any sense; I imagine that you have already realized that you were manipulated by those ideas. It does not matter if it is one extreme or the other when violence prevails over common sense.
Have they ever tried to manipulate you politically?
I have always understood that the victims had, especially at one time, the love of society and yes, the political parties wanted to take that love to their side. But I have always said that neither my mother manipulates me and I have always tried to stay away. Different parties have wanted to sign me and I have never positioned myself nor will I do so because I believe that common sense and coexistence should prevail in all parties.
Have they apologized to you?
Well, some parties – I'm not going to say names either – that supposedly have supported the independence movement more have shown me their respect, their affection, telling me that I am a reference. I replied that how was that when I was at the antipodes, that is, they want to put borders in my country and I would remove even those of the states. Well, even with that, I am a reference equally for everyone.
But it has to be very exciting, right?
Well yes, it is because in the end the wounds heal and what has to exist is a reconciliation and if they see in me that path of peaceful coexistence, reconciliation and harmony that I always try to reflect both in my columns, books and as in my talks because I believe that this is the key to a much better life.
In addition to writing books and giving talks, gold medals in adapted skiing, slalom championships, fencing... don't you know how to sit still?
Not sitting still I think is positive when it comes to getting ahead; I think that's the attitude. Either you move or you expire. And I have tried many sports because sport was my passion until the attack happened, I gave up basketball and ice skating, which was what I liked the most. And then, thanks to the foundation, I have resumed all the adapted sports you can imagine. In July we go to the descent of the Sella, in Asturias, and in October, to the Camino de Santiago.
You have three children, Gael, Carlos and Eric (6, 8 and 10), born from your previous relationship. What values have you transmitted to them?
Well, above all that they are dependent, self-sufficient and sociable. For me, sociability is essential. And according to what they tell us from a very young age at school, we have achieved it. Because they say that they are children who are always mediating in conflicts. And I am very like that, I do a lot of positive psychology with them and it works. So from here to all fathers and mothers we are going to inoculate our children with that sense of sociability, of getting along, of mediating in conflicts and of solving things before we later regret it. Those steps are important.
Speaking of steps. What about David (Serrato)? Is there going to be a wedding? How is that step going?
(Laughter) Well, I promise you that I have always said, why are we going to get married if all the couples get divorced? (laughs). However, with David I don't know why, I wouldn't rule it out because I feel at peace... Like being in my place. It was meeting David and suddenly feeling at home. And that we have total freedom: he lives in Soria and I in Madrid, each one makes his life, we travel, I have three children, he none, we are both divorced, we know what it is to live together... We feel at home but every one in yours (laughs).
Well, that may be the title of your seventh book: How to feel at home with your partner.
It seems like a great idea to me because I have things on my mind and I'm writing things about love and couples. Sometimes it is better to miss each other and not more. One day David says to me: 'Hey, but if we get married, can each of us continue to live in our house?' He made me laugh, because he said it like that with fear. I replied that of course, we can do whatever we want: I only live with my children and with you I have found someone to share life with but freedom for me is non-negotiable.
