About
Hello & Welcome!
I am Mariana Calleja Ross, a Costa Rican medical doctor and writer.
Also a traveller at heart, a seeker some may say; a dreamer and endlessly curious soul full of words and feelings, always keen to be shared over a lovely warm cup of tea.
I am tiny in physical form yet infinite as far as the soul goes. Also, I might be older than it appears - or so everyone says!
I am a deep feeler by nature - something most people are not used to, yet only natural. Thankfully, I've learned to discern and proceed accordingly. It's a really wonderful gift.
I love deep conversations about pretty much anything and everything (the mind, the heart, the soul, the world, the self, movies, series, books, taboos and beyond). I love travel, cultures and languages (currently learning my fifth: yay Hindi!). I also love tea, ice cream, cake, the perfect lemon pie (my fave!), the ocean, the beach, nature, sunshine, dogs, birds, strangers who smile, people who hug. I enjoy people-watching too. Gives me so much to feel and think about as I write and grow. I'm a shy, quiet, calm person, yet easily opened when the vibes are just right. I follow my intuition for pretty much everything and I believe in energy, past lives, spirituality and the power of deep emotional healing.
In short, as a dear colleague said: I'm not your average doctor!
Still learning daily to embrace the weirdness and quirkiness in me, learning to be unapologetic and free in my own skin; learning to embrace my humanness and remembering my soul. I hope you feel inspired to go after yours too.
Medicine & Palliative Care
I studied Medicine back in my home country, Costa Rica, and I've been a medical doctor since 2006. Later on I moved to Spain and did a Masters Degree in Pain Management between 2010-2011. Then I worked my way through my first professional decade with elderly patients and close to Palliative Care, chronic pain and end-of-life stages.
One utterly deep, thought-provoking and rewarding journey indeed.
Medical Entrepreneurship: Online Consultation & Education
In late 2015 I embarked on a different journey which had been calling me for long to attempt going closer to my bigger vision of working on my own. I began by creating an online medical consultation service that would turn into a larger movement of health education and online services for all. The vision was so big yet it wouldn't work as I imagined, and after a long while of trying and trying, my entrepreneur attempts and confidence faced a long dark cloud, and for the sake of my wellbeing I decided to go back to the conventional workforce in 2018.
Little did I know that five years and one pandemic later (hello Covid-19!) would bring all my efforts and visions into a more mainstream awareness to be embraced. What a ride! Now a larger vision than my own had come to life and I feel my journey led to me unthinkable growths needed to embrace what's next.
After stabilising myself and life again, both emotionally and financially, I've began to feel the bug again.
Ideas fluttering, desires wanting to come out of me yet too scared to try at first, and overall curiosity to start poking my energy into trying a project of my own again. Experience taught me I can do both the steady job and the creative job at once so I don't loose stability, dragging with it all self-confidence, spark and creativity away.
Health is truly a sweet, delicate balanced mix of mind, body and soul. Lesson learned and now ready to step up again - Hello 2021!
A Lifetime of Writing: Childhood & Beyond
I've been writing since I can remember, say since I was 7 or 8 years old.
Right, mom and dad? Surely they can confirm without doubt and with an unsurmountable amount of proof thanks to the endless notes and letters I kept writing and sending to them through my unique in-home mail, slipped right under the bedroom door.
I've written mostly about my feelings in an infinite amount of journals. Also about deep thoughts, wonderings and wanderings, about this society, about life, about people, human behaviour, emotions, taboos, fears, and beyond. All through childhood, teenage years, young adult and still today. I've been too deep, probably far more than my closest people could ever understand me. Yet I wouldn't change a single thing of me.
Journaling
I truly love journaling and its amazing growth and healing power. Journaling is like a window to infinite worlds where there's no limit to discover and learn. About oneself or about every world you encounter out there.
And after almost 30+ years of doing it, I can assure that there's no pill or therapy like putting your deepest and most sincere thoughts and feelings on paper over a quiet, private pen-n-soul explosion, where you feel the absolute freedom of expression knowing that absolutely no one will ever access your most naked core and truth right there.
Yes, journaling has been not only therapy but also happiness, joy, growth, awareness, healing, excitement, pride, self-confidence and so much more. I always vow to it and will forever recommend it to everyone who crosses my path or asks for my advice, whether as a doctor or simply as a human being.
Travel Writing & Beyond
As a writer, I've done different things so far - from travel writing to health and wellness writing, to appearing in radio shows, tv shows, being interviewed and all the way to public speaking. (You can read and visit the links to every show, interview and articles made here.)
After all this crazy ride, I have arrived to a moment in time where I want (and can) reboot my creative soul and give my pen some wings to fly.
The topics that have always called my heart deepest and incessantly for years are topics that made me dream big and then I left them somehow cornered up as life got on the way. Now I'm here, back home, dusting it all off and opening full windows and shutters to let the light come in again.
Taboo Topics and Deep Human Essence
You will always hear me talking and writing mostly about taboo topics like sexuality, death, mental health, burnout; and also topics that are the essence of being human, such as relationships, love, fear and feelings (for both men and women). I'm deeply keen to explore and open up conversations that people are afraid to open up...precisely the conversations that every single human being needs to be having by now.
Basically, I'm trying to unwrap the human conditioning that we've been wrapped up with, so that the real human essence that we are can come out and do what it came here to do.
The Tabook
I used to dream of this huge, amazingly perfect and needed book that would entail all taboos as lived, experienced and processed through this, my Mariana brain, a book that I'd called The Tabook. It was so awesome in my dreams yet so huge that it somehow felt an impossible mountain to climb combined with the steady rush of life. But it is still there, in my heart and I want to make The Tabook as a blog post series that can grow within time and with no pressure. I'm already enjoying it again even without having started!
Dear Julian: The Book
And last but not least, in 2018 I wrote a sweet, small book that made its way to Amazon as an ebook and it's right there on sale! This was a particularly proud piece of writing for me. It truly took me into a book-writing experience like nothing I've had experienced before. The book is called Dear Julian - Welcome Letters To The World and you can read about it here.
What's next?
I'll be focusing on this blog, my journaling, and whatever juicy ideas that come to mind, making my heart sing. My day job sustains me with ease and peace while I nicely kick myself into feeding the creative self again.
Aside from this all related to work and writing, I of course like to play too! I'm learning my fifth language (Hindi) and I also love dancing, plus anything else that makes me want to smile, hug, dance and enjoy a proper tropical beach. I'm determined to continue making joy and fun a priority in my life now that I'm aware of it again. There's no creativity without curiosity! So I'm here and ready to stay inspired. Hope you do too.
I hope you enjoy lurking around this site.
Feeling the thoughts being softly injected into your veins. Fuelling your imagination and desire to become a better human being. That's what we're here for after all.
Love & Hugs,
Mariana
