Interview With Author Natalia Martinez
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
One travel book and a healing with chronic pain book in the works.
My name is Natalia Martinez also known as Naty by my loved ones and now you.
I Am a Spiritual Teacher, Reiki Master, Ordained Minister, Author, Content Creator and Podcaster. However before that I Am Woman, Divine Feminine, Wife, Mother, Sister, Aunt, Cousin, and Daughter. I have decided to dedicate my life to being a Mental Health & Chronic Illness Advocate and teaching others like you to find healing, motivation, and lifes purpose. I am excited that you are here and I would love to share my testimony with you. I share my experiences because I understand what it feels like to be alone with no answers. Today my life’s mission is to show you that it’s possible to find healing even after the most extreme trauma and pain. To understand why I chose this you must first understand my testimony.
I am a First Generation American Woman born of a Mexican Christian Mother and a Puerto Rican Free Spirited Musician Father. I know what it’s like to grow up poor and different on the farms of South New Jersey. I grew up in low income housing, as my Single Mom did all she could to raise her children right and worked 3 jobs to maintain a roof over our heads alone.
I Am a Survivor and Warrior of many traumas early in life. As an undiagnosed Autistic Child, I struggled a lot in school and at home. I had to find ways to cope with my neurodivergent ways alone. I was labeled a drama queen, cry baby, faker, and very often ignored by teachers and other adults. No and one knew how to deal with me or how to even begin to help me as I was dealing with things such as Severe Childhood Bullying from peers and even family, Sexual, Physical, Mental, and even Spiritual Abuse. As a child this created a feeling of unworthiness and instability from a young age. In 1997 at 11 years old, I was in a severe car accident that killed my step father and almost killed my mother right in front of me, leaving me to cope with PTSD. In the following month and years to follow, I began to get serious panic attacks and struggled with Anxiety and Depression daily. I was given antidepressants and even Xanax by 12 years old.
As a teen I never learned to cope with those traumas. Instead I found ways to hide from them. By this time I knew that I was gay yet everything I was taught told me that I was nothing more than a sinner and that there was something wrong with me. As someone devoted and raised in the church this was so hard for me. I often asked myself, “Why couldn’t God love me for me? If God couldn’t then who would?” I became even more of a “people pleaser” as I learned to mask my true self in order to keep others happy. I struggled with myself image and was very suicidal until I became a teen mom at 18, married and became a mom again then again at 19, and 21 and divorced by 22. Although having children at a young age was a struggle I can honestly say that they saved my life as they became my reason for pushing through. During this time my father passed away by suicide on April 1, 2005. Although this was a dark time in my life it helped me realize that I never wanted to put my family through this pain again. I began therapy and learning how to cope but I still had a lot to learn.
As an adult I found myself repeating many of the generational traumas that my ancestors passed down before me such as Toxic and Abusive Relationships, Addiction, and Abandonment. As a single mother, I found myself struggling to live with Chronic Pain and Mental Health. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, Endometriosis, Gastroparesis, Psoriatic arthritis, Diabetes, constant migraines combined with a diagnosis of Bipolar, CPTSD, Anxiety, Depression bringing back the suicidal thoughts. At the time there was not a lot of information for these diagnosis and to be honest if there was I was to busy to even look. I believed in my Doctors, did what they said, and basically became a human test subject.
I tried to keep busy by taking care of my children and everyone else before myself.
I spent 20+ years as a member and working for the Seventh Day Adventist church before leaving the religion in 2016. I have served as a youth director, church secretary, translator and teacher since my teenage years. In my early adulthood, I moved to Pennsylvania to start a Youth Ministry. I was also the secretary of the Motorcycle Ministry for a short time. I worked in a private school as a Teachers’ and Vice Principle’s’ Aid and then a Principal’s Secretary and would Teach at the schools summer camp. Needless to say I was heavily involved until I began to read the scriptures for myself and became obsessed with finding the truth and my purpose.
Before my late 20s, I had had a total of 11 surgeries and had been on many prescription medications. I remember having 13 prescriptions at one time to be exact. Some for the physical pain, some for the mental,and even some to cover up the side effects of the medications. Nothing worked. I became addicted to the “medicine” given to me by the doctors that swore to protect my life. The medications numbed the pain, thoughts, and feeling and somehow made everything worse. I’d get all the bad side effects, and began to just not care anymore.I began to get seizures, kidney infections and stones, and so much more. I have been seen by many specialists since I first got sick and still they are never was able to find an answers. I found myself stuck in the same situation for years. It especially affected the way I saw myself. I was full of guilt, hate, anger, self pity, confusion, and sadness. I felt alone and misunderstood by the world and the people that I loved. Invisible illness is even harder to deal with because no one believes you are sick, sometimes including your own doctors. I actually had a doctor apologize to me after surgery stating that they didn’t think I was that sick until they saw me from the inside out. You look normal and no one case the turmoil inside you. This is what led my 2nd divorce. I was abandoned and left homeless with my 3 kids in a different state, leaving me to go back home to NJ and start over.
This caused my depression and Anxiety to grow. My bipolar was out of control and I’d have many manic episodes where I’d put myself at risk. I had no idea as to what was going on with me.If felt as though I lived outside of my body and just watched myself get into these situations. I was a mess.
After that, my mental and physical health declined. My body couldn’t keep up with the demands of being a mother and providing for my children on my own. The pain grew stronger with the addiction to prescription narcotics. Still I didn’t realize it was a problem because they were prescribed by my doctors. I began to make bad decisions and had many people take advantage of my situation. I began taking extra pills to get by and mixing it with alcohol. I kept it hidden as I isolated myself and masked all my issues. I started attracting to myself what I believed in myself. I remarried, but this time to a narcissistic heroine addict. I was very naïve and believed that I could help him change with religion. I was so busy saving him I forgot to take care of myself. Until the situation got so bad that I had to make changes. He went to rehab and got sober. When he did I began to look for ways to help him but as I did I realized I was the one with the problem. How could I help him and not myself. My children deserved better. So One day, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I needed change and I knew it. In 2016, due to my declining health and issues with the medications, I stopped taking narcotic and went through the worst withdrawal of my life. I began pool therapy and even started seeing a trauma therapist. I still took some pain relievers but I turned mostly to natural medicines and practices. I slowly started a journey toward recovery by adding more natural medicines to my routine, less prescriptions, and a better diet but i was still dealing with a lot of pain.
In 2018, my health was slowly getting better but my mental health was declining, I knew I had to do more to save myself from the life I had created. so I stopped taking prescriptions all together. That’s when I found the power of Water healing and Spiritual baths to help relieve the pain. I was determined to change my life Stopping the medications was something that I never thought I could accomplish. Once I did that, I knew that I had the power to change my life in more profound ways, but it had to start with me.
2019 changed my life, after years of the same cycles I finally broke free. I remember I was visiting California for my cousins wedding. It was the first time I had traveled alone in a long time. I didn’t even realize how overwhelmed I had been. Until, I was sitting on the beach looking out into the ocean and I heard a clear voice say, “What are you doing with your life?” As i contemplated that question I felt a sadness that turned into strength. I knew I was miserable with my own life and had to find healing. It was as though my soul was begging me for change. In that moment for the first time in a long time I made myself a promise to never give up on finding my peace and happiness and to always live in my truth. By the end of that year I faced my 3rd divorce and came out of the closet just days before Covid 19 at 35 years old. There I was starting over again but this time I had this powerful inner calling to heal naturally and find my purpose.
I spent my time in isolation homeschooling my kids and educating myself on what healing was and why I needed it so badly. I knew that it was my faith getting me through it all one day at a time. My love for Reiki came after years of really struggling to understand what I was going through. Times were hard for everyone and I found myself with a lot of alone time to start really looking at myself and who I was becoming. I had to isolate with my children due to being autoimmune compromised. Still, I contracted Covid-19 for the first time in October 2020. I had to isolate in a bedroom for 14 days leaving me with plenty of time to figure out what i was going to do with my life, if i Survived!
I used this time to begin journaling again, practiced natural remedies to help me get better, and I began to use YouTube meditate as a way of calming down my anxiety. I felt as though Covid-19 had given me a rare chance to look deep within my own life and figure out who I really was and my purpose. I decided to dedicate my life to learning everything I could about healing.
In January 2021, my Apa (grandfather) caught Covid at 98 years old. Apa was a prayer warrior. As I sat by his bedside and watched his health decline my Apa taught me the most valuable lesson. He taught me how to stay grateful, even in the hard times. Everyday we would pray together and sing his favorite hymns bringing us peace in such a hard moment. Apa made me promise that I would continue to always pray for the family just as he had done my whole life. During this time I learned to relay heavily on my faith. Apa passed on to me the ability to see the light in the darkness even when the world couldn’t see it. Unknowingly Apa was preparing me for what was to come.
April 2021, just as I thought Life was beginning to get easier. I was still mourning but Apa’s strength helped me get by. I began working fulltime and really was feeling better. Then the eldest child caught Covid19 causing brain swelling leaving us isolated to a hospital room for 17 days with no answers. I was afraid for their life yet I can honestly say that faith brought us through. The stress had a major impact on my body but my mind was still strong. Then in June 2021, Life took another turn when I fractured my Spine and Arm in a accident. The pain that I felt coupled with the depression, challenged all of the progress I had made in my sobriety and my health. I had a choice, I could go backwards and put my recovery at risk or I could choose to continue my work with Reiki Meditation and Holistic Healing.
Since then I continued my education and became an Ordained Minister and Reiki Master. I became an advocate and I’ve poured my heart and soul into creating Naty H.E.A.L.S. as a way to create a community that is safe, loved, and protected. A place were we can talk about these things without judgement and learn new ways to heal. I learned that it was my traumas that were holding me back from the life that I had always dreamed of. Letting go set me free. I’ve learned so much but the most important lesson was that all that trauma i endured was stuck in my body as negative, low vibrational energy. My body was stuck in fight or flight mode and I was highly sensitive to the world around me. I began seeing my “gifts” for what they were and learning how to use them. I realized that this world needs people to stand up and say, ” I got this !” and created the changed that we need to see in order to keep healing. I stopped doubting my worth and realized that I was a Divinely Created Soul. I learned how to change the energy into Positive energy and change the way I saw myself and my life. I had found my passion and purpose.
Here we are in 2023, I’m not perfect but I am super humbled by the experiences the Universe has gifted me. My life is full of Fun, Love and Abundance. In learning to love me, I opened myself to new experiences and many blessings. I moved to Maryland and married my Amazing Wife, Tosh, 2/22/22. I finished school and started this business. I even began to write my first book. Life isn’t perfect however I have found my peace in the pain.
I am no longer trying, I am doing!!! I am human just like you. I know that if this humble soul can find healing then so can you. Remember ALL healing is Self Healing. I’m just here to teach you how to find your way and give you the tools you need to be successful. I am excited to be here to give all the love and support I wish I had back then because I know it makes a difference.
Let’s heal together 🤍✨🦋
Los Amo,
~Naty
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
30 Amazing things to do in Puerto Rico: Pocket Guide to your Dream Vacation with activities from FREE to $20 was inspired by my love of my fathers birthland and the location of my dream honeymoon.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
A fish named Thomas helps me.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Foders for now.
What are you working on now?
I’m Tryinnnn! Is a book about how I healed and thrive after lifelong chronic pain and addiction. And surviving a cult.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
www.natyheals.com
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Keep pushing – baby steps is perfect.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
None of us have the answer
What are you reading now?
SURVIVING THE EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE PARENT: An Adult’s Modern Guide to Understanding, Healing & Breaking Free From Difficult Parents, and Becoming a Better Parent to Your Child.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I plan to continue the healing from Chronic Pain series with more advanced techniques and breakthroughs.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Toltec Words Of Wisdom Coloring Book and 30 Amazing things to do in Puerto Rico: Pocket Guide to your Dream Vacation with activities from FREE to $20 of course so I could dream of what to do when I escape.
Author Websites and Profiles
Natalia Martinez Amazon Profile
Natalia Martinez’s Social Media Links