Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gabriela Pazmino. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Gabriela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most important project of my life is developing right now. When I look back, my life did a 360 degree turn. Several years ago, I was a girl who could not find her purpose and even less a career that I was passionate about. I must say that I went to university to study economics, I saw how my classmates enjoyed and were passionate about this career and for several years on that path I felt lost. My nationality is Ecuadorian and I come from a country where makeup, special effects and production makeup are not recognized, developed, or paid like here in the United States. I had the great blessing of being able to study here and specialize in one of the best schools in this Country. But the most important thing of all is that I found what I would call the best project of my life. While I was developing in this career, while many doors were opened, there was something that always turned out to be of my attention. It did not matter the social class, the race, the culture, the past or the present, or age of each woman who has passed by my chair when doing their makeup, because they all have something in common, and is that we all come or have a need , we have a story to tell, we have challenges, discouragements, frustrations, defeats, triumphs, joys, dreams and that we do not know how to channel many times, but without a doubt we have allowed them to define us, and even more so that the world defines us according to what they can externally see or perceive of us.

My greatest passion is to watch those women, each one being unique, with their features, their unique and unrepeatable features, sitting down in my chair and after going through the entire process where I take the time to show each one the method, the necessary product, the way to apply it, I see the more self-confident each one of them stands up, let their hair down, look at themselves and feel the better whether their day is dark or their life is bright. For me, makeup is a door to enhance what was already given to us when each human being and when each woman was created.
The purpose in my life and in my career is not to cover up or transform a woman’s natural features, the same that define each of them, which makes each one unique, but to be able to transform women from the heart, from love, and there is only one person who can do that, and is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. My work would not be the same if I did not have HIS love in me. If I hadn’t been touched by his LOVE. I was a woman who wanted to live with the stereotypes that are fine for everyone, for the rest of people, that the world admires. I studied a career that never fulfilled me, but that I continued because for the society where I lived, because it was seen as good for a woman to study something like that, because for my family that was a good option, with that career my future was “safe” . Because the job i got with my background in Economics at the young age of 20 to 25 years old was in oil and petroleum companies. But when I decided to follow my heart, when I decided to listen to the talents that God had given me, my life changed. And this project of my life is in itself the Ministry that I see myself forming, I want to take makeup to a deeper level, not where the most perfect and symmetrical faces are advertising and what actually attracts, but take makeup as a tool to discover ourselves, to discover that each feature was thought from the beginning of the creation of the world and that each woman can find the purpose of her life. We all have desires, dreams, longings, but many times we put all that aside because we stop seeing ourselves with the identity that corresponds to us to look at, which is that of a daughter or son of God and we look with a lens to cover, cover up, imitate or give up what we are, to fit in. To most of the time make people happy, forgetting about what really matters.
This is the greatest purpose and project of my career. And to each woman, to each person that I have sat in my chair, I dedicate this, and to all those who will come, because each one has a special shine, a true story, real scars that can be transformed into the best trip of their lives. . I gave myself that opportunity and I feel it was a blessing and now it is up to me to be a blessing to others. Because true love shares, drives, renews and cleanses.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

First, I think it has taken me several years to be able to speak openly about those things that come into one’s life to make us uncomfortable, but at the same time, make us wake up and make us evaluate where we are or where we can end with those habits or decisions that didn’t make us happy, or that were wrong, but that we kept doing because human beings are like that. Sometimes we do not have enough courage to turn our lives around and although deep down we are not happy, we are not able to face ourselves to take the first step. Several years ago I was diagnosed with depression. At first it was a word that scared me, but on the other hand there came a time when I knew I needed help and I needed to give my life a new direction.
This great project of my life is not by chance, my purpose in life is not by chance either. In reality, it is the fruit of an encounter with God.

I took strong pills for several months, for migraines, anxiety and depression, but in this valley of pain, a great light was to start studying makeup. This was my passion and as I spent all my study time at the makeup school I realized that it was not only my passion, but because of my true talent many doors were opened, but I must emphasize that many times I still had to look for and knock on doors, trying hard, at first even accepting free jobs, but the reward always came.

I was one of the best graduates of the program and that is why my same instructors gave me opportunities to start my jobs and make contacts in the world of makeup and special effects and that’s how this path began.
Makeup took me to a new reality that I didn’t know about myself. I was able to see that I can set goals that give me peace, I was able to achieve my dream, I was able to see myself now as a woman who can have a great future, but at the same time fulfilling a dream.
I was able to show myself that having depression, that having anxiety or some emotional disorder is not a limitation, rather it was a turning point in my life, and that it was worth it, because it was a gift from God, to tell me that I was created for something greater than I myself could imagine.

Years have passed since the beginning of this beautiful career and today I work with two wonderful makeup brands, but as I said in the first question, in all these years, I cannot name or list all the women I have seen, that I have been able to work on their faces, on their skin, but each one of them has been a gift to understand and reaffirm that there is a bigger plan than I could have imagined.

Today I am here writing and saying that every day I have the opportunity to work on women, but in an integral way, helping them to look more beautiful, it is true, but in reality to see their true inner beauty, true beauty through their effort, of the great families they have formed, of the health battles they have fought and have emerged victorious, through self-acceptance, through techniques where they feel satisfied with who they are and above all things understand that our identity does not give us the world, the stereotypes of beauty established by marketing or industries, but by the true value of your heart, your faith, your hope and your opportunity to look at yourself through Jesus.
In these years I have realized that many women have gone through or are going through problems of depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction with our bodies, but my life was also touched, I gave myself the opportunity to take a step to get closer to Him, and so then I discovered that my life took on meaning and purpose. And it really surprised me! This path is a blessing, to be a blessing to others.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the way I used to look at myself. I had to rethink priorities, I had to look past the pain, not through it. I had to allow myself to feel without often earning the blame. I had to unlearn to look at myself as others wanted me to see myself.
I was always a very friendly woman, supposedly I believed that I was very sure of myself, or so I always showed it.
In fact, if friends from my childhood and youth read this article, I know they will agree with me, but in reality I had to unlearn to be the one who covered up their feelings or affections in various areas. I had to learn to remove those things that were under the table and that I left them for later because deep down I didn’t want to face them.
And how good it feels to break free, how good it feels to follow dreams, how good it feels to be able to tell this story now. How good it feels to be so sure of who I am, that now I can understand, for example, that if I want to look good, I don’t have to be the skinny woman who only eats salads. I had to unlearn that, I had to understand that I want to be strong because I have a wonderful husband and children whom I want to enjoy forever and a career that allowed me to find God’s plan for my life.
Is deprogramming myself to become better

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Well, actually yes, if we talk about the word pivot in basketball, then you must have one foot anchored and with the other you can move or dodge, or pass the other partner. And when I think about this specific play, my anchor in this whole process has of course been God, but here on earth my three most precious treasures for me. My husband and my two small children ages 8 and 6.

They have been the starting motor, they have been the ones who have supported the long nights of work, filming, they have been the ones who have helped me when I needed it most, the ones who have encouraged me the most and the ones who have believed in me the most throughout this wonderful stage that I have told you about today. Without them my life would not be complete, and although it is true I am not in a basketball game, but I am in this place called planet Earth and they are the ones who maintain my balance in all this. And for the rest, being a mother, a wife, a professional is a great game of times, of priorities, of also finding rest and quality time, but in itself it is the best of the stages of my life and pivoting with them brings everything more sense and fun.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @gabrielapazminoartistry
• Linkedin: Gabriela Pazmino