Today we’d like to introduce you to Kara Worrells-Gutiérrez.
Hi Kara, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
There’s a Mariana Trench to dive into about how I got started and how I got to where I’m at today as a community leader, creative, and small business owner.
With consideration to keeping it brief: I began my life’s work with creative and leadership pursuits. I naturally take initiative, create art, and am dedicated to service. Collaborating with organizations and other individuals who align with my principles and goals significantly maximized my sense of connection and fulfillment with the work.
Currently, I’m doing what I can when I can and have the possibility to do so, but I’m immensely strained, both physically and mentally. I’ve mainly been at work utilizing all of my strength and coping mechanisms to preserve my health—for my dog who is my ESA, for others, and for myself—and am beyond burnt out.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Envision my road as a highway in San Diego County that’s perpetually under construction. (I believe that will resonate with many others reading this regardless of if they live here.)
Some parts along the way have been smooth; some parts obligated to detours; some parts in horrible conditions that require(d) endurance to get through; some parts with obstructions that have caused damage during the effort to go around them, avoid altogether, or deal with head on if neither the previous two were/are options.
The smooth parts have consisted of work that was started and finished within the designated timeframe, whether in solitude or socially.
The efficacy of various works’ completion was affected, though not solely, by interdependence; unshrouded communication; respect; wellness; care; grit; healthy boundaries; ethical and functional environments with a culture of intolerance towards hate, mistreatment, abuse, and corruption; accountability; and enjoyment. The rough parts have consisted of the opposite, with more as well.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Sure thing. My professional life is pulled towards leadership and service that has been refined by interconnected careers that I built “officially” 10 years ago. I’m a multifaceted expert in copyediting, proofreading, copywriting, translating, education, department management, news editorship, business management, (art) activism and advocacy, volunteering, public speaking, and more. I think diagonally—not only vertically or horizontally—so it’s challenging for me to choose only one part of my work as an entrepreneur, professional, employee, supervisor, and artivist@ that I’m most proud of.
I love all of the work I’ve done.
From being chosen to have some of my poetry published in a variety of journals—The Foundationalist, LUCID First-Gen, and Inlandia—as well as aloud at “Arte as Resistance” organized by Yahaira Murillo, to participating at open mics at my Alma Mater and Queen Bee’s in North Park. As well as submitting part of a poem I wrote and recorded for Xitlali Tejeda and Yolanda Perez for a petition organized by Flor Zaragoza, and teaching a poetry class for a mental wellness workshop series by Outside the Box, founded by Janeane Bernstein.
I conducted interviews for my brief KUCI News podcast contributor series, “We the People,” (that also aired on my music show, “The Vault”), and the wonderful individuals who shared their time, energy, and selves; including Irishia Hubbard Romaine who spoke with me for my podcast segment, “OC Arts.”
Being chosen by Chingona Soles, founded by Tania Torres, to be one of the artists to design a stiletto for their auction—which gave 100% of the proceeds to support the Black Girl Brown Girl Collective—offered me the chance to further celebrate my culture and identity.
My volunteer work for KUCI 88.9FM, Radio Santa Ana, the Western Service Workers Association, ASCENDtials, and El Centro Cultural de La Raza are also meaningful to me.
That’s only a splash off the surface of what is the Mariana Trench that I mentioned earlier.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Other people can work and collaborate with me by contacting me via LinkedIn or email, which can be found on my art site, to inquire as to whether or not I am available to do so. If you don’t receive a response after a week, know that I will get back to you as soon as I have the ability to do so. I also only work with organizations and individuals whose values, standards, and non-negotiables align with my own.
You can support me by unconditionally uplifting my work and I with actual sincerity, maturity, honesty, and mindfulness (to state some ways). You can also support my work and I by participating in the work of self-betterment that’s tied to communal betterment.
Unsupportiveness includes maladaptive, dysfunctional, wrongful, toxic behaviors and interpersonal dynamics; imposing; feigning; gaslighting; stalking; doxing; and breaches of confidentiality.
Not everyone, but 99.9% of people who come across me recognize me and know of me, speaking on me with malice and hate speech, taking their own baggage out on me, or making remarks to provoke me. The targeted treatment I’ve received has been poisonous, laced with double-downing on fallacies, and it’s something I muscle day-in and day-out.
All things considered in the United States and across the globe—especially since before, during, and more intensely since these last five years after the COVID-19 Pandemic ended—we’re still in a mental illness pandemic that’s systemically operating on various forms of violence and insanity from the top-down.
I’m grateful for you if you’re part of the 0.1% who haven’t treated me like a zoo animal and haven’t participated in the exploitation, bigotry and other forms of hate, projections, mockery, bystanding, and corruption against me—even if and when it’s not personal. If you have in the past and you’ve completely stopped, I appreciate the change and hope it’s from a place of self-reflection and integrity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kworrells19.wixsite.com/madretierra
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kara-w-53091a210/
