She is part of one of the controlling families of Falabella. But Teresa Solari’s eldest daughter says it has taken many years of searching for her own path. Of overcoming low self-esteem and no longer feeling like a black sheep. At 33, she experienced an event that confronted her with deep questions. From then on, she acknowledges, there is a before and an after in her life. One of those changes was her dedication to nature conservation through Filantropía Cortés Solari (FCS). Here, in her most intimate interview, she explains this entire journey.

“That is where my life became distorted.” Francisca Cortés Solari—member of one of the controlling families of Falabella, philanthropist, head of the Meri and Caserta foundations—utters this phrase to refer to the exact moment she sees as a breaking point. It happened when she was 33 years old, more than two decades ago. “Until then, I couldn’t see anything,” she comments.

Teresa Solari’s eldest daughter is seated at the desk of her home high up in Santiago. She is here now, but she also divides her time between Madrid, Miami, and Uruguay.

She sips coffee. She is surrounded by work folders from her foundations, gathered under Filantropía Cortés Solari (FCS) and focused on education in contact with nature, conservation, and the care of the more than 16,000 hectares spread across three reserves: San Pedro de Atacama, San José de Maipo, and Melimoyu in Patagonia.

Around her there are also books, fresh flowers, an altar displaying small flags with Tibetan mantras, and a painting done by her grandmother, Eliana Falabella, who—she will later share—was very influential in her life. On her right forearm, Francisca has a tattoo of the flower of life, composed of 19 identical, overlapping, and interconnected circles, which symbolizes the interconnectedness of everything in the universe.

She gives few interviews and they are to explain her work, which has garnered recognitions such as being the only Latin American named a Guardian of Nature by the IUCN. But this July morning, she is animated by a more personal conversation. Childhood memories, an adolescence with low self-esteem, the persistent search for her own path in the midst of a well-known family, overcoming challenges, questioning. And of course, that breaking point that changed everything for her. “My life has been marked by personal development, by working on myself. It’s the first step if you want to work with others.”

The Embarrassment

– What was your relationship like with your grandparents Alberto Solari and Eliana Falabella? What memories do you have?

– My grandfather died young, I have few memories. I used to go to the Alameda and I always saw him working in his office. I remember him as a tall, very handsome, very gentlemanly man. With that look of good men.

I felt admiration for him. He was very austere. He always bought the same color cars. I did the same in my life; my cars are always gray. My grandparents were separated, and I remember that on Tuesdays the whole family would get together for lunch with my grandmother; Italian food. My grandmother was much more of a main character in my life.

– Why?

– She lived longer, she died in 1998. Also, we lived next door to my grandmother Eliana: there was her house, my aunt Icha’s (María Luisa Solari) house, and ours. So I went to her house very frequently. I have many memories. At her house in Lo Beltrán she had fruit trees, plum trees, apricot trees, and orange trees. An orchard with lemons. My grandmother painted; she had a studio in her house. Look, that painting behind me was made by my grandmother.

Then Francisca turns around and points to a large painting, featuring a central female figure with a deer face and surrounded by other animals. It looks very modern for the time it was painted. And she continues: “My grandmother was an eccentric woman, she traveled a lot, she had friends all over the world. She played pool, she smoked. A great, powerful woman. Many of the books I have here belonged to her. She was cultured, she spoke languages. She found her happiness on an island in Polynesia; she split her time between Chile and there, where she walked barefoot, wore a tunic, and went to the sea. She used to invite the whole family. When I was 10 years old my grandmother took me to Polynesia. And upon returning I went to an Opus [Dei] school; imagine the two worlds I was living in.

– How did you get along with your parents?

– One must discover the path they bring with them. That made me discover my grandparents, my father, my mother. And I have made many pacts with them and taken on certain commitments. So there are things that suddenly one says: “I get this from my ancestors.” For example, I studied Fashion Design, I was in charge of Benetton and Strelli stores; it was a very intense time. I worked in fashion, just like my ancestor who studied tailoring in Italy and was the one who came to Chile (Salvatore Falabella, Eliana’s grandfather). I did that for a long time, I traveled creating collections.

– For Falabella?

– I worked as a designer in a company that was a supplier for Falabella, but which also had its own independent stores. Personally, I was always very careful about that. When I was little, I was very ashamed.

– What made you ashamed?

– I was ashamed that they would identify me as coming from there (from the family that owns Falabella). It caused me embarrassment.

– Is that why you once said: “It was hard for me to accept that I came from a family with wealth”?

– Exactly, and that took work; that’s why I got into personal development. I had to heal myself for a long time, heal many things, in order to find myself. I built my own self, and that was what differentiated me from the others. I didn’t merge; I made my own self, my own version, my own Francisca. Against all odds.

Black sheep, green sheep

– How difficult was it to find that path of your own?

– I take this on at a time that I have very clear, which for me was a before and after in my life. It was when I was 33 years old. That was my awakening. Something specific happened. I have been in a relationship with my husband (Claudio Israel) for 34, 35 years; and when I met him, he already had four children (together, they have three more). And one day, the oldest of them, Jeremías (a prominent former motorcycle racer), is diagnosed with brain cancer. That is where my life became distorted. It hit me hard, and I said: “What is this?… yesterday we were living a happy life and today we are ruined as a family.” Thank God everything turned out well, but that moment made me ask myself deep questions: why me? Why did Jeremías, at 17, have a tumor in his head? Why was I born into a family with money? Why were others born into vulnerable families?… The first step of transformation is when you begin asking yourself those existential questions, which not even religion could answer for me. That is why I say there is a Francisca before and a Francisca after that.

– What did this new Francisca do?

– Before, I was an ordinary person. But from then on I never was again, because I delved into vital questions. It’s as if a portal had opened. I did many things. In 2000 I began studying ontology of language with (Julio) Olalla. I studied (Rafael) Echeverría. I sought personal development. To nourish myself, to work, to study, to look at myself. I did four years with Daniel Taroppio. I studied with Rebeca Zúñiga, then with Susana Bloch. I always studied Freud, I read Ken Wilber.

– Does this search coincide with your landing in the world of conservation, philanthropy, nature? Did you find an answer there?

– Yes. It started as a personal search. And things just fell into place. In 2002 I created a program for adolescents, Color Esperanza (Color of Hope), which is still active. I loved teaching. In school I did terribly, horribly, but in that program I realized that I did have communication skills, something I hadn’t seen in the 33 years prior. Until then, I couldn’t see anything. I was super shy, I couldn’t stand on a stage, raise a finger to ask a question, I would turn red as a tomato, I would completely freeze up. So, to be where I am, to do all this, there was a lifetime of training. There was a personal job of rebuilding myself, of recognizing myself, which meant working on my self-esteem to recognize who this character to be built is. From 33 onwards was the search for myself. And it has been the most beautiful work I have done in my life.

– Since you already work at such deep levels, the deeper you can reach the other person. As long as I don’t acknowledge my own wound, the vulnerability in myself, I will never be able to work from a place of compassion with someone else. In that 2002 program we went on nature outings, and it was shocking what happened working out there compared to a classroom. Thus in 2003 the Caserta Foundation was born. In 2012, the Meri Foundation.

– You have said that, with the shift to conservation, you went from being a black sheep to a green sheep. Did you really consider yourself a black sheep?

– I say that because since I was a little girl I was hyperkinetic, I had dyslexia, it was like I had it all. If you went to the classroom and looked at the students, I was a problem child, I didn’t fit the mold. I was always on the margins.

The book

– Although the turning point was at 33, it is clear that your personal search had begun earlier. You have said that you always broke the mold… when you were young you even raced in Formula 4.

– Yes. You’re right about that. And there we return to parents. I was born into a family of high-level athletes. My mom was an Olympic runner champion, a Chilean slalom champion. She would go jogging, she trained. Later she also represented the Chilean national golf team. My dad raced in the Sopesur (car races in the 60s and 70s), and also on scooters.

– Did you have a good time as a teenager?

– In my adolescence I struggled to fit in, to integrate. My 15, 16, 17 years… I don’t know if I had such a good time. I do remember that by the time I was 18 I already had the same personality I have now, fast-paced. My brother, a year and a half younger, was super calm. At my 19, 20, 21 there was perhaps a bit of rebellion, which has to do with a search for identity and wanting to detach yourself a little from who you are, where you come from, the history you bring. Getting out of there. I always liked cars and speed, skiing, so I was extreme in all of that. I liked adrenaline.

– Does the public exposure you have today complicate things for you?

– At first, a lot. Even if it didn’t seem like it, I was much more inwardly focused. But at some point there was a decision to embrace the public exposure. Some will look at you well, others will look at you poorly, the arrows come from all sides. But I also choose where to be and where not to be; I take care of myself.

– The thing is, I have it… I have been writing it for many years. I find that the things that have happened to me have been so incredible, I have lived such powerful experiences, like having shared with the native peoples, having done ceremonies with them. The first attempt at writing was when this happened to Jeremías. Then came several other attempts. In the telling, I am remembering and I am sharing. What I am doing now is dividing it into many small stories.

Then Francisca opens her computer and reads some titles of those brief stories: From Caserta to Chile, Mom, Dad, The school, My 33, The sphere, Strange events, Initiation, The labyrinth. “It is supposed to be ready in August,” she says. And she turns to look once more at her grandmother’s painting behind her. “I would like it to be the cover of the book. I call the painting The Deer Woman, look at the antlers on her head. Other deer are below her. She is the priestess. The title of the book could go along those lines: The Path of the Deer Woman.”

– And who also ends up helping others… Your foundations seek that. – Haven’t you thought about writing a book? You have accumulated stories…

---

Author(s): BY PATRICIO DE LA PAZ – PHOTO: VERÓNICA ORTÍZ

Source: Diario Financiero