Reflections on Relationships: Keys to Building Strong Bridges. A December morning and the word that defines my year

What achievements this year are you proud of?

If you could repeat just one thing you did this year, what would it be?

What was the most difficult thing for you this year?

What are your greatest expectations for next year?

Who would you like to spend more time with next year?

If you could say thank you to someone, who would it be and why?

As I listened to the answers, I thought about what my own answers would have been, and, by some mystery of the human mind, the word that kept coming to mind was "relationships." According to my restless mind, these questions could be answered within the framework of that word:

Proud of something I have achieved? My relationship with this or that…

Something to repeat? My relationship with…

The most difficult thing? My relationship with…

Most exciting? My relationship with…

No matter what my answer was accompanied by: the name of a person, an article, an object, a place, a group, a moment, or the name of a furry pet (my Achille!)… In the end, it was always about a relationship, an intimate relationship born of my willingness to open up.

For a peculiar reason — which I like to call "destiny" — these last two years I have ended up, during the Christmas break, reading a book by Irvin D. Yalom. Last year I was captivated by "The Spinoza Problem" and this year it was the turn of "The Hour of the Heart."

Its introduction, what a coincidence, states, "People long for closer and better relationships. The keys to developing these rich relationships are the ability and willingness to open up, to share intimate spaces with others. This may seem simple enough, but the vast majority of intimacy involves vulnerability: we cannot expect a friend, family member, or partner to open up to us if we are not willing to do the same with them."

And he emphasizes: Intimacy, "I do not use this term to refer to any sexual or physical component, although that is its common use in today's culture. I am referring rather to closeness, affection, familiarity, any expression that may indicate a warm and tender openness of one person toward another."

One of those answers that my mind had been working out in such a uniform framework became clear one rainy day in Milan, during that magical Christmas season. I was in an old, very elegant bar on one of the shopping streets of that rainy, gray Milan. I don't miss waiting in line to get into a place, but something about that wonderful bar attracted me, and I didn't mind waiting for a table because never, not even in Vienna itself, had I eaten a Sacher cake like the one I had that afternoon of Christmas hysteria. The Sacher cake and green tea were my companions for, I think, about two hours. The three of us, Miss Sacher, Miss Green Tea, and I, were spectators of a magnificent play. We were so happy experiencing the colorful relationships that were created and dissolved in the space that we didn't want that afternoon break to end (Miss Sacher finished before the two of us).

Everything unfolded with a charming dynamic: someone came in for their Christmas dessert reservations, another sat down with their coworkers, someone else opened a present. There were those who laughed with their partners, those who talked to their mothers, those who served the tables, those who paid…and those who, like me, were alone. Relationships! My word for 2025… "the keys to developing these rich relationships are the ability and willingness to open up…" and in that spectacle that is life, it happened that I too could enter the scene. My table neighbor spoke to me. My vulnerability at that moment (and I think his too) was associated with being alone in a place full of strangers, but a conversation arose, thanks to both of our willingness to show our vulnerabilities. It seems out of place to talk about intimacy in such a context, but yes, it was an intimate "relationship," in terms of emotional closeness and openness, with a person I was seeing for the first time in my life, and that, I repeat, because I was in a position to open up and, I might add, without expecting anything in return.

I also connected this end-of-year reflection with my work and the way I relate to the people I meet in my work and professional sphere.

The company I founded 14 years ago is named after my initials, which also form — without the final accent — a word we use informally in Spanish to answer the phone: "¿aló?" For me, ALO is a bridge between cultures, ideas, and countries; an ambitious aspiration, certainly, but one that I find reflected in the vision of one of my favorite authors in my personal library, James Hillman: my daimon, that inner architect who loves to build bridges.

If I apply the key to developing truly rich relationships — something I consider essential as an entrepreneur to carry out large-scale projects with a significant impact, not only economically, but above all humanely and ecologically — I understand that it is essential to recognize my own vulnerabilities. And not only recognize them, as they appear so naturally that they walk beside me every day, but also be willing to embrace them as the key that allows my relationships to be authentic, constructive, and profound.

As 2025 draws to a close, I realize for the first time that hiding my vulnerabilities, or rather, being vulnerable, is my key to connecting with other living beings (and I mean connections not only with humans) and that opening up naturally allows me to create solid foundations for those bridges of connection, the result of the inner fire that my daimon wants and pushes me to yearn for.

Of all the intimate relationships that I treasure from 2025, I would highlight the one I established with an indigenous leader from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta community in Colombia. From that human connection, I take away two wonderful messages: one that speaks of true forgiveness and another of respect for the rhythms of nature and human beings:

I was in Colombia the morning I first met a member of the Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada, and the news of Pope Bergoglio's death was spreading around the world. When they welcomed me to begin our ascent to the Sierra, one of the indigenous people said to me, "The Pope has died." Out of respect for them and their beliefs, I limited myself to saying, "Yes, in Rome we are very sad," to which he replied, "Everyone, we are all very sad." You can imagine what that "everyone" means to a Colombian indigenous person who knows the horrors his community experienced as a result of the imposition of the Catholic faith during the conquest. But he said, "Everyone!" And he said it with such tenderness! "Any expression that may indicate a warm and tender openness of one person toward another"… Opening up is the intimacy that Yalom talks about, and indeed, an enriching relationship began between this unique and wonderful being and me.

In that magical place I discovered in 2025 in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, I was sharing some "intentions" for joint work with its inhabitants, my company, and an Italian partner. At one point, I was with my colleague and friend, an engineer, and another member of my team who is an expert in agroecology. We were very eager to present our "intentions" to the leader of that community, but we were also eager to go to the river that runs through that rich basin of land, vegetation, and beauty. While we were deciding whether it was more important to go to the river or talk to the leader, he himself (who had been watching us closely) signaled us with his hands to go to the river. We ran towards the river like kindergarten children being called to recess. There we received all the power of the Sierra. The icy water that flowed down from the snow-capped mountain and ran over our bodies purified us of everything we no longer needed and continued to flow down with a murmur flooded with bubbles and Caribbean sunshine.

When we finally returned to the sacred place where the leader was waiting for us, after telling us stories full of meaning and love, he said to us with eyes shining with wisdom and humility, "If, when you were debating between going to the river or talking to me, I had told you to go to the river and then talk to me, you would not have truly felt or seen the river because your minds would have been thinking about what you were going to say to me, present to me, or tell me. And if I had told you to meet with me at that moment, your minds would have been thinking about how wonderful it would be to go to the river, and you would not have been truly with me. Now, instead, you are here, and your minds are here with me, with this place. Again, "warm and tender openness of one person toward another"…

Thank you, Yalom, Jack, Ruperto, and, of course, James Hillman, for accompanying me on this journey and reinforcing my conviction: relationships built on vulnerability and openness are the true treasure I take away from this year and the key to the future. As 2025 comes to a close, I wish you all a new year filled with authentic relationships, solid bridges, and much openness of heart.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Andrea Londoño Osorio