Joy

Happy Monday! Out into the world we go!  As of this writing, the center of COVID19 cases in the Philippines - Metro Manila is on General Community Quarantine , an eased up version of the Enhanced Community Quarantine we have been in for almost 80 days.   Honestly, I woke up afraid.  I checked the news and my friends posts and easily in the next 5 minutes commented to express my own disappointment to how things are going.   It is so easy to feel anger, disgust, even fear when we find ourselves in the midst of these situations:  not enough government action, an invisible enemy we can get from anyone and anywhere, economies nose diving.   The key word being EASY .   I paused and said: NO, I am not made for easy.  I am made to find how I can deal with this with grace. No matter how hard it is to find positive feelings in the day.  Besides, its MONDAY, my day.  So my call for today is not for you to find a silver lining.  It is not to simply to count your blessings. Not even to keep positiv

Happy Monday! I have been sitting here looking at my laptop and I have nothing. I usually write down topics throughout the week to go back to when it's time to blog, but today I just don't feel like using any of them. Somehow, today, I think I will just let myself be ... for lack of a better word, be BLANK. Breathe in, breath out. Sometimes, this is all we need to do, isn't it? Watch the moment. Feel yourself breathing. Stare at a loved one and appreciate the lines on their face, the glow in their eyes, the joy in their smile.  Listen to conversations and amuse yourself with the sound of your peers voice, the tone of their laughter, the nuances in their speech.  Look at a page and see letters, not words and wonder how they come together and why you understand their meaning. Do something mechanically and repetitious, your senses concentrating on the movement and not the product, the rhythm and not the system. I have nothing today. Breathe in, breath out.

Happy Monday! Did you discover something extraordinary about yourself during the quarantine period? Brace yourself because the real battle is happening/ will happen as we open our doors, step out and brave the new world. I struggled to complete this article today because I can feel the activity milling around me. Although I am not outside braving the streets yet, I received messages, notifications, requests for meetings and things I need to finally face after being cooped up in my little hideaway for the past two months. Honestly, I felt attacked by stimulus and it was unsettling. Welcome World! As I gather myself, I figured out, this IS the real battle.  It is not the many donation drives, prayer brigades, community building we have done in the quarantine period.  The real battle is being out in the open, opening stores, driving through traffic, facing at every step the many changes outside since we were last out. Will I really wear those masks and face shields? Will I

Happy Monday! Are you wearing an emotional PPE? I was watching Brene Brown's special on Netflix yesterday.  This was purely because I was doing my laundry and would like to "watch" something without having to constantly look at the television as I go about my work (so yes, Koreanovela is definitely out). I watched it once before and somehow I felt like I was watching it for the first time. She is so witty, she was bordering on being a standup comedy act half the time.  Maybe that is part of her vulnerability showing - to make fun of situations, even her own. I highly recommend that you watch it.  Her talk on vulnerability actually reminded me of a friend telling me recently that I have an emotional PPE (PPE being such a common word nowadays with these virus).  Specifically, he said I was hard to please, that I do not let my real emotions show easily.  Whew! That was hard to swallow. I fought tooth and nail to explain myself but in the end, as in any

Happy Monday!  What are your dreams made of?  I took this picture a year ago because I wanted to tell myself I achieved something. I dreamt, saved, planned and made it happen.  This is not a photo of a place. This is a photo of a mindset. That whatever you set your heart to can happen.  In a time when we feel like nothing is within our control, because it does seem like that, think again.  We can still control our use of time. We can still control our thoughts and reactions. We can still control who to talk to and network with. We can still control what we read. We can still control how we would like to define ourselves in the process. This is still OUR STORY.  I believe that though acceptance is a necessary first step to facing the unknown, we can only optimize it if we use acceptance to fuel the second necessary step: look deep into your self and find where your strength lies. Identify and USE them.  What are your new dreams? Your new aspirations? Your new goals?