Joy

Happy Monday! I am biased for experiences, for touch, for connection. There are things about the virtual world that does not resonate with me: 1. I cannot learn virtually.  I like to listen, do, see - and then I learn. 2. I could not consider Virtual Realities to be tours. 3. I am not satisfied with online e-meet ups. I lose focus and could not connect. 4. I want to feel interaction and sense how the person in front of me changes facial expression, color, temperature and energy when I connect with them.  5. I am not comfortable ordering food online. This has always been delegated to my sister ever since. I am doomed in the new normal. Guess what? Like many others like me, I have no choice   to MAKE A CHOICE. I have to adopt to low touch point lifestyle and make do with it.  I keep in mind that the fundamentals remain the same.  A mental shift is in order. 1. I not only learn virtually, I also have to teach in the virtual space. 2. Expe...

Happy Monday! How are you? Do you get this question from your friends nowadays? Suddenly you stop on your tracks (drop whatever is keeping you busy and sane and fighting and "oK") and sit down to reply? I never thought that this simple "How are you?" we throw in at the end of every greeting with any person we say hi to on the streets would mean so much. How are you? These three words tell me someone remembered, someone cared to ask. They tell me that I am not really "solo" and that I am at this moment going to connect to someone else, far away, but nonetheless near at heart. How are you? Sometimes, it also forces me to ask..."How am I?" Ok pa ba ako? Admittedly, I dealt with this quarantine through a flurry of webinars, watching videos and news, connecting people for a response, working even. I am busy. My mind keeps working. My social media accounts have never been busier. But, am I ok? I do have...

Happy Easter Monday! "I will give you a joy that no one can take away from you." John 16:22 It is natural that we are protective of what we have: our family, our business, our money, our reputation, our health, our ideas, our memories. Our ongoing period on quarantine may have highlighted our "protectiveness" over one or many of these things in various ways. The more protective we are, the more we hold on, the more anxious we become. It is but fitting that this quarantine period also happened during lent...where we reflect on a great loss...that leads us to the anticipation of our greatest gain! Lent reminds us that we really cannot hold on to anything. Let me rephrase that. Lent reminds us that we NEED NOT hold on to anything simply because we can't. It is important that we become good stewards of what we are given, but that we are also prepared to render it back to the Master when needed. In the midst of all that, the source...

Happy Monday! No doubt, this quarantine is a mental battle. It is so easy to fall in a negative mental state. Sign #1: You'd want me to stop saying Happy Monday. Sign #2: You think that would solve anything. First of all, let me virtually hug you. What you are feeling is valid and you have every reason to be worried. Everything we know is certain no longer feels certain. You are thinking about your job, your finances, your responsibilities, your productivity, your family and their health most of all. You and I are no different here. I hug you in unity because I feel that way too. I apologize if it seems that my positivity is toxic. People who know me most knows how much of a worrier I am and I have to catch myself many times in a day to keep me from being myself. Which brings me to my second point. I refuse to feel helpless and overwhelmed by incubating negative thoughts. Why? 🎯  I'd feed fear and it grows, resulting to panic that clouds my judgment. 🎯  Anxiety...

Happy Monday! Be a role model. You know how we can beat this "new normal"? Model the behavior you'd want to see from your leaders, trusted friends, business leaders, mentors. Be a role model. We are all afraid, anxious, uncertain. Its natural and understandable. Accept it and courageously collect yourself (spend time in prayer and talking to positive people to give you a different perspective) and move. Yes, action is the antidote to stress. When we do something about the things we worry about, we release stress. How? In this lockdown? 1. Act with presence of mind, especially among your kids. Communicate the situation but communicate plan of action. Involve them in planning your meals, in strategizing for safety and sanitation, budgeting, planning daily activities to make their time productive. 2. Engage in online efforts to bring help to those who need us the most: our frontliners, the homeless, those who are out of work and source of income. There ar...

Happy Monday! I have been dreading to write that line all week at the risk of sounding insensitive. Yet, here I am declaring it. Just because...we find what we seek. Though it is easier to wallow in uncertainties, we can be the better person who labor to climb up the ditch and seek to "make sense" of all that is happening around. Sense-making is one requirement of resilience. It is inherent in sense-making though, that we recognize that not everything will make sense now, but it will in the future. Meanwhile, what do we do? 1. Be present in the experience. Be aware of your thought processes, your feelings, your decisions. From what feeling (fear, hope, anger, love) are you operating on? How are your decisions affecting you and the people around you? Every experience teaches us a lesson. Pay attention or you'd have to learn it again. 2. Define who you are in the situation. We may not have control over the situation, but if we are aware, we know that our resp...

Happy Monday! Don't we all want to have a super power? One of my elementary friends once told me, "Matanda ka na nung mga bata pa tayo eh". That is true. I always felt I was an overthinker even then. I feel deeply. I ruminate on events to sap it out of its essence. I always want to make sense of what is happening around me. I want to know what is important in them and keep only that. Not always a good thing but it is what it is. Why? Because I know pain. I know my pain is not known to many. I have wounds I do not show. I own them. I treasure them. Its my secret power to bear them. I look at others and I say to myself, "they don't know how strong I actually am just to stand here smiling." My wounds don't make me weak. They are my gifts. They made me who I am. They make me look at myself everyday and say "Not everyone can look at themselves in the mirror, flawed physically, emotionally and spiritually and live as you do, way to go gi...