i am woman, hear me rawr!

In as much as dreams terrify me, there are some that simply make so many things so clear to me. In the past two weeks I have been dreaming a whole lot and yes, there were those days wherein I’d wake up with my heart racing and I’d be in tears from such terrible nightmares. Today, however, I took an unexpected nap and had quite an interesting dream.

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow".- Mary Anne Radmacher

In my dream, I woke up to a beautiful day. One that was so perfect for a yoga practice. That morning, I decided to try something new for a change, and so I went somewhere I didn’t really know and allowed myself to face a challenge. I drove to this beautiful place (I don’t know where it is and I don’t really know if it exists in real life). On the way there I was a little apprehensive, mainly because I didn’t know where it was but on the other hand, I was very excited because I was supposed to meet someone when I got there (who, I don’t really know but I felt that I was excited about it). I got there a little early, as I always do whenever I go out to do things and everything went well. When it was time to go home, I was tasked to follow this lady (who strangely seemed to me like Wonder Woman, except for the costume haha) and I had to be attached to her with this string that was wrapped around her waist and then connected to mine. As we walked, I felt that string get heavier and heavier and as we walked, she kept on going faster and faster and I couldn’t keep up. From time to time, I’d lean back so as to pull on the strap that connected us to slow her down and for a bit, she would but then she’d speed up again soon afterward, and she’d go so fast again until I could barely stand up because of the strap between us. And so I pulled and I pulled and I pulled until she turned to me angrily and said what the hell is the problem and I, cowering in fear, only had one word to say…I’m sorry. That got her even more riled up and she asked again what the problem was and why was I pulling her back because she was losing her balance when I’d do so. I tearfully explained that I couldn’t keep up and she looked at the way the strap was connected and said, you know, all you had to do was tell me to slow down and I would have. Suddenly that string that was so heavy and long already suddenly became very short and light. So much so that I didn’t have much to hold on to anymore, but we were still connected. At this time, we walked almost side by side then when I looked up at her, her face had changed…. she wasn’t like Wonder Woman anymore but she was this warm, kind woman, very much like a yoga teacher I once met, who had a beautiful smile and had warmth radiating in her eyes. She no longer looked like that physically strong domineering woman, but neither was she a weak and frail one. And she turned to me and said, remember, sometimes all you need to do is ask. Read the rest of this entry »

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I spent the afternoon at the Ateneo med school and I couldn’t help but wonder where I’d be now if I had pursued my dreams of becoming a doctor, as I originally planned when I stepped foot in college. It’s not that I regret becoming an educator and a psychologist, mind you, but I couldn’t help but think to myself, what if as I sat there watching these students come in and out in their white uniforms and all. It got me to thinking, about how vastly different things would be. Would I be happier and more content, perhaps? Would I feel more fulfilled and sure of myself? Will the questions and uncertainties that all too often gnaw at me nowadays be the same? Will I perhaps be less of the kikay fashionista that I am and be dressed in more sensible outfits? In the same breath, would my heels and penchant for dangly earrings, chunky necklaces and tanzanite rings be replaced with simple flats and pearls instead? Would I have shunned my creative self for the more logical self in me, perhaps? More so, would I love the me I would be more than the me I am now?

I guess I’ll never know, right? And perhaps there is no one answer to that. It’s just interesting that these thoughts came right at the heels of a nightmare that really threw me off yesterday. Add to that, on the way to yoga class when I woke up, I was listening to the Morning Rush on RX 93.1 as I often do and something the DJ’s said caught my ear. They were talking about the butterfly effect and how a simple fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can cause ripples that affect even a world away. It resonated so much with my dream where I did something so randomly and it caused a great ripple effect that changed the course of soooo many things.

So today as I sat there, watching the students, observing their little differences and admiring their shoes and bags, thinking to myself how all these little things, if changed for one reason or another, can alter the course of so many other things. Random thoughts, I know. Serves me right for not sleeping too well, I suppose haha.

At the end of the day, however, one thing became clear to me. I do have no regrets about the choices I’ve made, even if they aren’t always pleasant and fun. I guess at the end of it all, despite all the twists and turns, in spite of all the ups and downs, and even if I find myself gaining weight or with goldfish eyes every now and then, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I may not like it at times, after all is said and done, I guess I do like where I am.

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am. ~Sylvia Plath

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I have come to appreciating bedtime prayers more and more lately. I’m thankful for that, I must say. Although my prayers from childhood have changed so very, very much, tonight my heart is a little wistful as it remembers someone I love so dear…my lolo. Growing up he was a father figure to me as my papa had to work abroad and so he filled in those shoes and made sure we always knew someone  had our backs.

One of the things he always told me was to never go to bed without saying goodnight to the people I love, and so to this day, I make sure of that. Whether it’s through a phone call or a text message, a whispered prayer for those who are far away, or even a Facebook note, I make it a point to end my day with a good night wish for those I love. After that, he said, be sure to pray. And this is what he taught me

Every now and then, on nights with skies so black & mildly frightening as rains literally and metaphorically come my way, I whisper this little prayer and feel that he’s right there again by me, reminding me that everything will be okay.

Tonight is one of those nights, as I miss him a little more than usual. I’m trying to think of him with just enough love and light, then to drop it and know that that’s enough, as I have learned to do, but it isn’t as easy as usual. And so instead I’ll pray.

Before that I just must say….I miss you oh so very much, my dear Lolo. Happy Daddy’s Day.

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I used to love sitting in my car and driving down familiar roads. Much as driving has never been a favorite task of mine, I have always loved the freedom being in my car afforded me. I could sit through hours of traffic and be okay, with or without the radio blaring. At times I liked singing along to the music that played, and at times I loved sitting in the quiet stillness of that space.

Until now.

Lately I dread it.

Lately it brings me to tears, literally.

Lately I find myself breathless and panicky.

Lately I become engulfed in thoughts that I can’t let go of and that eat me up inside.

Lately I feel trapped in my little prison with wheels.

In the past week and a half I have tried to find ways to not be in that car because for the most part, being in it makes me feel claustrophobic and sungit. Sigh.

Maybe its just a reaction to things. Maybe it’s hormonal or one of those low testosterone symptoms I read about in some website (yes, even women have that hormone in their bodies as men also have some levels of female hormones in them! no, I haven’t gone crazy just moody haha). It just feels like all the bravery and courage I used to hold in me has fizzled out and it’s leaving me all flustered, frustrated and oh-so-tired. Or maybe I’m just getting old. Sigh.

I miss driving in my car and just enjoying the ride.

I miss being in it, just by my lonesome knowing I am okay no matter what.

I miss sitting in the quiet with nothing else but the sound of my breath, slow and steady.

I miss being the me who I was in my car.

I miss my little haven, my sanctuary of quiet, a space that was all mine.

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I will be the first to admit that I may not be the most fearless person out there, especially when it comes to addressing change or opening myself up to people I meet, but when it comes to taking charge or control of situations, I generally am able to stare down fear in the face and come out on top. I can, for example, be the most calm person in an emergency. I don’t buckle in fear when faced with danger, and in fact, can be the one to solve the problem. I’d prolly be the first to sky dive off of a plane too, if given the opportunity. That kind of challenges that many people fear, I love.

I guess my point is that for the most part, I can be level headed and in control, boxing up my feelings at least during tense situations, even if I feel somewhat anxious or antsy about things. While people panic, I am able to allow the fear to pass before dealing with my feelings about the situation bursting out in tears. So when people would describe how they felt frozen with fear during a tense situation, whether or not there was a clear or imminent threat, I could never understand it.

Well, until today, that is.

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Just last night, a friend of mine (who incidentally happens to be my yoga teacher as well haha) posted a link to my wall for this groupon to a vegan restaurant in Makati. Her comment: this will be a good alternative to your Chili’s [lunches]….teeeheehee..

It was funny because as I have made so many changes in my lifestyle with regards to my weight loss, there are a few things I still have trouble giving up: peanut butter m&m’s and pink fuzzy drinks from Chili’s to be precise Granted I know they are so unhealthy, I think that having this in moderation isn’t so bad anyway Teehee. Rationalize, Ri, rationalize.

Seriously though, I have come to realize that the reason for which I have always struggled with weight is because I have made weight loss only a temporary fix and not a long-term lifestyle goal.

I have not kept it a secret that I have struggled with weight throughout my life, right? I have tried all sorts of diets, did all sorts of exercises but I have never managed to keep my weight down. It occurred to me this past year that the reason why I keep yo-yoing up and down with weight is because I have always made weight loss just a goal, but not a lifestyle. What needs to be done, I realized, it to make changes not just for the meantime, but to make positive changes in my lifestyle. I realized I shouldn’t just work on reducing the amount of food I eat, but I must go the healthy way and make more positive changes that are long term and permanent.

I may not be ready to give going completely vegan or raw or what not a shot, I am willing to change my food choices. Granted that going organic or healthy tends to be a little more expensive (sadly so), I will still try my best. One big step forward I have taken is drinking more water. Another is introducing more healthy stuff to my body, such as green teas (and no, not just the bottled ones) and much as I dislike it, I have started taking wheatgrass juice. I still don’t like the way it tastes much, but it’s slowly starting to grow (pardon the pun!) on me.

Besides wheatgrass, I am also trying to eat more oatmeal and lessen my consumption of red meat, rice, and yes, those pink fuzzy yummy stuff in Chilis. The wheatgrass and oats are supposedly very good to detoxify the body and can be like a colon cleanser as the fiber it contains help sweeps away the bad stuff from the body.

Of course another thing I have added to my healthy lifestyle is regular yoga sessions and I have made a conscious decision to lessen my exposure to stressful situations, avoiding negative emotions (especially through chismis or gossiping in Facebook and Plurk!) and to learn to just relax.

Wish me luck.

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Meet my new love…

This is Tequila Jones, Joe for short, my newest little boy I initially wanted to name him just Tequila but my friend Char said it sounded a wee bit girly and that I would be emasculating this little man and so I decided to add the Jones part. And Joe seemed a fitting name to match his big brother Bubba’s name…yes, my boys are Bubba and Joe! Haha.

Bubba is a little upset at the fact that I brought home a puppy but he’s adjusting quite nicely, or so I’d like to believe. I’m kinda adjusting to it all and errr…my things….well, they’re suffering, after all, I don’t live in a metal building where he can’t chew on stuff right? And the toilet training…well…it’s driving me nuts!!!

But look at that face…so worth it right? Wish me luck with this little boy!!!

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Today a friend asked me how my vacation was and all I could answer was that it was a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. Part of me felt guilty and selfish for not having been able to say “oh it was great”, after all, not every one can afford to put their entire lives on pause and just go on hibernate mode, right? But, well, I guess I couldn’t just say it was all great because it wasn’t. But then today, I realized, as my friend pointed out, vacations aren’t always 100% happy all the time anyway. More so, I realized that the reason why I couldn’t say it was perfect was because by taking pause, removing myself from the daily grind and just being by myself to some degree, it was a period of self-discovery, reinvention and, I guess, moving forward, which, I suppose, is never really easy.

Let me back track a bit…for those who have been reading my blogs, I’m sure you’re familiar with the fact that I had just let go of my preschool teaching job, one that I had done and loved oh so dearly for the past twelve years. In many ways, giving that up (although I was indeed looking forward to it because I was tired already) kind of made me lose a big chunk of who I have become. And so since I finished everything I needed to have done in the preschool on the 30th of April, and it was term break in the university I teach in, I decided to declare the first 15 days of May as my Eat, Pray, Love vacation. I may not be as lucky as Elizabeth Gilbert to have the chance to do it for a year, but heck, 15 straight days of no work should be good enough for the time being, right? And so on the eve of the first, I had posted on my Facebook page that for the next fifteen days, I was only to exist for yoga, for friends who matter and the occasional soup day (errr..which is code for, well, lets just say fun lunches or dinners harhar).

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get my break of started on track with an Eat, Pray, Love overnight adventure in Subic Bay with a fellow yogini friend of mine. We took an overnight trip and met up with another yogini friend who teaches a class at the Subic Yacht club where we joined in on the class and got to meet a whole lot of new people. It was so timely, I must say, that the night we got to join in was a night in which they were bidding farewell to one of their family members (I say family because their group is very much like family…it’s more than a club, more than just friends, but more like family ). They had a little ceremony that evening that brought tears to my eyes because as my personal friends would know, saying goodbye and having people move away is something very, very difficult for me. But as I watched them and allowed myself to be part of that ceremony, I realized that distance between friends is but physical space, but the heart, though ends up longing oh so dearly for the other, remains connected.

Although the trip was quite short, being under the golden sunshine, walking by the bay and feeling sand on my toes allowed me to touch base with my soul.

When I got back to Manila, I continued on my journey by really shutting myself out from most of the outside world. Very few people, save for my yoga teachers and classmates, got to see me or hear from me much, even through text messages (although FB still remained a constant haha…but a far less frequent one!). I barely spoke to anyone and except for when I was in yoga and the three or four lunches/dinners I had out with friends, I barely moved at all. I had planned to clean my room, paint, draw, and so on and so forth but noooo…nothing happened. My blogs have been mostly silent too, except for those posts of brilliant insights that happened from the mat

Being in the quiet for so long, however, started to take a bit of a toll on me because, well, because that’s what silence does. It’s confrontative. You’re left with nothing else but yourself in a place that suddenly becomes so foreign and unfamiliar. As my favorite writer, Thomas Moore put it in his book Dark Nights of the Soul, Imagine you awoke one day to find yourself in a strange land. You remember who you were and what you have done, where you used to live, even your dreams and longings, but now it seems so far away. So out of reach it all seems in this strange land. Here it is as if nothing that once was familiar matters any longer, all that matters is that you find yourself where you are right now. You cannot return to what once was, neither do you know where to go from here. Now there are no distractions. You have to look closely at what has been revealed.

In that silent bubble I lived in for 15 day (granted there were moments of distractions…going to yoga class and the occasional meeting up with the few friends who really matter to me), I realized how different I was from the me I had gotten to know in the past year, year and a half. Without the distractions of work, and even television for that matter (because my TV’s been broken haha!) and even the absence of family and friends, I was left  to just let things unfold. Maybe it’s also the weight loss, plus the career change, and even the discovery of yoga, but all these changes were like  everlon diamonds in the rough, waiting to be found and treasured. But for the longest time I wasn’t seeing what was there because I was too busy and too ignorant of the signs. As I was telling another friend a few days ago, I guess I was making it a point to be too busy because I was afraid to admit to many things: feeling lost and confused about who I was, angry and hurt about what might have been, and yes, even displeased and dissatisfied because of things I want but don’t have. Before I could admit that, however, I had to wrestle with the defeaning silence and the frustration of loneliness and solitude.  Worst of all, I had to go head on with my harshest critic:  the voices of insecurity and doubt in my head.

So there, it was indeed a roller coaster of ups and downs, right? There were moments of brilliant clarity and fulfillment of heart, but there were moments of darkness and feeling lost at sea, with no lifelines to hang on to. But now that I look back, all of those moments, from the loss of the familiar, feeling hurt because of it, opening myself up to new things and people, challenging myself in many, many ways…  were little dots waiting to be connected to form a bigger picture.

Today marks the end of my two week hiatus from life. Tomorrow I must head back to reality and get back on track in all sense of the word. I think it is but fitting that I end it by having cut and colored my hair, gone for a body scrub, deleted messages on my phone and files in my computer, thrown away a lot of stuff I’ve been holding on to for so long. Kinda like a rebirth, yes?

I don’t know if it is just coincidence, but I’d like to believe it is but one of those things I like calling random synchronicity, but just a few days before my break I had said that I have come to learn that many of the most difficult, most painful, most tiring and most excruciatingly frustrating things that come my way always, always pave the way for realizations that are significant, life-changing, and rewarding. Yes, it may not be something extremely drastic or devastating, but all of those moments have led up to something new, as long as I allowed myself to surrender and make some space for it. It’s never fun or easy, mind you, nor pleasurable for that matter, but in the end, I can look back and say, so that’s why it had to happen.

And  so through this roller coaster of a ride I had just found myself in, I take with me, a renewed appreciation for what I have, a more grateful heart, a somewhat darkened self (literally and figuratively haha…As Moore put it, dark luminosity…a black sun at your core…that is less innocent and more interesting than naive sunshine), and perhaps, even a more hopeful spirit for what lies ahead.

As I end today, I found this lying in one of my piles of papers…it was a project I had done for one of my classes before, wherein I gave the students a coloring sheet and asked them to remember that the only road that mattered, no matter where they went, was the one paved with prayer and ended in believing that no matter what, you will find yourself exactly where you’re supposed to be.

‎"Beautiful thoughts build a beautiful soul…There’s always something beautiful to be experienced wherever you are." — Wayne Dyer

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