Being mindful of suffering caused by careless or malicious speech

Today I ride a jeepney with a Grandma with her seven grandchildren.  Seven of them! They were cousins for sure. And they were looking so neat. I was instantly reminded of my childhood and my grandma too. I was looking at them and smiling when suddenly the grandma turn to one of the girls and said "Your mom does not send us money anymore. I wish your mom died instead of your dad. You are so clumsy. How are you going to manage once you’re a maid?"

Grandma, WHATTT???

 I can feel the energy inside the motorcycle.  The shame, the pain was just…it hurts. I want to grab the girl and cover her ears. I want to tell her, "Don’t believe any prediction that does not empower you. Don’t believe what you know in your heart isn’t right and true." I want the hurt to stop.

I hope adults would be careful with the words they say in front of children. I hope they would be aware enough to know that children have tender hearts. I wish people could be sensitive enough to feel other people’s pain. And be kind.

Hurtful words wound. It wound so deep it mars the soul. And sometimes the wound takes a lifetime to heal. Adults’ carries anger and resentments in themselves that sometimes it is so easy to let it all out to children. It's like magma overflowing from the mouth of a mountain destroying everything it touches. Not to a child, please not to a child. 

What Pains Love

A Letter to Myself

Dear Me, I love you. You know that. This is drama but this is also true. And sometimes I need to write to you to get to you. So let me tell you.

Do not worry if you do not know so much of this world.

Don't worry that you haven't figured out life yet. Learn to live with your questions.

It isn’t easy, but try to be at ease with the great unknown.

Don't be certain. Be sincere. Live with your heart. Speak your truth. 

Don't worry if your spirituality leads you on to so many paths. You can forget everything but never Jesus on the shore - your happy place. That is yours alone; your happy place is yours alone.

Try not to sleep too much. I know you; sometimes living is too much reality for you so you try to escape in your sleep. I've heard it is not poetic. So don't sleep during the day, but you can take a nap.

Someone said that the big thing in life is to love reality, and not imagine what could have been, or what should be, but to love reality and discover that God is present. I love that thought a lot.

I like you better when you are yourself and I like you most when you just accept you. Stop the old tape in your head; you're so shy, you're so slow, you're a fake, you are weak you don't deserve to be forgiven - don't beat yourself again and again. Don't believe that shit either (excuse the word).

They say that we have so many things in life that's against us already, don't make the mistake of being against yourself; forgive, forgive yourself, always forgive, and learn from your mistakes.

Learn gradually.

I know you. You want to learn everything at once. That's frustrating.

You have your whole lifetime to learn so don't hurry learning. It is fun that way.

Love you and your inner child in you. Ah, your inner child. Embrace her for she is in want. Remember that day in 4th grade when she collapsed? Embrace her and her thoughts that day.

Love her. Love her for always. And you will begin to see her smile and play within you.

Swell; swell with too much love you can't help but share.

How Writing Heals

There are so many things in my head that I want to write about that I have not really come to understand. They are over my head floating like bubbles and I just have to stretch out my hand to pop them open one by one.

These things that I want to write are but a shadow and a feeling, and I am afraid if I begin to write about them shadows I would never be able to discern the true form. The unfinished thoughts in my head; some of them deliberately suppressed, and many I was not able to follow mainly because I have no will and courage to explore.

I want to write important and meaningful topics but I am afraid I maybe wrong in a lot of things, or that, if I get back to them after many days, I will find them meaningless to me.

I want to write about this great silence in me, this chasm of ignorance. The feeling of for all I know I know nothing. And so what rights have I to say when what I say does not edify?

This overwhelms me.

This is then I get back to Sarah Kay (my fave poet as of the moment). She talks about poetry at age 14, what do you know at 14? She said, it doesn't matter, write about being 14 - what it feels like.

I love that wisdom. I feel like, she's saying, it’s okay, write about not knowing - at age 25 and not knowing! It makes me laugh but it makes me feel fine. So this is what it feels like today and I'm writing about it and I am starting to feel good already.

The Value of Honesty

Among all the virtues I value honesty.

People cannot prevent saying lies, sometimes, because it is necessary, and sadly most of the time out of habit. 

I won’t say that I am really honest but every day I strive to be. I want to mean what I say and give people my truth. I think it is the greatest gift one can give -honesty.

Today I discovered that even if you are honest somehow people end up believing what they want to believe.

It is sad.

But I also discovered when you tell the truth you free yourself from the need to defend yourself.  

Love letter to a stranger

Hello Stranger, if you are searching for love :)

I don't know what love is and i have never loved a person (romantically speaking) with my whole heart, ever, it maybe that you want to know what a kiss is like from a person you love and who loves you, it maybe that you want to know how it feels like to be touched. You are waiting for a person to arouse your emotions in ways that you have never been aroused before. How it really feels like to fall in love body and soul and mind. The kind that makes you think of that person day and night. It makes you crazy. The crazy kind of love that makes you feel good about yourself and others.

Well, I want you to know that it is okay to wait. Wait for this kind of love is worth waiting. As they say, true love waits. It's true. And don't worry either if it will come in late. Isn't love, love? Regardless of what age? Relax lang. And if others say things that make you feel unwanted, resist the urge to give your yes to someone you don't love just so you can show to people how desirable you are. 

And if someday you'll realize that it won’t come, don't worry; it won’t make you any less than they are. But hope. Always hope for love.  Hope for love to accompany you your whole life through. But for now, my stranger, my sweet stranger, as King Solomon in the Song of Songs would say, do not arouse or awaken love when it is not yet time :)

***

I was inspired by the idea of writing a love letter to a stranger from Mira's blog(Check it out). So this is sort of my own love letter to a stranger who by some chance will come across my blog.

Note: For my close friends i know what you are thinking. This is not a love letter to myself. This maybe if i feel pressured but i am not so this is for someone who is anxious that his/her love has not yet come.

P.S. Modernpatadyong is following my blog. What a surprise! I'm shy! Maulaw na dayon ko. huhu. But thank you. 

Wisdom talks

Sunrise Philippines :)

Wake up early...
Fight with all you have
I don't want cowards to possess me.
Do not be halfhearted.
When do your task give your all,
When you listen give your attention,
in everything you do give your all.
When you decide stand with all you have.
I want a fighter as my friend.
I will fight with you.
If you want to bring change and transformation in your heart,
you've got to start giving your all.
That is the meaning of dying.
Die to yourself so you may gain me.
Die. Die.
Dying hurts but when the intention is to gain me
it will be nothing compared to what you will gain in the end.
So start now.
Start anew with every moment.
Die everyday!
But as for you, die every moment.
When your heart aches,
die with your pride.
Die for me.
Die for me...

We have a lot of work to do,
we must begin early.
In the morning you will find me.
Call and talk to me.
I will help you.
Your intention is to gain me
and only through dying shall i be possessed by you.
Your reward is in everything the Bible says.
And above all,
God's constant presence will overshadow you
and make you holy.
And you shall delight in rich fare 

as you will be his friend and constant companion.
So I say die to yourself and let us begin.

-tabulyogang

Killing Us Softly

This is a video about how deeply advertising can affect culture and what it has done to us. This study was based in the United States.  I've read about this in The Gift of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You Should Be and Embrace Who You are. The Author Brene Brown said that “Advertising is an over $200 billion a year industry. We are each exposed to over 3000 ads a day. Yet, remarkably, most of us believe we are not influenced by advertising. Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions.”5 I highly recommend Kilbourne’s and Katz’s DVDs—they’ve changed the way I see the world and myself.

For those who read my blog, especially you girls and women you've got to watch this. It's enlightening. It's an eye opener. There is a need for awareness for things like these, of how we women are being depicted in advertising and what it can do to us.

On Smoking

Because I had had (past tense) a manager who smokes a lot, but this is not about her, nor about smoking. This is my story about SMOKES.

When I was a kid (I still am) my Papa (my mother's brother) used to boss us around children to light his cigarette. I don’t know why Lighters are not that popular in those days.

I remember being really happy when I  get to light the fresh cigarette. I would go to the kitchen where woods are used to cook our meals. In those days people use woods to cook and we have dirty kitchens at home. We do have stoves but people on those days seem to have the luxury of time to build fire to cook. We even have chopped woods under our house, pile and piles of chopped woods.

I remember being really happy when I get the chance to light the fresh cigar of my Papa. What I do is that I just don't light the cigar using my hand but I  do them lighting by putting first the cigar in my mouth and get my face really close to the fire till I feel the heat and the tip of the cigarette catches fire.

And I inhale like CRAZY!

I do it fast and quick. In my imagination I used to pretend that I am an actress or a celebrity. I don't know why when I was a kid I see people as being glamorous when they smoke. Now I certainly don't.  I don't do it when people are around. I make sure nobody's watching.

I remember feeling madly high and happy knowing I've done something wicked. I do it real quick so my Papa won’t notice and I hand him the cigar and act like a little angel.

Oh the high I get!

I knew then that I was a little rebel. I know it's wicked acting like a little angel when you are clearly not. Some children use to just show their bad, rebellious side but no not me. I'M THIS LITTLE ANGEL!!! SEE?

People don't know anything about me really.

I still carry that trait to this day. I told you I still am a kid! I still wear mask when I am angry, sad, or when I do wicked, wicked things. I do try to be honest as much as possible now, to show my real feelings, to show the real me.

But habits are hard to break especially when it's from childhood. So yeah, I'm no angel, maybe a bit rebel inside and definitely a sinner.

I do appreciate myself now; it’s hard to live with one self when you don't.

See that little rebel inside? :p


***

I have a lot of things to be thankful for today. 

You see I have not been writing things I'm grateful about in here. So let me start with being really grateful for the grace of forgiveness.(It's hard for me to forgive myself but I'm learning now; i try to be kind to me. I want me as my own best friend and not to treat me badly).

I'm grateful for a new day and for new beginnings. I do love mornings! Let us always begin again. And again.

Letting Go

Last night, I went out for a walk to get my thoughts off things that are bothering me at the moment.

Like:  Would I be able to have another job after resigning with my current job?

 Would I ace interviews?

 I want to let go of my fears concerning future work, concerning my future that is.

And I walked and walked till I felt sweat over my back and face. I walked with my fears and lay them down one by one.

I found myself then inside Nazareno Church. And that's when I know that the path to life is letting go, and that in every corner of the way a banner is hang saying, NO CLINGING!

 And I learned then to let go and let God. It sounds cliché and old but it is true.

Let go and let God because he knows best and that He holds our future.

 No fear in that. So no clinging.

Now I feel free and I feel ready. I don't know why but I am excited. Letting go and letting God makes you feel excited; you just don't know what will happen next but you know that it would be for your best, for your very best.

"In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime." - Richard Bach

NO CLINGING!

Posting some pictures of myself. :)
That's me at the center with my friends. We are at Eco Village Malasag having some holiday escapade.

On humility

There is a kind of humility that melts your heart and a certain kind that makes you uneasy. The uneasy part is where people keep on stressing the things lacking in their lives. Things that i don't have, things that i should have or things my home should have but don't have. My heart bleeds for this kind of humility. Relax, people are not going to judge you. (And if they do, and they often do; especially if they are not your friends- Just remind yourself that this is your life and what they think don't matter) I just want you to appreciate what you have. There are no pretense here. We are your friends. And i would love to see you smile and content with what you have- with who you are. Because you are and you are happy. I can see. But then you started apologizing for things lacking. And my heart went "Oh, no no." You were so happy. When did someone's presence make you so small? You are your home and you started feeling uncomfortable with your own skin. And i can see it. And I cringe at the thought of you feeling small, talking small. Didn't you know that i was envious of the things you have? Not the material things but that joy i see when you talk of the things you would do for the day, that joy you have when you talked about how the food would taste so good after your done with your cooking. That joy you have when you talked and kissed your love ones with a little twinkle in your eyes and laughter on the edges of your voice. Your love is out pouring. I envy you. Yes i do. So please stop apologizing for what you don't have. You make me so unhappy with it. Truly, you don't have to have anything or be or do anything to impress me. Just to see you content with life is enough. And i say, I don't know of anyone else who looks so content with life more than you do. So stop acting small and let me be inspired by you. For inspiration is hard to find and they are not found on people lacking confidence,  and my requirement is set so high that only those who possess contentment shall pass.