Some Things We Can Learn from These Four Beautiful Individuals

I have met four beautiful individuals last week that brought me to a big awakening. One is someone who according to him did not have a family and did not belong to any. When he was a kid, his parents left him. His other siblings had their own lives and so at a young age he had to work from one employer to the next in order to survive. He was able to graduate in high school and had the chance to apply for the Philippine Military Academy. He did not make it in a certain part of the screening when he was asked about his family. He claimed he was rejected due to his family background.

Now, he is residing with a pastor’s family that has 8 children. He cannot really ask for financial assistance since according to him the pastor has just passed away and that the wife now serving as lady pastor (don’t have the opposite word for Pastor hehe) is taking care of everything in the family. He just have to contain himself with having a place to sleep at night …a shelter while assisting the church.

Since he is currently on training for a simple job, he had to walk back and forth surviving day after day sometimes without lunches and sometimes without all the meals of the day. Wow…I was so heartbroken when I saw his black shoes cut half way underneath (I was on the verge of crying).

Another one that moved me to tears was an adolescent that came from a family of 10. Minus the parents, she has 7 other siblings. When she was a kid, she was able to witness her drunkard father, battered her mother with all of them children witnessing it. She also saw how her father hit their mother with a hammer on the head in the middle of the night (father was very drunk). During such incident, all of them children were driven away by their father in the middle of the night. They all walked barefoot in one of the bridges in Bukidnon with their youngest brother being carried by their eldest brother. All of them left the house with empty stomach (they did not have dinner since there was nothing to cook).

And so they went to a friend of the family, knocked at the door the wee hour of the morning and ate their very late dinner and very early breakfast (tears fell heavily while this young lady recounted her story).

Another bright young lady shared how she was forced to work since she lost her scholarship. She did not want to stop her studies. She is trying to squeeze herself so as to finish in two years. By then she will be able to support and send her younger sister who has speech impediment but with a normal brain capacity. She does not want to impede her younger sister from such opportunity for the love and concern she has for her.

The fourth one started at 7 years old to work with a well off neighbor. She had to since, her father’s earning as simple laborer at the port carrying luggage for passengers could not financially support the family (mother is not working). She may feel so secure with herself being able to eat complete meals everyday but she cries over the reality that her parents can hardly buy rice and viand for the entire family. Currently, she keeps other part time jobs, too, folding clothes at another neighbor or taking care of a small store of another neighbor.

Obviously, you are able to see the commonalities of the four individuals’ stories that I am relating here. They are all poor. Money is important to them. They want to eat, go to school and work to support their families. They value so much their families that drive them to strive harder. Unlike the first one, though he values so much family, what he needs right now is the money to survive at least to eat and fare to stop walking to and from work.

What am I sharing this for? I just want to tell you that at times when I complain about a lot of things in my life or when I tend to see only myself or when I feel that life’s challenges seem so overwhelming already, I am reminded that there are those that face more challenges than I am and are able to survive.

Another thing that’s common with them? They did not give up. That’s why I would always say that there are a lot more reasons to be thankful for with life than being consumed with my selfishness.

These beautiful individuals keep on reminding me to stay on the ground…live life …share …simplify…and be more grateful to God…

And so if you want to be in touched more with yourself and find God more in you…you may talk to any of those individuals that never give up with life.

They can give you a whole bunch of life’s most basic lessons..:-)

So have fun…learning with them ok :-)

"Insist" to Stay Positive - Part 2

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kvwide1Se31qafojpo1_500.jpg

Well, I haven’t really shared here yet, that when I got back here in the Philippines the first time, I left my job in the university to shift to another career – Human Resource and I was disillusioned after 3 months not finding myself fitting to the challenges of the work. I found myself a much better option to go back to the university under the assistance of 2 Jesuit priests (president and vice president themselves) but to no avail. I was heartbroken and left again for the US.

My second come back here in the country made me leap into a spiritual direction – this time with more “grilling” with Fr. Frank, SJ (the first part was by Fr. Norlan, SJ). While I continued with it, I found a job related to training employees of a company as I searched more of myself. I was ready to plunge into anything. While the Joyfully Hopeful shirts were produced I started blogging. I found myself a great past time from where I was and am still able to extend myself to others.

On and off the season for writing, I found myself going back to it (writing). When I found myself beautiful books to devour by Dr. Wayne dyer’s ( Manifest your Destiny, There is Spiritual Solution to Every Problem and The Power of Intention), the way I look at things, events, people and the insistence on being positive with life are the greatest contributions of the books.

From the title of my blog, one may get an impression of a struggle since I use the word “insist”. I used such to give emphasis on not being carried away by all the things that our mind tends to process and interpret without checking reality. And even if reality is as it is. We can still insist (deliberately) and decide not to be emotionally carried with it.

My life has been a decision every day to live most of life. I “insist” on the following positive things that I can live for on a daily basis :

1. What has happened yesterday is over, I can start again today

2. I will continue to forgive the soonest

3. I will try to as much as I can radiate love than anger and hate

4. I love surrounding myself with positive people and things such as books, songs, activities, meditation (this time with my husband…heheheh we are now becoming partners to a lot of things)

5. I create crazy things in my mind to imagine good things to happen and all beautiful possibilities just to create a new path in my brain that was conditioned to capture the negatives

I decide every day to stay on the positive side though I feel several of those tempting negative emotion (this should not be misinterpreted as suppressing emotions…you may read my other blog on this site entitled EMOTIONS AND EQ- November 11, 2010). Lately, I got so inspired also when I read about a man named Matthieu Ricard featured at Reader’s Digest Asia in January 2011 as the Happiest Man in the World. His biography states that he is an author, photographer, former molecular geneticist, researcher, and devout Buddhist monk, and translator for Dalai Lama.

How did he get such a title? The most remarkable feature of this man is the fact that he had been practicing meditation for more than 35 years now. After those years, Ricard has become proficient in controlling his mind. Let me quote Readers’ Digest – Asia (January 2011) …”Looking inward to find joy rather than relying on external conditions he believes is the way to achieve contentment and wellbeing: ‘it is quite clear that the outer conditions are not enough. The way we interpret and translate those outer conditions in our inner experience is what determines either a sense of well being or misery”.

He added further that Ego and self-centeredness ..” are the biggest threats to true happiness” (well you could check out also my blog on Ego - August 30, 2011- just type in the search box) as I quoted Dr. Wayne Dyer with how he describes how it works).

Well, I may have too many things here but as I recounted the journey to finding the right attitude, I could say right now that I am not allowing my past to define me. I have the choice at the moment to live my life not pleasing to others but to my true Source ….God himself.

At times, I was being questioned by some individuals about the behavior that I displayed such as not being able to “fight” during arguments or to go straight with harsh words in order for someone to be able to sort of realizing or see things the way I do or should be. I guess I just have to allow my silence for a while to sort things out within before I plunge into a good discussion …not turning it into an argument.

I feel even more positive seeing that each one of us has the capacity to wait for the right time to say something in order to create the greatest impact.

Even Jesus when he was questioned and cross-examined prior to crucifixion remained in His silence and needed not to defend himself in the face of the greatest turbulence and test before his perpetrators. I should say that Jesus already gave us His greatest example.

http://www.simplemindpower.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/positive-thoughts.gif

Hey…what I am writing here my friends can be done. If a lot of peoples’ lives have changed due to a shift in mentality and mental attitude then it can happen to us…

Here… let’s toast together for much better behavior and life for all of us…

God bless us all!

"Insist" to Stay Positive - Part 1

If there is something that you want yourself to insist on it is to stay positive in all and whatever circumstance/s there is and are with life. When I took a leave from my 10-year very stable job as a Guidance counselor of high school students in a university, I thought of the beautiful life I could start with in the United States. I went there as tourist after I got a 10-year multiple entry. I felt so blessed since I never had a chance to travel to the other side of the globe.

http://www.themillionairesecrets.net/images/2009/01/positive-thinking.jpg

It felt so good being given such chance. But then it was in that place also where I learned the hardest and humblest lessons of all. Since I did menial jobs as start up, I thought I left my most comfortable life to be in that strange land. I cried at the first housekeeping job I landed (though I earned $130 per day and left after a week hahahah). I also experienced being a nanny, part time in an employment agency owned by Filipinos, and also did caregiving jobs.

It was not an easy life. I felt I traded my profession, career advancement and all other opportunities I had just to earn dollars. I knew of Filipinos who were in the upper class here in the Philippines and are professionals (doctors, lawyers, CPA, teachers, guidance counselor like me, nurses, radio news scooper and a lot more) who take the kinds of jobs I were into all for the comfortable lives and luxuries they could extend to their families (great sacrifice ha).

Well I did the best I can to at least be noticed in those kinds of jobs but to no avail. I rarely, got to last in one job. I would then transfer to another one until before the end of 6^th month ( I did not plan to overstay).

All for the sake of an adventure and the search for that “ better life” that I thought I could have if I would stay longer in US (which did not materialize). But then the desire to stay on course was the strongest weapon I had.

Let me put it this way. I was blessed by friends who are not only generous but beautiful souls as well. I had a regular bonding with a ex-nun who happened to be my “surrogate” mother while I was there. I call her ate Ann. Oh, she was such a beautiful person though at times I got a little motherly “spanking” from her which did well as to taming my character. It was from her also that I got to know (shared by her to me from the magazine she read) about a mother that never said anything negative with any of their family’s experiences. Ate Ann stressed further that when this family didn’t have money, the mother would just say something like …”oh we won’t have headache with budgeting…” so on and so forth. This woman … as I understood it always had a way of looking at things the positive way.

So when I got back here in the Philippines, I was so armed with such great armor of strength to go on… The first beautiful response to being positive is the coming of a Jesuit priest named Fr. Frank Savadera (as referred by my first spiritual director Fr. Norlan Julia, SJ) that gave me spiritual direction. Piece by piece I was strengthened even more realizing that that I was broken down as to see the brighter and the brightest side of things. I held on to the challenge to sticking to the little daily “fights” to life….

And so to continue…

The above design is specifically for couples carrying the message WE NOURISH EACH OTHER

While I was in process by my spiritual director, I tried to produce shirts that send the positive messages. They were products of the joy (Joyfully Hopeful) that I have experienced from the “long sleep”. The shirts sold a lot with the help of many individuals that did the distribution themselves including my SD of course Fr. Frank. Though today I kind of suppress a little the marketing side since I and my husband are into innovating it a little and searching for the right people that can help us produce through machine printing. We also opt to finding a supplier that can give us a reasonable costs of shirts so as we could sell a cheap shirt to be able to “market” the messages.

…trying to leap to the second piece of this blog…