“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”

The Serenity Prayer

Hello!

Hello people of the world, those who have followed my journey from the beginning and have been tuning in on Wednesdays from around the globe to see if I have had any recent posts. I won’t apologize for my absence because these past 6-8 months of self-reflection and self-discovery have helped me immensely in figuring out how to honor my mother, discover serenity amidst the chaos, and find joy in the things I do. Today I post this on a Tuesday because it’s a special day and I know my mom would appreciate me taking the day off to unwind, reflect, breathe, and focus on myself after all my life’s crazy and consuming moments. She always worried that I worked too hard, too much, was always on the move and needed to slow down. So Momma, this one, as are many things I do, is for you.

Today marks two years since her death. I’ve had to learn how to calm the constant stream of questions that plagued my brain and led to my anxiety. Questions like: How do you heal a broken soul? How do you put an emotionally broken family together? How do you heal those wounds? How do learn to let go of the things you cannot change? How do you find joy in tragedy? How do you let someone in again?

I am having a hard time writing this because life has truly been great to me these past 6-8 months. I’ve felt more like my silly self. I’ve been able to move more freely. I’ve been able to concentrate on career, family, and friends. I’ve been able to let go of self-pity and accept my new reality. So when I think about the bad and ugly that has happened this year, I can’t help but shake in anger and feel emotional. I shake my head as I write this because in my anger, my mom’s spirit has told me to find serenity. I find her prayer, the prayer that she read when she had doubts and fears. A prayer she wrote down on her phone’s notes that I found after she passed…a series of intimate reflections as she coped with the cards God gave her.

If there is a silver lining I find from her passing at the age of 50, its that she has challenged us to find a life that is purposeful, graceful, kind and joyful. This requires self-awareness, empathy, respect, and courage–all qualities my mom, my dad, and my mentors have taught me as I’ve grown up and qualities I find in my close circle of friends that I consider my family. Goodness gracious do I feel blessed to be surrounded by these humans.

Honor: regard with great respect

It’s a word we don’t use often but hold so much weight. This year, I’ve found so many ways to honor my Momma.

It’s in the interactions I have with others. How do I show this person in front of me that I respect them as a human being? How do I become a better listener? How do I become a better ally?

It’s in the things I do with my body. How do I nourish my body? How do I take care of myself? Am I giving myself enough rest? Am I releasing tension effectively so I can move more freely more often?

It’s through these actions I feel her the most. When I am learning how to be a better partner and friend, I feel her the most. When I am treating a stranger with kindness, I feel her the most. When I empathize with someone as they share their stories, I feel her the most. When I am rested, awake, and active, I feel her the most. I try to honor her every second of every day.

Serenity: the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled

This is probably the hardest one I’ve had to learn. For most of 2018, I did not find serenity. I found the opposite: chaos, anger, sadness, anxiety, bad energy. They say time heals all wounds and I am a believer but it’s not just time that’s going to heal those wounds. You, yourself, need to help yourself heal your wounds. Only you can control how to react and accept. Only you can teach your mind to cope with triggers. Maybe you’ll have guidance along the the way, like my therapist that I was helped me through the roughest period of my life. But in the end, I had the power to change and grow.

Finding serenity has been so relieving for me. I had to learn how to accept the things I could not change. I had to muster up the courage to change the things I could change. I needed to develop the wisdom to know the difference between what I could and could not change. Through talking to someone, through meditation, through movement, through music, I have found serenity. I have found the one connection I could rely on to find my mom when I am lost.

I remember one of the first times I meditated after her loss. I lashed out in anger at my husband (don’t remember what caused it, classic angry Raelene) and needed to take a timeout. So I went into our apartment’s gym, turned on some loud music, cried while on the bike, got off the bike, then closed my eyes and meditated in silence. I thought of the last time I talked to my mom, the last time I held her warm hand. I had a huge breakthrough that night. In that room, while my eyes were closed, I imagined my mom and her hand and slowly my hand started to close and I felt warmth. I felt her spirit and I cried on the floor. What I would do to hold her hand again.

I’ve had a few more moments like these sprinkled throughout my past two years of grief, acceptance, and recovery. Those are the moments that I hold onto. When situations have gotten out of hand, I’ve reminded myself of serenity and how to find that again. You can only find it when you let go of the bad juju. I know that in time, the day will come where people will let go of their anger, learn to cope with their grief in a healthy way, and eventually feel the serenity my mother’s spirit has taught me.

I have shared these moments where I find her and through sharing those stories, I am also keeping her memory alive. I’ve also been able to help people recover from their grief too. She’s always with us. Maybe in your times of serenity, you have found her, too.

When I am serene, I feel her the most.

Joy: a feeling of great pleasure and happiness

When I finally felt emotionally balanced enough to watch Inside Out, that was when I remembered joy and how little I felt it, or was at least aware that I was feeling it, after she passed. It sounds silly, but grief is no joke. I didn’t even really have time to grieve for my grandpa’s death because a week after, my mom was in the hospital and for this, the process, I knew, would take some time. It took me almost a year after her death to muster up the courage to visit her final resting place. It took me more than a year to not feel triggered when others would talk about their mom and just be happy that they had a great relationship with their mom. It took me more than a year to open up and welcome my future stepmom into my life.

Life is all about adjusting and adapting to our environment so here are some moments that have brought me joy the past two years:

I know I felt joy at my wedding but I wasn’t really aware of it.

I felt joy again when I traveled to Amsterdam, Greece, and Rome with friends.

I felt joy again when I cooked an amazing Christmas dinner for my family at our home.

I felt joy again when I was able to let go of my anger and sadness and give my husband my unconditional love and affection

I felt joy again when I got my offer letter from Amazon and took the photo for my blue badge, knowing all the summers spent working, free time spent learning a new skill, and focus spent on professional development led me here.

I felt joy walking around Ireland with my best friends and adventuring by myself in France.

I felt joy again when I mowed my lawn after the spring and sat in the sunshine with my husband on our deck while we watched our two dogs run around.

I felt joy again when I danced my heart out with friends at the Gorge.

I felt joy again this past week when I was messing with my little brother and sang Christmas music in my kitchen while my husband watched in embarrassment and our now three dogs feared for their safety.

I continue to feel joy and for that, I am so grateful to be human. Those dark moments needed to happen so I can give it the attention it deserved and get to where I am now: a more balanced human being who knows when enough is enough and when to lean in if needed. A more balanced human being that knows how to cope with anger and sadness and feels free in moments of joy. I also give partial credit to Marie Kondo for this one. Do things that spark joy! Keep things in your life that spark joy! Doesn’t mean you should throw away the bad because that’s part of your journey as a human, too. Life isn’t about living through rose tinted glasses. It’s about living in the present. About seeing things as they are. About feels emotions the way they should be felt.

When I feel joy, I feel her most.

In loving memory of Librada “Levy” Balagtas Olivares

01.18.67 – 12.03.17

Happy Wellness Wednesday (Tuesday)!

I plan to release snippets of my reflections and thoughts every other Wednesday so as to recharge my mind and prepare for the rest of the week to come. As I sift through my memories and share the good, the bad, and the ugly, my intention is to promote self-care and self-discovery as we walk, crawl, skip, and run through life.

This blog is meant to be an open space where I share my deepest thoughts, while remaining poised for the Internet and to strangers who may not know me but are reading my story.

This is an evolving blog, with the eventual goal to inspire those to share, to be present, to find balance, and to be fearless.

We all have a story and I am choosing to share mine with you all.

Thank you for your interest! Comment below or contact me if you want to chat 🙂

Proud (adj.) – feeling or showing pride

About three years ago, I was helping out at a Gala for my school where I was overwhelmed from emotion at the gratitude I felt for those who got me to where I was.

I posted this photo and this excerpt to go along with it:

“In a few months, I’ll be the first person in my family to graduate from an American university. Without the courage of my family to make the big move to the United States from the Philippines, the scholarships I’ve received from gracious donors, and the drive to succeed from my incredibly hard-working parents, I wouldn’t be at the SeattleU Gala. Speaking to people that have made the opportunity to attend this private, Jesuit university was so humbling and made me so damn proud to be a Filipino-American woman who is gonna set the world on fiyaaaah!”

I’ve always been driven with a goal to succeed and create my path in this world. The values were instilled in me when I was young. I was 4 1/2 years old when my family decided to leave the Philippines and move to America with my Mom’s family for a chance of a better life and better education. I never forget my roots and the sacrifice it took to bring me to where I am.

One of the first things I remember when I moved to the U.S. was my Ninang telling me, “Raelene, you live in America now. You need to speak English so kids don’t make fun of you and you don’t have trouble in school.” So I learned to speak English, watched PBS in the mornings, met a lot of cool kids at school, and read a lot of books.

In primary school, my Grandpa Lu would walk me to school as I rode my pink bicycle with streamers and he’d always say goodbye with the phrase “Study hard, Raelene. Do well in school.” before walking my bike back to our three-bedroom house in Hawthorne, CA that sheltered 9 of my family members. So I studied hard, did well in school, participated in extracurricular activities my family could afford, and did everything I could to make sure I was a competitive candidate for colleges.

Eventually, after many years of hard freaking work and perseverance, all of my family members achieved their own version of the American Dream.

Boy, am I beaming right now as I type this. 🙂

Now, it’s my turn to live my life and make it known their hard work didn’t go unnoticed.

For the longest time, I knew what my purpose was and that was to make my family and my parents proud of me. For my little brother, it took him a little bit longer and little more pushing for him to get to the point where he recognized what the word “proud” meant and how powerful it is for a parent to say “I am proud of you.”

We are 6 1/2 years apart. I remember being in the gold Mazda minivan when my parents told me my prayers came true and that I was going to be a big sister to a baby brother. I remember being woken up in the middle of the night when my parents told me they were going to the hospital and the next time I would see them was when I was going to meet my little brother. I remember being in my 2nd grad classroom when my dad picked up from school and took me to meet my baby brother.

After all of the hardships my family has faced and worked tirelessly to overcome, I almost felt as if I raised this little guy. I call him my Little Man. In fact, his name is “Little Man” in my address book 🙂

He was always a shy kid, the kid that would cry when being held by people he didn’t know, and the kid that would rather hug his family member’s leg than play with other kids at parties. When he got to his sophomore year of high school, he started to blossom and become his own person.

He discovered dance and made friends from various dance teams. His personality started to shine and he started to feel a sense of belonging and purpose. As his senior year approached though, he still didn’t really know if he wanted to go to college and didn’t know what he wanted to study if he did go.

Coming from an immigrant family, this could be frustrating as you feel this pressure to know what you want to do and always play by the book. You seek a better life in America. You go to school. You do well in school. You go to college. You get a good job. Boom. Easy. Right?

Not so much.

When my Mom was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, I heard the news the week I was supposed to graduate from college. It was also the year before my brother’s junior year when students are supposed to start thinking about where they will be applying for college and start studying for the ACT or SAT. My mom gave me the task of guiding him towards the direction of pursuing a college degree at a four-year university.

At first my brother was doubtful of his abilities and lack of motivation. He didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t until his senior year when the pressure of applying for schools was right in front of him, did he start to seriously consider his future.

After three weeks of discovering the brain tumor that invaded my mom’s head, she started to show signs of improvement and was continuing her fight to live. Eventually she woke up from her coma, was able to breathe on her own, and start to talk but she was still in the ICU, being closely monitored by the nurses and doctors at Harbor-UCLA.

It was a miracle, really. She was in really bad shape but she made it another step forward. The first few weeks after brain surgery was frustrating for her. Her speech muscles weren’t firing when she wanted and it was difficult for her to form words. She’d furrow her brows and turn her head in frustration when she felt misunderstood and helpless–a look that I had become familiar with and have etched in my memory of the painful times my mother endured.

Around the beginning of November 2017, I was visiting LA for the weekend to check on my mom and see her progress. I also wanted to spend some time with my brother and see if he had made any decisions on schools or if he wanted to attend community college until he figures out his path.

To cheer him up over our new situation of coming home to a house without my mother’s presence while she’s in the hospital, I got Chickenjoy and spaghetti from Jollibee and had lunch with him at home. I asked him if he had given any thought to college applications and to my surprise, he said “Yes Ate, I think I know what I want to do.”

I was shocked but wanted him to continue opening up about his thoughts on his future. I asked, “So, what do you think you want to do?”

He replied, “I think I want to be a nurse.”

My heart was so happy at this news. I had my doubts as I knew how difficult the road would be to get there but I believed in him so long as he wanted this. I felt so honored to be the first person to know about my brother’s plans. It was our little secret as I patiently guided him towards possible schools and letting him know the journey ahead from experience of friends who had gone through it.

That November night, my brother and I visited my mom at the hospital. I shared with my mom that John and I just celebrated a year since our engagement and went to Victoria, BC to celebrate. I showed her our photos and she smiled and said “Ah-pee” and I replied, “Yes Momma, we are very happy.”

I appreciated that even though it pained her to speak, she mustered enough energy to recognize the photos and respond back. I remember looking into her eyes as she fought to keep her head turned to me despite the bulge of medical wrap around her head that protected her delicately healing skull and brain. Oh boy, it pained me to see her struggle like that. But I brushed that pain away and tucked it in so I can focus on the good and keep her mentally strong.

After sharing that moment, I looked to my brother, then I looked at my mom. I asked my mom, “Hey Momma, want to know a secret?” She nodded her head up and down. Then I took her right hand, motioned to my brother to hold her hand and said “Lanz shared something with me earlier that I think you’d like to know.”

So my brother and I switched places, and my brother told our mom “Mom, I think I know what I want to do with my life now. I want to be a nurse.”

For the first time in a long time, I saw tears from my mom’s eyes. She was crying. Up until now doctors weren’t sure if she can show emotion like this. She was fighting to speak but her mouth and tongue just weren’t clicking and she turned away in frustration, trying to gather her thoughts. I can see she was thinking how to tell my brother what she wanted to say. Then a few seconds later, she turned her head towards my crying brother.

He continued, “I want to be a nurse so I can take care of you and help you get better. I also want to help people like you Mom.” It broke my heart to hear that, knowing that we weren’t sure how long my mom would make it. But I let them continue having their moment, fighting back the tears welling up in my eyes.

For a few more moments, my brother continued to cry onto our mom’s fragile hand, bruised from all of the needles inserted below her skin.

Then, our crying mother started mouthing “Owww” and I can see her lips coming together to say “Powwww” then I helped her out, knowing what she wanted to say.

I asked, “Are you trying to say ‘proud’?” And she nodded her head yes. She then tried to whisper towards my brother, seeing that it was easier on her healing throat after spending weeks on a ventilator.

She said “Prow of you” to my brother and he continued to cry.

When my brother and I said our goodnight to our mom, we got back to the car and I told my brother that I was proud of him for getting to this point. He opened up saying he’s been feeling so lost and had no direction and that wanting be a nurse finally gave him a sense of purpose and belonging in the world. He was overwhelmed from emotion.

He had never really heard my mom say that she was proud of him like that. He felt relieved and supported and so, so loved.

Now, my brother is at a Cal State school, beginning his freshman year of school with plans to apply to the College of Nursing after completing pre-requisites. That experience as the three of us in that hospital room will forever be cemented in my memory. It was a passing of a torch from my mother to me and a stamp of a approval from our mother to her baby boy.

Whenever there are time I am uncertain with my life decisions in the past year, I asked, would my mom be supportive of this? Would she be proud of me?

I think most of us children, no matter how old, ask ourselves this question. Whether it’d be in my twenties or in my sixties, I am sure I will look up to the clouds and the stars in the sky and ask my mom what she thought of my decision.

Momma, I love you. I also want you to know that I am so proud of you, too. For fighting, for believing, for being such a great mother, and for being such a light that many of us look to in times of doubt. I am so proud of you.

Happy Wellness Wednesday!

I plan to release snippets of my reflections and thoughts every Wednesday so as to recharge my mind and prepare for the rest of the week to come. As I sift through my memories and share the good, the bad, and the ugly, my intention is to promote self-care and self-discovery as we walk, crawl, skip, and run through life.

This blog is meant to be an open space where I share my deepest thoughts, while remaining poised for the Internet and to strangers who may not know me but are reading my story.

This is an evolving blog, with the eventual goal to inspire those to share, to be present, to find balance, and to be fearless.

We all have a story and I am choosing to share mine with you all.

Thank you for your interest! Comment below or contact me if you want to chat 🙂