stripping down the self

I sit here on a steady Saturday. Finally, I find an hour to myself. After all that I've experienced this week, it's good to slow down a bit. Rest is good. Rest is what my body needs the most. Even Franco agreed that we'd have to stay home after dinner tonight. Just talk, walk, chill, and keep each other company. No more going home during the wee hours, inhaling secondhand smoke, eating this and that, drinking this and that, and trying to keep my eyes wide open. At least not for tonight. So tonight is an exceptional steady Saturday.

I need this pause too. It's not just my body that's reacting to all that I'm doing or not doing. I'll admit that I am not in my best shape in the health section nowadays. I could say it's the fault of the makers of Twix for creating such a scrumptious and heavenly chocolate bar or I could say it's because my gym membership already lapsed and so on and so forth. But I'm not going to say all those. Ultimately, it all boils down to small choices I make day by day.

Waking up for the past two months has usually been about just waking up, freshening up in the bathroom, eating breakfast, and then going on with the rest of my schedule.

Last Thursday morning, with my mom's sweet voice waking me up, "Come on! Get up, La. Let's take a walk. Dali, habang wala pa masayadong araw...", I found myself in the middle of decision-making. I had to choose. Wake up and walk around the village or sleep under the covers with my soft and fluffy pillows? Aaah. What a hard decision to make on an early Thursday morning.

But finally, after losing so many battles with Twix chocolate bars, my superego finally won over the id. Maybe the id was still asleep at 6:30am.

So I had that walk with my mom who shared stories with me, greeted people along the way with a sincere "good morning", smiling at those who were taking a walk, a jog, or riding their bicycles. If you see me as a very cheerful person, I think it's really because of my amiable mom. She can get along with anyone at any age. (Oh and nothing shocks her. All my close friends can attest to this.)

As we were talking, I realized how much of my life's important decisions have been made during those walks & talks. Suddenly, I remembered the times I had to seek advice for some things and my mom gave me the best thought-provoking answers.

When I was much younger around a year and half old maybe, a family friend of ours, Tita Migen Osorio, wrote a magazine article about my family and how children were raised by parents who were both working. At that time, we were just three kids and I was still the youngest as could be seen in the old article photo. My two younger sisters weren't born yet. The article was basically about parenting and also about motherhood as my mom used to practice Pediatrics at the time. What struck me the most was when my mom was asked what was the best thing she could teach her children. She said that her goal was simple -- to make all of us have a positive self-concept.

Positive self-concept.

I find it simple and concise. It's the perfect answer.

Why is it perfect? Because we know that we're all unique individuals and yet it addresses our uniqueness. Our needs, our wants, our talents, our capabilities, our desires, our experiences, and how we interpret our experiences are all different. Positive self-concept does not choose whether we're an introvert or an extrovert, short or tall, fair-skinned or dark-skinned, able to do a cartwheel or not, able to drive a car or not, and so on and so forth. We could be any of these and we could all still have a positive self-concept.

If we all have a healthy amount of this, our world would be such a happy happy happy place.

Going back to my not-so-tiptop-shape, I still believe that I am able and will be able to go back to the healthy physical state of my body. My friend told me earlier that I don't look like out of shape but I explained to her that it's a feeling that you yourself just know. I've been in this body for 25 years and somehow I just know it's showing me signs to go back to my healthier lifestyle.

I already got shook up, a bit tossed maybe, but never trampled upon. It's time to go back to equilibrium. Not just physically but also in all other aspects of my current life.

And you know what, I think it will be fairly easy to do so because I simply believe I'm on my way there. Somehow I'm thinking maybe my mom did reach her goal about instilling positive self-concepts to all five of her children. Come to think of it, I truly think she already did.