Blog by Jedde

Pexels The longest month of all seems to be January. In the past, I would often feel sluggish, quiet, and sometimes dreary when the first month of the year arrives. It may just be me, but it's like a recuperating period from the huge festivities of the previous months.  But it's not at all bad. In fact, I find it useful that I feel this way because now I'll have the time to reflect and choose the direction I want to head to moving forward. It gives me an opportunity to spend time with my thoughts and become comfortable with my own company without the heavy feeling of needing to accomplish anything grand. Speaking of direction, I've come up with what I want to focus on for this month. These are simple tasks that need to be done or habits that I've started to build consistently. Today, I'm going to let you in on some of the tasks I have in mind.  1. Complete 20 Pilates sessions. I started taking Pilates classes in 2018 and it helped me improve my posture and stren...

"When it rains and it pours, the thunder and the lights shatter in the sky, and your heart wonders  in solitude, if you're  truly ever worth loving. They told you that you  get the love you deserve, but as soon as the lightning strikes, you are illuminated with the truth - that you are too broken to be put together and nobody keeps a broken glass, not even the king's men who  put Humpty Dumpty  together again. In a stormy night when the clouds are burdened  with tears gushing through  their  tender skins; you gather your broken pieces and lay there in silence. The door opens and  the one  who brings the lamp appears. With his sleeping soul, he sees you in the ebony of darkness and takes a step - and each step of his  is coated with  deafening  silence. The lamp bringer  casts  a  light on your broken pieces; A timid flicker at first,  and  then a loud burst altogether - of  a million stars shi...

Do you recognize what this plant is? This is called a moringa oleifera , often known by many names like the drumstick tree, the miracle tree, or the horseradish. In my place, we call this kamunggay. In a moment, I'm going to take us through  three short stories from my childhood and with this lens, hopefully we will see the message behind how a simple plant is able to make us understand a very important lesson in life. Let's begin, shall we? -- A true test of patience when I was growing up involved a moringa plant or kamunggay. On weekends, my mama and papa would come home from the market with the grocery items. I remembered my sister and I would grumble heavily before we would move and rush to prepare a bowl to be placed on the table. Clearing anything unnecessary on top of it, we would take out the moringa from the grocery bag and start to pluck out its leaves. Carefully and ever so gently, as we didn't want to include the stalks, the leaves would be remove...

Photo: Pexels I tried to go beyond my comfort zone the other day. It was an attempt to present some practical set of tools that I've learned from my course. An idea meant to provide a fresh perspective on tackling changes to a group of 15 people. Being a beginner in that particular topic, my mind began to wander and imagined possibilities of myself, standing in front of everyone - confidently delivering an impeccably substantial content. In that bubble, I looked comfortable being in my element with no clear signs of doubt and fear as I spoke. How powerful I appeared to be in that vision! I snapped back to reality and while putting together my presentation slides, I couldn't help but notice how eager I was to deliver the content. Somehow, outlining the important points about the topic seemed like a piece of cake. In fact, it felt liberating! The ideas flowed out naturally and almost seamlessly. I typed as each idea pops up. Seeing it happening right in front of my very ...

For quite some time, waking up early in the morning to do some exercise has been on mind. Many months later, it still remains what it is - just an idea that never came to be, not at all put into action. I've been wondering why I couldn't find the motivation to enable me to achieve this and often find myself asking the question why; unable to provide an answer. Each morning, my alarm wakes me up at the time I set the night before and my instant reaction is a constant resistance to succumb to it. I often tell myself that I don't really need to wake up that early. And so, I hit snooze, pull my blanket closer and enjoy some few more minutes to doze. Most mornings are cozy after all, why would I trade this for the world? I deserved to enjoy this hygge . Until one late evening, while I was scrolling through my Kindle App, I came across this book by an author whose name didn't ring a bell. His name's Stephen Guise and he wrote a book about Elastic Habits. Surpris...

Here we are - standing at the crossroad; wondering how we all managed to survive the storms that wreaked havoc in our lives this year. Nobody has the slightest idea of how we got here - even us. We do know, however, that the path to reach where we are now is one that's winding, bumpy, narrow, and difficult.  We've lost a lot along the way - hope, inspiration, clarity, even ourselves in the process. We've shed tears, so much of them just like how it's been raining endlessly these past few days of December. We thought there was no way past them - but here we are, wounded but still standing, still fighting. Knees trembling, we try to look back at our journey for a moment. The times we fell down in defeat and felt achingly helpless begin to flood our memories. The darkness is fresh in our minds, the wounds still stinging as though it hasn't been healed. We savor the painful moments, still finding hard to accept that some people who we love dearly have l...

I'm in awe of your courage. Every day, you wake up and give yourself another chance despite not knowing what lies ahead. Every day, you muster the strength to move forward despite the uncertainty and doubt that fills your every step. Your genuine kindness radiates and it shows in your face without you knowing, inspiring the people around you. Some days may not be so good and you sometimes feel like the world is on your shoulders, yet, you still have the heart to worry about others and the people that you care about.  Some days bring you happy moments and the way you smile when things go your way, when the weather is good, when you are appreciated, and when you finally acknowledge your own efforts is priceless. I wish you could see it for yourself. You may be scared now. Terrified, even; that there are still many things that you need to figure out in your life at the moment and that they often do not make sense. Here's a little secret between you and me - your feelings a...

25 October 2019 - Your girl made it. She successfully graduated as of this writing at The School of Positive Psychology under the Graduate Diploma in Applied Positive Psychology (GDAPP) program. Hurray!!!  Who knew right? At the back of my mind, the most important thing about being in Singapore was only to survive. I kept telling myself: "I have to work. I have to earn money so I have something to eat. I have no time for anything else, otherwise, it becomes a waste to be here. I should not waste the support of the people that brought me here to Singapore." You might relate to this. Sometimes we deprive ourselves of what "could" be. We often become paralyzed with our own self-limiting beliefs. We are creative to find reasons why we shouldn't be doing things that are productive, and do things that we enjoy. However, for the past two years of working at the Little Red Dot, I've always had this strong gut feeling and a burning passion to expand wh...

When was the last time  you had a nice meal, ate without guilt  and enjoyed it for real? How about the last time  you woke up in the morning, felt glad and excited as if  it was a fresh beginning? When was the last time  you did something for yourself, without thinking it's a crime, no hesitations for oneself? How about the last time  you felt genuinely proud of something  that you have achieved with all your heart, like it was spring? Or forgave yourself  for making a mistake, being flawed and imperfect or for feeling inadequate? For feeling weak, especially at night when the world is heavily quiet? or when your mind traces back right at the core of your fears in delight? When was the last time you told yourself it's alright, to cry and let go for a while, howling like a wolf in the moonlight? How tired you must have been feeling, How lost you must have become....

If you were to recall what you told your teacher when she asked: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" , would you say you've become what you said you would be? Does it make you happy? When I was little, I often wondered what it would be like to become an adult. You could do whatever you want and be who you want to be. You could also travel to places as you wish. It was an exciting thought to think about. As kids, my friends and I would play pretend, where we were the doctors and our stuffed animals were our patients. My aunt would scold us many times because we used to pick the leaves from the small garden to play chef. We would collect old newspapers, cut them, and then make it into our pretend money. Those were the days when I thought to myself, "I can't wait to become an adult, then I can have anything that I want." In fourth-grade, the teacher would ask us to think about what we wanted to be when we grow up. I remembered drawing a fig...