Hormones

Kris Aquino was airing her disgust and dismay over Korina Sanchez’s feature of her former husband talking about Kris and James’ child Bimby. The sister of the former president said: The feature that the wife of Mar Roxas came out with today is a slap to my face. Yes. I am talking this personally because I put my and my children’s future on the line without expecting anything in return. And the apparent payback for me and the children is a feature on the deadbeat father. The Queen of All Media then lashed out those who accused her with overreacting. She then reason: I am a mother, I need to protect and find what is good with my children. She even said that Korina could not empathize with her since the former is not a mother.

In another scenario, there was a time when a heated discussion erupted when all of a sudden, the other side burst out: You do not understand! I am a woman and you are not! Women must be understood since we have hormones! The discussion ended since the main theme was muddled with concepts and stands being misused.

Commission on Population defines Gender and Development (GAD) to the development perspective and process that is participatory and empowering, equitable, sustainable, free from violence, respectful of human rights, supportive of self-determination and actualization of human potentials. It seeks to achieve gender equality as a fundamental value that should be reflected in developmental choices and contends that women are active agents of development, not just passive recipients of development.

The policies and laws recognizing the participation and contribution of women as equals are not anti-male. It must also be understood by women that these are  mandates that could be abused or misused by them. For reasons of making these laws and concepts as an excuse of lashing out to males and justifying shortcomings to female hormones is not acceptable. When a mistake is committed, hormones could never be an excuse. And motherhood could never be a valid reason for being rude and “unbecoming”. Being a mother is not reason enough to lash out hurting comments online. Why not do heated and mature confrontations in person?

Of course, we need to understand the physiological changes and activities on women. But we also have to do the same with men. What about fatherhood? When a relationship would go adrift, could we point directly to the men as the culprit? There are lots of relationship astray being caused by women as well!

The thesis and dissertation of this writer are focused on women and children’s rights since it is really true that gender inequality and child abuse are rampant in our society. But it was also discovered that there are women and children who abuse these mandates to the point that crime and injustice are being committed since there are laws protecting them. In fact, legislators are now fine-tuning the laws for them to be of equal benefits to both gender and humanity in general.

There are two sides of the coin. And it is always true that it takes two to tango. Maturity comes when the person evaluates his or her side first on a certain event and consider the other side as well. Selfishness will always be a main reason of division.

Korina could have just acted as a journalist. She could have thought about the side of James Yap as the father of Bimby. Her intentions might not be malicious but done for the sake of being a broadcast journalist where every side must be considered. She could have asked Kris to air the feature…but what for?

Friendships and other relationships are bound with respect and understanding. We could never be a good and better person unless we open our minds to the things around. We could deny ourselves but not forget our rights. By being true to what and who we are, we might be freed from the chains of selfishness and looking for justifications on our mistakes and even misfortunes. We are equal. We are humans with being. Our gender is not an excuse nor a reason for not being able to love.

Green

We have them around. They are pervasively present in our society, in our circle of friends…and even in our families. There are people who could drain out your emotions and positive energy since it is their nature to draw out the positive light from you. They envy your positive disposition to the point that they would like to make you like them: bitter. They will constantly complain, see the world negatively, accuse people of being innately bad and critique the minutest detail in everything. They were not able to develop the value of appreciation and living on the positive side of life. Being with them could be considered as hell on earth.

Most of them create a facade of being happy and friendly yet they are not. They will then look for your mistakes and pull you down to the pitiful lives similar to what they are living. Their words are patronizing in front of others but could be very poisonous once you are out of sight. These things could be from their turbulent backgrounds or the uncontrolled evil inside. They were not able to nurture the person within to the point that most of them have the incapacity to love, serve and give. They turn out to be selfish and clanish. They could not connect to the bigger communities since their perspective is on the micro level only: That is focusing on their own selves and the people they consider as “theirs”.

There are older people whom you see as fixated to the material and worldly things. They equate success to clothing, cars, fame and power. They adore people who are moneyed and powerful neglecting the values and contributions of these people to humanity. Their vision of success is superficial to the point that they will do illegal and immoral things since they VALUE the aforementioned materials than the universal values. Most of them strive to acquire property and things which they feel would fill in their incapacity.

But then, according to Harvey Jackins, the person in the grip of old distress says things that are not pertinent, does things that don’t work, fails to cope with the situation, and endures terrible feelings that have nothing to do with the present. That is the main reason that these “persons” are actually unsuccessful in their fields. Most of them are actually being left behind by their contemporaries in terms of power and fame and money. Instead of defining success to what they are right now, they continue to be driven with things which won’t actually quench their thirst for craving for the material things they desire.

Thus, they are bitter. Their presence could then become toxic and energy-draining since their words and actions reflect their insecurity. They try their best to sound pertinent but they are actually wading on shallow waters.

So why linger on them? We have lots to enjoy in life. We need not be influenced with what we consider as unhealthy things in our Being and Becoming. We could stay away from these people since they are actually NOT our friends. Friends unconditionally give love, affection, respect and even resources to us and not instruments of self-destruction and defeat. It is a decision with the inner person to severe relationships which could not make the outer being a contributor of pain and negative energy to the universe. Life is better than that.

With the readings we get, we see that reflective people have lesser companions and so-called friends since they understand how to separate themselves from the toxic ones and keep the best ones whom they could nurture compatibly. We treasure these people since they help us with our missions and enhance our strengths to pursue the purposes of our lives.

We then continue to keep our quiet and appreciate the things we have. We believe that their is a greater force guiding us to reach our destinations. We define our own happiness and not be mandated by the pressures we see in different platforms. We reach out to people not to use or abuse them. We do this since we are like them: human with beings.

Incapacity to Love

He wept. We could directly see him since he was conspicuously seated in the front row. He was crying for the whole duration of the Thanksgiving Mass. Then during the graduation ceremonies, while almost all his classmates painted beautiful smiles on their faces, his was the epitome of sadness etched on all angles of his being. These events are supposedly victorious moments! There is something wrong with the picture he is projecting! What was it?

It was later learned that his parents are not around. They were not there during one of the most important phases of his life. They separated due to their own reasons…Reasons that a child could not understand. He even bargained that they could separate as long as they are there during that moment. But they were not. Probably, they were doing justifications on their actions. Still, in the heart of the child, they are simply selfish.

Relationships could be nurturing or toxic. It takes two souls to find the level of maturity for them to nourish each other and the EGO to turn situations into poisonous encounters to the point that the two must separate for self preservation. Maturity is the name of the game since mature individuals seek to find themselves first before connecting to another soul. That is the main point of the word “soul mate”. One has to discover the things he/she is thirsting first before quenching another person’s thirst. The person must strengthen the inner being so that when the being he/she is connecting to needs more energy, there is something to offer, to fill in. But, what if both of the partners have inadequacies? What is there to give?

Is it good to enter into a relationship to make the partner as part of a rehearsal? You see, there are those of us who claim that we are into a relationship to have an inspiration. That could be dangerous since we are making the person as a representation of what we need than accepting his or her totality. The best thing is to be THE inspiration to the other. We could do that once we attain all the needs that we have and address the things we desire. That is why relationships could be suffocating since a lot of us enslave our partners and label them with what we lack. We make them as the scapegoats of our incapacity and blame them of our weaknesses. We do not like to bend on our knees since we are too proud to accept who we are. We insinuate on our being good only to conceal our being NOT good enough!

And what happens to the children - the “fruits” of our love? Most of them become a consequence of a relationship gone bad. They are not considered since the parents are licking their own wounds and concentrating on themselves rather than others. The parents were not able to reach the maturity of forgetting themselves for others… not even for their own flesh and blood.

The incapacity to love and serve could be traced to FEAR. A lot of us did not overcome the fear of being rejected. We might had the experience of being shortchanged of love and affection from our loved ones when we were young we eventually became emotional vampires. We demand to be served to be pampered and to be always the “apple of the eye” not realizing that these things are so adolescent. We failed to grow up. We forget that the sole purpose of growing up is to SERVE not be served.

The crying graduate is just a micro-representation of the children who became victims of the incapacity to love by his parents. This could be terrifying since it might become a vicious cycle where the child is placed in the future. He might be a harbinger of toxic relationships too.

We might as well look into our own selves and be a positive force to overcome the negative one gnawing in the midst of our society. 

Overcoming Darkness

When one has found the path towards the divine, he/she will continue to trek it so to find the real essence life. The journey could be difficult. One of the most difficult persons to confront who will hinder the attainment of the goal is the inner self. We understand how we project ourselves since we define who we are according to our needs and projections. We could be aware of our ego part and we could be in control with it once we do reflections and introspection. But, what about The Shadow?

According to the celebrated Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1963), The Shadow is the unknown “dark side” of our personality. It consist predominantly of the primitive, negative, socially or religiously depreciated human emotions like sexual lust, power striving, envy, selfishness, greed, anger or rage, and due to its unenlightened nature completely obscured from consciousness.

In our faith, we call it the presence of evil in us…

It has been constantly encouraged these days for us to perform reflective episodes since these allow us to evaluate and and weigh the actions that we do. It is often difficult especially to those people who consider solitude as equated to loneliness. They often complain how boring it is to be with no one else but oneself. This might be the starting point of the so called repression of the Freudian theory of projection when we can combat the id by projecting or “casting” it away from us. Without such reflective moments, we also miss the development of appreciation which is an attitude so difficult to attain. Since it is only in reflective moments when we can count our blessings.

So, is it safe to tell that those who wallow in distress, self-pity, envy and other negative intentions are being taken over by their Shadow? It might be. That is the reason why there are PATHS that we need to take. We need to take the time to meditate and reflect. If the path we take is that of Catholicism, we are encouraged to do this during the Lenten season. We are given the chance to utilize this path even during the Holy Week where there are lots of time going to confession and meditative prayers. (On the side note, people are now filling in these BORING days by going to resorts and binge parties. They could not stand the silence…)

If you are of different religious denomination, it is the same. There are casting sessions, meditative reflections based on the bible. Islam allows our Muslim brethren to embrace the divine through Allah. There are those who go out of their comfort zones by preaching the word since they are fulfilling their ministry - a path to be of service to others, denouncing worldly needs through humility.

That is the reason why religion should not be argued. It is a path in attaining the need to be one with the divine. Religion is self-consuming. It must be understood by the individual for him/her to arrive to the direction of combating The Shadow. If your religion allows you to be a better person, so be it. There is no need for one to insist in converting others to be “saved”. It is a personal struggle since there are even those who are not not attending church services yet they are enlightened beings.

We then continue to be one with the divine. We take time seeing what is within us. Serenity comes when we understand that the worldly lures are but fleeting. We could keep our quiet to those noise that we hear from people who are constantly claiming what is holy and what is not. We take our time slowly. Even Jesus went out of the wilderness to reflect. We do the same. We take our paths.

Who knows in the end, we will see each other there where serenity is eternal and The Shadow is defeated.

Mercy

“I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me anything to drink, I was a stranger and you did not take me in, I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me…”

Feed the hungry. There were instances when we do not like the food served to us. We even throw some of them away since they are in excess. We prepare banquets during special occasions and leave the leftovers to the dogs. We often forget that there are people who do not have anything to eat. It is not our mistakes right, but it is our faith that binds us as one. We have to understand that if we do not share some of the food we have, we are actually turning our back to the least of our brethren. What would Jesus do if he have lots of food?

Give drink to the thirsty. It is not just water that the people around us thirst for. Most of the time, its is affection, affirmation and friendship. According to Mother Teresa, the greatest poverty is that of being unloved, unwanted and uncared for. Most of the time, we are so busy with our work. We are so immersed with the tasks that we do, We equate the meaning of our lives to the workloads we have. We forget that we work to make a living, to make life meaningful. We seldom see the people who thirst for our smiles and simple nods. We fail to listen to our friends who are suffering from something. We are always busy. What would Jesus do when someone needs to be quenched with his/her thirst?

Shelter the homeless. We adhere to the adage NOT to talk to strangers. We are afraid that they might do something harmful to us. That is correct. But welcoming them in our hearts and allowing people to feel that they are AT HOME is an easy thing. We might not have the big houses to shelter people but our hearts are wide enough to accommodate them. By allowing them to feel that they are like family members, we make the strangers feel good. This feeling will have a ripple effect to others. When Jesus was approached by strangers who needed to be healed, he embraced them like family members.

Clothe the naked. Try to look at your closets. We have enough clothes to last for years. But we often crave to have more. We head to the nearest ukay-ukay to acquire more clothing. What for? We see people who are clad with things similar to those we make as floor mats. We often submit to our needs to buy signature clothes for the sake of the brands not for the purpose…By allowing others, especially the kids to be clothed well through our generosity, we are able to share our blessings and allow them to do the same. What would Jesus do we he have lots of clothing?

Visit the sick and the imprisoned. Do you remember the times when you got sick? You were so helpless and lonely. When people visited you, it became an imprint in your memory you often remember the persons who were there for you. In times of loneliness, our mere presence heals. There are those who are bedridden yet we got so busy remembering them. There are even children whose parents are sick yet do not visit them. They often justify their absence of being busy. Yet, if we go deeper, it is the incapacity to serve as the main reason. We are sometimes engrossed with our selfishness to the point that visiting the sick and the imprisoned do not matter. These seem to be insignificant since we like living the life we define it to be. But what would Jesus do even if he is busy? Would he visit them?

Our lives are fleeting. We do not know when is our last breath. We find the meaning of our existence and most of the time, we equate this to material things. We are so busy looking for money to be able to acquire things. We want to have lots of resources to be able to travel and be at par with the rich. We could not look beyond ourselves since we are feeding the unmet needs we have. We are driven by FEAR. We are afraid not to be recognized and appreciated that we have to look good and achieve. We fear to be left behind that we also put on masks showing that we are successful. We are afraid that our friends are better than us, that is why we indirectly publish our own achievements…

But in the end, would all these matter? What did Jesus do when he was here?

Service and Love

Seeing the students rehearse for their graduation, one could ponder on the efforts their parents displaced for them to arrive this part of their lives. We could sense the difficult times they exerted to come across. The dynamic demand to cope with technology and the expenses they incur to allow their children to be at par with the present standards  could sometimes overwhelm a mere observer. Yet, they were able to do their duties and responsibilities.

We could not discount the efforts of the learners themselves. How many hours did they spend in acquiring knowledge and honing their skills? How many times when they were exposed to stressful situations when they coped with the requirements? They were able to cry on their failures and bounced back. There were even those who gave up and surrendered to mendicancy and hopelessness. But the majority seems to submit to the belief that all would be well if they toil hard.

One way or the other, there are teachers who inspired these young learners. They are those who unconditionally displaced their time, talent and treasures so for the student to reach their full potential. These teachers realized their role in the lives of the learners: that is to love them without anything in return. They see the young ones as the future builders of the community and the country. They see them as the future parents of the children who need to be nurtured. They see the students as the people who will also displace love and affection to others that’s why they give them something of essence: loving service.

Self-mastered parents and teachers help children choose their own goals; They help children visualize the positive results of achieving their own goals and the negative results of not reaching their goals; They remember and employ the power of praise and affirmation to the young; They also help children develop a more positive self-image; And best, they nurture the spirits of the young by allowing them to see the importance of linking oneself to the divine.

The aforementioned things might not be the template for raising and educating young people but they seem to be effective. There are those who lack some of those things and they are having difficult times with their studies. It has been proven by countless studies and researches that there is a significant relationship between parental support and the academic achievement of the learners.

It is in this time of the year when we look back and count the efforts we have in our roles in making the society we belong a better one through our individual efforts. Since we belong to the molding of the learners mind and character, that could be our great contribution to the country we truly love.

Love of people (Maka-Tao), love of country (Maka-Bansa), love for the environment (Maka-Kalikasn) are all attributed to the nurturing powers we have in our hands as parents and teachers. All of these are done because we owe so much from the divine interventions our creator has blessed us. (Maka-Diyos)

Transcendence

Why can’t we be natural? That’s one of the most difficult questions to answer since all of us wear our own masks to conform what is expected of us. There are instances when we even project someone which is really the exact opposite of the person within.

There is this metaphor about the flower. It blooms with all its beauty without any expectation that someone will appreciate it. It is just there in full regalia without any pretensions. When it reaches its time, it wilts and dies a natural death. It may sound insignificant but if we can live our lives similar to it, less pressures and conflict happen.

We dress up and find time to make ourselves presentable so to make others appreciate us. Affirmation seems to be an insatiable hunger that we even try to augment our skin into the fairer hue. We like to “improve” our looks for us to be liked. We dab expensive perfumes to our skin and we buy expensive accessories for us to stand out, to be different.

There are instances that we even acquire education for us to use this as a means of elevating ourselves from others. We like to be on the highest part of the ladder so for power to be acquired. We don’t want to be ignored so we raise our voices to be heard, to be singled-out as intelligent.

In the real sense, we are always enslaved with fear. We are afraid to be rejected that’s the reason why we constantly seek for affirmation. We consider people as our friends if they patronize us. We are afraid to be placed on the margin that is why we do not associate with the marginalized ones. Others might think that we are like them; they might see us like those people so pitiful we will not have a niche in the society.

In the social media sites, we promote ourselves so that people will like us. We are products that need to be packaged; to be ogled and eventually, to be considered as a commodity worth acquiring. The more beautiful ones are the expensive types.

But who is really the inner person? He or she is the one who tries to connect to the divine. With or without religion (which is just a mere path to reach divinity) this faceless person is capable of INNER REFINEMENT which allows him/her to see others as well without labels. In short, there is equity of love, respect, justice and all the universal values among them since they know that the divine resides in all of the people.

But then, we could not help if EGO is going to overpower us since this could be the one which SEEM to motivate us to make our lives better. We give in to the satisfaction of our appetites but fail to understand why. We continue to live a superficial existence trying to convince ourselves that we are doing it right.

Still we embrace the fact that life is a CONTINUUM. It is in this belief that the inner SELF could be discovered if we transcend from the EGO to the inner us. Our journeys could be different in arriving to the direction yet if processes are attuned to the common good, a natural course can be found and trekked.

Just like the flowers on the side roads and wilderness, we bloom without expecting anybody to stop and appreciate us. But inside us, we know that we have contributed something beautiful to the world. When the former insignificance could now be considered as resonating force to be ONE with the universe, that is when life would be meaningful.