David Victor Photography

I have perpetuated my picture of myself as sickly. I’ve rehashed my family and social conditioning revolving around my heart murmurs. It was a nice lady doctor who sentenced me to no sports or physical activities that could get me exhausted.

I know that the updated healthcare would be to give the heart some exercise. But I stayed on with the doctor’s prescription for many years, at my convenience! I wonder if this gave my psyche reason to shun housework. I wonder if this is the history of my lopsided life – intellectual glorification and gratification at the expense of developing a healthy body. I was always out of gas because I was short circuiting my energy flow.

I remember how the voice engineer of Cynthia Patag  diagnosed my voice problem in the 90s as one of atrophy. I wasn’t using my vocal cords according to how they were designed. Perhaps it was a frustrating cry, a wake up call for me to sing my heart out. But I listened to my old script of limiting beliefs. I chose to ignore the quiet voice that had been asking for a change of lifestyle.

According to one male author “if we always follow the same script, we’re going to get the same results. But when we change the script, or create a new one, we propel ourselves into a completely new realm of possibilities and opportunities.”

In London in 2009, Emil and I would climb four flights of stairs to the flat of our daughter. Yet I wouldn’t pant the way I did climbing the stairs to her room in a condo near Ateneo during her college years. When I mentioned this to a local in London he had a matter- of- fact explanation.

The air in London was no longer polluted; they had outsourced their products. In other words, like the rest of the first world countries most of the factories were relocated outside the city or to other countries.

I recall that one of my many doctors in the 90s recommended that we live in Germany where the air was cleaner. He must have believed my voice problem must have been due to the polluted air in Manila. At that time, we considered the advice as ridiculous given that it would entail uprooting our family. Besides that would have been financial suicide!

In an attempt to rewrite my script, I have been doing the Healing Code exercise. After two months I no longer have heaviness on my legs. The discolorations from poor circulation are still with me but I have accepted these with humor. I believe I still have issues to be acknowledged ; in due time even the blotches on my legs will disappear.

For about two years now I have been compensating for my introspective self by living in the NOW. I have been steering myself away from the past. Neither happy nor sad memories are entertained. They are gently dismissed. Likewise I haven’t allowed myself to worry about the future. I haven’t engaged in visualizations for the future. Yet the change of address planned for and obsessed over as early as in 2007 manifested in 2011. My program for changing my thought paradigms must have done corrective measures by itself!

Today in 2012, I still experiment playfully with my thoughts. I make it a point to color my day from burnt sienna to cranberry to turquoise. I avoid taupe and set mauve as the boundary below which I can’t go any deeper. Some days are like the very long night drive from the airport to Bandung, Indonesia: quiet and empty. Other days remind me of the houses in Vietnam: narrow and closely-packed. I get stretched out of my comfort zone and feeling unfulfilled. Sometimes my days are as colorful as the hanging pots of flowers on the streets of Malaysia and the streets outside the flats in Earle’s Court in London. Other days are as challenging as the reckless, high speed drive to Genting Highlands in Malaysia. There are days that are too peppered for comfort similar to the extremely spicy KFC chicken in Zuhai, China. It makes my stomach churn. I crave for the bland and comfortable days like the best ramen I have tasted in a dine-in cafeteria  in Malaysia near Westin Hotel. My best days are like life in Epping, Sydney; I get a lot of walking space, plenty of time to think without being disturbed and above all I have the freedom to be myself.

I have travelled enough times in the river of Styx through my depressive years in the 90s. Through those years I have experienced enough dis-eases catalogued in Louie Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life” as well as via Dr. Christine Page’s “Frontiers of Health” and “Mirror of Existence”.

Lynn Grabhorn pushed me out of my fears and timidity through her book” Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting for You”. She sustained me through my doubts and fears with her book” Beyond the Twelve Steps”.

Today I give myself permission to stay healthy with the help of Martha Beck’s “Steering by Starlight” and by “Finding Your Way in a Wild  New World”. I owe it to myself to do justice to my Nature. She gave me a new reason for living with her fantastic creation story. According to her, I am made of stardust and sunshine.