Thea's Truths & Thresholds

Category: Truths I’ve Learned

Insights, realizations, and clarity moments accumulated through lived experience

  • Beginning the Year with Discernment and Compassion, Not Bypassing

    Beginning the Year with Discernment and Compassion, Not Bypassing

    There’s a common expectation to start the year with optimism. For me, though, a fresh start doesn’t require pretending everything is okay. I value honesty over toxic positivity, which means acknowledging what still needs my attention. I’m starting this year with compassion for the parts of me that carry past scars.

    Recently, a wellness blogger-expert’s content brought up old pain. It wasn’t just his dramatic delivery; it reminded me of a version of myself that was once deceived and betrayed. Love bombed. Recognizing this isn’t “sweating the small stuff.” It is acknowledging what was real.

    My trauma being triggered doesn’t excuse his behavior. A boundary violation is still a violation, and deception is still deception. The difference now is that I spot these patterns quickly. I canceled my subscription as soon as I noticed the warning signs.

    Others might view this as an overreaction. As part of my healing and self-inquiry process, I tuned inward and asked myself that. This isn’t an overreaction. For those of us with a history of betrayal, a breach of space isn’t a small thing—it’s a signal. Given how misunderstood trauma is, given how uninformed society is about trauma, our protective instincts are often dismissed.

    I am not overreacting; I am responding to a pattern I’ve seen before. Validating my own response is how I refuse to gaslight myself — and prevent falling into the trap of spiritual and human bypassing.

    I’ve become highly aware of performative patterns: the use of sophisticated language to mask a lack of substance, inconsistent professional claims, and a focus on high-end branding over genuine transparency.  These are tactics that exploit a person’s desire for meaning and connection. I don’t judge those who follow him because I was once that vulnerable. That memory helps me stay understanding and compassionate while I focus on my own path.

    *****

    This situation also clarified memories of my deceased, manipulative, narcissistic mother. Decades of betrayal before I cut contact made me alert to signs of manipulation and deception. While the patterns are similar, I am grateful I can now tell the difference between then and now. I am giving myself the time and space to think clearly and process the hurt without judgment — for myself and others.

    And that is how I’m starting the year: integrating my experiences rather than pushing them away — welcoming and honoring whatever is coming up for healing, release, and integration. I am prioritizing my autonomy over putting on a show. I am moving forward feeling lighter, with less distraction and more trust in myself and the Divine Intelligence.

    If this resonates, how do you honor yourself when old patterns resurface? If any part of this speaks to you, I invite you to share your reflections in the comment section below.

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙

  • The Gift of Not Belonging: My New Year Threshold

    The Gift of Not Belonging: My New Year Threshold

    As we step into the first light of a new year, many of us reflect on where we’ve been—and where we think we should be. For me, that reflection has long centered on a single question: Where do I belong?

    But after six decades of searching, I’ve learned that the answer wasn’t about finding a place or group to fit into—it was about recognizing that my “misalignment” with the world around me isn’t a flaw. It’s a gift.

    *****

    Last night, the fireworks outside mirrored the clarity within — sovereignty illuminated at the year’s edge.

    From the very beginning, the first message I received from the world was rejection. My birth parents—and eventually siblings and other relations—turned away because of the color of my skin, my gender, and how I looked as a newborn.

    I was ridiculed. “Negrita of the mountain!” “Igorota!” (a female member of a northern tribe in the Philippines) were constantly hurled in my direction. Silence was the only response I knew.

    The message was clear: you are wrong, you are not welcome. That wound became the silent script beneath everything, shaping my decisions and my endless search for belonging.

    I pursued it everywhere: within my family of origin, in friendships, in community organizations, and even in the vision of a home by the sea or in the countryside. Enchanted by romantic verses, rustic dreams, folklore, and the modern cottagecore vibe, I thought happiness and fulfillment could be found in withdrawing to a charming bahay kubo (nipa hut) where everything would ultimately “come together” and “fall into place.” Yet the search acted as a diversion, leading me into misguided decisions influenced more by longing than by reality.

    This misalignment feels particularly sharp in the Philippines, where cultural values are rooted in kapwa (shared identity) and collectivism. Community, family, and harmony often take priority over individual needs—and speaking up, asserting my views, or setting firm boundaries earned me labels I heard again and again: mataray, difficult, too strong-willed, too much, uncooperative.

    I attempted to diminish myself, to conform to the expected role of womanhood, or how women are supposed to act in Filipino society, especially if I wished to maintain my social circle—putting others before me, suppressing my views, valuing the group’s harmony over my own truth. Yet every concession made me feel empty, as though I were diminishing to fit into a place I was never intended to inhabit.

    *****

    In June 2025, a fractured ankle sealed the first lesson. Forced to stop, I stepped away from the condo governance community saga that had drained me for several years—where my efforts to advocate for transparency were dismissed as being “too pushy” or having too high standards. A perfectionist in an imperfect world.

    Offering my time and skills as an unpaid committee volunteer to improve our building’s management was misinterpreted by community members as pro‑Board. They failed and refused to see—even appreciate—that my efforts were aimed at improving our entire community’s living situation.

    That rupture was more than physical—it was ceremonial. It showed me how deeply my rescuer reflex was tied to an unmet childhood need for approval, and how much of my life had been driven by trying to prove I deserved to belong.

    *****

    It is not my job to correct pseudo-authorities or educate the unwilling. My role is to name truth and protect my space.

    *****

    In November 2025, a trip to Los Baños, Laguna, shattered the last of my illusions. I wrote about it in The Los Baños Threshold: The Mirage of the Cottage Sanctuary. Standing in a place I’d once imagined as my “cottage sanctuary,” I saw clearly how the myth of belonging had kept me from my truest self. A sudden confrontation with the divide between the myth and the reality of that idealized life shattered the illusion completely.

    I finally understood: There is nothing fundamentally wrong with me. I am simply different. An outsider.

    *****

    I am no longer the woman who doubts or backs down in the face of deflection or condescension. Sovereignty is embodied now.

    *****

    I have always identified as an extroverted introvert, but learning about the “otrovert” in Rami Kaminski’s The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners, gave me language for what I’ve lived all along. Otroverts thrive not by joining, but by standing apart—creating, discerning, and contributing from the margins.

    As an otrovert, I am not a joiner, and that is not a flaw. It is a gift.

    I know labels can become cages, reducing complexity to shorthand. But for me, this framework is about sense‑making—not diagnosis. It helps me depersonalize what I’ve carried, broaden my understanding of how identity and culture intersect, and cultivate compassion for both myself and the world I navigate.

    *****

    Real healing is being seen, heard, and validated by myself. External approval is welcome and appreciated, but incidental.

    This awareness is my doorway into cronehood. I look forward to spending my sunset years not in pursuit of fleeting belonging, but in lasting peace and quiet joy. I leave behind false teachings, misaligned choices, and unhealthy patterns—rescuing, compulsiveness, martyrdom—that shaped my past decades.

    *****

    The rescuer, the self‑doubter, the validation‑seeker — all sent off with one‑way, non‑refundable tickets to Pluto.

    My new year begins here: not in escape, not in external community, but in the sanctuary of myself.

    *****

    Being different is not a flaw. It is clarity. It is sovereignty. It is me.

    And when I hear “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman, I recognize my own declaration:

    The Greatest Showman Cast – This Is Me (Official Lyric Video)

    In future posts, I’ll explore how the rescuer’s trap, compulsiveness, and martyrdom hooks all tie back to this gift of not belonging.

    *****

    I step into the new year with gratitude for discernment, clarity, and the spiral of healing — carrying less noise and more trust.

    ~~~ Mantra Seal ~~~

    I am home.
    I am my sanctuary.
    I belong to no one but me.
    This is me. I am free.

    As we step into the new year, please allow yourself a moment to reflect:
    Where have I been shrinking to fit in?
    Have you been chasing belonging in places or groups that don’t honor who you are?
    Have cultural expectations or family norms made you feel like you’re “too much”—or not enough?

    If any part of this speaks to you, I invite you to share your reflections in the comment section below.

    Wishing everyone joy, health, and fresh beginnings! Happy New Year!!!

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙

  • Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: Redefining What Matters

    Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: Redefining What Matters

    For a long time, the phrase “don’t sweat the small stuff” felt hollow to me. It sounded like bypassing. Dismissive. Like another way to excuse what should never have been excused. In my family, in systems that tolerated abuse, in environments that mistook generosity for obligation — those were never small. Those were patterns. Naming them was not oversensitivity; it was clarity.

    Now, in this quieter chapter, I see where the phrase actually lives. It never belonged in places where dignity was eroded or truth had to be swallowed to preserve appearances. But it does belong in how I move through relationships and daily exchanges — where discernment, not erasure, is the measure.

    Friends and Family

    With friends, I notice the difference.

    Claire, with whom I recently reconnected, is someone I can meet at depth, and she meets me there, too. When she didn’t call me back after saying she would, I felt the sting. Her later text about “peace of mind” landed tone‑deaf, and I caught myself bracing. But when we spoke again, the conversation was supportive and real. Because Claire consistently meets my clarity, I can choose to let go of her misstep. There are more substantial gifts her friendship brings, and I won’t make a big deal out of a missed call. That’s small stuff.

    With my family of origin, it was never small.

    There was a pattern of abuse and dysfunction. The time came when I no longer felt compelled to play the rescuer or victim in the drama triangle. I embraced my role as the truth‑teller, and that clarity cost me, but it was structural truth.

    *****

    Neighbors and Community

    The same with the condo community: entitlement and disrespect weren’t lapses, they were patterns. Patterns of abuse. That required fire.

    And yet, not every neighbor is the same.

    Jean has shown she can meet me at depth, even if my family estrangement story is foreign to her. Fatima, on the other hand, cannot meet me there. She is not malicious, and she cares in her own way, but her bandwidth is limited. I accept what she can offer without overextending myself. That’s discernment too.

    *****

    Cultural Terrain

    Even in cultural exchanges here in the Philippines, I’ve seen how politeness can mask avoidance. Hiya (shame), indirectness, palusot (excuses) — they surface daily. Naming them doesn’t mean it needs to be met, addressed, responded to, or even apologized for. Sometimes the truth lands in silence, sometimes in discomfort. Either way, I no longer carry the weight of how it is received.

    *****

    From One Extreme to Another

    In the corporate world, I wore the armor of title and leverage. I was often labeled mataray (feisty) or masungit (grumpy) — sharp, exacting, unbending.

    When I left that world, I overcorrected. Without positional power, I softened too much. I tried to become endlessly accommodating, mistaking self‑abandonment for humility. I lowered my voice, my expectations, my edges. At the time, I thought that was peace. Later I understood: it was erasure. Self-abandonment. Self-betrayal.

    Now I stand differently. I am no longer a boss, but I am still sovereign. I don’t need the armor, and I don’t need the overcorrection. What remains is discernment: fire for patterns, release for noise, acceptance for limits.

    The Reclaiming

    So I no longer confuse peace with silence, or anger with truth, or tolerance with wisdom.
    It keeps me from saying yes when I really mean no.
    It protects me from doing what isn’t mine to do — a reflex of my deeply ingrained rescuing pattern.
    A pattern that, thankfully, I was able to finally overcome only recently.
    My fire is ethical, not emotional.

    This is not numbness. It is grounded strength. Quiet authority. And for the first time, it feels like peace that does not ask me to shrink myself in order to exist.

    Not sweating the small stuff is a call for discernment — a practice of peace with integrity. It means I don’t shrink. I discern, and I choose.

    In the next entry, Everyday Discernment, I’ll share more examples of how this practice shows up in daily interactions — from service lapses to community exchanges — and how cultural values shape the terrain I navigate.

    If any part of this speaks to you, I invite you to share your reflections in the comment section below.

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙

  • A Small Sting, Quietly Integrated

    A Small Sting, Quietly Integrated

    Today offered me a quiet moment of truth — the kind that doesn’t arrive with drama or rupture, but with a subtle sting that reveals exactly where I am now.

    I reached out to Claire, someone I recently reconnected with after almost a decade. Claire is someone I trust, someone who has shown me presence and depth before. Someone I feel safe with.

    We had our differences — as all friendships and relationships do. We revisited those differences, and she had acknowledged her lapses — and I now have a better understanding and appreciation of where she’s coming from. I now know how to engage with her. I now know what she can offer and what her limitations are.

    A couple of days after our reconnection, I wasn’t asking for anything heavy. I simply named where I was: sluggish, finally exhaling after weeks of hypervigilance and distress. A soft truth. A human truth.

    Her reply didn’t meet me. Not in a harmful way, not in a careless way — just in a way that reflected her bandwidth in that moment. Light. Surface-level. A mismatch. A moment of misattunement.

    And yes, it stung.
    A small ache of not being seen in the moment when I opened a little.

    But what surprised me was what didn’t happen.

    I didn’t collapse into old patterns.
    I didn’t over-explain.
    I didn’t push her into depth she couldn’t hold right then.
    I didn’t spiral into feeling “too much” or “too sensitive.”

    Instead, I felt the sting, acknowledged it, and let it pass through me like a breeze.

    Because I finally understand something I didn’t before:

    Not every moment calls for my depth.
    Not every person can meet it.
    And that’s not a failure — it’s a fact.

    I also found myself reflecting on something I’ve done in the past — what some call “narcissistic listening,” where instead of meeting the other person’s emotional landscape, we pivot back to our own. It’s not malice; it’s habit, overwhelm, or limited bandwidth. I’ve done it. We all have. And noticing it in others now doesn’t make me superior — it simply shows me how much more attuned I’ve become to the difference between being truly met and being answered from someone’s own bubble.

    This is the beginning of a new era for me.

    An era where I discern who can hold my truth and who cannot.
    Where I no longer force emotional honesty into spaces that can’t receive it.
    Where I protect my own sensitivity by placing it where it is safe, welcome, and reciprocated.

    Claire is someone who can meet me — and that’s why I can name this gently, without weight, without blame, without fear. That’s why it feels light in my body, not heavy. That’s why it feels like strengthening, not risky.

    And the proof of this shift showed up again today, unexpectedly, in a digital space. I wasn’t getting the kind of support or attunement I needed. In the past, I would have insisted, pushed, forced the interaction into depth it couldn’t hold. I would have spiraled into frustration.

    But today, I didn’t.

    I simply stepped out of that space and moved toward resonance — toward the place where I felt met, supported, and understood.

    No drama.
    No collapse.
    Just clarity.

    This is what growth looks like now.
    Quiet.
    Embodied.
    Undeniable.

    A new era, not because I declared it, but because I can feel it in my nervous system — the exhale, the lightness, the ease.

    I am finally choosing where my depth belongs.

    If any part of this speaks to you, I invite you to share your reflections in the comment section below.

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙

  • The Los Baños Threshold: The Mirage of the Cottage Sanctuary

    The Los Baños Threshold: The Mirage of the Cottage Sanctuary

    For years, I carried with me the dream of the cottage sanctuary. I imagined misty mornings in the countryside, verandas where I could sip tea while birds serenade me, gardens that promised healing, and quiet lanes that seemed far removed from the condo circus. I thought rural life would be my refuge, proof that I had risen above the governance battles and the endless rut of urban politics.

    Part of the allure was not just the cottage dream itself, but the silent proof it carried. I wanted to show the condo community—those still entangled in governance battles and the endless circus—that I had risen above them. That while they remained stuck in the rut, I was living in a “better” place, a heavenly retreat. But that impulse was still tethered to them. It wasn’t sovereignty—it was shadow.

    And the cottage sanctuary, I realized, was a myth I romanticized.
    Los Baños exposed it. The ankle injury in June 2025 left me vulnerable. Caregivers who should have supported me instead deepened my distress. And then came the horrific, traumatizing experience with the property landlady that stripped away any illusion of peace and safety. The countryside was not sanctuary—it was unkind terrain. Unsafe. Harsh. It harmed me. Re-traumatized me. Broke me open. It was where everything was unraveled.

    And yet, Los Baños became a full circle moment. A culmination of a long, arduous search for home. Belongingness.

    In 2003, I flew from Manila, Philippines, to San Francisco to become the full-time caregiver of my brother, who suffered from a ruptured aneurysm in the brain due to drug abuse. The experience led me to pursue graduate studies in consciousness and healing in 2006, the beginning of my escape chapter.

    In 2010, with much reluctance, I returned to Manila, holding tightly to my dream and vision of a healing center and healing practice. I continued my escape chapter in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. I fell into the orbit of a so-called healer whose energies were dark, manipulative, and corrosive. It took me years to disentangle myself from that place. Even after leaving, I twice reconsidered returning, still caught in the pull of illusion. It was the second seven-year cycle: 2010 to 2017, the long unraveling of escape and entanglement.

    The third cycle began in 2018, following the breast cancer diagnosis, when I turned toward my condo community. Governance battles, painful as they were, became the crucible where I confronted and healed my rescuing tendency. I learned to set boundaries, to seal misalignment with closure, to stop pouring myself into spaces that drained me. That cycle stretched to 2025, and Los Baños marked its end.

    The difference between Puerto Princesa and Los Baños is the difference between entanglement and sovereignty. What once took me years to escape now took me days. Within a week, I knew I had to leave Los Baños—sooner still if only I had a place to stay in Manila. That is growth. That is cadence. That is clarity.

    In hindsight, I see how much of my longing was entangled with cultural scripts.

    The cottage myth is not just personal—it is collective. Romantic poetry, pastoral ideals, folklore, and today’s cottagecore aesthetic all whisper the same story: that fulfillment lies in a quaint retreat, a rustic dwelling where life finally “comes together.”

    I inherited that imagery, and I projected it onto Los Baños. But projection is not resonance.

    Los Baños burned away illusions. It taught me that sanctuary is not about cottages or condos, not about appearing “above” others.

    Sanctuary is about resonance, cadence, and truth.

    I do not romanticize Los Baños anymore—nor the rustic sanctuary myth, nor any idyllic retreat that promises wholeness through withdrawal. I name Los Baños for what it was: a threshold. Painful. Necessary. Transformative. It shattered the cottage myth I had carried for years—decades even—and gifted me the clarity to see sanctuary for what it truly is.

    Los Baños may be where I was broken. But Los Baños was also where I was forged.
    And now, I carry its lessons: no longer needing to prove, no longer chasing mirages, only living in clarity and sovereignty.

    If any part of this speaks to you, I invite you to share your reflections in the comment section below.

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙theasjournal25@gmail.com