Thea's Truths & Thresholds

Tag: boundary practice

  • Case Study: Laundry Shop Dialogue – Boundary Artistry in Motion

    Case Study: Laundry Shop Dialogue – Boundary Artistry in Motion

    Even in ordinary errands, thresholds appear—and every threshold is a chance to stand in truth.

    When I send my laundry to the shop, I provide my own detergent mixed with baking soda. I also segregate my items—clothes, linens, towels (whites, lights, dark)—beforehand. This isn’t just to make things easier for the staff; it’s to ensure proper care and prevent everything from being washed together. The shop’s responsibility is to use the detergent correctly and consume only what’s necessary.

    So when the manager introduced a new system, I drew the line.

    Outer Dialogue (Manager & Thea):

    Manager:
    Ma’am, we’ve updated our system. The staff will no longer proportion detergent. Customers must send pre‑measured portions per batch. This is to prevent issues of detergent being consumed more than what’s necessary, such as your previous experience.

    Thea:
    I acknowledge your new system, but I don’t agree. It burdens the customer for mistakes made by staff. That’s not customer‑centric.

    Manager:
    We’ll take note of your concern and explore other ways to make it easier for both parties.

    Thea:
    Trust is the foundation. When a customer entrusts you with their items and materials, your staff must honor that trust. If they fail, the adjustment should come from your end—not mine.

    Manager:
    We’re hiring new staff and monitoring operations closely.

    Thea:
    Then train them well. If they can’t handle basic tasks, there are many others looking for work. Don’t teach them to be robotic or lazy—teach them accountability.

    Manager:
    We’ll check what remedy we can offer.

    Thea:
    There’s no need to complicate this. There’s only one solution. Just send me a photo of the detergent weight weekly, as has been the process. Simple, trackable, fair.

    Manager:
    We’ll check and look into it.

    Inner Commentary

    Thea:
    I felt the irritation rise—why should I be the one to adjust? I already segregate my laundry to protect my own standards. Now they want me to segregate detergent too? That’s spoiling staff, not training them. I named the laziness, I refused the burden, I sealed the boundary.

    Wise One Within:
    This is the choreography of sovereignty. You didn’t just react—you reframed. You reminded them of trust, shifted the weight back to where it belongs, and offered a clear, non‑negotiable standard.

    Thea:
    But you know, for a moment, I was tempted to tell the manager how to teach staff accountability—just like I’ve done in the past. I thought that was my way of softening my assertiveness, of making my boundary more palatable so they’d cooperate and follow the solution I proposed. But I quickly stopped myself from typing further and told myself, “Enough. No more. Even if you know what the solution is, it is not your responsibility to educate them. That is when you over‑extend yourself—and pretty soon, you feel the resentment and exhaustion.”

    That was the rescuing reflex. And this time, I caught it.

    Wise One Within:
    And you saw through their stall tactic: “We’ll check and look into it” is not commitment. It’s avoidance—a non‑response response that reveals the conflict‑avoidant pattern you’ve encountered so often in Filipino management culture.

    Thea:
    Exactly. And when I read that response, I didn’t say anything more. I immediately thought to myself, “Hmmm….This must be telling me it’s time to look for other laundry service providers.”

    And here’s the truth: this isn’t just about one laundry shop, nor is this the first interaction of this kind with the manager. I’ve had numerous similar conversations with them and with other establishments. It’s frustrating and exhausting to keep dealing with half-answers, ignored premises, and carrying other people’s comprehension on a daily basis. That’s the hidden labor that wears me down.

    Higher Self:
    This was never about detergent—it was about protecting the sanctity of your field. Their shortcuts threatened your energetic hygiene, and you refused to carry their burden. And if they insist on their lazy solution, you already know the next step: shift to another provider. That discernment is closure in motion: you stand, you speak, and you walk free.

    Every threshold is a rehearsal. Even in laundry shops, sovereignty is practiced. Even in detergent weights, trust is measured. Thea stands, and the sanctuary breathes.

    To anyone who happens to find this piece: welcome to Thea’s Truths & Thresholds. I’ve learned that the best way I can honor you is to stay honest with myself first. My hope is that by finding my own clarity, I might help you find yours, too. But if these words stay here in the quiet, that’s okay, too. Read more about the intention of Thea’s Truths & Thresholds here, A Letter to Myself: Why I am Building Thea’s Truths & Thresholds.

    This is my sanctuary. And in this sanctuary,
    I am finally home.

    A Note on a New Direction:

    After a month of blogging and 20 posts, starting on 13 January 2026, some of my future entries take a more personal shape—letters to myself and dialogues among the different voices of my lived experience. I will still share traditional reflections as they come, but for now, the path leads deeper into the sanctuary.

  • 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 💙

  • The Weight of the Mask: Reclaiming My Clarity

    The Weight of the Mask: Reclaiming My Clarity

    For years, I looked for guidance in spaces where “care” felt more like a stage production than a conversation. I sat in rooms where authority was worn as an appearance of compassion, used to avoid the messy work of accountability.

    I remember the sting of being told my clarity was resistance. When I named harm or asked for transparency, the response was not “I hear you.” It was calm superiority, passed off as wisdom, but used to silence.

    This is the hallmark of pseudo‑performative authority: it uses the language of healing to quiet the person who is hurting.

    I saw this pattern clearly in a so‑called “safe space” offered by a trauma recovery foundation.

    What was meant to be private and supportive became a venue for unchecked trauma dumping. When I raised my concern, the response was not accountability but deflection. I was told the team would “look into it,” even though I had written directly to the executive director’s corporate email. When I pressed further, the defense was that they had “few volunteers” and wanted to encourage survivors to speak, since they had been silenced all their lives.

    But what about those of us on the sidelines, listening and absorbing the raw dumping without protection? Emotional safety was promised, yet not ensured. And these were paying members-trauma survivors! If the excuse is “we don’t have enough volunteers,” then perhaps such spaces should not be offered at all.

    Pseudo-performative authority and spaces hide behind the language of care while neglecting responsibility for those who enter the space.

    More recently, I encountered this pattern again when I named a boundary violation in my own space. In my previous post, No One Puts Baby in the Corner: Discernment & Boundaries in Blogging Spaces, I wrote about how certain words — even polished ones — can feel hollow, how self‑promotion can masquerade as connection.

    To test my own clarity, I asked a website coach to give professional feedback on the About section I had flagged. Without knowing my story, they named the same traits I had already named: self‑promotion dressed as care, credentials stacked for show, and even claims that readers should trust the figure more than themselves. They warned how such framing risks dependency and undermines self‑trust.

    Not long after, I saw those very terms I used to describe the pattern being co‑opted to defend the behavior itself.

    I’ll admit — I was amused more than anything else. No sting, no trigger — just a quiet recognition that my words had landed, even if they were being reframed to serve someone else’s image. They wouldn’t be an echo chamber if they didn’t echo, after all! It was a strange but powerful kind of validation: the pattern I’d named was so clear it had become part of the conversation, even if the messenger was being defended against.

    In seeing my words echoed back, I was reminded that the pattern itself is larger than any one person — it shows up wherever authority hides behind calmness to avoid accountability.

    The excuses fell apart, one after another. I saw effort used as avoidance and dismissals passed off as wisdom. I realized that the calm projected wasn’t peace — it was a shield to deflect responsibility.

    In processing this, I’ve learned that clarity does not need permission. It does not need to be validated by someone with a title or a following. It is not a secret gift reserved for a select few or the “enlightened.” And when our insights are seen and even borrowed, it is not a reason to engage — it is a sign that our truth has cut through the performance.

    Clarity is my birthright. It is our birthright. Yours and mine. Everyone’s. It is not exclusive to pseudo‑performative authorities. Clarity exists in the quiet spaces where we stop asking for a seat at someone else’s table and realize we have our own.

    I no longer bend myself into shapes to soothe the pride of self‑proclaimed masters. I no longer accept “care” that requires me to doubt my own eyes. I trust my own reality, unperformed and unmasked.

    • Have you experienced “care” that felt more like performance than accountability? Where?
    • How do you recognize when your clarity is being reframed as resistance?
    • What does it look like, for you, to trust your own reality unperformed and unmasked?

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

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙