Thea's Truths & Thresholds

Tag: integrity

  • Beyond False Humility: Naming the Pattern Is Not Shaming

    Beyond False Humility: Naming the Pattern Is Not Shaming

    This is the second reflection in a series on the practice of discernment and the reclamation of self-trust.

    • Part 1: Discernment, Again – The orientation: Learning to stand with the triggered self and refusing the spiritual bypass of “just letting go.”
    • Part 2: Beyond False Humility: Naming the Pattern is Not Shaming – The identity: Moving from a Victim Identity to a Healing Identity by naming the patterns that violate the Sacred Hearth.
    • Part 3: (Upcoming) The Thin Slice: How Discernment Becomes Reflex – The mechanics: How self-loyalty becomes an automatic orientation through the Core Value Bank.

    I’ve been sitting with what happened after I named Rohitash—the wellness blogger-journalist.

    That old jitter’s been creeping in again—the one that whispers, Are you being too loud? Too harsh? Failing at some “holiness” you left behind decades ago? In the Philippines, where we’re steeped in this specific brand of Catholic humility, we’re taught that “good” means staying quiet. That naming harm makes you the one causing disharmony.

    But this “false humility”? It’s just another way to betray myself. To abandon who I’ve become just to please the ghost of who I was told to be.

    What’s hit me hardest in all this—in a good way—is that I found my clarity before I had a guide for it. I’d already felt the misalignment, already walked away from him without waiting for anyone’s okay—then I came across Dr. Steven Stosny’s Living & Loving After Betrayal.

    Reading his book was like looking at a photo of a place I’d already been. He talks about the “Adult Brain,” moving from “Core Hurt” to “Core Value,” that “Thin Slice” of choice between trigger and reaction. I knew those places because I’d just found my way through them. I didn’t read it to learn how to heal—I read it and saw my own healing staring back at me.

    There’s such quiet power in that—knowing my growth didn’t come from following a rulebook—it came from finally listening to myself. From trusting what I knew deep down.

    Now, if I were to keep that growth to myself, if I were to pretend I’m still just “struggling” when I’m actually succeeding—that would be self-silencing. It would twist kababaang-loob (true humility) into something it’s not—shrinking myself so I don’t rattle people who mix up “authority” with “integrity.”

    Real kababaang-loob is inner strength. It doesn’t need to shout—but it also doesn’t need to lie about how tall it stands.

    *****

    Naming Rohitash wasn’t about shaming him. It was public discernment. It was me saying: Oh, I see the pattern here.

    The line wasn’t just crossed when he misinterpreted my words—it was the entitlement behind it all. He walked into my private space uninvited, rearranged the metaphorical furniture, then left a piece of his own work I never asked for. No courtesy, no permission—he just acted like he’d earned the right to be there.

    When I called it out, his response was like a masterclass in performative compliance—or spiritual narcissism, take your pick.

    He parroted my own words back to me—trying to make me feel “seen” so I’d lower my guard. He complimented my “calm presence” and “thoughtful naming”—like patting a lion on the head while it’s trying to protect its den. Then he signed off with “With Respectful Heart”—the ultimate palusot (excuse), wrapping entitlement in sacred-sounding language to cover up the fact he’d already squatted in my space with a self-promotional link.

    He knew he’d been caught. He just refused to humble himself enough to admit it or say sorry. He offered the “respectful heart” of a brand—not the honest kababaang-loob of a real person.

    *****

    I saw it clearly: this wasn’t a one-time mistake. It was a habit—a strategy to turn every interaction into a door for his own gain.

    *****

    Let me be straight: what he does on his own site is his business. What he does on mine is a violation of my “Sacred Hearth.” My space isn’t a marketplace, and I’m not a “milking cow” for someone else’s ego-driven lead generation.

    On the surface, it looked like he was acknowledging my boundary—maybe even apologizing without saying the words. But in my body? I felt the friction. It was a palusot through and through. An attempt to keep his “Sanctuary of Peace” image shiny while ignoring he’d already digital-squatted in my home. I didn’t approve his last comment—I don’t owe anyone a platform for their “polite” entitlement. My sacred space isn’t a funnel for a Marketing Bot, no matter how many flower emojis they use.

    By refusing to approve his ‘polite’ comment, I wasn’t being harsh; I was just being a faithful steward of my own house.

    *****

    In an earlier post, No One Puts Baby in the Corner: Discernment & Boundaries in Blogging Spaces, I spoke about the logistics: the link, the lack of permission, the blocked access. But here? I want to talk about how hollow words feel in your bones.

    Even as he echoed my language about “adult discernment” in that unapproved reply, my body knew something was off. It was the same empty frequency I felt from people like Neale Donald Walsch or Carolyn Myss decades ago. The sound of an ego trying to “nice” its way back into a room it was told to leave.

    By recognizing that “messenger who is not the message”—the same pattern I saw in those bigger names—I could shift from “personal hurt” to “conduct analysis.” If I can name the shadows in international figures, I can name the one in my own backyard, too.

    *****

    This is exactly what Dr. Steven Stosny means by moving from a Victim Identity to a Healing Identity.

    A Victim Identity focuses on the offender. It waits for them to change, to apologize, to “get it” before it can find peace. If I’d kept his behavior secret, or tried to “manage” it quietly behind the scenes with false humility—I’d still be tied to him. Still a victim of his uninvited “furniture rearranging,” waiting for him to realize and acknowledge he was wrong.

    A Healing Identity takes power back by focusing on one’s environment. It doesn’t ask the offender for permission to feel steady—it just changes the space one is in.

    Naming the behavior—and yes, the person—was how I cleaned out my house.

    By saying his name and calling out the “Marketing Bot” pattern, I wasn’t just “managing” the discomfort of an uninvited guest. I was putting a lock on the door.

    Naming is what healers do when they say: This goes against my values. And because I see it clearly, I don’t have to engage with it anymore. I’m not waiting for people like Rohitash to live the peace they preach. I’m just living my own truth, in my own rhythm.

    The work isn’t about him changing—it’s about me no longer making space for manipulation.

    Not every door deserves to stay open. Some thresholds are sealed to protect what’s sacred.

    That unapproved performative comment was the final palusot. A man whose “About” page says he “embodies wellness in every word”—yet acts like a digital squatter, riding on my authenticity to plant his own flag.

    When someone claims to be a “Sanctuary of Peace” but behaves like a Marketing Bot—the gap creates what I call “somatic dissonance” for anyone who’s paying attention.

    My body felt that friction long before my mind could name the manipulation. My body knew the truth before my brain could look up a chapter and verse. It was that familiar hollow spot where integrity should have been.

    And that is the biggest growth of all: I don’t need to justify walking away. I don’t need to soften what I see clearly. I don’t need a book to tell me that my “resounding No” is the holiest thing I’ve ever said.

    When the light shifts and the door appears—sovereignty isn’t escape. It’s coming home.

    This is what true integrity looks like: the strength to see clearly, name honestly, and walk away without apology or false humility.

    In the next reflection, I’ll dive deeper into Dr. Stosny’s ideas—how discernment is intuitive more than intentional, what that “thin slice” between trigger and response really looks like, and how to tell the difference between boundaries you can bend and those you never should.

    If any part of this speaks to you, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

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

  • When My Clarity Doesn’t Need Permission

    When My Clarity Doesn’t Need Permission

    Something triggered me recently. It may appear trivial. It isn’t. Because more than the event itself, what matters just as much is how I responded to it — and the fact that the event itself was a boundary violation I refuse to minimize.

    In the past, when something felt off in an interaction, my instinct was to look inward first:
    Did I do something wrong? Did I miscommunicate? Should I let this go to keep the peace?
    That reflex didn’t come from humility. It came from a long history of being silenced — of learning that clarity needed to be softened, deferred, or swallowed to maintain harmony.

    This time was different.

    I noticed a disconnect between what I had written and how it was being framed in my own space. Nothing overt. Nothing dramatic. Just a subtle shift — an apparent re‑interpretation that didn’t belong to me or to the intention of the piece. A line had been crossed, and I noticed it.

    And I also found myself asking: was Rohitash deliberately misinterpreting or overriding the message of my entry? Around the same time he left his response to my comment, I read the exact same message in his other response to one of his subscribers. Was he simply operating from a default programming of promoting himself and his writing? Seeing it through this lens makes it less personal for me — but it doesn’t make what he did less wrong, more tolerable, or more acceptable.

    In the past, I might have chosen silence — not because I agreed, but because silence felt safer. Silence was how peace was preserved. Silence was how discomfort was managed, especially other people’s.

    Now, I’m no longer interested in that kind of peace.

    What I chose instead was clarity. Calm. Direct. Proportionate. Not to correct someone, but to anchor my work where it belongs — in its own frame, on its own terms. It was about not disappearing in my own house — especially when an uninvited guest rearranged the furniture without asking permission.

    This wasn’t about being right.
    It wasn’t about asserting authority over anyone else.
    It was about protecting the integrity of my own space.

    Clarity isn’t about claiming authority over anyone else’s journey. It’s about claiming authority over my own.

    That distinction matters, especially in a world still dismantling old hierarchies of external authority — thanks, but no thanks to patriarchy.

    I’m aware that there can be many benign explanations for how people engage online — differences in habits, attention, commitment, or intention. I noticed that awareness arise, and I let it pass. Regardless of intention, though, what mattered to me was simpler: something in my space felt misframed, and I chose to address that directly.

    The old fear surfaced briefly — What if this costs me approval, engagement, or connection?
    And just as quickly, it passed.
    So what?
    So be it.

    Alignment has become my organizing principle. When something aligns, it stays. When it doesn’t, it falls away — sometimes quietly, sometimes through my intervention. Either way, I no longer manage that process by shrinking myself.

    If clarity makes someone uncomfortable, that isn’t a failure of compassion. It’s simply the natural consequence of naming things honestly, without cushioning or apology.

    I’m not here to teach.
    I’m not here to convince.
    I’m here to live and write from my own center and truth — and to protect the integrity of that space when needed — or invaded and intruded.

    That, too, is part of not sweating the small stuff, which I have been looking much more deeply into and writing about: knowing which moments are trivial, and which ones matter enough to speak.

    This interaction triggered me deeply because it echoed an earlier experience in the blogging world.

    Several years ago, when I was maintaining my first blog, I contributed to a circle of writers on the theme of compassion. The blogger who invited us as guest bloggers and compiled our contributions into an e‑book had already published her piece at the start of the series.

    Yet, right before mine was scheduled to appear — right before — she re‑published hers again — as a way of an intro, framed as claiming similar views. Even if that were so, it felt like she was riding on my coattails. Surely, she could have simply mentioned her piece in passing in the intro. But to republish it? Right before my piece? Others I trusted validated that interpretation. That moment led me to withdraw from the circle.

    Later, during the pandemic, I dug deeply into my misaligned New Age beliefs and realized that the circle itself was steeped in what I no longer resonated with, and I eventually closed that first blog.

    So when Rohitash’s recent comment appeared — mirroring itself in another response to another reader, and then inserting a self‑promotional link unrelated to my piece — it hit the same nerve. It wasn’t just about one man’s ego. It was about a recurring pattern: others riding on my authenticity, unable to accept the mirror I hold, and scrambling to reassert authority.

    These moments remind me that I often find myself in this role: a mirror holder.

    My authenticity and honesty reflect back what others cannot yet accept in themselves. Very few welcome that reflection. More often, it triggers insecurities, even envy, and instead of doing the shadow work, people default to projecting or posturing.

    This isn’t just about one comment or one blogger. In the world of social media, authenticity and honesty are rare and refreshing — and, naturally, they are triggering to those with inflated egos who have not done their inner and shadow work but proudly claim and promote themselves as having done so.

    Even in the blogging world, writers who share raw emotions and deeper truths belong to the minority. Their words often stir discomfort, defensiveness, or projection in others. That rarity is both a strength and a challenge: it makes authentic voices stand out, but it also makes them more likely to face resistance.

    I have also experienced firsthand the mismatch between how famous international authors claim themselves to be authority figures while not doing the inner work themselves.

    During the earlier phases of my journey, I attended seminars and workshops by names like Neale Donald Walsch and Carolyn Myss, only to be disillusioned when I saw how far the message was detached from the messenger.

    Neale himself once said, “I am only the messenger, not the message.” That line stayed with me, and all this time it never felt right. To me, it sounded like an excuse to justify misbehaviors rather than an honest acknowledgment of being a work‑in‑progress. In Filipino, “palusot.”

    We all are works‑in‑progress. And when someone promotes themselves as an expert or authority, we cannot be faulted for having high expectations. When they fall short, we are then asked to extend compassion because they are “only human”? No. A resounding No!

    That mismatch — between message and messenger, between claim and conduct — is exactly why Rohitash’s misaligned writing and behaviors triggered me so deeply. It echoed the same pattern of self-proclaimed authority without the integrity to back it up.

    I know this pattern well. My writing often mirrors back what others would rather not face. And while some celebrate that reflection, many resist it. As a highly sensitive empath, I cannot simply brush aside those mismatched energies — they land in me, they demand processing. And naming them is how I honor both my truth and my sensitivity — and what helps usher in healing and integration eventually.

    Intellectually, I know what steps to take. But as with any healing and integration, it takes the body some time to catch up with what the intellect knows.

    And I am acknowledging that, holding myself with compassion, and not berating myself or making myself wrong for not being able to get over it yet. Otherwise, I am the one who is re-wounding my wounded inner child rather than soothing her and making her feel heard, validated, seen, honored, and respected.

    Yet while still midway in my process, when I saw the boundary violation, I unsubscribed immediately. Clarity doesn’t wait for permission — it acts. Later, when I read the About section, it validated my instinctual pull to withdraw. The words there explained the misalignment with precision, confirming what my body already knew.

    Curiosity had opened the door, but discernment closed it just as quickly. That is the ceremony: trusting the signal, honoring the evidence, and sealing the exit without apology.

    Clarity doesn’t ask for permission; it moves, it withdraws, it closes. And in that closure, relief and release arrive — the sovereign rhythm of living from center and truth.

    This is my truth. This is my process.

    And I share it not to dramatize, but to remind anyone reading: you are not alone.

    Your triggers, your wounds, your discernment — they are part of your clarity and process. They deserve to be honored, not bypassed — and let us not allow anyone to make us believe otherwise, especially not the so‑called self‑proclaimed authorities.

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

    Peace and Blessings,
    — Thea 💙