Thea's Truths & Thresholds

Tag: Truth-Telling

  • A Letter to Myself: Why I am Building Thea’s Truths & Thresholds

    A Letter to Myself: Why I am Building Thea’s Truths & Thresholds

    Dear Thea,

    For sixty years, you’ve looked for a place where you were allowed to just be. For a long time, you waited for someone else to build that home for you—to tell you that you were right, that you were enough, and that your voice mattered. For sixty years, you’ve looked for a place where you were allowed to just be.

    Today, you are building that home for yourself.

    I want to remind you why you are putting your truths on these pages. It isn’t to audition for anyone’s approval. It isn’t to finally be “good enough” for a mother or a family member. It is because your thoughts have lived in the dark for too long, and they deserve to breathe.

    Remember the intention: Express, Not Impress.

    When you sit down to write, do it to untangle the knots in your mind. If you feel a “release” in your chest when you hit publish, you’ve already won. You aren’t here to perform or to prove your worth. You are here to be a witness to your own life. Once a post is live, consider it “consecrated”—you’ve moved the weight out of your head and into this safe room. The work is finished the moment you click the button.

    When the silence feels heavy, remember the “Shield.” There will be days when the old external-validation seeker in you wakes up and looks for a “like” or a comment to feel validated. When that happens, tell her these things:

    • Future Thea is your primary reader. You are documenting your evolution so she can look back years from now and see exactly how far you’ve come.
    • The Silent Readers are there. Remember the “90-9-1 Rule” of the internet: 90% of people read in silence without ever interacting, 9% interact occasionally, and only 1% ever actively post or comment. Just because the screen is quiet doesn’t mean your words didn’t provide a sanctuary for someone else at 2:00 AM.
    • Input is the only thing you control. The healing happened in the writing, not the reading. Protect your peace.

    After you share something vulnerable, walk away. Practice your 24-hour rule. Make a cup of tea, go for a walk, and remind your body that you are safe. You have rescued yourself by giving your truth a place to live. You don’t need a verdict from the world on your reality anymore.

    Consecrated, in Sanctuary,
    Wise One Within

    To anyone who happens to find this letter: You are welcome here. 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.

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

    A Note on a New Direction:

    After a month of blogging and twenty posts, some of my future entries take a more personal shape—letters to myself and dialogues between 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.

  • 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 💙