The Quiet Strength

Hear the quiet words.

[thequietstrength]

Be Kind to Yourself

          It all seems like yesterday you were plotting your summer plans, waking up and working on your normal 9 to 5 schedule, going on a short trip for the weekend and now those plans are either cancelled or rescheduled, your working hours have been reduced or worse you will have to work at home or in even worst cases you are either furloughed or laid off from work.

           During this hard and trying time, it is indeed difficult to cope with all the ramifications that the pandemic has brought to the world. I have lost a job myself and now I am back in my home country, stuck inside our house doing random activities. It felt like I had all the time in the world that I have always wanted because I can watch movies/series, read books, cook, eat, talk to friends all in my own time. It felt good and even satisfying. I felt free but it did not last.

As weeks passed, with the spreading of the virus still out of control and all quarantine measures being stricter than it could possibly be, my mind has become restless. I still can’t seem to fathom everything that is happening and the worse, my mind can’t stop role playing scenarios inside my head – scenes of the possible ‘future’ which nobody, in all of reality, really knows and yet there I was lying on my bed thinking.. thinking.. thinking.. It seems endless but I want it to end. I want my obsession of thinking about the future to end as much as I want this pandemic to be in its finale.

           Normally, I will be told that the future is unknown. I believe it is and when there is a pandemic it becomes even more convincing that the future is unknown, uncertain, and unpredictable. The questions, “What will happen next?” and “Is this all that there is for me?” have been playing in my mind like a recorded orchestral music score the only difference is this one on me is not calming at all but instead chaotic. Constantly thinking about the future with thinking being mixed up with a great deal of anxiety makes one loose focus on the “now”, the present. Sure, no one can ever predict his tomorrow but maybe one can have a glimpse of it. Maybe what you are doing in your present is preparing you for the future, but you don’t notice it because of all the unanswerable questions you give yourself. It is hard to admit that I lost control of my thoughts and that I let myself be carried away by all the incident around me but these pandemic, lockdown, quarantine and virus are all new to me. I am not prepared for this and I bet no one is and it sure has taken its toll on me. I forgot that part of taking care of my physical health, boosting immune system and being hygienic is equally as important as being wary of my own mental health. I tortured myself with my own cruel thoughts which is extremely unhealthy.

           I reached out to a friend and crazy as it may sound but I asked her all the same questions I bear in mind and clearly, she does not have an answer either but reaching out and being vulnerable (to the right person) has helped me remember that I am not alone and there are people always willing to listen. She listened to me. She has been kind to me, but I have forgotten to be kind to my own self. I forgot to take care of my emotional and mental health and it led me off track. I lost focus to what really matters – myself now.

          It is perfectly fine to pause, take a deep breath, rest and then after try to find within you what sets your soul on fire, what gives meaning to your life. It might take time but be kind to yourself and give yourself the luxury of prioritizing what is best for you at the moment because maybe then you can have a ‘glimpse’ of  how your future could be because what you do now will impact it and maybe with the same hope I have, maybe by doing these I can somehow put my mind at ease instead of worrying every single day. I believe that even when things are tough right now it does not mean that it will never change and be better. Still live it, one day at a time. Let us keep our hopes up and take care of our health both physically and mentally. Be kind and show more love to yourself than you have ever did before.

[allthingsschwab]

Victoria Schwab Tweets:

“This just in: you can love writing and also find it hard.

“I was once on a panel and another author essentially said, ‘if you don’t enjoy every moment, then why are you here?’ and I was…exasperated. Creativity is a complicated beast. You don’t have to love every second to be a valid participant.

“I love the ideas. I love brainstorming, and problem-solving, and I love making this better, fine-tuning language.

“I also hate drafting, claw my way through self-doubt, crawl on my hands and knees through the frustration of the unrealized.

“I’m not here because I love every second.

“I’m here because the parts I love are worth the rest.”

[thequietstrength]

New blog post coming soon..

[thequietstrength]

I’m on twitter. Follow me @ https://twitter.com/dQuietStrength

I’ll follow back!

[thequietstrength]

Blessing

If a blessing is yours, it will always have your name on it. Believe that whatever it is that is meant for you will always find its way to you. God has His own way on making things work.

You are blessed with more than you deserve! So, cheer up my friend. You have nothing to lose with God on your side.

Work while waiting. You do your part and God will do His.

[books-n-quotes]

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you’ll be criticized anyway. -Eleanor Roosevelt

[books-n-quotes]

The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.

[thequietstrength]

make it a beautiful one!

[thequietstrength]

Masterpiece

I have had my heart broken, countless times, for many different reasons – lost job opportunity, broken relationship, unfulfilled promises, loved ones being diagnosed with a serious illness, mistakes and failures caused by my own choices.

All these things summed up make up what I now call – MY LIFE. Setbacks and failures are not supposed to draw us back from living the life we are meant to live. Your failure and brokenness do not define you. What you make out if it, will surely define who you are! Pick up those shattered pieces of your heart, put them back together and make a masterpiece. This time choose to love your brokenness.

Choose to love the job you have now and continue growing into your craft. Choose to love again when the right person comes even after having been left by someone. Choose to love your ailing loved ones more as this can give them more strength to fight and most importantly choose to love yourself always despite the brokenness.

I do not have a perfect life, but I am certain I am living the life I am meant to live, all the good and bad things included. I have goals I am running after at. The road to get there seems frightening, but I am choosing to love and embrace my journey. In God’s perfect time, and while I am working towards it as well, I believe it will all fall into place.

I am choosing to love what God has given me – and that means falling in love to myself, to the woman that God has always loved and I hope you too will find the courage to choose to love yourself again and by loving yourself, it means seeing through your brokenness, make a masterpiece out of it because you have always been one. Love it.

[thequietstrength]

The Sun Has Set

        The sun rose with its light beaming directly on my face. I woke up, eager to get a hold of my phone and called you as agreed the night before. I know just by the way you look when you answered my call that it was not the same as the usual morning conversations that we’ve always had. There was fear accompanied with worry that was settling in me and the next thing I know, tears have formed in my eyes. I was crying. Sad, grieving and mournful tears flowed down through my cheeks.

           I have never thought that this day would come. It never crossed my mind that our relationship would ever come to an end – a catastrophic and painful end. Looking back to when we just started, an end is something that none of us would have ever foreseen. We were happy, we had adventures and misadventures, we fought and we made up, we talked like there was no tomorrow, you have always held my hand until the last second that we were together, you would call me just to hear my voice before you sleep and you were happy, you were sure and I know from the bottom of my heart that our relationship was something that you wanted. It was something that you wanted to last or maybe I was wrong.

           I held on to your words that we will make this work, you will introduce me to your family, you will open a restaurant and I will be there, and that in two years I will have a ring on my finger. I believed you. I trusted you. I asked you to stay for three times and you did but I guess the end is inevitable. You still chose to leave. I saw you at your worst but I stayed, you saw me at my worst but you left. I tried to understand where you’re coming from. The pressure of your new job, family matters, personal time and our long-distance relationship. I understand that it was not easy to juggle all these things together but what I do not understand was when every time something would go wrong in your life, it is me who you would undoubtedly cut off your life like I was nothing, like what we had was nothing. I felt unvalued and unimportant, but I chose to hold on thinking that it will all pass but it didn’t. It even became worse. It came directly from you that our relationship has become a burden that I have just become a responsibility, ‘Good morning’ messages has been forced, text messages were not replied, phone calls has been shortened, you would rather choose to watch a movie and sleep than talk to me. It was all too painful.

           I hope you know that you were not the only one struggling in your personal life at the time, I was too – family, career and personal matters but I have never thought of leaving you. I have always believed that you are one of those people that will remain constant in my life. I broke down the walls I built to protect myself to give you a chance to be part my life, I thought we will go through this journey together, our hands held tight like how it used to be when we started but you let go of mine while I was still holding on. I blamed myself for countless times, but it was wrong. I am not putting all the blame on you as well. You chose to leave and as much as I do not want you to, I know I have to let you go. I know I have no other choice no matter how much this breaks me. I just hope I never heard those detrimental and painful words from you.

           We never said ‘I love you’ to each other. I asked if you have never really reached that point in our relationship that you could say those words and you answered me with a crippling ‘no’. It was painfully hard even just to try to understand what you said because the whole time we were together I thought you loved me. I felt your care and sincerity but why you do you have to cut my heart with all your words. Were you being honest? Were you lying? What is it that’s holding you back from loving? But there is no more point in asking. You have already made your choice.

           I am not perfect. I am scarred. I am flawed. But I know that what I felt for you was sincere and real. I hope you felt that I loved you. Maybe it was not enough to make you stay but I hope it is enough to let you know that I did my best, that I am not just a ‘responsibility’ or a ‘burden’. I hope you are happy. I pray that someday you will get what your heart truly desires. It was not easy setting you free, but I know it could be worse if I force you to stay.

           What we had was beautiful just like the sun when it rises in the morning and gives hope for a new beginning but just like the sun that also sets, what we had that once rose with a beautiful shine has ended. The sun has set on us. I hope that one day you will find the courage to allow yourself to love. I will always wish you all the best in life. We might have had a disheartening separation, but I always believe that the best is yet to come. The sun will rise again for you and me, maybe not for us together but as individuals, because it always will and when it happens, it will be another beautiful sunshine – full of hope and encouragement and new beginning.  

[thequietstrength]

Where are you going?

         When booking an Uber ride, you will be asked to ‘pin’ on the map the specific location where you should be picked up and the location where you are going. That way, it will be easy for the application to find you a driver and for the driver to be able to find an accessible route going to your destination. That’s why we are always expected to put on our exact location so that way we can reach our destination without getting lost.

           In life, often we ask ourselves on which direction should we take or what is the next step, but have we ever asked ourselves about where we want to go? You will never know which direction to take if you have no idea where you want to go.

           It takes a great amount of courage to identify where you want to be in this life, what your dreams and ambitions are and who you want to be in the future but these things are essential in knowing which way you should go right now. You have to be honest with yourself about what you really want, not what other people wants for you or not what the society is telling you that you should be.  

         Be kind to yourself and give yourself the luxury and permission on deciding where you want to be in this life, what you want for yourself and what your goals are. Once you are able to identify it, take full responsibility of it. Take each step towards that goal one step at a time. If you ever feel lost, remind yourself again where your final destination is. You do not need to rush it. You just have to know what it is and start from there.

Photo courtesy of www.google.com/ www.scoopwhoop.com

[thequietstrength]

Journey Together

A relationship is not always rainbows and sunshine. There will be days when it would feel like darkness has completely taken over and there is no trace of light that could possibly appear into sight because of never-ending arguments, conflicting differences, clashing ideas and even differences in seeing and doing things.

Many are the reasons that can end a relationship the same way there can be much reason to stay and continue fighting. It is in these moments that we think should we let go or should we hold on? It is in these moments that we will know how far we can go with the person we are with and how much we can do for them.

If you truly love each other, hold each other’s hand and go through darkness together until there’s light, until the sun rises again because eventually it will, it always will. No relationship is perfect, no journey is always painless but if you know that the person you found is worth fighting for (and with) then you will find a way to make it work, to journey together while living the reality that it is not going to be easy but the best part of your reality is, it may not be easy but you know you’re together and at the end of it all, you fought and journey together.

[books-n-quotes]

“More than anything I grieve over what we never said.”

— Liv Ullman, Changing

[books-n-quotes]

“Don’t be a fool. Don’t give up something important to hold onto someone who can’t even say they love you.”

— Sarah Dessen, Someone Like You

[thequietstrength]

Not everything in our life goes how we want it to be but it happens in the best way that it should be. Be patient and delight yourself in the moment because behind those unexpected circumstance comes a lesson that should be lived by and an experience worth living.

[thequietstrength]

The Waiting Game

In a season of waiting, you cannot just ‘patiently wait’ you must ‘actively wait’.

 Have it in mind that whatever you are waiting for, may it be in the romantic area of your life or your career or in your family, patiently wait for it with action. Trust that God is preparing you for the best but do not rely everything on Him. You must also do some work yourself.

 If you are waiting for a boyfriend or girlfriend, be one yourself. Work on your personality and be someone who you yourself would want to be with. If you are waiting for a promotion, continue to prove your boss that you deserve it.

 We have a number of things that we are praying and waiting for in our life and sometimes because of the length of time in the waiting season we start to lose hope and patience but fear not because every waiting has a purpose and it is to prepare you for the best that you rightfully deserve.

 Never settle for less than what God has prepared for you just because you are tired of waiting or overly excited for what you are waiting for. You can always make the ‘waiting game’ a fun and fulfilling adventure.

[thequietstrength]

Prisoner of my Own Thought

Life is not always rainbows and butterflies. For a rainbow to appear it has to rain first and before a butterfly can fly it goes through metamorphosis. Just like life, before we realize how beautiful and wonderful it is, we go through challenges and changes before we can see the rainbow and fly like a butterfly.

 These challenges and changes are NEVER EASY to accept, NEVER PAINLESS to defeat but it is all part of living. It can break us and tear us apart, it can consume us and ravage our whole being but it is only IF we let it. IF we give it the power to do such thing.

 All the pain, hurt, fear, worry, and doubt that comes along with these challenges and changes are powerful. It can make you a prisoner of your own thought. You have to fight and step up your game. Release yourself from these seriously damaging and detrimental thoughts.

  Own your life and take full responsibility for your thoughts and actions. Do not avoid the challenges and changes. Recognize it and accept. Hold it in the palm of your hand and take full control of your thoughts and ways of defeating it. Remember that after this rain in your life, you will have the luxury of walking under the exquisite beauty of a rainbow with butterflies flying gracefully around you because you chose to be brave. You fought and took control.

[thequietstrength]

The Work You Do

Often times we get burned out, discouraged and demotivated in the work we do. It is caused by various reason. It can be because of your grumpy boss who rants in every single thing he sees, good or bad, in a high pitched piercing voice or maybe your colleague’s bathroom break is becoming longer than your own lunch break or those office gossips that never stop and just continue to grow that it can be the headline for the next day on your favorite newspaper to read every morning or the amount of the work you do is just getting more stressful, physically and emotionally, in every way and every single day that pass. Or even worse, maybe you never really like your work.

 There are just so many reasons not to stay motivated and positive in the work you do but if you let those reasons stay in your mind, the work you do which should supposedly be your source of living will soon be your ‘source’ of reason to die. We don’t want that. You don’t want that.

 Try looking back to where you started and why you even started in the first place. What is your reason? Why do you do what you do? If you truly want to help yourself, remind yourself of the bad things that you never want to happen again AND recollect all the good things that happened and will happen to you in the work you do. Choose to be kind and just even when you are in an awfully stressful workplace.

 Find meaning in what you do because everything falls into place when we know why we are bound to do something. Yes, it is not easy but if you won’t try you will surely fail. Only you can help yourself.