Tell me about your journey of healing.
“I feel like your interests stem from your childhood and what you liked to do as a kid. When I started getting into makeup, I did like makeup as a kid. I went down that alley, I didnt know it would take me down the modelling road too. Modelling was something I always wanted to do but my mom was never supportive of that. It was like, your only option is swimming or singing lessons. So I was like ‘What?’ I wanted to do so many different things like karate. But obviously money and the circumstances. And just everything growing up doesn’t allow you to thrive almost. I feel like I grew up with so much pressure to be this person people wanted me to be. I went to an all white school. I remember wanting to be white. I wanted to fit in with my classmates, eventually thats how I felt. When id hang out with my family and my cousins, I was the white washed one and that was looked at as a negative thing. I didn’t know where I belonged. On top of that, I had issues with my self esteem and the way I perceived myself was kinda messed up. I saw myself as this chubby girl, I really didn’t like that about myself. I thought I was ugly, my nose was huge, just so many different things. On top of that, societal pressure of what a girl should look like at that time. Reading magazines, watching mtv, that does affect you right. I feel like I’m only now able to block that voice in your head that tells you that you’re these negative things. It’s getting smaller and smaller now.”
“When you’re a certain way and you do certain things that are based on what’s lurking in your subconscious mind, you think a certain way about yourself. That’s kind of like the lens that you’re gonna be seeing life through. I attracted the relationships I did because I was the way I was, because my self esteem was so low that I didn’t think I deserved any better. I feel like I’ve been down this journey and I’ve had several spiritual awakenings. The big one was when I was dating this one guy. We lived together, and we were together for 3 years. I was doing a lot of drugs. That was a time where I felt so disconnected with myself and the person you call your partner and the one that you tell that you love. I feel like I did that as an escape because that was the only time that I ever felt connected to him. In those moments too, I had so many spiritual awakenings. It almost like a a drug induced spiritual awakening, it almost like accelerated everything. There was so many times where he’d be there but I felt so alone. My soul felt so alone. That was really hard, then I eventually left that relationship. It was so draining. What I’ve realized is that I’ve always been co-dependent. Ive always just hopped from relationship to relationship. It’s not healthy because you’re not healing your past wounds. I realize that now, having this time alone, which has been 9 months fully single, just dedicating time for myself. Not even necessarily looking at men and looking for a relationship, because that’s how I’ve been trained I guess from childhood. Also, I grew up with no dad, I grew up surrounded by women. So I know that had an affect on me and how I perceived men. In elementary I already had a negative experience with boys. I was a sensitive and emotional child. I met my dad when I was 21. He lives in Ontario with his family and they’re really nice. It was interesting, I didn’t really know what to say. It takes time to build a relationship with someone you barely know, he is my biological dad, and we may share blood. But at the end of the day, he could be just a stranger to me walking down the street, you wouldn’t go up to a stranger and say I love you.”
“I feel like I’ve always been searching for myself in someone else. My mom had to play both roles, she had a lot of help raising me. She had a friend who she ended up sharing a house with, and that woman who helped raise me had a niece who was around a lot. So essentially, they became my family. I was around all women. And plus my mom is a lesbian, but she didn’t come out until I was 18. But intuitively I always knew she was because of the way she dressed. Kids are so intuitive and I just knew. It was different, but it was good when it was good. When I was 16-18 years old, I was kind of like a rebel kid and I just didn’t listen to her. I guess it was just lacking that discipline where a male energy does provide. I guess there was a lot of resentment because my mom was quiet abusive growing up. Filipino parents are just so crazy, it’s because generational trauma, that’s just how they were raised. Growing up was interesting, because now that I look at it, my mom was probably dealing with a lot of mental health issues herself. Obviously that has a ripple effect, being a kid you see a lot of things that you really shouldn’t be seeing. You don’t realize that it may have a negative effect on you. It’s really crazy to me, going back in my mind and thinking about times like seeing my mom with a knife in her head. Just scary stuff kids shouldn’t have to go through, I went through. I feel like I didn’t necessarily heal the way you should from those. It’s just like “Oh I’m fine’ then you just live life. From 16-18, I think I got a new boyfriend, and I lost all my family because I don’t know if there was a secret relationship going on between the niece and my mom. That happened but then the niece started dating one of my uncles. It was a secret at first but my mom eventually found out and she was just super hurt and upset about it.”
“My mom was suicidal, that was pretty scary for me. My very first boyfriend and I obviously didn’t know what to do, we were only 16 at the time. She just wasn’t herself, I think she actually ended up getting arrested at one point. She stayed at the police station or wherever they took her. She disappeared for like 2 days and we didn’t know where she was. We were calling her, we were worried. She just kept saying she was preparing things, don’t worry everything is gonna be fine. Eventually she did come home but I hid all the knives downstairs. One morning, I wake up and I just hear this banging. I go upstairs and my mom had this huge bottle of calcium pills and she was just crushing them up and putting them in water. I don’t know if she thought that was gonna kill her. She kept saying she was gonna kill herself and she kept drinking whatever. She had one of those box cutters and she locked herself in the bathroom. My mom kept telling me, ‘Go get your Tita(auntie)’. At the time she just lived 2-3 blocks away. My grandma, the one that was living with me at the time didn’t know what to do. She was just crying and begging her to stop. I took initiative at that point and I said I would go get her, don’t worry. I just tried to keep her calm. So I took my dog, I walked to the Cindy Klassen centre(Sargent pool at the time). I called my home phone and my grandma picked up. I told her to meet me there. We call my other Tita to pick us up, and we were freaking out. My mom is in the house and she’s suicidal. She picks us up and we call the cops. We’re waiting in front for the cops to come. There were letters on the table. They had to break the door down and she had the box cutter, she wouldn’t stop threatening herself so they had to taser her. That happened and we just ran out when we saw that.”
“They took her somewhere, then she eventually ended up in the psych ward because she had to be observed. She was so mad at me for so long because every time I would go to visit her she would just give me the dirtiest looks. She would say ‘This is your fault’. I was mad because I saved her life. I could’ve just let her do what she wanted to do. The fucked up thing for me is that, I remember that moment and it was almost like I was talking to my angles and my demons. Because I almost feel like growing up, the way she treated me built up this anger where it was kind of like a hate. Me and my mom have a weird relationship, I remember in that moment where I had the option to save her life or let her do what she wanted to do, obviously I did the right thing and listened to my angles. Because if I was just like, I’m just gonna take a walk around the block I would regret that. Im glad I made that decision. But for awhile it was really messed up. Eventually she became more calm. Prior to all of this happening, my Lola passed away. There was just a lot going on. The whole situation, she was probably already not stable in general. After that we got word that my uncle, who was a lawyer, shot himself. It was just so crazy that all this stuff was happening and it was like, does this ever end? So many funerals in one time frame. After all that happened, things basically calmed down and it was just my mom and my grandma. It was really sad and depressing. I was so used to this big extended family that we created. I was used to having a lot of family. I feel like as well, the people I dated had a lot of family, I feel like family is a huge thing for me. I love just being with family, I appreciate it so much. Its just beautiful that people can unite, and it’s just a good vibe.'“
“Admist all this, I feel like I’ve was just always in relationships and it was just a lot going on. And I’m probably just not processing all these emotions and me being a virgo in general, Virgos typically hold in emotions in a way, were more reserved and were not gonna show everyone our 100% emotions right away. That’s just how we are by nature.”
“Fast forward to now, I feel like I’ve cut out a lot of toxic people in my life. Which has been really hard, like leaving a relationship that was draining me where I felt like it wasn’t healthy for life. Even having a best friend where you thought you were gonna be friends forever and then you realize how toxic it was when you lose them. That was kind shitty because as I was leaving my toxic relationship the past year, she almost entered this really toxic relationship where it was like almost abusive even physically. That was really tough for me because I still had a lot of anger from my past relationship that I hadn’t dealt with and I was taking it out on her because I saw her going through it. I was like, ‘What are you doing? You need to stop’. It’s not right to be angry at someone because they’re not in the right state of mind. I just had to step back and said ‘You need to deal with this on your own, I really can’t be there for you because its hurting me. Like I can’t see you go through this because I’ve been through a similar situation and its shitty seeing someone you care about go through that. The moment I let her go I go closer with other people. My best friend Julie, she’s like my sister. We trust each other with everything and we’re basically family at this point. Im really close with several other people and I feel like you can’t beat having those connections with people. Where its like, you know they have your back and you know you can talk to them about certain things that you wouldn’t necessarily talk about with other people. Just being on this journey of healing, I’ve realized a lot of things about myself and my own strengths. What I’m actually capable of that I thought I wasn’t capable of before because people doubt you and those things stick with you sometimes. Then you realize, why was I doubting myself when I’m actually pretty awesome?”
“You outgrow people, your vibration raises and you’re on a different frequency, it’s almost like you guys aren’t matching anymore on the same level. I’m a pretty spiritual person and I feel like throughout my life I will be on this spiritual journey. It’s eye opening to meet people who actually do have an open mind and do have a growth mindset where they wanna grow too and its amazing being around people like that because it inspires you.”
“You should take time to be alone. Don’t talk to someone right away or don’t get into a romantic relationship right away. Take the time to do things just for you because its so important to do self care. Most of the time, people try to take care of others more than themselves. Especially women, you can’t neglect yourself because what happens when you’re just totally depleted? Then what’re you gonna do? You don’t have yourself anymore and then thats where people lose track of their path and because they just lose themselves. I’ve always wanted people to be happy. Im a pretty positive person so it just comes naturally to me. And I know its like, people say you can’t be happy all the time I get that, but you have to go through the motions, there are gonna be waves where you do feel shitty but you just kinda have to not react with me, or just sit with it or you have to go through it. You can’t just push it to the side. if you’re feeling a certain way you have to express it in some form, you can’t just hold it in.”
“ I started a podcast with a couple other girls. Were going to be focusing on human behaviour and toxic relationships, your body, everything in that aspect. In this day in age, theres a lot of people who have issues with themselves or just relationships in general. People just get stuck in these cycles and they don’t know what to do. If we talk about something and someone hears it, it might plant a seed in their head or change their perspective where maybe they didn’t think of it in that certain light. If someone hears it, I’m hoping it will help them in some way.”
