Broken Hearts Need a Break Too

Okay, since it's February and a friend's situation came to mind during my quiet time, I had to write this. I can't promise this would be my last love-themes post but I'll try, okay? :)

 How do we heal a broken heart? For most of us girls, it involves endless ranting and rehashing to friends and anyone who would listen, copious amount of tears, play lists of the most heart-wrenching love songs on repeat-mode, buckets of liquor, the occasional threat of bodily harm to the guy involved (and any third party, if applicable), and a defiant hunt for the next distraction, i.e., the rebound.

Sad to say, most of us still drop into the habit of doing most of the stuff above. Sure we get well-meaning advice about moving on and focusing on the good things, but in our most vulnerable, selfish moments, it's easier to wallow in self-pity. Mas masarap magpaka-kawawa, diba, especially this time of the year, when all the Valentine brouhaha is assaulting our senses.

We've heard the saying, "Don't let your emotions take over." I think that's sound advice. But since the heart is mostly an emotional organ, I think it's also fair to give it ample time to grieve if hurt, to heal once broken. I've always believed the heart is very resilient, but just like any other living thing, if it's wounded, then it needs time to recuperate. This doesn't give us license to flounder in a victim mindset, but it does allow us to give our heart a break.

And I think this is the best time not to make any important decisions or engage in any impulsive actions. Mabuti pang mag-SL or LOA muna ang puso imbes na isabak ulit sa laban. I learned this the hard way numerous times, and I hope this time, the lesson would stick.

While diving right back into the dating scene or drowning our sorrows in alcohol and negative thoughts might seem therapeutic –and yes, it will work for a while – it’s all temporary. When the rush of a new guy or the buzz of yet another drinking binge wears off, we’re left feeling emptier and sadder than when we started.

The heart is deceitful, as well. We may think we know it and can control it, but we can't. Only God can. He knows us thoroughly, loved us even while we were still sinners, and can tell each and every desire of our hearts. It's hard and sometimes, even in my faith in Him, I struggle to come to terms with my limitations. We fall into the trap of going to Him only when all else had failed, but really, we should have come to Him from the start. 

*photo from Google. No copyright infringement intended.

Gifts, Lessons and Thoughts of the Past week

The past few days went by in a blur of calls, cold meds, flood of office emails, and the occasional skirmish or two. Had a lot of thoughts and insights during this week, too.

Started the week with a little miscommunication that hopefully, will not blow out of proportion nor extend into the next coming days. Will continue to step up though, as long as I have the best intentions in mind, and no aim to hurt nor belittle other people. Lesson learned.

Realized as well one fact of life: sometimes the hardest thing to do is the best thing to do. We can’t run on emotions alone. Even the Bible says the heart is untrustworthy. The brain and the heart have to work together; one is not superior over the other, but there are times when one has to yield to the other. This time, it pays to be smart. Well maybe not “smart,” but I guess “wiser” is more apt.

Felt kinda floating and far-off, as well. Like I belong everywhere and nowhere. I wanted a sole person to be able to tell everything without judgment, malice or wrong motives. Just plain, best-friendship. I was alternately feeling crappy and buoyant all throughout the week (must be the meds or might be bipolar?!), and while I have a lot of close friends to go to, I realized I also have a lot of friends I am hesitant on approaching.

Lastly, I came across the phrase, “the gift of discernment” and for some reason it stuck to me. Got me thinking if I have it. If not, then I pray to God he heaps me with lots of it hahaha! Wikipedia defines discernment as such:

Discernment is the activity of determining the value and quality of a certain subject or event, particularly the activity of going past the mere perception of something and making detailed judgments about that thing. As a virtue, a discerning individual is considered to possess wisdom, and be of good judgement; especially so with regard to subject matter often overlooked by others.

I fervently hope – with God’s grace – that in everything I do, I may be able to go beyond the face value of something, to be wise enough to see what others don’t see right away, to peel off the layers and make good judgments based on the truth.

*photo from themominitiative.com. No copyright infringement intended.

Pitch Perfect is Perfectly Aca-awesome

WATCH PITCH PERFECT. Like, now na!

Ermengaaaaard! This movie really brought out the frustrated singer in me. Grabe! I was a fan of Glee on its first season but got bored by the second season and haven't watched a single episode I think after the Britney tribute.

But wow! I think if they make Pitch Perfect into a series, it's gonna whoop Glee's, er, back. I've always liked acapella pieces better, or covers with minimal instruments, like what Boyce Avenue does. It makes me focus more and appreciate just the voice and lyrics without any distracting auto-tune or snazzy electropop effects most artists are so fond of now.

The movie's about an all-girl college acapella group, The Barden Bellas, competing against an all-male rival from the same university, The Tremblemakers. Fresh from a humiliating loss last year, the remaining two Bellas recruit misfits to compete again. Beca, an aspiring music producer, finds herself in college and in the Bellas reluctantly at first, but then grows to value the group and even helps them shake up the old, tired routines with her amazing voice and musical knowledge.

Check out the trailer here!

The clip below is one of my favorite scenes, when they were preparing for the Nationals and did a mash-up of Bruno Mars "Just The Way You Are" and Nelly's "Just A Dream." Chills!

Check out their performance for the finals which I had to watch like, three times even though it's already 1 AM. Mash up of Price Tag/Don't You/Give Me Eevrything. Galing talaga!

The Good, The Bad and... And The One

You were always afraid of being alone. You thought being alone equates to being lonely. You had boyfriends before, dated guys you don’t really like just for the sake of not being single. This explains why you held on to past relationships longer than you should have, wasted time, money and effort on imagined attractions, and ruined friendships because you thought they could be more than that. Several times you fell into the trap of being in love with the idea of love because the opposite thought of it was, well, lonely.

It’s true that our God is a jealous God. Until He knows that you love Him above everything else, He’s not going to send another person that will take your eyes off Him. And because He loves you so much, He wants to make sure the next one He sends your way will love and treat you in the way He intended to be. And because you are His precious daughter, He made sure those shoes would be really big to fill!

Now you realize why God sent you the bad boys, those insensitive, emotionally-impaired, commitment-phobes who broke your heart and turned you bitter at first, but wiser and stronger later on. He did that so when He does send you a good guy, you’d know the difference. The good ones will let you know that men like these do exist, and they can see you not as broken or defective like you used to view yourself, but just as God sees you: complete, able and worth the bother. You may not end up with the first good guy you cross paths with, but then you’ll know that there’s The One out there who’s meant just for you.

With faith and prayer, claim that The One is doing exactly what you’re doing right now: praying for you. Believe that your future guy is also patiently readying himself, working on becoming the man you deserve so that when you finally meet him, it will be at the right place, at the right time – His time. God indeed has perfect timing, but you can’t leave it all up to Him, right? When the right time comes, it also helps if you’re at the right place and you’re doing the right thing. Trust that whoever he is or wherever he's at right now, he is on his way to you, and he is trying to get to you as fast as God is allowing him to. 

Believing in Sama-Sama

We had our process’ monthly town hall last Thursday. The usual format is we give awards for perfect attendance peeps, top performers and teams, and then we would have the usual games or whatever theme contests there are. This being the first of the year 2013, our People Work Stream had us bring paper and crayons for the “Draw Mo Vision Mo” segment. The four teams had to come up with a new team name, slogan and logo which would embody their team’s vision for this year.

Team Vange/Pao drew a huge octopus with six tentacles representing the six members. The headset-wearing sea creature says, “This is it, Pus It” (a word play on Push It) and envisions working together well despite six different personalities mixing in, under the guidance of our newest performance-coach-turned-relief-AMO Pao, while Vange is on maternity leave.

Team Dman/Dorobo is now Daga-Daga-Gang who is aiming for “One Team, One Goal to Success” (I’m not sure if this is verbatim, please correct me if I’m wrong!). Their logo had, of course, a rat, surrounded by stars of equal sizes and a trophy, among others. Being a consistent Dream Team awardee and constant Hit Club suki, the team foresees a year of unity and hard work with no star mentality – plus more GC’s to fund their teambuilding activities.

Team Jown will now be known as Team Juno – J for Jown and Uno for number one. They drew a shield to represent protecting our company’s customers. Their vision is to be solid to be champions!

Our team chose a catchy phrase, “Think One, Team Van.” We drew a huge number 1 surrounded by traced outline of our hands. It depicted our goal to hold hands as a symbol of unison, to be closer as a team and to our manager; hence the name Team HK (Hawak Kamay) We believe to be united as a process harmony has to start within the team. Our aim is not only to be #1 in numbers –both individually and as a team – but to give out a performance worthy of a top rating in all that we do. At the end of the day, it’s not whether we get the actual 1 or not, but that we could proudly and honestly say that win or fail, we never lacked effort in trying; we did not hold back our best. Whatever personal struggles, distractions, emotional state or mood we are in, when we are at work, our heart, mind and focus should be at doing our job and doing it well.

Last year, our process mantra was BELIEVE. The year was fraught with surprises, changes and losses. There were a lot of uncertainties going around, so I guess faith in our management and each other was important. We shrunk from 8 teams, 8 managers and 2 MO’s to now just 4 teams, 4 AMO’s and 1 MO. But what we lost in people count, we made up for stronger and closer personal and professional relationships. This is a department where team names are actually just for reports and seating plans and admin purposes; we could literally be in any other team and be happy. Each rep can go on auto-pilot even with minimal or no supervision. Most, if not all, perform not because we were told we have to, but because we know we have to – and want to.

This year, it is SAMA-SAMA. And Jown’s opening remarks at the town hall quite sums up that we are off to a good start this year. Only a month into 2013 and already we’ve had several team building activities, girls’ movie night, spaghetti parties, boys’ basketball nights, to name a few. We stuck together and partied hard during the Rewind Party in WTC, and the process Facebook group is still a popular stress-reliever for a lot of us, nyaha!

Sama-Sama. It’s all about sticking together, because, hey, we are all we’ve got. It’s about working together despite and in spite of our differences, of not pulling each other down. I believe this is where sensitivity, honesty, trust, credibility, sense of humor and just plain hard work come in. Walang petiks, walang basag trip, walang iwanan. I mean, let’s be realistic; not all of us will reach retirement in this company, let alone in this department (Good grief I hope I don’t, despite being the most tenured here haha!). But whatever other opportunities we’re looking at outside, whatever dreams we’re trying to pursue as well, whatever other rackets and whatnot we have on the side, when we’re at work, let’s give it our 110%, all day, every day!