I sat on the curb at 2 a.m, in front of my grandparent’s home.
I had never spent the night on the streets of Singapore (or any country really) and having just arrived at midnight, I didn’t want to startle my sleeping grandparents –or have them ring the cops!
I hadn’t told anyone I’d be visiting.
I flung my luggage in front of the iron gates and made myself comfortable on the curb to wait for dawn. I did what anyone sitting on a dimly-lit street at 2 a.m. would do in Singapore: I pulled out my laptop and started reading my friend Galen Pearl’s ebook on forgiveness.
The journey to this curb had been one of the longest journeys of my life. And I’m not just talking about the 20-hour flight from California.
See, I hadn’t spoken to my parents for a little more than 2 years.
During one of the most difficult periods in my life – the most difficult, in fact – my Indian parents aggravated a painful experience by actively intruding in and opposing my separation from my ex-wife.
“What about our family name,” they pleaded. “What will others say about us?”
“You have no choice – you must stay together,” they commanded uniformly.
Being in a place of extreme vulnerability, pain and hurt, I couldn’t handle the added pressure and demands of my parents.
So, we stopped talking. I did, anyway. For 2 years so I could complete the divorce and move on with my life.
I resented them for being unsupportive and choosing to see me in pain rather than alleviate painful circumstances.
This trip back to Singapore was the first step on my journey to forgiveness. I hopped on a flight I didn’t want to take. Struggled to book my ticket, to hop on the plane and sit through a 20+ hour grueling journey. Survived transit lounges, immigration and customs to confront 2 people who had hurt me so much.
And here I was now contemplating how I’d forgive the two people that compounded the pain of my separation and later divorce. The parents who opted for self-interest and family name before their son’s interest.
I needed all the advice and inspiration I could get before I would have to confront my parents in the next couple of days and find a way to forgive them.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smeedes
I re-read the forgiveness chapters for the fourth time. Galen recognized forgiveness was a challenge to most, but provided a convincing argument in several chapters of why to forgive someone.
I needed every reason in the book to allow forgiveness into my heart.
Wanting to forgive was why I had gotten on the plane and why I was now sitting on the curb in the middle of a mildly humid Singaporean night.
“Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.” Suzanne Somers
Here are 6 reasons that moved me to forgiveness during that trip, per Galen’s book, and why you should forgive the people you’re holding grudges against in your life.
1) When victims of tragedy and crimes can forgive, why can’t you? Galen gives an example of the most horrific crime committed on a community of people. For example, the Amish schoolhouse shooting by Charles Robert in 2006 which killed 5 young Amish schoolchildren.
When the community was willing to rely on their faith to forgive an unfathomable crime, are you not able to let go of small or large trespasses against you?
All major religious faiths and traditions encourage forgiveness, one of the most important principles after, ‘love your neighbor’. Religious traditions encourage forgiveness for the most horrific, painful and destructive acts by others.
Why aren’t you able to forgive the person who didn’t send you a ‘thank you’ card?
2) No matter what your reason for holding grudges, you’re poisoning yourself internally.
Are you holding back on forgiveness because you’re upset, angry or wanting to teach the perpetrator a lesson? You’ve probably realized that holding a grudge and not forgiving someone may be “secretly delicious”, as Galen says, but it ultimately hurts you the most.
When you don’t forgive, you’re filled with anger, bitterness and revenge.
Not forgiving will cost you your well-being – physically, emotionally and spiritually.
You think you’re hurting someone else or making them feel your wrath. But the gorilla of anger and bitterness envelopes you daily and your every interaction. Your life and view of the world are blinded by anger, hate and bitterness.
Every relationship and interaction is clouded by your inability to forgive.
* Here’s the big secret about forgiveness: you’re freeing and releasing yourself in the process. Forgiving others benefits you and releases YOU from pain. Your life improves dramatically when you let the grudge go.
3) Even if you’re not ready to forgive, set the intention to forgive. I wasn’t ready to forgive but got on a flight and made the journey back to Asia. I had set the intention to forgive even if I was finding physically and psychologically hard to do so. How do you forgive people who’ve caused you so much pain?
Although I didn’t know how I’d forgive, I forged ahead anyways. If you set the intention to forgive, you’ll start opening your heart to the possibility of forgiveness.
Galen writes that we need, “a willingness that opens the crack in our hardened heart shell just enough so we can breathe in the healing power of compassion and breathe out the toxic bar of bitterness.”
Explore the possibilities of forgiveness. Visualize what it’d be like. See what needs to happen in you to let go and stop the hurting person or their actions from continuing to plague you every day.
4) Forgive radically. Did the wronged act benefit you in some way?
Radical forgiveness is not your traditional way to excuse another but more dramatically to look at the incident as a gift.
What??
While you may have no intention to pardon your ex who broke your heart to a million pieces, your parents who destroyed your self-esteem or your friend who betrayed you, could each one of them have brought forth revelations in your life, paths for growth or self-understanding?
You have to go to a pretty radical place to realize and change your perceptions on the wrong-doer and the pain they caused.
And forgive them while focusing on the many benefits and positive circumstances that came out of their wrong-doing.
Did my parents help teach me how to be there for others in their time of need?
Did they make me want to consider restraint before meddling in other people’s problems or relationships?
Were they trying to show me their love and trying to protect me from the heart-break and pain that came with divorce?
5) Forgiveness transforms pain into compassion. Once you’re able to exonerate someone, you’ve just showered the person and situation with compassion. You’re willing to acknowledge the pain and let go of it.
Forgiving allows you to build your ability to be compassionate to others. It allows for understanding others, excusing their wrongs and redeeming them. If you can extend this kindness to those who pain you, you’ll be better able to live with more compassion towards all those around you.
Compassion brings you happiness and allows you to celebrate the divine quality in others.
6) Forgive to open up paths to be forgiven.
You may want to be forgiven some day too, no?
Although this might be the one of the more selfish reasons to forgiven, I thought I’d add to reasons to forgive by suggesting using the Golden Rule to your advantage.
You’ve wronged others and hurt them. Sometimes, you don’t even know how much you’ve irritated, infuriated or wronged someone else. You may have hurt someone who means a lot to you and who you want to continue to have a strong relationship with.
How would you feel if you could NEVER be forgiven by someone you cared about? Now, do you want to be that person? A person filled with so much indignation and self-righteousness they couldn’t allow their ego to pardon a wrong?
Don’t be that person. Build up your arsenal of forgiveness karma.
There’s someone you need to forgive today. There may be more but there’s probably one person you were thinking of as you were reading this article.
Are you ready to forgive them? Have you forgiven someone and glad you did?
Please add to the conversation in the comments below – your thoughts give me more perspective on these issues.
Jammie Karlman is married to a man I refer to as the James Bond of blogging and travel, Bjorn. This international couple of mystery, salsa-dancing and helping others are chronicling their travels on both their blogs which are updated regularly.
This international duo quit their jobs in California to travel around the world for a year doing service projects. Their plan is to spend 3 months in 4 world cities: Bangkok, Thailand; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Berlin, Germany; and Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. (They call it the B Tour.) This trip has been a dream of theirs for five years. It’s really an experiment in lifestyle redesign. An international life of do-gooding and adventure is what they want for the long-term. (That, and tasty food.)
Take it away, Jammie!
Right now, we are in Buenos Aires and have just come to the end of our fifth month of travel. The food, so far, has indeed been mind-numbingly delicious. Other experiences (e.g. humidity, taxi drivers that scam you) have been decidedly less so.
But that’s travel for ya — constantly surprising.
Through the ups-and-downs of our experiences, here are 5 things I discovered that (usually) hold true:
1.) You can live with half the stuff you have now. Take the remainder, halve it again and you’re left with what you actually use.
You need less than you think. When my husband and I decided to go on this trip, we got rid of 80-90% of our stuff. And now I can’t remember what most of that stuff was. What does remain is the memory that it was heart- and back-breaking work. A LOT of work.
And here’s the kicker: As we travel, I find I still packed too much. I actually have clothes and shoes sitting in the closet right now that I barely use. This is some kind of craziness to me, especially as I was that girl who had so many clothes she could go a month without wearing the same item twice.
But this is not a rant against consumerism and materialism. I still like pretty clothes, shoes and tchotchkes. But the experience of throwing out nearly everything we owned has made me leery of having too many possessions.
2.) Starting a new life doesn’t mean old problems disappear.
I can honestly say that I am living the life that I want and that I am happy. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have pangs of insecurity and doubt about what I am doing or encounter difficulties with my character development. Just because I am traveling the world does not mean I left my baggage behind.
I had thought that by going on this trip, certain problems would resolve themselves. After all, I would no longer have to deal with particular annoying people. I would have more time to keep in contact with family and friends.
But halfway around the world from where I was, I am still having problems with people and keeping connected. How is it possible that almost all of the taxi drivers I encounter have cheated me or tried? I would like to blame all taxi drivers as being fraudulent, but I know that can not be true. If a problem is that recurrent and pervasive, it must mean that there is something I am doing that contributes to the problem. (Perhaps I lack assertiveness? Or is it self-fulfilling prophecy — I expect to be scammed and therefore I am?)
And I am STILL missing and forgetting people’s birthdays!
My real problem, I realize, is that I had wrongly ascribed the origins of my troubles to external sources (e.g. other people, overbearing schedule, etc.) when really they were internal. It’s always easier to blame “the other guy” when really you need to take a long, hard look at yourself.
3.) Traveling makes it easier to take a long, hard look at yourself.
Aside from questions of how much time I will spend on service projects and devote to sleep, I have a pretty open schedule (I ain’t gonna lie: It’s pretty awesome.) I have found that the break from the rigors and structures of a normal 8-10 hour job has created more space for me; space that I fill dissecting events/experiences that disturbed me. I can’t as easily push these thoughts away; I don’t have the same distractions.
Usually, these events are so disturbing because they reveal something disturbing about me. For example, I recently blamed a taxi driver for a fast meter. I forced him to stop and made my husband and friends jump out of the cab. Turns out that all meters in Buenos Aires cabs go faster at night and that my accusations were unfounded.
Aside from feeling embarrassed, I was mystified about why I had such a violent reaction. Instead of dismissing it with the rationalization that “most cab drivers are jerks anyway” and/or avoiding dealing with it, I thought about the experience which eventually led to the conclusions mentioned in #2 about taxi drivers, and some strategies that I will employ next time.
4.) Traveling makes it easier to change
Aside from occasional visits from family and friends, Bjorn and I have been on our own. I am freed from the expectations of others who “know” me and how they think I should deal with problems or act. I no longer have to deal with what others think I should do or perceptions of what “Jammie would do” by what I have done in the past.
I can reinvent myself.
That makes it easier to attack character flaws from a new direction, to do things that you normally wouldn’t have. Just like a kid moving to a new school can reinvent themselves from shy to fly (yes, I did just use dated slang from the ‘90s) the same holds true with traveling.
Plus, I don’t feel “rushed.” I don’t feel the need to have changed and improved myself by the next time I meet with someone. It’s been a more forgiving process.
5.) You should just do it.
No, not just travel. What I’m getting at (besides possibly incurring the wrath of Nike) is that I have found it is better to take action toward a goal. As mentioned above, my husband and I had been dreaming about this trip for 5 years.
Five years of thwarted longing is not only torturous to the soul, but also enough time to build up insecurity, doubt and fear as obstacles to this trip for another 5 years (10? 15? 20…you get my point). It is better to take charge and take action for what you want. Now.
And here’s the crucially important (at least for me) part: You don’t have to be without fear to do it.
I found a definition of courage that I really like: “the ability to do something that frightens one.”
Notice it does not say that you stop being frightened— but you can do it, nonetheless. I freaked out (read: ran around a room screaming while wind-milling my arms — many times) before we even began this trip. But not even two weeks into our trip, I realized it was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made — aside from choosing Bjorn as my husband, of course (Awwww! Hugs, kisses, sweetness, gags. :D)
Now when I get tingles of anxiety about doing something, it’s usually a sure sign that I should do it. Even if mistakes are made. Actually, that should just read: Mistakes will be made. The journey toward the life you want is not a straight line but a series of readjustments.
In a way, that makes change comforting, instead of frightening to me. Even if the actions you take don’t lead exactly where you want, you can always stop and correct course (unless those previous actions lead to death. Please plan your actions carefully and wisely and avoid most things that are illegal, immoral and fattening.)
Who can know what the future will hold? But as for me, I’m looking forward to what I’ll learn in the next five months.
What exciting places you been to? And what have you learned from your travel experiences?
You can read Jammie’s entertaining and informative travel blog here: Go Karlmans.
Who needs United Airlines when you can walk on the clouds?
“No matter where you are on your journey, that’s exactly where you need to be. The next road is always ahead.” Oprah
The fancy home overlooking the glistening turquoise sea.
A fulfilling work-life and entrepreneurial career. Planning glamor weddings or writing best-selling books. Managing that talked-about restaurant that caters to celebrities.
Boating cruises on the Riviera with that tall, dark-skinned French doctor of your dreams. Weekend getaways to Cannes, where the film festival makes the bottom of your weekend itinerary.
All right, all right.
Maybe not quite so glamorous but you know what you’ve always wanted; love, career, children, a lovely home, season-tickets to the Teatro alla Scala, tango dancing in Buenos Aires.
Just the basics.
You NEVER imagined you’d be here.
You thought all the pieces of the puzzle were to fall together and your life would unfold as you had desired. Life would be a comforting journey on the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride at Disneyland where you floated around on teacups visiting exotic countries around the world.
Instead, you’ve found it to be like a scary life-or-death, hair-frazzling roller coaster ride leaving you breathless, disjointed and baffled.
What happened to that fairy-tale life you were promised as a kid?
What happened to the life-dreams you had so meticulously imagined in your day-dreams?
Is your dream job more elusive than ever?
Is your career at a dead-end?
The hunk of a guy you’re dating: more punk than hunk?
Your life didn’t quite turn out the way you imagined. Instead of flying, you feel like you’re scuba diving. Scuba diving without an oxygen tank. Ok, feels like you’re drowning.
Did your life turn out the way you wanted?
Why did you get left behind?
Why is everyone else moving ahead?
Why is everyone else’s life falling into place like a 10-piece jigsaw puzzle when your 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle is scattered across three rooms, missing 150 pieces and is hardly recognizable?
The life I wanted seems so distant.
When I completed my law degree, I spent several years of my life as a courtroom lawyer but was never a fan of the practice. Instead of sticking with law, moving up the partnership track and getting paid!! ($$) I’ve jumped out of law practice all together. It didn’t fit my soul, personality or interest so I bid it farewell. But it set me back a few years professionally.
I married at the age of 25. Like most who walk down the alter to wedded bliss, I wanted this marriage to last a lifetime. Forever. Happily ever after, as fairytales end. A long life together, happiness and children. But it didn’t work out that way. In fact, we married too young, learned we weren’t right for each other and and divorced much later than we should have.
Yup, life wasn’t what I had wanted it to be and the life I desired seemed obscure.
What next? What do you do after the sense of failure has pinned you against the wall? After the frustrations have set in and the tears have dried up?
Your journey back to your life starts with:
1) Resist your desire to compare yourself with others. You don’t know the 99 problems Jay-Z’s got. You don’t even know 99 problems your wealthy girlfriends, attractive exes or bff’s have. Life may appear grand on Facebook postings and idealistic on Christmas cards but you have no idea what deranged and lunatic people your friends and family are.
The more ideal their lives appears, the more likely you’re going to be reading about them in the tabloid papers or TMZ.
2) Let your life work out on its own pace. No two journeys are the same (except in prison where your daily routine, clothing, bedding and food options are the same.) We each have different lessons to learn and different experiences to have.
You need the setbacks, experiences and lessons learned to shine in the future.
3) Be grateful for who you are. You’re a divine being. You just forgot about that as you grew up and people around you told you otherwise. As a baby, you were coddled, petted and treated like a precious gem. As an adult, you’re now treated like Amanda Bynes or Justin Bieber on a bad day in court.
You’re not a disgraced pop star or reality tv wannabe. Be grateful for you. Be grateful for your talents, abilities, mind and consciousness. Be grateful for the gift you are to the world.
4) Be grateful for everything you’ve got. Yes, your flat screen tv. Your diplomas, master’s degrees, student loan payments and photo frames. Your Gucci sunglasses. Startucks coffee-cards, Nina Fern pumps, weekend spa retreats… Your 18 silk scarfs. Your 10-year-old Volkswagen Jetta which drives without protest or resistance. You’ve got food and friends to eat it with. You’ve got a job, however dead-end it might be.
Whatever you have, small or grand, be thankful for it. There are no downsides to a gratefulness practice.
5) Keep hope alive. “We must accept finite disappointment. But never lose infinite hope,” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Even if your life feels like it’s out of sync and far from the day-dreams you had growing up, never give up hope. The life you dreamed of may not be exactly as you had wanted but it will manifest in its own way. Huh?
What you want will manifest itself in a different form than you had expected.
You might have wanted children of your own,but for now you have nieces and nephews who you enjoy spending time with. They love your company, but they go home after, saving you your sanity and sleep.
You dreamt of being a financial advisor at a large New York stock brokerage. The good news is that when the market tanked, you didn’t have dozens of angry clients trying to break down your door. Instead of doing it professionally, you’re able to make smart investments for your family members who ask.
You didn’t make it into Hollywood but you’re teaching children how to act and making a difference in the lives of dozens of future actors.
Stay positive and hopeful that the universe will manifest your desires.
Any day.
It may not be exactly as you had wanted but what the Universe felt you needed.
6) Improve your mindset and raise your vibrations. You’re not going to read a personal development blog without hearing this advice, but it has to be said. Or you have to be reminded.
If you’re a highly negative person, this advice goes double for you.
If you believe positive thinking is a bunch of poppycock and wondering why there’s so much negativity in your life, you might have a problem.
Thinking positive thoughts is not going to mean a house in Beverly Hills and a fat movie contract. It WILL allow for more positive affairs (no, not that kind) to manifest in your life.
Also, hand in hand with positive thoughts are positive vibrations. How in the Universe do you raise your vibrations? My friend Evelyn has some thoughts.
7) Practice patience. Yeah. Wait.
Some people I know are doing this as a spiritual practice or using it for their word of the year in 2013. Life isn’t a fast food drive-thru or quick-delivery pizza: 30 minutes or it’s free.
Didn’t someone say the best things in life are worth waiting for? So wait a little longer and your many wants and desires might manifest in front of your eyes. And much more than you initially wanted or expected.
8) Clean your house. I’ve always found that prior to my external world improving, I’ve had to improve my internal world.
“Vishnu,” you’re asking, “did you just get back from a taping of Oprah?”
No, friends, I’ve experienced this.
When you’re a mess, your world is a mess. So, how do you improve your inside world?
Yoga, sure. Meditation, fine. Serious therapy and medication, ok. Standing upside down and chanting to the spirit Gods – whatever works, mate.
What do you need to deal with serious or even small emotional and psychological issues you’re facing? IF you’re thinking reading this blog is going to get you there, God help us all.
Get help.
9) Be open to the tidal waves of change and gifts coming your way. Yeah, sometimes life’s like Christmas except you won’t know what day Santa is going to break into your pad and shower you with every gift you’ve ever wanted.
In fact, your life may already be like Christmas morning and you’ve failed to take notice.
If you’re living the dream and still feel unfulfilled, go back up to the “gratefulness” parts of this post.
If your dreams and wants in life seem far and distant, then be ready to accept your desires unfolding. Don’t shut the door on the extremely attractive delivery man who delivers you a bouquet of flowers. (Oh, do make sure that flower delivery guy is delivering flowers as his part-time job and that he’s studying to be a dentist during the day)
Be open and observant of what’s happening in your life. Allow your life to manifest what you want in it.
Don’t take another step or leave this post without heading over to the comments section below. Give it to me straight – are you waiting for your life to start or pressing ahead and living it?
Just to keep things interesting, I thought I’d take this week off from writing and share with you a video interview post with a friend of mine, Jose Lisi.
I met Jose less than a year ago but have gotten to know him and his family pretty well over these few months. And I was lucky enough to attend his Baptism, First Communion and Confirmationceremony here in Southern California.
It was quite the ceremony and naturally, I had a few hundreds of questions about Jose’s experience and why he was going through this process now.
If you have five minutes, take a listen.
To pick up my book, Is God Listening?, about where God is during our life’s trying times, click here.
I’m a first generation Filipino immigrant to the United States and I’ve got a legit American passport to prove it.
In our first-time plane journey, Mom and I flew to the U.S. from the Philippines to begin our new lives. It all started from one of those pen-pal services that my mom joined pre-online dating sites. Sounds like a ‘Mail Order Brides’ kind of operation to me but who am I to judge?
Mom did what she had to do. All she selflessly wanted was a better life for me.
I spent my whole life growing up in the States; from pre-school through college.
I even worked my first two “professional jobs” in the U.S. We’d visit the Philippines every couple years if money allowed it and when I had those long summer vacations. My last visit was at the age of twenty with Mom. By that time, I was already telling my Tita (aunt) that I wanted to visit on my own next time and really travel the Philippines.
I forgot about this prophetic comment until my next visit six years later. I was twenty-five going on twenty-six.
Newly emerged from a self-proclaimed “quarterlife crisis” in which I had let go of a 5 year long relationship complete with house, mortgage and a dog. That was slowly killing that fire within, that frees-spirit, that wanderlust that I always had. I knew I had to make big changes and so I walked away.
I uprooted my entire life just to reverse all the opportunities I’d known to embrace my Filipino culture and living with my own people.
I thought returning home would be ‘a spiritual coming home’ experience – a return to my roots. I was going back to the homeland. I’m still here now, but it ain’t all bed and roses. Sometimes, it’s wooden floors and coconuts. It’s a strange sort of culture clash, when you’ve all but lost your own culture.
5 Challenges of Returning Home
1. IDENTITY or “Being Told I’m not Pinoy.”
The term ‘Pinoy’is used to describe a person from the Philippines; a Filipino.
Pinoy can also refer to the native culture of the Philippines. e.g. “Woke up to bad karaoke blasting from the neighbors singing Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’. That’s so Pinoy!”
I have had many times, especially during when I first landed, where people have told me to my face that I am ‘not Pinoy’.
Who am I if I’m not even Filipino?
Are Filipino-Americans, particularly the Filipino-Americans who don’t know their own language fluently (guilty), such aliens?
Am I a freak?
Do I not belong in my country of birth?
Who am I if I’m not Pinoy?
The comments stung as I grasped for a sense of my own ever-changing identity.
Who am I if I’m not Pinoy and these aren’t my people? Identity is a real bitch.Each devaluation, regardless of the cultural context (OK, so I know I’m not as “Pinoy” as I am “American”), is a kick in the gut. It hurts.
2. ICE COLD SHOWERS or “Going Native.”
Joel Runyon, who runs the popular Impossible HQ, thought it would be weird and crazy to take cold showers for a month just because he can.
I mean, who does that!?
Filipinos.
And probably a big chunk of the world population not in the top 8% we call America. Cold showers are a reality for developing countries and “going native”.
Filling buckets of cold water and using little “dippers” to dump water over my head is a reality for most, especially in the province (Bonus points if you can do this outside with your clothes on. DOUBLE bonus if you can do this outside in your birthday suit. Context is everything. And if you’re wondering, heck yeah, I’ve done both.).
Despite the humid, hot environment, cold showers still take some getting used to.
My technique?
Grabbing my boobs with both hands to cover them while simultaneously jumping up and down with flip-flops (it’s weird to shower barefoot) under the shower. Once I get used to the temperature I let go of my boobs and hang loose, baby! So who’s the crazy one now?
3. CULTURE SHOCK or ‘You’re so yuppy!’
Culture shock is a broad category that can cover a myriad of situations and examples.
But the opposite of ‘Pinoy’ and not being culturally “native” is being ‘sosyal’ (think “social” with an accent). This term refers to the higher-class, often “yuppy” groups of Westernized socialites and urbanites out of touch with their native culture. These social elites live in high rises and not the bahay kubo (“high rise” house on stilts made out of bamboo that the provincial poor dwell in).
I am the LEAST poshy least social person ever and I live in the slums but I still get labeled ‘yuppy’ because it also refers to the mindset, if not the lifestyle, of a Westernized person.
(By the way, things like using utensils to eat instead of a fork and spoon gets you marked a sosyal!?!)
4. GIMME A KISS AND YO’ US DOLLARS or “Family Obligation.”
Money is a real bitch here, and family members are expected to help out collectively, for the greater good of the family. That’s all fine and dandy but it also means you can get taken advantage of as the “rich” Westerner. This was completely new to me having gone back for the first time by myself.
This is a huge culture shock for someone trying to travel and live on a budget!
Add to this the passive-aggressive communication style. How my aunts would call my mom on the phone to talk about how I wasn’t paying and my mom would call me to tell me I needed to pay. Big turn off.
To this day, I still hesitate visiting knowing that I’m expected to shell out money, and being guilt tripped if I don’t.
Now that’s so Pinoy!
At my current rate, trying to build my web/blog design business (www.byjanet.net), I’m just trying to survive like the rest of the ‘Pinoys’, with very little money to spare.
5. SLUMS or “I’m a Survivor.”
My life is so much different than it was a few years ago. I am now living in the Manila slums when I found my money run dry and was faced with living in the cheapest rent of the city that I could find.
This is like a season of “Survivor” but I guarantee you there’s no million dollar grand prize if I survive.
Not surviving means not making rent or having dinner!
My ‘coming home’ path wasn’t the path I had imagined but I’m certain it is the path that will ultimately make me succeed as a person.
Coming home does have it’s plusses – I am with my people (like it or not) I speak Tagalog daily (so Pinoy!).
I eat with my hands (more often at least) I’ve learnt persistence, survival skills and become more of a local than when I first landed here.
You know what? It feels good to be home.
Did you enjoy Janet’s story? Have you had to ‘go home’? Was your return home anything like Janet’s experience? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below
Janet Brent is a straight-up Pinoy, still living in the Phillipines and chasing her entrepreneurial dreams. She works with creative and holistic writers and authors to build web platforms, design ebooks and assists with product launches over at the Purple Panda. She’s also living on $2 U.S. dollars a day this month.
I help people overcome their devastating breakups and divorces and find love again. Instead of visiting the Himalayas, sign up below and join me. I am taking a writing break but will be back soon.
This guide is free. A ticket to the Himalayas is $2000. Your move.
![How to Fly when YOU feel like you’re drowning. [9 tips for moving forward]](https://www.vishnusvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/womanflying-300x192.jpg)
![5 Challenges When Returning to the Homeland [Portland –> Philippines]](https://www.vishnusvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/purplepanda-300x199.jpg)
