Nature & the Apocalypse - Tapping Into Your Untapped Resources

Nature & the Apocalypse

Your Untapped Resources

In apocalyptic times it’s easy to forget about the multiple dimensions of resources we all have to make it through challenging times.

So I thought I’d break down these dimensions unique to my message and what I created as a pillar of the Radical Nature Framework.

Click this image of Terry Crews & Jameela Jamil in conversation about toxic masculinity and an emphasis on 2 ways that people get inspired (1:34).

I remember talking to my business coach and he asked me, ”What is it that actually motivates people to get a real start on their true life’s work and invest in the real support needed to get there?”. And I responded and told him that we typically don’t take a leap until we get to our extremes. So, near-death experiences or arriving at what might seem like the lowest point in your life will get someone to take action. Those are usually the times when we generally see people create their businesses or “launch” their life’s work. Not everyone needs to get to extremes, but I see it as an example of a general human tendency.

Today, I’d say there’s also this apocalypse. And by apocalypse, I’m taking its root definition, below. Our ability to now see the truths of our world has caused us to face, head-on the many things we need to repair and heal to move forward.

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Not what we expected as an apocalypse the way Hollywood depicted it? What we’re faced with is an existential crisis. And this existential crisis requires us to ask the deeper questions about WHO WE ARE and WHAT OUR PURPOSE IS while we’re here on this Earth.

I think this is why when I introduce my “Belonging & Identity” diagram to groups it seems to be the illustration that hits people viscerally in what work needs to happen to make it through to see what world we’ll arrive to after all of this chaos.

Source: etymonline.com

Why does it seem to hit home for most? I’m guessing that this is the missing piece in the narrative of leadership, organizational development, or entrepreneurship;

the fact that we are made up of more than just our human existence

We have multiple dimensions of being and our sense of belonging to things not ONLY this Earth. It’s like a breath of fresh air to just acknowledge that we exist on multiple planes. And this is what came to me when I took a deeper look into nature’s systems from multiple disciplines; science, spiritually, coaching, etc…

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So let me break down each of the dimensions as they relate to our human sense of identity and belonging and leave you with some ways to start thinking about this for yourself.

The goal is that you can find the many untapped resources of your resilience and begin engaging with these dimensions as the world as we know it begins to dissolve….

Look at the multiple dimensions of your being, from the human self all the way into the expansion of your place in the Quantum or Universal Realm.

How do you relate to each dimension?

How does each dimension show up in your life?

Consider answering the questions posed with the breakdown of each of these dimensions below:

SELF - your body, DNA, physical abilities, capacity to intellectualize, living family, existence in your specific life time

REGION/LAND - the place on the planet where your ancestors come from, your lineage, all the specific plants and animals found in that region, your capacity to relate to particular plants and animals because they are part of your origin story

GLOBAL - the world’s resources, the things we all have as a global human species like emotions, basic needs, our capacity to see yourself in others (kapwa), our connection to land and water on this Earth

PLANETARY - your connection to the stars/planets/solar system, your birth chart, your capacity to see your spiritual position in relation to the Earth and other starts

QUANTUM/UNIVERSAL - our collective consciousness, the place where everything exists and belongs to, beyond the stars. It’s the universal energy of our existence, your capacity to reach your ancestors and become one and back and forth...

Take this resource with you and your answers and apply your multiple dimensions the next time you need to find answers to take the next step during the apocalypse! And let me know what shows up by commenting below!

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Access this "Trauma Response Toolkit" That Includes My Healing Hike Activity!

This year has yet to fail in its epic and ongoing show of turbulence.

So I must assure you that in these times, we pull together and offer up our best support. As a trauma-informed coach, its really important to know what tools and approaches are out there and how the deep healing work we do can provide some accessible and practical tools. In the case of referring out services or sending extra tools and resources during sessions, it’s critical to know where to send folks.

That’s why when I was invited into contribute to MyLife’s Trauma Response Toolkit, I was really excited about providing the opportunity to experience nature’s healing abilities via technology! Now you can access a healing walk through the meditation app, MyLife and connect with nature anywhere!

I had already experienced the need to pivot the in-person healing hikes into virtual space in 2017 when the first episode of CA wildfires ravaged The Bay Area. No, it wasn’t actually the pandemic that initiated the pivot although the virtual healing hikes did ramp up this year due to the pandemic!

So I invite you to check out the entire Trauma Response Toolkit online series where many other experts, including myself, were interviewed to talk about ways in which we can tap into our personal power to overcome the many challenges of our lives and current societal turbulence.

Also, to be real about this experience for me, you better believe the imposter syndrome came in strong! I leaned in, took a deep breathe, and let the experience flow. Because when I saw the list of experts in this series, I couldn’t help but notice how I was one of two “experts” in the series without a PhD! That darn imposter syndrome had a brief nano-second guest appearance into my mind and I quickly ninja-chopped it out and replaced it with a healthy dose of empowerment. I told myself that this was something to celebrate, loudly and proudly! That I was really proud of myself in being visible enough for a company to recognize me in this way. And I became overwhelmed with gratitude for being part of this spread of awesome experts. I definitely gave myself so love this week! Most importantly, I know it can be a testament to encourage others that have deep, maybe disabling or toxic relationships with their ‘imposter syndrome’ thoughts. That commitment to your truth and life experience is also important to stand by amidst the norms of this world needing credibility in the form of degrees or publications.

I truly do believe that if the support you’re getting from anyone makes sense to you and does something to shift you into your truth and healing, then it’s valid. It’s worthy. It’s real.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the other guest experts:

Some of the other topics I cover in this interview for the first time, publicly is the connection to our ancestors when we heal with nature and how important ancestral healing is to our efforts to heal relationships with each other and the land we live on.

You don’t want to miss this conversation!

Now, go ahead and head on over to MyLife’s YouTube channel and check out my interview alongside other amazing practitioners offering up their perspectives and tools. And don’t forget…each practitioner has an activity in the Trauma Response Toolkit, FREE for you to access by downloading the app! Just click the links below to access all of this good stuff!

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The Greatest Threat to Colonization is the Indigenous Woman: Part 1, Black Liberation

To understand a world in the midst of racial, social, and environmental transformation we must look into the belly of the beast and work to understand where these negative forces come from, how it functions, and its agenda. The forces of colonization and white supremacy are those forces. And the greatest threat to that is WHO WE WERE BEFORE those forces came in. Here’s part one of how I’ve lived through and view this battle.

Quick Google Search

What I’m about to share with you is what my eyes have seen, what words I’ve listened to, what life experiences have taught me about our humanity and the state of the world today. My views are a result of the guidance from many of my teachers and elders, schooling, educating youth, as well as my abilities to see things this way. I’m grateful fro all of those gifts and I welcome dialogue around this post.

MY LIVED EXPERIENCE

When I was in my mid-20’s I was dating a Black man. My father caught wind of this and give me the silent treatment for about 6 months. I had no idea what his reason was for the silence. Then my mother asked me one day, “Do you have a black boyfriend?” I confirmed. And the next thing she said shocked me, but didn’t throw me off completely. She said, “Well Dad’s not talking to you because he doesn’t want Black in the family.” My response was, “Wow, you both are racist!” I felt safe enough to continue with her by telling her, “I don’t get why you think this wouldn’t happen when you raised me here in the Bay Area.” Even though in the back of my head I knew racism was very much alive in the Filipino culture, and in particular, anti-Blackness. 

This was a “crucible moment” in my life that taught me that anti-Blackness was global. Because up until that point I was a brown girl navigating my life as a Filipino American. I wasn’t yet exposed to the histories and the stories of anti-Blackness outside of the United States. But it was clear to me in that moment in my parents’ faces, in their words, knowing their migration story, and the belief in anti-Blackness that it was an ideology they adopted from somewhere else. But where did they learn this? Back home in the Philippines? Or was it something they learned after immigrating here? I didn’t care to ask at that time. I was too disgusted and disappointed. 

We never resolved anything around this situation, but I knew that for myself, resolution was not even an option. I had to just continue on with my life however I chose because I chose my free will. 

OUR TRAVELING DNA

As a socially conscious educator and ecologist, my lens has always been one of curiosity and connection. I see things in terms of systems, inter-relatedness, and interdependence. So, personally as I went about my years teaching our youth, expanding my experiences, and getting to know me, who I am, and where I come from (because a lot of my work placed me in direct interaction with racism), I decided to take my own DNA test for ethnicity. This is where I began to understand my family’s history as well as our identity as it related to colonization. 

My initial DNA results

While I was waiting for my results to come in from Ancestry.com I began asking my parents how much they knew about our ancestors. To my surprise, neither of them could tell me much more past their grandparents’ names (my great grandparents). Not much was recorded. If I wanted to dig deeper into their stories I’d have to actually go to the Philippines, maybe go to the Catholic Church for records. What was also striking for me was to see that all of my relatives had Spanish names, not Malay or indigenous in origin. 

A sudden wave of emotion and information came to me and I realized

(1) they lost so much including the ability to retain indigenous names (i.e., because of assimilation), 

(2) what they endured compared to what I’m enduring in this life was so much more deeper and heavier on their soul and 

(3) what they endured brought me and my family to be here, now. I couldn’t help but be sad about this. But it also ignited more curiosity about ancestry, migration stories, and global race relations. 

Shortly after my results came in I picked up this book by Christine Kenneally, “The Invisible History of the Human Race”. It was common knowledge to me that all of us have that  <1% African DNA in us, but she confirmed it for me when she opens her Chapter 12 on The History of the World, 

“When you visualize the human tree, picture its trunk firmly planted in African soil. Modern humans emerged there several hundred thousand years ago and lived only there from 250,000 years ago for at least 150,000 years - much longer span of time than we have lived across the globe.” 

The chapter goes on to describe where this <1% comes from and how the band of humans that made the migration out of the land we know of as Africa remains in our DNA today. Kenneally goes on and says, 

“Around sixty thousand years ago a small band of them - perhaps not much more than one thousand to two thousand five hundred individuals- went traveling. We don’t know why they left or if they had any sense that they were going somewhere new, but we do know their decision kicked off one of the biggest events in the history of the human genome.

Those who remained are the ancestors of most of the one billion people who live in Africa today. The small band that left are the ancestors of everyone else in the world, and the suite of NDA they carried was only a small sample of the variety of human genomes that existed in Africa at the time of their departure. Indeed, we know the migration occurred because even now we can see that the genomes of everyone in the world outside of Africa is a subset of the genomic variation still found in Africa.”

So basically what that book was telling me was that we all come from the land which we call Africa. Which means, WE ALL COME FROM A MOTHER FROM AFRICA. As trivial as it may seem, realizing it like this blew my mind!

ANTI-BLACKNESS

So, we all come from a Black mother. The DNA shows us that she is our most common ancestor, whoever that woman was on the land we know of as Africa. But this revelation always brought me back to this perplexing ideology of racism that globally, being Black, especially was bad. 

Why is it that you can find anti-Blackness around the globe and ingrained in the beliefs of many cultures? Because I couldn’t see that there were other examples of other races being seen as so inferior in the same way. Well, the first reason is probably obvious: colonization.

THE COLONIZED MIND

There’s no other way colonization can happen successfully unless you also control the minds of the people that come from that land. Not only in Africa, but in all colonized countries (most land masses) if you don’t have pride in yourself and the land you come from, you won’t fight for it. 

Colonization’s goal is to separate people from their connection to their land therefore severing a connection to themselves & their identity. This is how the colonizer can take all the power over that land and its people. 

For Africa, it’s our human origin. It’s where our expansion to create and populate the rest of the world comes from. 

There is a certain power that exists when you know you come from a story that began creating this world. 

And that’s the type of power the colonizer DOESN’T want you to have.

The second reason is our need to …

RECONCILE WITH OURSELVES

This one is the more spiritual and existential reason.  

It wasn’t until I had this frank conversation with a peer healer and Ancestral Healing practitioner, Dumbei Okonji, where I realized what the ultimate teaching was around anti-Blackness. I shared what I knew about migration, DNA, indigeneity, connections to our land and ancestry, and asked her frankly,

“But why Black? Why do we hate on Blackness so much and why is it uniquely global? I just don’t get it.” 

And her profound response, 

“Well when it comes down to it, we just don’t like who we are.”

Knowing this, I began to understand the deeply seeded weaponry of self hate. The more we choose to accept and adopt all forms of self hate, the more we perpetuate our separation from each other, fulfilling the colonizer’s agenda. 

BLACK LIBERATION

When the evidence showed me the origins of humans coming firmly from Africa, I began to understand the importance of Black Liberation. 

To support and advocate for Black Liberation is to connect us back to who we are as humans. 
And this can be a form of radical healing

Knowing the history of Black people over time, what they’ve endured, their ancestral story, and the impacts that continue to destroy and perpetuate destruction due to enslavement and colonization, lives within their bones, blood, and DNA of their descendants. WE are all their descendants. 

Over time, as our origin from Africa migrated out to populate the rest of the land globally, our lineages began with our own indigenous mothers, giving each lineage their own origin story. Each of our lineages have their own grandeur family tree deeply rooted and planted in the land that we each came from. This also helped me understand the importance of indigeneity as the greatest threat to colonization, but that’s for Part 2!

So, in partial conclusion, this exploration of my own individual identity has opened up so much learning and unlearning about who I am and how my identity can show up event in how we relate with each other.

I hope you’re able to gain a little bit more for yourself after my share.

Please comment and add to the conversation in the comments below!

In Part 2 we’ll go even deeper into the concept and cover:
INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY & THE INDIGENOUS WOMAN

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How the Signs of Self Hate Deepens Our Understanding of Self Love

How the Signs of Self Hate

Deepens Our Understanding of Self Love

SELF HATE isn’t your typical coffee-table topic.

Maybe it’s a Red Table Talk type of topic, but not something we tend to bring out in casual conversations. But the thing about deep topics is that they allow you to take a courageous step on the path to truly understanding SELF LOVE. The origins of our need to do better are often born out of our stories of SELF HATE.

As a Transformational Coach, I’ve seen breakthroughs happen within myself as well as my clients when even just a little bit of exploration of shadow parts occurs. Because we are whole people, meaning made up of many parts of our personalities, life experiences, and past stories, we don’t have access to our highest potential if we don’t spend the time understanding shadow parts such as self hate that are usually hidden deep within our psyche . We just continue on having missing pieces.

Self Hate is often referred to as one of our Shadow Parts because they are the parts of us that live in the depths and darkness of our
shame, guilt, judgement, and self criticism. Shadows don’t come out because it’s usually not safe to do so, none the less, they are there when light is present.

What I’ve come to learn and realize in the profoundness of this transformational journey, is that by better understanding the ORIGINS of my shadows like SELF HATE, we

• acknowledge that they are an actual PART of us, but NOT WHO WE ARE in our wholeness. In other words they may come from something else outside of us and are not of our truest, most highest vibration, or true SELF

• can explore our dark sides safely for the opportunity to NAME IT (our specific dark sides), or call it what it is. Because when we’re able to name what something is, its gives us access to the next step or action we need to take with it in order to work on ourselves

• can understand our WHOLE SELF, not just the good parts, without judgement, criticism, or retaliation. And that can be liberating! It is in this freedom that allows us to SURRENDER to who we truly need to be in this world

So how did self hate show up for me?

Well, as a second generation, dark skinned Pinay life hasn’t been the most enjoyable or empowering experience. Not until most recently, thanks, Entrepinays! What it has been is a deep and serendipitous journey. At a certain point in my leadership development I felt stifled by all the bad things that happened to me. I kept coming back to my thoughts of self-depreciation, especially after I gave a presentation about my career path. The feedback I received from a colleague afterwards was that I was using a lot of self-depreciating language. I felt really sad and embarrassed by it, which probably didn’t help.

You see, up until that point I was focusing on all the negative outcomes in my career. The not finishing grad school, the layoffs, the ways in which I didn’t fit in the normalized career path. And my presentation would stop there. I didn’t talk about what each of those experiences taught me, what beauty they led me to. Probably because I wasn’t recognizing them at the time. So, what the feedback from my colleague offered me was a prompt for me to really question why those were my choice of words, why were those choices my tendencies? (Notice the shift I invited in; from WHY to HOW)

Breaking through these tendencies didn’t happen quickly thought. It’s been many, many years of processing, seeking guidance, professional development trainings, relationship fails that have brought me more awareness about how and why I feel the way I do about myself. When it comes down to it, the critical piece for me is to get down to the ROOT CAUSE of our shadows and do the work from there.

When tracing behind me, then back, then further back into my history
the origins begin to shed light on what BIRTHED MY SELF HATE

L-R: Dad, Mom, Me

For me it was about the family I grew up in. I come from an upbringing that comes from a culture of self hate. (Not uncommon for people who have a history of colonization and displacement, btw)

So in my experience,

• growing up dark skinned, I was affectionately called Black Beauty, not really understanding why I even needed to have a name emphasizing my different skin tone from the rest of my family

• I was expected to do well in school, make the grades, get a good and stable job, have a happy family and kids in suburban comforts and luxuries

• I wasn’t supposed to be too vocal about things or, “rock the boat”. My mom would say, “Well, that’s just the way it is. They [white people] are like that”

• I also was less celebrated, championed, and allowed to socialize in comparison to my older brother

For all of these points above, my inner voice understood me to be the exact opposite of the expectations. So in all the moments that I had relationships with diverse friends and lovers, was mediocre in school, didn’t land a stable or cush job situation or family, constantly rocked the boat in politics and work, celebrate myself…I began to silently hate myself for not being what was expected of me.

When it came to being in relationship with my family of origin, who have adopted the cultural norms of self hate, my subconscious began to believe that I was inadequate, disappointing, too loud, too this and that. And I began to believe that for myself and allow the bad relationships, job layoffs, and lack of confidence convince me that this is my reality; that this is the disappointment I came out to be. So much so, that when I presented my story to groups, that’s how I would talk about myself.

So now in the throws of my self healing journey and development of my nature-based practice, I know for sure, that IT IS NOT in our true nature to hate ourselves. But what is in our nature is CURIOSITY. So, I began asking and searching and tuning into my inner wisdom and gathering resources. And in that process I found where that sadness came from and found a lot of heartbreak in being reminded that the origins are a far more bigger force than in my immediate family. The act of hating on oneself was associated with the linear function and heirarchy that deems white and male as supreme in this world. It was that force that took away our understanding of self love and self pride in order to control the human mind for development and growth on land.

As the author and Filipino traditional healer of, “Way of the Ancient Healer”, Virgil Apostol puts it,

“…to restore our “pride of identity” means to respect who and what we are and where we come from, and to embrace and promote our fading traditions, which other cultures are both hungry and searching for.”

This book validated self hate to be a thing in my culture so engrained in our psyche that

“Ironically, it is usually when our Filipino traditions are practiced by foreigners that we remove our masks of share and claim these traditions as our own.”

Of coarse, there were more ways than one that validated self hate as a part of a bigger system. AND knowing that also allowed be to refocus my thoughts and actions for change to be one of my own journey. I was able to let go of the blame onto my family, onto certain individuals for shaping my world in whatever way I gave them consent. I took ownership of my own healing.

So, in order to restore my pride and identity, I started asking more intentionally, “Who am I, who are my people, and where do I come from?”

I became selfish and unapologetic about it. It’s where the Audre Lorde guidance comes from

“Caring for myself is not self indulgence. It is self preservation. And that is an act of political warfare”

Today, I’m more able to recognize different ways that SELF HATE can show up in my everyday life. But getting to SELF LOVE is definitely NOT a rose colored path and what often shows up as a road block can take the form of

• self sabotage

• undervaluing of myself in my work and language

• tendency to feel imposter syndrome

• the lack of boundaries and saying “no”

But since I know more about where these parts of me may be coming from, I can explore old stories, narratives, tactics, skills, reflections, and self-healing practices that help me move through these quicker. I appreciate these road blocks because they’re the triggers that come up, letting me know that there are parts within myself that need some sort of working out. They’re showing up needing some sort of process to help me move through them.

And honestly, it may sound cliche, but I really do believe it is SELF LOVE that will liberate us from the grasps of our SELF HATE.

“Letting love through us makes us the path love takes”

— David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships

If you’ve ever felt the grips of self hate, you could start transforming it into self love by asking the same questions I asked myself long ago:

1. What’s causing me to do/say things that diminish me? Where did it come from?

2. Was this self hate something I learned from another?

3. When exactly did I begin believing this about myself?

4. What other influences around me reinforce or convince me about my self hate?

5. How do I want to view myself, if it is not in a hateful way?

6. Who can I call on to provide me gentle and loving support to work through my self hate and arrive to self love?

Get curious (instead of judgmental) about yourself and your life story.

Be open and accepting that there are things that cannot be re-written, but can be re-visited with a stronger sense of Self and compassion!

If you’ve enjoyed this post and would like to know more about moving through your Shadow Parts, book a quick consultation with me below to embark on your transformative journey!

Click below to check out the recent feature on Outside Magazine!