‘Birthday greens’ (not blues)

Like a lot of people, I usually feel the blues whenever my birthday comes. There are two main reasons why people feel this:

1. Nobody wants to get old, unless you’re below 21 and raring to start adulting or legally drinking? 

2. Turning a year older reminds us of unmet expectations.

But this time I’m pretty okay. I’m not feeling the blues but probably even feeling the “greens!” Okay I’m not turning away from “Go Ateneo Blue” and going “Animo La Salle Green” here. Greens because I’m renewing my commitment to my health.

Last month, Marvin was sick during his birthday. On his way to recovery, I got sick too and took a week to recover plus a few more days to fully gain my strength back. It’s a sign of age. When you’re already a golden girl, you have to be kinder to your body and listen more closely to its signs. Holistic doctor friend Didoy Lubaton said, “Makinig tayo sa mga bulong ng katawan natin. Kung hindi, sisigaw yan at ayun bagsak ang katawan!”

In 2014, we had a jolt when my mother dear was diagnosed with cancer (lymphoma). Already in her 80s, she was not willing to go through chemotherapy. I researched on her diagnosis and health in general and learned about Gerson therapy. She did that and had three more years with us, thankfully without too much pain, before she joined our creator last year. This awareness heightened our health consciousness and that’s when I introduced salads every meal at home. It was first resisted by the boys until they started looking for it in their meals. 2014 was a healthy and, if I may add, “sexy” year for me. Yabang!  Motivated to fit into my original wedding dress, I ate healthy meals and exercised regularly. (Click How to fit...  for more on this.) 

My Vicky & Letlet Veloso wedding gown circa 1989 was the same gown I wore on our silver wedding anniversary in 2014 without alterations except for the Princess Diana-inspired puffy sleeves, which were replaced and turned into a matching pouch bag. :) 

Just like any renewal, there’s also backsliding.  Slowly I would feel my waistline and other body parts growing a few inches here and there. Nothing my friends notice or are they just being polite? But I do notice. Occasionally, Marvin does too. I would modify my diet, try to exercise, then get the desired result, then Christmas or other excuses would come, then I “re-align” and so on. As I observe these cycles, I notice that it now takes longer and harder to go back to shape. It’s a good thing that I still practice what I preach – Do not buy new clothes
when you’re not in your right size! This way I’m forced to go back to shape when I start looking like "suman" in all my clothes. In other words, my “bandwidth” in expansion is kept quite narrow because of this rule and vanity! 

Last Sunday, we had dinner with Dr. Didoy Lubaton and his family – wife Mayi (the Investor Center Manager of COL Makati) and their cute daughter Haeli. We held it here in our home together with our sons, so the doctor could have a feel of what’s going on in our lives, and this is what I love about his approach. 

Dinner at home with the Lubatons.

I miss the good old days when we would have a family doctor, someone who knew us, we consulted with when we were not feeling well. I remember how our family doctor, Dr. Lupisan, would visit us at home when one of us was too sick to travel to his clinic. Gone are those days as we are now so focused on specializations. We consult too many doctors for each part of the body separately. We take their prescriptions separately until we suffer from contraindications. We have forgotten that our body is one unit masterfully designed with parts that must function together harmoniously. Moreover, we are more complex than any other animal in the world, such that our existence demands more than just biological health to properly function. We can eat all the healthy meals in the world and exercise like crazy but if the other aspects of our life are not in shape, our body will still suffer. This is what Dr. Didoy preaches as the Wholeness of Health Model.

The good news is that he gave me a thumbs up on my annual physical exam results! Yehey! All within normal range. He looked at each family member’s results in connection with our respective circumstances. Again, this is to reinforce that lab results are not the be-all and end-all. The complicated human being has to be examined as a complete person, in relation to age, work, present state of being. He gave us pieces of advice, complete with stories, on how to improve our wellbeing.

This is probably one of the reasons why my usual birthday blues has turned into birthday greens!

The mild body aches are still there. When I got up on Monday morning, I was feeling a bit lazy to exercise. But the calamansi shot lovingly put on my bedside by "The Honey" was enough to encourage me to get out of bed and do some walking on the treadmill. I guess the essential oils that I’ve been diffusing every night (introduced by my friend Regina Chavez) and my new policy of turning off my cellphone at night are all helping me improve my sleep. My efforts to drink more water during the day have also helped me feel better and force me to move at least every hour because I have to go to the toilet more often. My sons even gifted me with a Himalayan salt lamp, in theme with our health renewal project I dubbed as #HealthyTo30. (Our marriage is turning 30 next year!) 

On the matter of unmet expectations, I’ve also become kinder to myself and just realize that, as I wrote in one of my old poems, “Goals are made to set things in motion. The journey is the more important mission.”

I still set my goals with timetable, but little by little I’m learning to look at unmet goals with a new perspective. Last year’s visit to Spain that included a tour and appreciation of La Sagrada Familia gave me a fresh perspective about my audacious dream during this second half of my life – i.e. to make a dent in the saving and investing of Filipinos here and abroad. Antoni Gaudi, the great architect of the world renowned church, did not live to see the completion of his masterpiece. In fact, 92 years after his death, the church is still under construction. But this does not keep the people around the world from experiencing and enjoying his work. 

I know it is presumptuous to compare my work with Gaudi’s, so I’m not doing that, but I just want to share to all of you that we can take inspiration from this thought. What we are doing and dreaming of at the moment may not take fruition during our lifetime, but it should not stop us from doing the work and pursuing the dream. As the poem above said, “Goals are made to set things in motion. The journey is the more important mission.” Let’s celebrate and be present in our respective journeys. My lofty dream to make FQ an integral part of parenting is celebrated and reinforced each time I receive feedback such as, “My son is now saving and investing from his allowance, thanks to your Babylon book.” “My husband and I are also doing asset allocation now.” A good number of millennials are now writing to me to share how the FQ Book was an eye opener for them to include this essential 21st century skill in their adulting and how they love that the book helps them understand their relationship with money and connect their money ways with their core values. These are all glimpses of my “La Sagrada High FQ Familias!”

My gift to you during my birth month

And because I’m feeling birthday greens instead of blues, I am giving you a gift in the form of free courier service to Philippine addresses. This offer is good for orders of any title among my four books received in September, my birthday month!

I wish you all well as we enter the ber-months. Hopefully, this sharing has inspired you to also renew your commitment to your health, and I mean the health of your entire being. Cheers! 

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. If you want to professionalize homemaking, check out the seminars of H&S in collaboration with Kenvale of Australia. Visit their FB Page “Homestyle & Skills” to participate in their seminars that start on Aug. 31, 2018. My session will be the last one scheduled on Oct. 3, 2018. Click link to sign up - #HomeGoals 

2. If you want to be grounded with your relationship with money before you become “crazy rich” reading the FQ Book may be a good idea!  I wish to thank those who already bought “FQ: The nth Intelligence.” If you’re interested to see what’s inside the book, watch this FQ book preview: 

You may now purchase the book in major bookstores, or if you want autographed copies, please go to FQ Mom FB page (click SHOP), or FQMom.com (click BOOKS), or email us at FQMomm@gmail.com. 

3. Want to know your FQ score? Take the FQ test challenge now! Click link: http://rebrand.ly/FQTest 

Rose Fres Fausto is a speaker and author of bestselling books “Raising Pinoy Boys” and “The Retelling of The Richest Man” in Babylon (English and Filipino versions). Click this link to read samples – Books of FQ Mom. She is a behavioral economist, a certified Gallup strengths coach and the grand prize winner of the first Sinag Financial Literacy Digital Journalism Awards. Follow her on Facebook & YouTube as FQ Mom, and Twitter & Instagram as theFQMom. Her latest book is “FQ: The nth Intelligence.”

ATTRIBUTIONS: Photos taken from Canva, 123rf.com, Wikimedia Commons, silhouettevectorstock.com, tes.com, twitter.com/cantonmaparkrec, Willy-P. Schaub's MSDN blog article, Psychology Today, MCG Health, modified and used to help deliver the message of the article. 2018 La Sagada Familia photo from Envios Barcelona.