How Sunshine Dizon puts all her worries away

Sunshine Dizon opened up about how she has learned to prioritize her mental health during quarantine.

“It’s part of my New Year resolution because with everything that happened last year, especially with the pandemic, maraming bagay na, yeah, we take care of our body but we don’t actually concentrate on mental health so I am (now) setting boundaries, lahat ng mga negang tao tanggalin na sa buhay and choose (the people) who should stay in your circle.”

Like most people, the actress revealed that she experienced the crippling feeling of anxiety, especially at the height of the pandemic.

“I remember one time I was driving and I felt my throat was closing up. I was thinking of what would happen to my kids. It’s really more of that motherly anxiety na it’s always the kids – how are they going to cope with the new normal and with their online classes? What will happen to us because all of a sudden, I’m not working and I’m so used to that,” said Sunshine, who has two kids, Doreen and Anton, with estranged husband Timothy Tan.

“When you’re always working, you don’t notice some of the little things and then all of a sudden, you’re stuck at home and all these little things mapapansin mo, maaalala mo and it forces you to deal with them. So, I can’t blame people having anxiety,” she added.

Prayers help the actress put all her worries away. She has also learned to focus on a lot of things. “To be honest, all the K-dramas helped me a lot (laughs). ‘Yun ang naging happiness ko when there’s no work and I also tried a lot of things. I read a lot of books about directing, about screenwriting.”

She’s lucky that her kids are not keen on going out. “I’m strict with their online games before but now medyo maluwag ako sa kanila knowing the load they have in school. Both of them study in a Catholic Chinese school and they have tutor for all their subjects and another tutor for a Mandarin class. So, you can just imagine how long their days are. That’s why, I allow them to play once they are done with their assignments. ‘Yun na lang ang happiness nila.”

After months of taping break, Sunshine is back to TV acting work for the GMA drama series Magkaagaw. Sunshine said she didn’t find it hard to reconnect with her character Laura even while she is into watching K-dramas with Lee Min-ho as her favorite actor.

“I’m telling you, they’re my guilty pleasure, especially I’m alone in lock-in taping and then when I finish early, I watch Koreanovelas, ‘yun ang pang tanggal ng heavy feeling from the role I portrayed. Watching K-dramas is a breather for me.”

Still faced with the health scare, Sunshine said the lock-in taping is favorable to all because they never fail to finish on time “and we all came home safely and with negative results (in swab test).”

She added, “To be honest, I prefer the lock-in taping because the number of people allowed on the set is limited and you have a time frame to do your work so the artists should be brilliant and when they come to the set, dapat memorize na nila ‘yung line nila. So, efficiency and budget-wise (in production), I’m okay with the new set-up.”