It’s taken me a while to get here. A little over a decade, in fact. It’s taken me a little over a decade to choose to write for myself rather than other people. Writing for an audience. Making sure that what I say before I hit publish doesn’t offend people, triple-checking to see if what I put out is ‘safe’, doesn’t rock the boat. That I don’t share too much of who I am because people don’t want to read about me, they want to read about the restaurant, resort, or hotel that I’m featuring. I chose to play small. For a little over a decade. I didn’t want my face on my pages, I didn’t want people learning about who I was (God forbid, they find a flaw and realize I was human), and I just wanted to share good places to eat, destinations to explore, and places to stay at that was worth people’s hard-earned pesos.
It took me a little over a decade to realize that even in my personal projects, I was still writing for other people. And it didn’t spark joy. I didn’t feel fulfilled. It started to feel like a chore. So I took a break. And during that break, I decided this time around, I wanted to simply just write for myself.
Saying Goodbye to Mucking Around Manila
I started the lifestyle blog, Mucking Around Manila, back in 2012 when I just started my digital marketing business. Before that, I had been the Editorial Manager for the now defunct Groupon Philippines, and friends would keep badgering me about which online deals would give them more bang for their buck. So I would recommend places to eat that was on the site. Part of the job was to visit the merchants and try some of the services or the food, and a lot of the times they would also send us back to the office with a handful of gift certificates, too. That’s how I met Richie Zamora, a.k.a. The Pickiest Eater In the World. He had just started out food blogging and had won a gift certificate for a restaurant on a competition we held on Groupon’s Facebook page. A year later, I put up the blog that was Mucking Around Manila and started sharing my experiences of eating, traveling, and exploring the country, and it was a pretty fun rollercoaster ride of meeting amazing people that turned into good friends, being part of special events in the F&B industry, and getting the chance to talk to some ridiculously talented and talented individuals.
But there were some people who just didn’t get it. “Why are you mocking Manila?” was a common question I’d have to stop and explain when I introduced my blog. ‘Mucking around’ or ‘mucking about’ isn’t a common idiom in this country, and the name would go over some people’s heads. I had one misogynistic douchebro with unresolved mommy issues suggest I should change it to ‘Fucking Around Manila’ and that it would definitely get me more followers. Continually having to defend the blog’s name eventually wore me down. It was supposed to be funny, but I guess it isn’t as witty as I thought if only a handful of people got it.
Aside from difficulties explaining the name, I had gotten tired of doing feature after feature and pumping out articles without really savoring the experience. There was a time where I’d go to two or three restaurants in a day, sit down to full course meals, and then try to remember everything after. Honestly, I would fall asleep right after we’d pull out of the carpark. So health wise, that wasn’t sustainable at all. I felt like I had to always say yes to everything and everyone because I didn’t want to be seen as picky or maarte or ‘not game’. Little did I realize there was a resentment that was slowly building up inside me because I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing anymore. So the blog took a long hiatus. And then I realized I just didn’t want to do it anymore.
Finding Purpose In Life Coaching
Before the long hiatus, while I was still sporadically posting, I fell into life coaching. Without the fun distractions of binging on food and escaping into hotels for overnight stays, I had more than enough time to sit and think about what it was that I really wanted to do. Mucking Around Manila had been the perfect vehicle for meeting new clients for my digital marketing business, and while that put money in my pockets, it wasn’t something I was really, truly passionate about. And then I just woke up one morning and it hit me: life coaching.
When I was around 18 or 19, I begrudgingly took a weekend seminar where a life coach saved my life. Really. I was already suffering from clinical depression and had tried to take my life at 15, and didn’t see myself celebrating my 20th birthday. I just didn’t want to be here. On this planet. With the people I had to call family. I wanted out. And it was that coach that made me see that I was 100% in control of my life – suffering was a choice. He was also the catalyst for me walking out of my house and learning to be independent. I chose to live.
I asked for a sign after the word ‘life coach’ popped into my head, and two weeks later I bumped into the life coach that saved my life all those years ago – Coach Max Salazar. It was nuts! He walked right past me and I didn’t recognize him because he had lost so much weight. How much big of a sign did I need, really? I’m a huge believer that nothing is ever coincidence, and so I pursued coaching. And after a grueling 24 weeks of studying, over 100 hours of coach training, discovering positive psychology and throwing myself into all the courses I could find, and a year of working with a local coaching company, I took the coaching exam and was awarded the designations of Executive and Emotional Intelligence Coach. And that journey just changed my life completely. It’s given me heart-centered purpose and a drive to help create a better world, one Filipino at a time.
Today, I’m proud to say I’ve been able to build a successful coaching practice as well as a podcast to accompany it for people looking for bite-sized coaching concepts to listen to while they go about their days commuting, running errands, or doing the dishes. Going through my own dark night of the soul (dark decade, more like), becoming more self-aware, setting the intention of wanting to be a positive contributor in this world, and wanting to leave a legacy that would affect the next generation of Filipinos is scary, yet exciting. And now that I’ve found my purpose, it was now a good time to go back to my passion – telling stories.
I Still Struggle
Sometimes I think it’s a worthiness issue. Wanting to be worthy of the company I keep or being worthy of all the lavish hotel stays and restaurant menu tastings I would get invited to. Sometimes I catch myself feeling guilty for enjoying that afternoon out, like I didn’t deserve it, that I had to work my way up to that. I know it’s a limiting belief that’s all in my head that doesn’t serve me, so I sit with the guilt instead of being in the moment. And I’d sift through the photos of that day, taking in the wonderful people, the amazing food, and think, “Where was I when all of this was happening?” My anxiety would have gotten the best of me and I’d be in survival mode instead of being present. So that’s what’s changing with this iteration of the blog. It’s Happy Kathi is a documentation of my resilience, my optimism, and my gratitude to all the people who bless me with their generosity, their kindness, and their love. With the shifting of the intention for doing this, it’s become exciting for me to tell stories again. I feel lighter, as there’s no pressure to please other people now.
This is also a lot more personal – on big change is that you can finally see more of me! You would hardly ever see me on the old blog. There would be a burger or a big bowl of noodles in front of my face so the most you’d probably see of me was my hair. It was the same for my coaching practice as well – I would share my insights on my socials, but you’d rarely ever actually see me. So with this first post, the featured image is a lot of my photos while we were doing Zoom calls and Facebook Lives for workshops. All photos of ME. And a fucking collage, at that. Never been done, I tell you.
Conclusion
I’m done choosing to play small. That’s just not me. There are a few hours left to go before Christmas, and I’m happy to be able to give this gift to myself: the gift of writing for nobody else but me. It’s important to be able to take pause, check in with yourself, and put yourself first. We’ve been taught that we should always keep giving ourselves to others – our time, our talents, our attention – that we forget we can only really be able to do that once we’ve satisfied our own needs first. We cannot give out of an empty cup.
