Sage Conversations

Multi-faceted creative and ever-evolving artist Ivy Pangilinan openly shares for the first time publicly about her mental health and being treated for ADHD. Though still going through the process, she feels more empowered to talk about it in hopes to help others who may be struggling with the same thing to remind them that they are not alone. Neurodivergence, a term coined in late 1990s used to describe conditions like ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, in hopes to “shift the focus of discourse about ways of thinking and learning away from the usual litany of deficits, disorders, and impairments.” Ivy says how her hyperactive-impulsive ADHD can be her superpower - the ability to see so many possibilities and connect things, to be drawn to taking risks - and it is true that with the treatment of it is how one can reach one’s full potential. For her, she continues to find her own full potential in also doing the simplest things, and thus even finding inner peace: “in listening to her own instincts and beliefs and not giving in to what she should be doing.” In being able to accept herself, she’s able to accept others, in being able to integrate more and to anchor in the dream of just being happy.

www.instagram.com/ivypangs

Theatre and commercial actress Miel Abong shares the stage and holds space for us in this episode, with a focus on her passion for entertainment arts and her advocacies specifically around mental health. Her current work on this is being able to marry the two, and being a “resource person for her past self” and tackling it creatively utilizing fundamental techniques learned as well in acting. She founded 31mm studios as a hub and community for this and to be able to share her experience with whoever would resonate with it. The workshops are rooted in authentic work, like developing empathy as an actor and as a person, bringing out skills and characteristics from the stage out “in the real world” that can better equip the person (how to overcome stage fright or shyness are some examples). As she celebrates her 30th birthday next month, she continues to share her learnings and advocacies as an actress and as a curious learner, now pursuing becoming a practitioner for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

In this epsode we're joined by multi-potentialite Karina Dayrit of @kar.inmotion.

Kar is an explorer by heart and enjoys getting creative through through blogging, creating her own music and choreography, and sharing the love of movement to people she meets along the way.

Kar is also an integrative movement coach, certified in yoga and Animal Flow. She is also doing a 1-year mentorship program on Traditional Chinese medicine.

Michelle Calasanz, a practitioner of ThetaHealing®, Sacred Activations, Reiki, and Millennium Method, and whose healing style continues to evolve, focuses on her advocacy of empowering her clients and “giving them their voices and power back.” Our Sage Conversations episode with her tackles on her passion to be authentic, sharing one’s truth, and that means saying “what you need to say, crying and cursing if you have to” as all that are part of the healing process. It’s about embracing who we are and our flaws, our fats and our weirdness. She reminds us that we should sit with the emotions and to go through the process, that means cherishing our human-ness and ot wearing our “love and light hat” all the time.

“When we are our true selves - we attract happiness. Bring that love in by being you.

Bleep everyone else.”

We open the third season with Jenny Ozoa, an energy healer who also works with various intuitive methods like card reading and Akashic Records, joining us as we have a conversation about what “grounding” is to her. She shares that it’s a lot to do with being really present in one’s body and where one is physically. We have the tendency to “not inhibit this 3D reality” or even feel flighty - don’t you have those moments when you don’t even recall what you had for lunch of the same day? 

Jenny defines “grounding” even further as “being aware of what’s happening, aware of our thoughts, what we’re doing, what we need to do, and what we did.” When we are grounded or have a sense of balance, we are unshakeable, she says. Listen in on our conversation about our different ways or techniques to ground  - may it be through sitting, listening to sound, cooking, or even taking up a language - at the end of the day it can be our own safe space or what feels like home to us. And yet, we also learn that when we do find ourselves in unchartered territories or what makes us feel ungrounded, it is to be welcomed with open arms as it may be the opportunity when we actually find ourselves in an area of growth or expansion.

We just want to thank you for being with us on the 2nd season of Sage Conversations, not just by listening to our podcast episodes, but also joining our conversations through our livestreams on Facebook, Youtube and the Kumu app. We hope you've learned a lot from our amazing guests like we did! We'll see you back with new weekly episodes starting August 3, 2021!

Many of us can relate when it comes to life taking an unexpected turn. Sage Conversations Season 2 Finale is with Noella Medalla, or Elle, founder of Unexpected Expectations, and is joined (unexpectedly but pleasantly) by her son Luciano! She bravely walks us through the time she got pregnant in 2019 - something she had initially felt ashamed about given her background and “social norms” that were ingrained in her back then. She shares her internal mindset and belief shift, recognizing that it was also through faith and God’s love that had helped her. Unexpectedly still, she got moral support around her through her parents and her boyfriend-now-husband. Deep down she knew, as she was opening up to her new calling to motherhood, that she had to also be more aware of these negative feelings that no longer served her knowing the baby would feel these, too.

Now having been through this, and how happy she  is and has been with her child, she’s founded Unexpected Expectations to help unexpected expectant mothers in their own journey. She points out that while there is a big mother tribe for mothers-to-be, there is a need for this space for those who had not planned this or may still have feelings of shame about their pregnancy. She is currently building a program for new moms to build confidence and certainty in embracing their role as a stay-at-home boss mom.

Jeremy Tan has always been into Astrology as a child and has taken the leap to become a full-time Astrologer and Purpose Coach since the start of the year. His process starts off with reading one’s natal chart and connects this with ongoing patterns in one’s life. Should trauma show up, he conducts a trauma release session or a Trauma-Informed Perspective (e.g. where did the feeling of being unloved come from?) What’s different from just this process is his philosophy of also replacing it with purpose. He shares that he was inspired by his own experience from his own trauma, that now he has found newfound direction in helping others as well to letting go, learning from it, and even anchoring on purpose.

He reminds us that there we are a work-in-progress, constantly healing, and that “the middle ground is life.” We can always regulate and center ourselves in order to stay the course of our purpose. When we share our stories, we make it a safe space to be more open about their own stories as well and we find healing when we start to acknowledge it too.

Sage Conversations co-host, Functional Medicine Health Coach Roanna Medina shares her experience on being diagnosed with a toxic thyroid and Hashimoto's Autoimmune Disease in the years of 2013 and 2016, respectively. She went through medication as prescribed by her doctor, but deep down she was convinced that she could not live a life being too dependent on these for the rest of her life. She was determined to “break free” and to fully control her body after years of not being able to.

Roanna tells us that we all have the ability to create better health by vision-setting and taking small aligned actions, and encourages us to get to the root of our challenges to be best equipped in dealing with them. Finally, she reminds that there’s always hope. Through her example, she shows us that we can all break-free and heal from stress, discomfort and dis-ease, and live the life that we want for ourselves.

Mela Habijan, or popularly known as Miss Mela, aims to fulfill her mission to always “live life with a purpose.” She joins us on this episode as she shares her journey of embracing being a Filipino transgender woman, fully celebrating her identiy and all of the LGTBQIA community as well. She acknowledges being empowered by other trans sisters, which she finds herself doing so now too in a place of having a powerful voice in her different advocacies and now being the first ever Miss Trans Global for the year 2020. We learn that while hers was a 3-year identity crisis where she was wrapped up in fear of not being able to fulfil her dreams, in hindsight she feels that with this fear came belittling and denying her identity (listen in on how this ended!). It may be shorter or longer for others, but she wisely encourages that “it is okay to go through that crisis, that pain, because it is part of the process.” In time, one would regain the journey and come out of it even stronger. Today, she is able to truly say that “her being trans is right, her being trans is a gift.” She is whole.