29 Apr The Truth Is

Posted at 07:50h in Lifestyle, Featured by Orange Bergamot 0 Comments

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Hello Boss!

Hope you’re doing great!

Below is my Toastmasters speech I did on TRUTH earlier this week.

If you’re a leader — the deliberate practice of your communication and writing is foundational.

Let me know if you want to be a guest at my next Toastmasters group on May 10 so you can see what it’s like!

The Art of the Truth

I welcome you in — the same way my grandmother, my Lola Isabel, invited me into her bright yellow kitchen, flour-covered hands beckoning me

Her pursed lips pointing to sit next to her at the wooden table, adobo, and advice already in progress.

While she kept me busy kneading tapioca, shredding coconut, baking bibinkga, she told me stories in a strange mixture of Ilocano, Tagalog, and English

Every outrageous question I asked she elaborately answered and decorated like a birthday cake with a charm inside

One time I asked her what the word impossible meant.

Her eyes widened, her finger tapped her brown cheek and she looked like she may have forgotten! She looked under her bed and pulled out a secret diary that was hidden in a cigar box.

Lola scribbled and added a letter and showed me three words in one: I AM Possible

Then she lowered her voice as to tell me a secret — that I may meet these I AM Possibles in my dreams

These I AM POSSIBLES sometimes were pesky and whined about the view

These I AM POSSIBLES need room for flight, she whispered

Your I AM POSSIBLES can get so big that they need more than a house. They need their own mansions, they sometimes need empty vases for their own flowers

The truth is:
Impossibles are always possible – you just need to give them room to stretch.

Make starlight their steeple
Unclutter their sky for their kites.

Another time she told me about some rambunctious angels that kept celestial chewing gum and golden thread in their pocket – and sometimes they’d just storm in to fix things – without being told.

Lola would invent things if the story called for it.

My Lola told me about islands where the women had wings.

About the art of reading clouds about the way music speaks to marigolds and how the marigolds listened

About how everything even banana leaves and rolling pins had a language of their own.

I, as a five-year-old, believed every word with an intense faith that what I was hearing was as sweet and true as the jackfruit in the warm coconut milk.

But as I got older – 5 3/4 years I started shaking my head.

Oh Lola! My eyes scattered like dice to the back of my head

Then there would appear some sort of proof, a giant monarch butterfly, a knock at the door; a chime – a breeze, a mysterious visitor that appeared magically on time.

These synchronized events always gave my FAITH a place to sit back down

Lola told me of gusty winds and somber skies. and told me to build a little silver boat in my heart.

A boat that I could climb in during storms. A boat that could carry me through and land me on dry shores and sometimes if I was lucky on mountain tops.

How do I navigate the boat (I thought to myself)?

She laughed and winked as if she could hear my thoughts

It’s so simple.

She said as she wiped her hands on her apron.

Close your eyes, take a long deep breath until there’s a sun in your heart. Then listen to the rhythm of the sun’s song. If you listen closely enough you will find a beat, and then you will find the melody, and you then you will always be able to dance to life in tune.

The truth is:
When you follow your heart it will never guide you wrong

These truth charms hidden in magical cakes threaded my childhood

And as I got older as I entered my teen years. They would get sharper and to the point.

And in silence, as we cooked,
She would drop these truth charms.

The truth is:
your purpose is already within you.
It’s already been downloaded in your DNA
It’s there for you to discover
It’s there for you to explore.

The truth is:
If you want to change you need to do it from the inside out

The truth is:
you need to exchange your fear for faith exchange your hopelessness with hope

The truth is:
You have all that it takes

You feel like you need more
You feel like you need things to be different things
You feel like you need things to change before you move on it

The truth is:
you can pursue your dream with what you have

You can stretch wider with what you have
You can dig deeper with what you have

The truth is:
What you have is more than enough

Put intention in every moment
Put hope in every moment
Put joy in every moment
Put what you need in every moment

The truth is:
This is how you go higher

The truth is:
Nothing happens until you believe

The truth is:
Yes you can
And Yes you will

Her words and truth clapped hands with life
and danced
and sang
and prayed
and joined in with the tap tap tap of chopping chilis
and the sss sss sss of the fried bananas on the griddle

The pulse of her words seeped into my body and became a living part of me.

A place like this where we keep our sacred stories exists in all of our hearts.

The truth is:
we’re all connected and our stories are connected.

No matter who your grandmother was or what your childhood was like,

It’s a place where endless possibilities
and invention
and inspiration
and serendipity hovers all around us offering just the right ingredients for our lives.

There have been times in my life when I’ve taken significant risks. And when things melt, unravel all around me

I think of my Lola, then grow my magical wings and leap Into the unexplored mountainous caverns of my heart

And that’s the truth.