“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
— Paulo Coelho

There are seasons in life where everything feels like shedding. Where the “becoming” isn’t forward, but inward.

This past year, I found myself in that season—the one I now call my softness era.

It isn’t about weakness, fragility, or aesthetic softness. It’s about finally choosing gentleness in a world that once rewarded my overworking, my silence, my survival instincts, and my ability to “hold it all together.”

As a Filipina Nurse Practitioner in San Francisco, I’ve spent years learning how to care for others—clinically, compassionately, completely—while quietly forgetting that I also needed care. Our culture teaches us to stretch ourselves, to be strong, to keep giving even when we are empty. Our profession reinforces it: the long shifts, the pressure to be perfect, the expectation to show up even when our hearts or bodies are tired.

But healing—true, embodied healing—taught me that strength is not always loud. Sometimes strength is choosing softness. Choosing rest. Choosing honesty.

Sometimes strength is un-becoming.

---

Un-becoming the roles that no longer fit

This past year, I lived through a storm of anxiety, burnout, and fear.
For nine days straight, panic attacks became my alarm clock.
I cooked Filipino comfort food trying to self-soothe, but healing didn’t truly begin until I went home to San Diego—where my family hugged me without asking for explanations.

It was also the year I learned the power of asking for help.
I reached out on Instagram when I felt unsafe, and it was my coworkers—the nurses I worked alongside—who called the police for a welfare check.
It saved my life.
It reminded me of the quiet love that exists in community.
And it taught me that un-becoming sometimes looks like releasing pride, releasing the need to “handle it all,” and letting others hold you.

---

Softness as reclamation

When I returned to San Francisco, something in me shifted.
I was no longer interested in hustling for worthiness.
I was no longer willing to exist in spaces where people only saw a curated version of me—“the strong one,” “the achiever,” “the one who made it.”

I wanted to live a life that felt honest.
I wanted to share my truth, not hide behind it.

So I started documenting real moments:

• Lunchtime diaries where I breathe, reflect, and let myself exist
• Day-in-the-life vlogs showing the simple joy of working from home on Tuesdays
• Narratives about anxiety, healing, and the Filipino concept of “coming home”
• Gratitude-filled walks in San Francisco, thinking about resilience and second chances
• Soft life reflections about family, home, and my dream of one day returning to the Philippines

My softness era became both a personal transformation and a practice of storytelling.

---

Being a Filipina NP means carrying many stories

In the clinic, my patients trust me with their most vulnerable truths:
their fears, their pain, their bodies, their losses.

In my own life, I hid my truths for years because I didn’t want to be a burden.
But now—through writing, vlogging, and creating—I’ve learned that my story isn’t a weight; it’s a bridge.

Filipina women are natural storytellers.
We carry the memories of our ancestors—women who nurtured families, cared for communities, and found resilience in softness long before it was a trend.

My softness era is honoring them too.

---

Purpose found me in the un-becoming

When I started sharing my healing, it wasn’t for views, growth, or attention.
It was out of survival.
It was me saying:
“This is my truth. This is who I am. If even one person feels seen because of it, then this pain meant something.”

And people did feel seen.
Nurses. Filipinas. Students. Women navigating anxiety. People far from home.
Strangers who suddenly felt less alone.

That’s when I realized:
My purpose is in the storytelling.
My purpose is in the honesty.
My purpose is in showing the world that authenticity heals.
My purpose is in reminding others—and myself—that softness is power.

I am still here because of truth.
Because of community.
Because of un-becoming what the world demanded and becoming who I was always meant to be.

---

This is the blog. This is the diary. This is the life I’m building.

I am a Filipina Nurse Practitioner.
I am a woman in her healing era.
I am someone who survived darkness and still chooses to create.
I walk forward grounded in truth, power, and purpose—
and I bring you along, hoping you find pieces of yourself in my reflections.

Welcome to my journey of softness.
Welcome to the un-becoming.
Welcome to who I truly am.