Bitter with the Sweet

Cecilia B. Mañosa

Description

BITTER WITH THE SWEET is a collection of uplifting, soulful messages that are easily relatable and nudge you to ponder on your own life, relationships, and purpose.
Drawing from her unique journey as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, widow, and friend– author Cecilia B. Mañosa illustrates how life, with its ups and downs, is worth all of it and meant to be savoured as a delightfully treasured gift.
Bitter with the Sweet is a pragmatic and poignant collection of enriching messages that invite you to partake in the fullness of life. Looking into everyday themes as time, nature, and technology to bonds with children, family, and friends. As it delves into a deeper understanding of happiness, beauty, forgiveness, and loss, it explores life strides such as nurturing self-care, making decisions, building resilience and reinventing yourself.
Using interesting references from contemporary pop culture, Bitter with the Sweet is a tool chest filled with color, truth, and candor, and sprinkled with nuggets of wisdom to take on your own journey, regardless of age. Like having a heart-to-heart with an old friend, this book opens a door to self-awareness and nudges you to ponder your life, relationships, and purpose.

Sujets

• Motivational
• Personal Growth
• Inspirational
• Self-help

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press AU
• Date de parution: 18 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781982295912
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BITTER WITH THE SWEET
 
Savouring a Zest for Life
 

 
CECILIA B. MAÑOSA
 
 
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Cecilia B. Mañosa.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com.au
AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Cover Image by Malu de Rosario
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9590-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9591-2 (e)
 
Balboa Press rev. date:   10/17/2022
 
For the loves of my life,
Erica and L uisa—
because you complet e me.
 
 
And for my dearest Man olet.
Until our sweet reu nion.
Contents
Preface
PART 1 NUTS AND BOLTS
Most of us forget the basics and wonder why the specifics don’t work. —Garrison Layman
Time after Time
The Sounds of Music
Nature’s Call
Win or Lose
Pals and Paw Prints
Gadgets and Gizmos
PART 2 TIES THAT BIND
A little bit of crazy, a little bit of loud, but a whole lot of love.
The Heart of the Matter
Family Strong
The Parent Trap
Whenever I Call You Friend
The Power and the Gift of Forgiveness
What We Can Learn from Millennials, Gen Z, and Beyond
PART 3 KEEP CALM AND FEED YOUR SOUL
Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
The Secrets of Happiness
Truth in Beauty
Wait a Little While
Bliss and Blessings
Spirituality and Practice
Note to Self
PART 4 YOU DO YOU
You can’t get what you want till you know what you want. —Joe Jackson
Be Yourself. Free Yourself
Walk the Way You Talk
Turning the Corner
Learn with Purpose. Live with Passion
Thoughts in the Shower
Made for More
PART 5 PERSPECTIVES
We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. —Anaïs Nin
The Imagined Ideal
Loss and Life
The Balancing Act
For Now
Detours and Directions
Of Lemons and Lemonade
 
Acknowledgements
Sources
Notes
Preface An Open Letter from a Could-Be Writer
I never thought I could be a writer. At sixty, I’m not even sure I can call myself that. I certainly never believed it at school, where in a small austere Spanish all-girls’ institution in the 1960s and 1970s everyone was typecast and labelled throughout twelve years of restrictive, traditional Catholic education. I was the athlete, basketball captain, volleyball player, and male role in almost every play (height, bob haircut, and athletic built assured that)—never the Mary, but the Joseph in every Christmas play. The closest I came to playing any creative roles at school was being in the drama club and head of props for the glee club concert, even photography editor of the yearbook—but a writer? Not my label, anywhere in my youthful universe.
A bit of a twisted hint came in university, where I was initially interested in psychology but in my freshman year, I met a threatening long-haired hippy of an English teacher who gave me the confidence and initial eagle’s wings to believe that yes, maybe I could write. So, I shifted to communication arts to pursue a more creative and artistic programme. But beyond receiving A’s for term papers, essays, and editing my boyfriend’s business reports, writing was still not in my flight path. By senior year I had explored and enjoyed business and marketing elective classes, which led to my pursuit of a master’s degree in communications management, a course ahead of its time and offered at only two US East Coast colleges (as hybrid courses were still unheard of in the early 80s). And at twenty-three I was in the first graduating class in this specialized field of study.
I was not an avid reader for most of my young life. I would not have described myself as a literary type, as I preferred visual and musical media—films, TV, music, or theatre—to the written word. As I perceived then, book writing was reserved for only the literary geniuses with a gift for prose and an educational background in creative expression learned from years of reading the masters. You had to be exceptionally intelligent and possess a stellar vocabulary to be worthy of being an author of any kind.
But as a wise writer once said, “A writer is someone who writes. If you want to be a writer, write!” Not that being a writer was a secret wish I held on to (my original dream was to be a photographer), but for years I had always taken notes on anything I felt I needed to hang on to—a scene, a feeling, a quotation, lyrics, a slogan—pretty much anything that spoke to me, made sense, or caught my eye. Maybe lurking somewhere in my subconscious, I wanted to pass these on to my future children someday because before the age of mobile technology and social media, they were tracks of wisdom about life in general.
This brings us to the main reason I decided it was time to complete this long-overdue passion project. We all have one of those (a photo book, a quilt, a painting, a garden, a memoir, a recipe book) that we start to do, but keep putting off for one reason or another—a “waiting for the right time to do it” kind of personal goal. At this point in my life, (where I’ve had more years behind than I have ahead of me) I am over the preconceived notion that qualified writers are only those who studied to become authors, hold degrees in creative writing, or are reputable columnists or celebrities. I’ve reached a point where I believe a writer is just someone who has something to say and decides to put it down on paper. In that sense, I guess we all have something to say, but whether we put it down on paper and people care to read it remain to be seen.
The only public things I had ever written were yearbook write-ups, a postgraduate thesis, corporate reports, eulogies, and scripts for amateur shows. And although I had been collecting handwritten notes for many years, it wasn’t until I compiled what I had stashed away in notepads, Post-it Notes (bearing witness that these are among the greatest modern-day creations of all time!), bulletin boards, flyers, photos, and on electronically saved lists that I realized what I had accumulated! So, I started to keep these random notes stashed away in multiple files on my laptop. For whenever.
Then came July 2018.
I found out I had a massive brain tumour that could only be removed through a craniotomy—basically only if my brain were opened for it to be extracted. A similar procedure had been done on my two-year-old nephew a few years prior, and his bravery assured me I could handle it. But I wasn’t as afraid for myself as I was for my two daughters, who had lost their dads (yes, there were two dads, and still lost both!), leaving me to be a single parent for most of their years. In my twenties, I lost my mom to ovarian cancer at the age of fifty-seven. My brain tumour was discovered when I, too, turned fifty-seven. Could lightning strike twice or, in my own nuclear family, three times?!
Given that I dreaded claustrophobic MRIs, needles, and anything that involved cutting my body to remove something (except for a baby), to say that I was filled with trepidation is a huge understatement. I even put off reading the pamphlet given to neurology patients in preparation for surgery because whether I read it or not, the surgeons were still going to have to slice my head open! I eventually did read it when I was about a month into recovery, which confirmed that the pre-surgery fears I had were all too real. We were made aware of the risks involved from the get-go, (and we prepared as much as we could), but prior to surgery, I did not openly share with my daughters my palpable fears of possibly not waking up, not recognizing who they were, or being unable to speak, move, or remember anything. I no longer had a husband to leave them with (in case), and there were still a lot of things I needed to share with them that I always wished my mom had a chance to tell me. In the few months leading up to the scheduled surgery, my daughters and I did as much as we could together, doing what we enjoyed, instead of focusing on what scared us the most. Having lost my husband so unexpectedly seven years before, we knew which memories to build on, again in case. We didn’t dwell on it, but I knew we all had it in our minds. What if I didn’t survive the surgery? What if I survived it but was not myself? What if we would not get to have those valuable conversations we usually had over brunch, on a road trip, or snuggled on my bed? All the what- ifs