You do the early morning rush (compete for the bathroom, gulp your food down, race to the bus stop) and arrive in the office already frazzled. If you drive, you negotiate through predictable traffic and at best, use the stops and starts to paint the face that you will greet the world with. Or you listen to the political rant that morning commentators seem addicted to. Then the 8-5 grind begins. At the end of the day, you feel like a spent peso – strong relative to others but hoping you could go a longer way. Those who can, gimmick. Those who can’t, do the same routine in reverse – take the bus, fix the dinner if you are not living with your folks, help the kids go through their homework, attend to the husband and plop into bed hoping for merciful sleep. Stress is the fate of many of us and is the likely cause of many of our afflictions. But do we just grin and bear it. Or do we fight back?

I gave myself a gift during my last birthday and paid tuition for a course on the Art of Living. A fancy pair of jeans or a nice bag will probably cost more. But I have the classic signs of accumulated stress including irregular breathing, withdrawal from the usual social activities, a desire to just watch TV or listen to music. And a persistent prayer to please, just quiet me Lord. I noted that when I get into a stressful situation, I hold my breath. When you wait to exhale, you may turn blue in the face, among other parts of your body.

I called a number and talked to Bernadette who asked me to deposit P3,500 in a numbered bank account. I am, under normal circumstances, wary of depositing in numbered accounts but those who are desperate are more trusting. Happily, the trust was well-deserved and soon enough, I was in a roomful of 40+ strangers, half of whom are as old as my own daughter. It turns out that these are similarly stressed sales persons of Bernadette, a lawyer-entrepreneur who went through the course herself, found it beneficial in more ways than one and decided to give her employees the same opportunity.

I can’t tell you enough about the course except that it has made me feel better. I sleep better, really good deep sleep. I eat better. And I smile more often. These are essentially breathing and stretching exercises taught by somebody who has been trained for this purpose. The one who conducted the course is a beautiful Indian lady who lives in Hongkong named Sandhya who in her former life was an IT professional. She is chatty and enthusiastic in an infectious kind of way. But it is also essentially an exercise in connecting and learning from others basic things that we have heard or mouthed ourselves but which are difficult to internalize. Truly, we need to listen to others mindfully. But we also need to listen to ourselves.

I am offering five scholarships for their next course which will happen June 2 to 7 at St. Paul’s College, Pasig. It takes 20 hours of 3 hours each for five days with an integration session that last about five hours. Write me and tell me why you need to go through an Art of Living Course. My address is stotomaspat@gmail.com. Tell me why you need a change in the way you live your life. We need to appreciate the good things we get by paying it forward.