Pinay.com is promoting “Shine, Pinay, shine.” and “Pinay Sparkle.” These phrases are ways to wake Filipinas up to their inner beauty that can radiate from within and outwards into the hearts of others.

Last year I wrote Shine Mentality: Sure cure to Colonial Mentality. I’ve awakened to the knowledge that everyone has a beauty and light from within. I had to learn this new belief by shedding old beliefs. That is, as a young woman who grew up in a class conscious society on the island of Negros Occidental, I used to operate under the limiting belief that only certain people were to “allowed” to be beautiful or  even valued.

I used to think a human being in our society could only be “valued” if they came from the right school, the right family, the right social or economic class OR the right education. As I grew up, travelled, read more, met more people, experienced more, i was able to shed those very limiting beliefs. And I also began to recognize how these limiting beliefs separated person from person, human from human. I also realized how those limiting beliefs could enable selfishness, greed and exploitation on personal, familial, social and national levels.

Shine mentality can heal our individual relationships with not just those close with us but also with humanity at large.