Encouragement: Pay It Forward!



"Encourage, lift, and strengthen one another. For the positive energy spread to one will be felt by us all. For we are connected, one and all." - Deborah Day



It takes courage for a woman to open up about her life. 



It takes valuable time for her to write about her story. 



It takes vulnerability for her to decide to publish a post and be seen. 



Whenever I talk about encouragement, I usually begin by sharing my World Pulse journey: how a deadly typhoon prompted me to write my first story, and how words of encouragement comforted me during those times.



Back then, my husband got a job to manage a livelihood rehabilitation of the Super Typhoon Haiyan survivors. We relocated in Tacloban City, the hardest hit of the strongest typhoon recorded in the world.



That region is the "Welcome Party" of almost every typhoon that visits the Philippines. Storms, earthquakes, and power outage are a common occurrence. It was like a community immersion for me where I experience what's it like to be living in a disaster-prone area. 



Living in a city with a dialect I couldn't speak, I felt so alone and isolated. Not to mention that raising a son with special needs makes one feel lonely and stressed.



To read words of encouragement from World Pulse sisters that time felt like a dried soil being watered for the first time. It was like a rebirth. I began to encourage others sisters with the intention to "pay it forward".



Paying it forward means, "to respond to a person's kindness to oneself by being kind to someone else". 



Since that day, I "encourage all I can".  I try to write comments on almost every post written on World Pulse. There were times when my husband would browse on the posts here and informed me to encourage a sister because she hasn't received any comment yet. Encouraging felt like a mission, and now I can say it is a calling.



Encouraging is important to me because I want women to feel they are valued, worthy of love, and they can become the best versions of themselves.



How many dreams were not realized because women are criticized more than they were encouraged?



How many women's ideas are buried within themselves because no one believed that their idea, gift or vision is worth the try?



In effect, we're left with a wounded world because of ideas, movements, and dreams died with women just settling in, living small, and fitting in.



Women receive endless criticisms from society day in, day out. We hear messages of "shoulds" and "should nots" even before we are accepted for who we are and what we can do. 



Let us change that. 



As an Encourager on World Pulse, I've witnessed it several times when encouragers empower a woman with uplifting words, she heals from her past then pursues her life's mission. 



Leaving encouraging comments is  a simple way of paying it forward. Just as we felt seen, heard, and valued, let us help every World Pulse sister to experience the same.



If you have been uplifted, comforted, validated, affirmed, heard, seen, or valued through words of encouragement, kindly pay it forward. 



Encourage sisters today! Who knows it is your words of kindness and/or life experience that a sister is waiting to read. 



To know more about encouragement, join us the Encourager Party this Friday, July 31, 2020, 11AM (Eastern Time in US and Canada). Please register here: https://bit.ly/EncouragerParty.



Let's celebrate together as we pay it forward!

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