Bumalik sa Sarili Pin

Beyond the Word

A broken heart will make us face all our truths. Some of which Jen Maramba calls, “the truth of a lie” because sometimes the world will vibrate in the frequency that tells us, we’re the problem. Due to our own personal reasons we’re going to accept that vibration and believe that truth of a lie.

This is the truth: There was never ever anything wrong with us. We were made perfect as is. So we don’t have to prove this to the world or to ourselves that we are anything but what we are. We don’t have to overcompensate or minimize our light or try too hard.

We just be, be loved. Act like we’re loved. And we will remember and forget this over and over again because life is truly a series of loud challenges and small joys (at least right now). We are so receptive to either because we are creatures meant for connection. Unless we deeply embody the truths of being loved and being whole, our effort will stray us towards these truths of a lie and will make us behave in some whackshit ways.

Our receptivity to how people perceive us is that direct link to our gift of human sensitivity tuned in for connection. It is our embodied truths that are the filtration system to how we will respond to our reality. 

The Bumalik sa Sarili anting-anting is about returning back to ourselves and being rooted to our real truth. The ones that stem from a deep understanding of who and what we are in the midst of everything that’s happening around us. It is about cultivating a deep trust in ourselves by being clear and radically honest about our prevailing truths that lead us to do the things we do. The design is a figure who is so connected to themselves that their actions and their words align. The prayer, bumalik sa sarili (return to self), is embedded in the design in baybayin written in purple partially obscured as an invitation to cultivate this through embodiment.

Design and artist statement by Althea Balmes

Product Features

1.5 x 1.3 inch, acrylic pin with rubber lock