Reflection Paper 2:
By Belina S. Katigbak
1. External - what are family, environment school and work experience that shaped you today?
One's life is made up of inherited genes, developed traits, values and attitudes, and a fusion of influences and various experiences in the confines of family, environment, school, and work. Let me share first my reflection on external factors that shaped me to be the kind of person that I am today.
FAMILY
It is a universal belief that every strong family is characterized by mutual love and respect fostered among members therein. Thus a strong family produces loving and respectful members. On the other hand, every weak family is defined by the atrocities sown and cultivated therein, thus produces fragile members. The family is the first school where we acquire the skills we need to become responsible members of society. A family environment that failed to develop social skills runs the risk of bringing up disintegrated members who may contribute to social problems sooner or later. Most success stories had their beginnings from well-founded and good family upbringing, albeit paradoxical, hardships experienced in the family served as inspiration and motivation to those who chose to make sense of such adversities. As I reflect on my life, I realized that I am a product of both success and failures in the family setting.
The Genogram tells a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of my lineage. I inherited varied traits from my ancestors.
I grew up with an authoritarian and strict father, a meek, submissive, and prayerful mother, loving siblings, and a disciplinarian eldest sister. It is with fondness that I recall the special treatment that I got from my siblings. I treasure the care of my sister Elda, who narrated to me that a few days before I was born, she prepared my infant clothes and some things that my mother needed to nurse me. She also narrated to me that she stopped schooling for six years from the time she graduated from Grade Six just to take care of my sister Rose, me, and our youngest brother, Peng. Until this day, my sister Elda would always find ways to help me. Being the youngest among the girls, I felt privileged. At least I did not bear as much sufferings as my other seven elder siblings did during their childhood years. I experienced and continue to experience the love of my siblings. However, I do have sad memories fostered in a rigid home environment. I lived by strict rules and scanty resources. I vividly recall how the jitters of my father affected me especially during rainy days when the roof of our house leaked, when a member of the family got sick, and when we did not have enough food. However strict my father was, He often reminded me about the virtue of honesty and a life focused on the end goal, which is salvation. It is in the family that I first learned to be responsible and organized. As I was growing up, my eldest sister, Del introduced time management and division of labor to me. It was her way to teach us, her younger siblings, about self-discipline, fairness, and justice. She prepared a schedule for each one of us, and divided the work according to one's capability. Prayer was very much a part of our daily routine. Our economic condition brought us always on our knees. Faith is the core of our family's belief system. We believed in Divine Providence. My kind of upbringing molded me to be a person of character, virtuous, prayerful, disciplined and stern. I turned out to be scrupulous, hard on myself as well as on others.
My own family life which I started when I got married completed my "back subjects". God gave me a great and loving husband who made up for all that I was deprived of during my childhood years. I was also blessed with a generous, self-giving, and dignified mother-in-law who influenced me a lot about church service and care for those who have less in life. God blessed me with two sons. Fulfilling the role of a wife, mother, and daughter-in-law was not always a bed of roses. Refinement of my personality and character had a great deal to do with how my mother–in-law role modeled certain characteristics during my stay with her. We lived under one roof until the time she returned to our Creator in 1995. I could say that my inspiration to servant leadership is largely influenced by my mother–in-law. The seed of love sown by my husband and extended family members prepared me to face the challenges of motherhood.
A significant turning point in my family happened in 2009 when my husband suffered life-threatening multiple strokes. This stressor affirmed the goodness of family members who supported us all the way.
ENVIRONMENT
There is a great interplay in the kind of environment where I grew up. I lived in a house made of bamboo and nipa that stood on a lot owned by my mother's sister. I lived in an environment where I my narrow optics and fragile emotional make-up looked at certain actions of my relatives on my maternal side as "discriminating". I also remember the difficulty of having to fetch water from somewhere else because our neighbor was unhappy in extending help to us. These unpleasant experiences extended in the school environment where I felt rejected by some classmates, and a few teachers. In school I often felt that I was the poor, little girl who didn't have time to play with classmates after school hours because I needed to clean the classroom as a trade-off for free education. I also felt ugly because of that one and only faded old uniform that I used to wear from Monday to Friday.
A rigorous home setup and an unwelcoming school environment gave me a very low self-esteem at first, but eventually the honors that I received compensated for what I lacked, but they hardly gave me self-confidence. I became a "people pleaser" only to feel a sense of self worth with my accomplishments. Thus the seed of motivation to work harder in order to prove my worth was planted. My saving grace though is the love of the Benedictine nuns who helped my siblings and me finish our education.
