E248 Philippine de Romrée

Hello, my name is Aziz, and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women, to share their experiences, their personalities, uniqueness, and emotions about this world. In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the people of the world together. And when we hear the voices of women, when we listen to real lives of women from other countries, we connect our cultures without differences or stereotypes, and we get inspired by their stories to live a better life. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Filipin de Romre. Filipin is a makeup artist and content creator from Waterloo, Belgium. Filipin is planning to become a physical coach because she is a sports addict. She loves art, books, inspirational and powerful speeches, as well as creating motivating videos and content. Filipin is a huge nature lover. She finds her piece in long walks, tracking and climbing rocks anywhere she can. Filipin, how are you today? Hi, Aziz. Thank you for having me. I'm really good. Thank you. I'm honored. I'm privileged. I feel very lucky to have you here. Very excited to know more about you. So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is if your friends and the people who know you best could describe your personality, what would they say about you? That's a tricky one that I believe. Most of them will say I am strong and soft at the same time. Kind of very funny, very goofy, I'm always up for doing many things. Sometimes lonely, but I just really like it this way. And yeah, but always there for anyone and very, very soft and strong person. I think that's the most important things to do. I love that I know this will be a lot of fun and I have many questions. But I'll begin with this. Recently I interviewed a girl from Hong Kong who is working as a social worker and she said, I'm naturally very soft, but my life experience made me a very strong, direct person. Is that the same for you or are you maybe a Gemini or what's the mix of personalities? How did it develop of you being both opposites at the same time? No, I completely relate to what that girl told you. Basically, I'm a very sensitive person which makes me very soft with everyone around me or people that actually deserve this kind of behavior, but I have had a lot of things to go through in life. I've had a very young age already, so that made me a very strong person. Sometimes even kind of a cold person, but it's just a perfect mix of the two. I'm not a Gemini, I'm a Scorpio, which makes it harder. I agree, one million percent. And then to ask you even more, because this topic we could unpack it for a long, long time, but you spoke about being up for everything, your more adventurous, spontaneous, etc. And to ask you about that, a lot of women might struggle with that, although they want that sense of adventure and excitement, but they worry, maybe their parents were telling them, be careful, don't do things that are dangerous. And so their mom and mother is in their brain, telling them those in her voice, or they just have anxiety or whatever it is. What about you motivates you to be spontaneous, although it could be risky, because there is a risk in everything in life. And what would be your advice to other women so that they can be more free from limitations? Well, actually, my mom isn't completely okay with this, she constantly asks me, what are you doing? Well, this is so dangerous, you could hurt yourself. But basically, what happened is, at some point in my life, I went through so much, I needed to focus on myself and just started being completely alone. And I had a lot of anxiety and I didn't know what to do with this. So, what I started to do is just, I'm going to leave, but I don't need anyone to leave. I can do it by myself and I just have to make it just once. And the first time I left, I didn't go very, very far away. It was like three hours driving and then along a long track, five hours, something like that. And I just started doing it and I found myself climbing, even though it was the very first time in my life. And that was kind of dangerous. But at the end, I made it to the top. And that was such a relief. I started to cry and be like, okay, that was great. And I just realized at that point, and if I have any advice to give to anyone who's listening to this, do not wait for someone to carry you somewhere, to do something, or to experience things and wait for it to say that, to make you feel okay with what's happening and making you getting to know yourself. Just go, just do it. Just find yourself some courage and leave. Go, even if it's on your own, it's completely okay to be by yourself and do things on your own that will lead the occasion to actually know yourself deeper than you ever did before. I love that, so don't be reactive, be proactive, especially when it comes to new experiences that help you explore who you are and discover more. And I want to understand this because there are people in this world who don't spend time trying to understand themselves. They just say they have a fixed mindset where they just stay the same. Why did you discover that it's important to know more about yourself? Did you always have this desire? And why is it something important for you to constantly learn more about who you are and discover more? Honestly, I always thought nobody was understanding me. I always felt completely alone. Well, no one knows, no one understands. Thing is I have ADHD, which doesn't make it easy. So that's an attention disorder, basically. So I just always felt misunderstood. But the truth is I didn't understand myself. I thought I knew myself, but I didn't. So what happened is I just really just started finding my own and I started to read a lot of books about spiritual development and personal development. And that made me understand things. Having to spend time by my own and experience things such as working into nature or reading those kind of books, it just made me realize a lot of things. And it made me started to really get to know myself. And I think I still don't really know myself. I think I'm learning new things every day. And that would be the same for everyone. And just basically in life, it's not because you think you're this way that you can't change it. Just go deeper, dig deeper, and get to know who you really are. And that's something you'll get just by having some time by your own, just thinking about you and only you. I love it. And that's why you said you love being alone, although not in a sad way, because that's how when you can hear your own voice and your truth. And you mentioned that you love spirituality books. What's your perspective on life in a spiritual way? Do you believe that everything is meant to be and there are no coincidences? And so you're just exploring the reality without much control. Do you feel we control everything? Do you feel we can manifest things? What's your perspective on destiny, life, and how the world works? I do feel you can manifest things. I think about it all the time. I'm like, if you're thinking about it, if you're having a lot of anxiety and still think about repetition in the future in the future or for future you're just going to make it happen anyway. It's like if you're never happy and that's the big problem in this society to me. People are just never happy about what they have. They never enjoy the present time that they actually have and they always want more. They want more money, bigger house, cars, whatever. They always want more. And they just talk into the future. A future that doesn't even exist yet and that maybe won't happen this way. So it's good to have goals in your life. That's really good. But it's good to be able to enjoy what's happening right now in your life. So that's my life philosophy. It's just learn to lose a little bit things about what you're supposed to control, because you don't have any control on life. Maybe things are meant to be. Maybe things are maybe destiny happens. Maybe not. Maybe it's all a plan that I don't know. All I know is I don't want to control everything around me, especially things I can't control. I want to control myself. And I want to enjoy it the best way I can. Thank you. And do you have this attitude when you're tracking or rock climbing? Is it for you that every second you're extracting every joy and lesson from it, and therefore to you, the connection with nature brings you into your body, so you're in the moment and can really, really understand yourself how you deal with struggles, with new experiences, with whatever it is that you see, or is it because of ADHD? You need to be tired so that you can sleep, but you can rest your brain or how does it work? Well, I treat ADHD with sports. That's why sports will just help me to really shut all the all the thinking that's going way too fast into my head. But no, basically, yes, when I climb, that's a way for me to, yeah, it just shuts the whole world around me up, but it's also a way to, I don't know, discover myself, and I'm truly in the present moment because when you're climbing, there can't be any mistakes at any point. You can't be constantly thinking, I want to be up there, even though you really do, right? Like at some point you're like, okay, this is dangerous. I really want to be up there. I want to stop climbing this. But then once you're up there, that's when you understand that they're really important things that you just did was declining. Like the view is extraordinary when you get up, uphill, but it's declining. That's really important because that's the moment you really, really focus. And that's when I actually really learned that this is what matters. That's a present time. That's the struggle. That's just the just the climbing basically. Thank you. And I know as you, we mentioned in the introduction you're very interested in motivational speeches and spirituality. You spoke about that. So on the level of spirituality of intellectuality of emotions as well. But your goal is to become a physical coach. So why choosing specifically become a physical coach rather than let's say a therapist or a life coach or a spiritual guru from Belgium, the first one or whatever it is? Why did you choose and believe you can help people most through the physical level of their being? And why is it in your mind a very powerful or the most powerful way? That's a funny thing because being a kid I never liked sports, everybody always told me you're not a sports girl you're definitely not in two sports and so I made up my mind like this okay, I'm not a sports person I'm not made for this, right? But then things happened and I did put my body into a lot like it went through a lot I have had multiple severe accidents and then at some point when I started to be really living because I had a stroke and everything and I just spent like three whole weeks in a hospital and that made me crazy and that was the moment I realized I need to do something fine for me I need to do something good for my body and so I started doing sports and that's the only thing it actually felt really good and the more I did the more I saw physical transformation and the more I felt like I was feeling great not even for my body but in my mind and then at some point it was just going so much like I'm going to the gym about five times a week at least and I'm feeling okay but it just does not feel like work and when people start to ask me questions like oh can you help me maybe can you coach me a little bit do you have any advice? It does not feel like work you know it's not like something I don't want to do it's something I can see myself basically going every day to the gym does not feel like something bad to wake up to Thank you and so because we spoke about how you evolve does a person and you take care of yourself and you slow down in order to make sure that every part of your life is okay how is your daily schedule? How do you balance all needs in your life your mental health, your physical health, your financial well-being and maybe some people can learn from that in order to organize their day and life better and although you have ADHD so I don't even know whether you organize at all but let's speak about how it happens Yes ADHD makes it very complicated sometimes to just being organized but I kind of found a way for me to do it and it took me very long but basically what changed it all at first was getting up early that was something very difficult to me because while I wasn't in a world where everybody would sleep long time, everybody would need a long time to sleep and when you wake up at first if it's six or seven it's adds to early let's fall back and sleep but then you're even more tired and then you don't want to do things in your day and then you just need to sit, watch TV and that's something I just completely stopped started being like, okay, it's 6am well it's not too early, let's get up, I'm up anyways so let's get up and let's start to do things and then I realized, okay, I have so many times like so many hours for me what can I do with this, well let's go to sports I'm going to sports early in morning, there is nobody so it's really fun, it's a really good time for you and then I'm like, okay, I need to get some new habits and even though it's a very complicated step because you're usually used to do all the things you always have done even though it's not always the best way to live your life and I just started to be like, okay, so I need to read a few times like, why not three times a week I'll just take an hour or two to read my book and then I need to go out for a walk so I'm going to put this into my week also like two times a week, I need to go out and have a long walk, that's good and then I just realized I was having this kind of, well, daily new habits waking up early going to the gym working, reading and then I just started to also ask for my schedule to be not as long as any other schedule meaning with my ADHD trouble I cannot work for eight hours a day behind my computer that's completely impossible. I've asked for it for our day, so I have half a day for me, right? But I'm just, it was very stressful for me at first to ask for this kind of things but I started to tell myself, okay, you just need to listen to yourself, raise your voice and tell people about who you are and what are your needs. I know everything is not always possible especially with work but if you have the chance to connect with your boss in some ways you can always say things like you don't lose anything by saying I need to work that amount of time a day, not more, not less like this is me and this is what I'm okay with like would you be able to even think about it and maybe we can find a solution if you're really stressed about life, if things are too difficult to handle sometimes maybe you just need to switch your habits from another and just start doing new things and honestly I'm absolutely not the same person as I was even two or three years ago completely different because I started listening to myself and not that I did not give a choice to people around me but I said so I said I'm going to respect myself and that's what I want so I just schedule things like that I'm not always the best at planning things and scheduling things and that's why I'm very focused on me and I stopped many relations because first I thought the most important things in life would be having a lot of friends going out a lot of times but that was just not me so I just yeah, basically the main thing here would be listen to yourself and don't be scared to raise your voice and step up for yourself I love that and let's go further you love inspiring people, you spoke about many inspirational topics but specifically for women some women might reveal their stuck within their comfort zone maybe they don't know themselves and they want to go out of it and follow their dreams and go on an adventure that is live and something is stopping them whatever it is maybe they cannot find the courage maybe they want to ask their boss for a different schedule or whatever it is what is your advice for them so that they will have the right mindset and do it in the right way where they are not stuck within the comfort zone and they can reach their potential Well I would say actually we all have that in us like it's in you basically you just need to listen to that tiny little voice that many of us have just been shutting up like no no no I don't want to do this I have to do this and then I must do that and then I have to do this for this person and then this and you have a strong power that is your conscience so what you have to do is sometimes just sit down relax, think only about you and listen to that little voice what does it say what's truly important what you really want to do everything is possible if you listen to that little voice and just don't be scared step up and if it's not okay with some people around then fine leave them it's right you have to right to leave the life you want I agree 1000% and now I would like to know a bit more about you as someone from Belgium which is a more of a multicultural place how to differentiate because Belgium is between different countries that speak similar languages what is the uniqueness of the culture of Belgium maybe some people never visited maybe they don't know what makes Belgium different from what is near it in France or in the Netherlands or even parts of Switzerland etc. what about you as a Belgian woman makes you different from a French woman or a Dutch woman etc. well I would say as you said the country is right in the middle of so many other countries speaks so many other languages and with very different cultures well the fact that we're just in between all of this makes us have a bit of all these cultures you know like Belgium are they're known to be extremely nice extremely fun people they just we just mile all the time but not everybody right but that's just that just represents us because we had to live with so many different cultures the fact that in just one tiny country you speak English the Flemish French but also what what what what Alamo how do you say that? German German exactly you speak also German like that's a lot it makes the country like it's separated in different places and that kind of truly is even if we're all Belgium when you go from the French part to the to the to the Flemish part that it feels like it's not the same country right so you're visiting a lot and you have to be very open-minded and just enjoy touristic attraction enjoy enjoy enjoy people enjoy different cultures because it's just it's just a mix of so many things that you just really have to be open-minded thank you for sharing that I'm sure many people will be even more curious about Belgium about the Belgian people and the ability to feel like you said within one country that you're within a melting pot or different parts that are new countries within the same and so to speak about you as someone who loves discovery, exploration, adventure and physical activities if you could live anywhere in the world other than Belgium what would be the place that will reflect and express your personality most would you love to be in Bali on the beach on the mountains in Peru near Macho Picchu and Hollywood near the celebrities in Barcelona where there are always new tourists so you're never bored or what is a place that for you if you could live there all the time it will be a perfect match for your personality That's kind of a tricky question because I'm a traveler and I really want to discover the whole world so many places attract me but the one that speaks to my heart up first would be Iceland that's just a dream it's a place that's okay it's cold that's fine I can handle cold but it's just a place it's nylon it seems so different than anything else in the world it's beautiful you have all the night lights you have the the mountains the nature is truly amazing there's a volcano there but well, I really want to go there and it feels like it feels like my heart speaks to me every time I think about Iceland Philippines, thank you so much for sharing your voice for being part of this podcast for sharing your good positive energy and inspirational perspective on life I wish you success adventure excitement to live slowly but fully and to never be stressed thank you again thank you so much for having me again this was really fun it was a really nice talk