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I found Your Daily Kilig while cleaning my crafting room.
It was not a planned reveal while moving things around, when I found myself suddenly holding a product I had been sitting on since November or December. For months, I kept waiting for the right time to share it. I kept thinking maybe it needed more work, more certainty, more something. But there was something almost too on the nose about the whole thing. This card deck is about self-acceptance. Ironic thinking about how I couldn't accept the readiness of revealing it...
So I took finding it as the nudge it was.
There really is no perfect time - you just have to let something be seen.
Why I Made This in the First Place
Your Daily Kilig is a 30-day affirmation and reflection card deck written in Tagalog and English. It comes with a small wooden stand, and the idea is simple. You draw one card in the morning, read the affirmation aloud in both languages, sit with the reflection prompts, and keep the card on display as a reminder for the rest of the day. After 30 days, you shuffle and begin again.
But the deeper reason for it is more personal than that.
Kilig Ko came out of a season in my life when I genuinely did not love myself very much. A lot of the self-love language people now associate with the brand started as me trying to convince myself of something I had not fully felt yet. Even the affirmation posts I shared online were not just content for me. I pulled them out of my own needed words. It was a kind of fake-it-till-you-make-it, except I do not even mean that in a cynical way. I mean I was building the thing I needed, hoping that if I stayed close to it long enough, it would slowly become real in me too.
What surprised me was how many people responded to those posts. They always got the most traction. And I think that told me something important. This was never just my own private struggle. There are so many of us carrying pressure, guilt, comparison, and this quiet feeling that we are only worthy once we become a better version of ourselves.
That is what shaped the deck.
Each part of it points back to something I think many of us are still trying to learn. Heal. Reconnect. Build ritual. Love. Not in a loud wellness way. Just in a small, daily way. Five minutes of grounding. A reminder that softness is still worth choosing.
Language, Shame, and the Parts of Ourselves We Are Still Learning to Hold
A big part of why this deck matters to me is the language.
Not knowing Tagalog has been one of the silent deepest insecurities of my Filipino identity. I think a lot of Filipinos in the diaspora know that feeling. The shame of not knowing your family’s language. The fear of being judged. The feeling that you are somehow less Filipino because something that should feel natural still feels difficult in your mouth.
I am still learning. I practice privately. I am still too self-conscious to speak Tagalog on camera the way I want to. But I wanted this deck to make room for that tenderness.
The bilingual format is not about testing anyone and being good enough, but letting language be gentle. Letting it become part of self-love instead of another place to feel embarrassed.
That is why pulling the first card on camera felt so personal.
“I love myself, the real me, not the perfect one.”
That was the first affirmation I pulled while talking about a product I had delayed for months because it did not feel perfect enough to release. I do not think I could have planned a better reminder if I tried.
The reflection prompts asked me what I love most about who I am today, what parts of me need more love and patience, and how I can show myself love in action this week. My answers came out more honestly than I expected.
What I love most about myself right now is my creativity, especially the part of me that is trying to create for joy again. Drawing. Dancing. Trying to sing. Learning Tagalog through music. Letting myself be playful and a little childlike again.
The part of me that needs more patience is the part that spirals into comparison. The part that looks at people who seem younger, faster, clearer, and more accomplished and asks why I am not further ahead. Living in LA makes that harder. Hustle has a way of sounding normal here. Even when I can look at my life on paper and know I have done enough, there is still a part of me that struggles to believe it.
And the way I want to show myself love this week is small and physical. Drink enough water. Walk a mile. Do fifteen or twenty minutes of Pilates. Come back to my body a little, especially when my mind starts turning everything into pressure.
A First Look at Something Still Becoming
Your Daily Kilig is still in its sample stage. There are multiple design versions. There is no official launch date yet. I am still listening, still feeling it out, still seeing what kind of response it might have.
But I think this product is different for me because it feels protective. The scarves, the sweaters, the cardigans, those are pieces I feel excited to show. This deck holds a part of me. It came from somewhere very real. Maybe that is why I held it so tightly for so long.
Still, I think there was a reason I found it when I did.
Maybe some things do not need a perfect reveal...
So if you want to stay close to our small reveals and bigger dreams, you can join our kilig circle newsletter for stories, updates, and little reminders to choose softness.