Unconventionally: The Timelessness of Dinah Salonga
Back in September, Dinah posted a video of herself on her Instagram account. After seeing her friends playing with a Bender board, a balancing exercise tool where a wooden oval plank rolls over a cylinder, she went ahead and bought a set online. In the video, Dinah, wearing pink drawstring pants and a cream shirt, excitedly steps on the board and promptly falls, rubbing her elbow while laughing hysterically on the floor. She writes in the caption,
“I don’t like reading manuals. I will try things out first and if things don’t work then I read the manual :).”
Dinah Salonga is the managing director of Yoga Plus Inc.
Living Life Version 3.0, she’s on a path to spiritual enlightenment and fulfilling her soul’s purpose.
Dinah Salonga is a dream girl in every sense of the word. A tech innovator in her youth, she made a daring career shift in her 50s. Now, into her 60s, she’s living a literally idyllic life in the province after the pandemic rendered geography irrelevant. It’s the type of life—and her sense of ease—that many of us aspire to have.
Her Best-Laid Plan
She’s not a planner. She mentions this numerous times throughout our interview. The whole process of her packing up and uprooting her family from the capital to Ilocos took only three weeks—most of that to secure the necessary permits to travel during the enhanced community quarantine. And that move was prompted when someone told her of an available house in the province.
“I’m not the type to plan. I know people who say, for example, ‘Oh, I want to be a CEO at the age of 30 or I want to make my first million when I’m 25’. I didn’t have any of those things,” Dina recalls. “I just went when an opportunity came.”
It must have been a series of fortuitous events then because, as Dinah puts it, many of the major decisions she had in life presented themselves to her.
“Whenever an opportunity presents itself, I give my best. That's when you uncover other opportunities that would come your way, like maybe becoming an entrepreneur or seeing a gap in some areas of your life or in other people's lives that would open another opportunity for you”
“I just went when an opportunity came. Like my first job, when I got accepted. I didn't know anything about the company. I didn't know anything about the job. All I knew was I had the job, which was important, right? That was our conditioning—you study, you find a job, you stay in the job for however long you want to and be good at it, make some money, be stable, and then you will be happy,” she adds.
Reading these words back and you feel like there is a level of earnestness that belies her cheery personality. It’s the seriousness of someone who has it all figured out—or rather, someone who knows you don’t have to. You just have to…do.
Born Teacher
It comes as no surprise when Dinah tells me that she didn’t know what course to take for college. An aunt came up to her as she was filling up her applications and suggested statistics, which would be a prelude to a career as an actuarial scientist. While waiting for graduation, she earned a spot in the Computer Information Systems, the IT arm of power distribution company Meralco.
In the ‘70s, there were very few options to get into the tech industry. In fact, there were only two and the CIS was one of them. The class was interesting, to say the least, a mix of different professions and age groups all entering a then mysterious field. “It didn’t really matter where you came from. If they felt you are trainable and you could be a programmer, then they accepted you,” Dinah explains.
This is how Dinah approaches opportunity: she’s trainable. As a non-planner, she has to be flexible.
“Being open and being adaptable is a very good virtue. You have to be able to adapt and be creative about any kind of situation”
Maybe it was something innate or the CIS program or a combination of various circumstances that contributed to this outlook. But Dinah herself attributes much of it to yoga.
In 2005, Dinah, who was working as a director in an IT company, saw a yoga studio open one floor below her office. Back then she forced herself to engage in exercise to offset her love for eating. So, with a fitness center conveniently in their midst, she and a friend decided to try it out.
“I literally like (almost) died in my first class, I almost died!” she describes. But she went back anyway again and again until she got hooked. She canceled her gym membership soon after and committed herself to the ancient, meditative practice.
Yoga gave her such fulfillment that she began chatting with others in the class. “I would guide them if I see them struggling. At the end of the class, I would encourage them, give them some pointers. In client calls, I wound up talking about yoga more than my work,” Dinah recalls. “They would say that I look so peaceful or chill and then I would say that I do yoga.”
By 2010, Dinah realized that she could be a yoga instructor, so she jetted off to Thailand to train. Around the same time, she set up a yoga studio with friends. At 52, she was the oldest person in her class—which was the more demanding hot yoga practice. Amid her 20-something peers, she channeled a different kind of energy.
“Mentally I was more prepared. Emotionally I was more prepared. Physically, it was a challenge. My other classmates who were younger. Physically, they could take the practice, but mentally and emotionally, they were really struggling.”
Her triumph over yoga demonstrated a lesson in discovering one’s personal journey. “What is it that I do? What is it that I want to do? What am I passionate about and is there something I can do about it?”
She saw the beauty in making a difference in people’s lives, whether it was the client or company itself or improving their bottom line or process. Dinah wanted to help provide solutions and transform others. “It was the same thing with yoga, but it was a different method. It’s essentially the same because you’re helping transform people from this kind of body to this kind of body, from this mindset to this mindset.”
And at some point, another realization hit: Dinah still didn’t have a dream job but she found her purpose. She was a teacher.
“A lot of the jobs that I have been into, whether it was in an informal or a formal capacity, was teaching… and I would coach,” she says. Her mother was a teacher so this epiphany didn’t come as a shock. It was just puzzle pieces fitting together at the right moment.
Start Any Time
Age is a strange paradox in Dinah’s life. While she discovered her passions later, her life began at a fast pace. As the eldest, no one would take care of her at home so her mom decided to bring her two-year-old to the school where she worked. Dinah sat at a desk in her mother’s class for a few years when another teacher suggested that the precocious five-year-old could start Grade 1 early.
Having memorized the textbooks, Dinah graduated at the top of her class. Despite being the youngest in her batch, she thrived in school up until she was in Grade 5 when she was unfortunately bullied by a teacher who had taken a dislike to Dinah and her mother.
Dinah began to feel so afraid of her teacher that she refused to take bathroom breaks. Eventually, she developed a kidney infection and stayed in a hospital. Her mother then suggested she take a break. Then, she transferred to an all-girls Catholic school in Pasig where she continued to excel.
Perhaps it was this rush that encouraged her to slow down. “I’ve proven that you can do anything and be anything regardless of your age,” she says, explaining how she’s not so much an advocate as she is a living embodiment that age doesn’t matter.
“This is something I like to play out. You can live a healthy, productive, meaningful life, particularly as you age. As we age, we have more knowledge, and hopefully, that knowledge transforms or translates into wisdom that can be shared with younger people”
Another thing Dinah has been mulling over is how she can learn pole dancing. She had intended to learn the art for her 60th and surprise her friends with a performance, but things didn’t pan out. She hasn’t dismissed the idea yet.
“What can I do to help older people age in a healthy way? Typically, at this age, people are thinking about maintenance medicine and lifestyle-related issues, but what about those who are healthy and productive?” she wonders. “What would life be for them? How can they enjoy it? Can they find a community? Can they be of service?”
At the end of September, Dina posted a photo of herself in an orange exercise set, doing the Warrior pose over two boulders. In the caption, she writes: “It’s never too late to start learning something new.” She continues by enumerating all the privileges she’s received after becoming a hot yoga teacher at 52.
“Don’t let anything stop you from trying something new. Especially your age.”
While many people her age are starting to settle down and retire, Dinah is building a retreat center in Ilocos, where guests can relax, heal, and discover themselves.
For someone who doesn’t like to plan, Dinah sure knows how to make her dreams come true.
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Watch this space for news and updates!
Watch the full video interview with Dinah
LIVE at 3pm on Saturday, October 23
on my @iamginaromero Facebook page.
