IMAGINE MORE INSTITUTE
What if the greatest barrier in your life is a story you never chose?
We are a nonprofit educational and cultural organization helping individuals and communities—particularly within the Filipino diaspora—remember who they are, heal what was carried, and lead with their inherent greatness.
Manifest Your Inherent Greatness for All
IMAGINE DEEPLY • CONNECT AUTHENTICALLY • LEAD COURAGEOUSLY • EMPOWER GENEROUSLY
Our Mission
Imagine More Institute is a nonprofit educational and cultural organization dedicated to empowering individuals and communities—particularly within the Filipino diaspora—through transformative leadership development, cultural healing, and intergenerational education programs that integrate mind, heart, body, and spirit.
Five Pillars | Programs
Educational, transformational, cultural, and community-based
Community Storytelling & Cultural Dialogue
Facilitated group sessions that promote cultural awareness, emotional healing, and intergenerational dialogue.
Stories Between Generations: Remembering Who We Are, Imagining Who We Can Become
Facilitated community group sessions that promote cultural awareness, emotional healing, and intergenerational dialogue.
The purpose of Storytelling Circles is to use the power of storytelling to make us aware, sensitize us to remember what we have forgotten. The Storytelling Circles give participants a chance to pause, to look at the story that’s been shaping their choices, and ask: “Is this really mine? Is this really me? And if not…who do I choose to be now?”
The good news? Stories can be rewritten. Identity can evolve. And that’s the hope of Storytelling circles - the permission to rewrite new stories.
Storytelling Guidelines and Agreements
The following guidelines are provided for creating psychological safety and openness within the storytelling circles:
- Speak from the heart
- Deep listening without fixing
- Respect and honor
- Confidentiality
- Respect for silence
- Vulnerability is sacred
Guiding Principle
Every generation inherits stories. Some stories limit us. Some stories liberate us. Storytelling is an invitation from one generation to another: Remember who you are. Imagine beyond the spell. And help create the future our ancestors dreamed was possible.
Five Soul-Steps to Transformative Leadership & Personal Development
A structured leadership and personal development curriculum integrating ancestral wisdom, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and cultural healing and education.
Overview — An inner journey to remembering and reclaiming one’s true identity and inherent greatness — forgotten by the spell of colonization and inherited messages of inferiority and limitation.
In the Five SoulSteps™, participants gather in courage, confidence, and community to recognize and release inherited colonial beliefs, reconnect with their authentic identity, remember their inner greatness, reclaim their value, and rewrite their new story.
Awareness — Opening the Eyes: What am I waking up to? The beginning of the journey, where we bravely open our eyes to the truths of our colonial past and how its remnants still live within us today.
Acceptance — Embracing What Is: What truth am I honoring? Acceptance invites us to gently hold our pain, our silence, and our survival without judgment. It is the path of compassion.
Awakening — Soul Awakening What is stirring inside me? The stirring of ancestral memory and cultural spirit long buried beneath colonial amnesia. It is when we remember who we truly are — beautiful, wise, and whole.
Arising — Rising with Radiance, Standing Proud: What is my call to action? This path turns insight into impact — a call to rise, speak, and serve with courage.
Actualizing — Embodiment of One’s True Identity: What new story do I want to tell? To actualize is to embody our reclaimed identity with dignity, strength, and light — not an end, but a radiant beginning.
Five SoulSteps™ Desired Transformations
- Emotional Healing and Reconciliation — Recognize and release the inherited weight of colonial trauma—shame, invisibility, and self-doubt—and begin to heal through truth-telling and affirmation.
- Cultural Pride and Dignity — Reconnect with native traditions, ancestral values, language, and indigenous knowledge—rediscovering them as living sources of strength, power, and beauty.
- Mindset Shift and Alignment — Transform the internal narrative from “we are not enough” to “we are more than enough.” Participants reclaim agency and authorship over their personal, collective stories, and national narratives.
- Empowered and Vigilant Voice — Cultivate the courage to speak, write, and lead from a place of authenticity, dignity, and cultural sovereignty.
- Embodied and Empowered Identity — Embrace a grounded sense of belonging—standing in Filipino heritage with pride, not apology.
Five SoulSteps™ Experiential and Immersive Learning Activities
- Brain-based Mind-Body-Energy practices
- Mindful Reflections and Meditations
- Journaling and Visioning
- Storytelling spaces for sharing, listening, and healing
- Personal Capstone Project for applied transformation and impact
- Post-program coaching and follow-up
Call to Action – No Action, No Creation!
You can’t lead if you believe your voice isn’t worthy. You can’t build wealth if you’re afraid to ask for what you’re worth. And you can’t heal a community if you don’t know who you are. The world is shifting fast, and our people need roots and wings.
“If not now, when?” “If not us, who?”
Join the community of Five SoulSteps™ to Transformative, Leadership, and Personal Development.
Dear Anak: Imagine More! Intergenerational Connection and Co-Imagination of a New Future
Letters from elders to the youth to co-imagine a new future — a community-focused program for building intergenerational connection, cultural healing and transformation.
An annual intergenerational cultural healing, transformative leadership, and artistic initiative that invites Filipino and Filipino American elders, artists, educators, leaders, and culture bearers to write short (one-page or less) reflective letters to younger generations about the power of imagination as a pathway to identity, healing, dignity, leadership, and the future of the Filipino spirit.
At the heart of the initiative is the belief that: Imagination is the antidote to the colonial spell.
The letters become artistic and cultural offerings that inspire younger generations to reclaim identity, voice, purpose, and possibility.
Dear Anak restores imagination as:
- Remembrance
- Liberation
- Cultural healing
- Visionary leadership
Dear Anak seeks to:
- Restore imagination as a sacred human and cultural capacity
- Reconnect youth to ancestral wisdom
- Create new narratives of Filipino possibility
- Create recognition, appreciation, and co-creation across generations
Desired Transformations
- Intergenerational Connection — Create meaningful dialogue and exchange between Filipino elders and youth.
- Cultural Healing & Identity Reclamation — Support participants in reclaiming pride, dignity, and belonging through storytelling and artistic reflection.
- Artistic & Creative Expression — Use literary arts, visual arts, spoken word, and storytelling to express Filipino experiences and aspirations.
- Leadership & Empowerment — Encourage youth to imagine themselves as creators, leaders, visionaries, and cultural stewards.
- Movement Building — Establish an annual cultural tradition that can grow across California, the Philippines, and the global Filipino diaspora.
Dear Anak Components:
- Letter Writing — Invite Filipino elders and leaders to write short letters (one-page or less) to youth addressing the theme of imagination as a tool for:
- Youth Artistic Responses — Youth respond to letters through:
- Storytelling Circles — Facilitated community gatherings using:
- Community Showcase – November 14, 2026 — Annual immersive event featuring:
- Annual Publication — Possible Formats
Eldership and Mentorship Program - Becoming the Gift Future Generations Remember
Intergenerational mentoring program supporting leadership development and community engagement.
Purpose
To awaken and cultivate a new generation of Elders who embody wisdom, humility, imagination, responsibility, and love—individuals whose lives become gifts to future generations.
An Elder is not simply someone who has accumulated years. An Elder is someone who has transformed experience into wisdom, wisdom into compassion, compassion into service, and service into blessing. At the heart of the Eldership Program is—not information. It is transformation.
This is not a leadership course. We don't just develop leaders. We cultivate Elders. It is a journey of remembering and becoming. Participants are invited to become the kind of Elders they themselves once needed.
Overall Learning Journey — Participants journey through four themes: Memory, Responsibility, Imagination, and Embodiment. The Four Sessions are those threads woven together into a living legacy.
Session One: Remember — Returning Home
Theme — Remembering precedes guiding — An Elder cannot help others remember if they have forgotten themselves.
Remember — Who Were We? Who Am I?
Session Two: Reconcile — What World Have We Created?
Theme — An Elder tells the truth without losing hope.
Responsibility — The Courage to Tell the Truth
Session Three: Reimagine — What Future Calls Us?
Theme — An Elder protects hope.
Imagination — Becoming Guardians of POSSIBILITY
Session Four: Become — A Personal Capstone
Theme — The Elder becomes the message.
Embodiment — Living the Letter
Eldership and Mentorship Program Desired Transformations
- Develop an understanding of Eldership as a way of being rather than a role.
- Reconnect with their personal story and ancestral inheritance.
- Reflect honestly on the gifts and wounds passed between generations.
- Practice humility, responsibility, and compassionate truth-telling.
- Cultivate imagination as a sacred responsibility.
- Learn to accompany rather than direct younger generations.
- Write an authentic Dear Anak Letter.
- Create an ongoing personal covenant for living as an Elder.
The Program Process — The program intentionally follows a holistic process integrating:
- Head — Understanding and awareness
- Heart — Reflection and acceptance
- Hands — Practice and application
- Spirit — Transformation and impact
Guiding Principle — Eldership is helping people remember, become, and then pass on what is life-giving. Eldership asks: What is life asking me to become now, so that I may become a greater gift to those who come after me?
Brain-based Youth Leadership & Empowerment Program
Brain and neuroscience-based workshops designed to empower youth with mind & body principles, leadership skills, identity awareness, and personal growth tools.
Purpose
The Brain-based Youth Leadership & Empowerment Program is a seven-day immersive journey — delivered both in-person and online — that equips Filipino-American youth with the tools to lead from a place of cultural rootedness and neurological wholeness.
The program is built on a simple premise: authentic leadership cannot be taught as a set of external skills alone — it must be grown from the inside out. By pairing the Five SoulSteps (Awareness, Acceptance, Awakening, Arising, Actualizing) with corresponding brain-based practices (Sensitizing, Versatilizing, Refreshing, Integrating, Mastering), participants engage both the ancestral and neurological dimensions of transformation. Each day of the journey moves youth through a stage of identity reclamation while simultaneously training the brain's capacity to hold new patterns of thought, emotional regulation, and courageous action.
Over seven days, youth will move from confronting the unspoken legacy of colonization, to compassionately honoring their own truths, to awakening ancestral memory and pride, to translating that awakening into real acts of leadership and service, and finally to embodying — not performing — their reclaimed identity as leaders of the new Filipino-American story.
Guiding Principle — We lead from who we remember ourselves to be.
Leadership is not something added onto a young person from the outside — it is uncovered, awakened, and strengthened from within. True empowerment begins when the brain and the soul move together: when awareness of the past, compassion for the present, and courage for the future are integrated into a single, embodied way of being. Every SoulStep is also a brain step — healing and leadership are not separate journeys, but one.
Brain-based Youth Leadership & Empowerment Program — Desired Transformations — By the end of the program, participants will be able to:
- Name and examine the historical and generational impact of colonization on identity, self-perception, and community narratives (Awareness / Brain Sensitizing).
- Practice self-compassion and emotional acceptance, developing the capacity to hold difficult truths without shame or avoidance (Acceptance / Brain Versatilizing).
- Access and articulate a reclaimed sense of cultural identity, drawing on ancestral strength, wisdom, and pride (Awakening / Brain Refreshing).
- Translate personal insight into action, identifying a concrete leadership commitment or service contribution to their community (Arising / Brain Integrating).
- Demonstrate embodied leadership behaviors — communicating, deciding, and relating to others from a grounded, authentic sense of self rather than inherited fear or self-doubt (Actualizing / Brain Mastering).
- Apply basic brain-based self-regulation tools (e.g., practices for shifting mental states, building resilience, and integrating new neural patterns) in daily life beyond the program.
- Build peer community and mentorship bonds with fellow youth participants that reinforce identity, leadership, and mutual support beyond the seven days.
Impact Statement
Our programs
aim to:
Creating pathways for healing, leadership, and cultural remembrance across generations.
Reconnect and remember ancestral roots and wisdom
Ignite inherent greatness and manifest it for all
Improve mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being
Awaken and strengthen cultural identity
Inspire and develop leadership capacity
Foster and deepen community connection, collaboration, and engagement
THE BOOK
Five SoulSteps™ to remember who you are and live beyond the stories you inherited.
Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy — A Modern-Day Babaylan
Educator, leadership consultant, and wisdom-keeper bridging neuroscience and ancestral wisdom.
What if the greatest barriers in our lives aren't the ones we can see—but the stories we've unknowingly inherited?
For generations, many of us have carried beliefs about ourselves, our communities, and what's possible—without ever asking where those beliefs came from. They quietly shape our confidence, our leadership, our relationships, our dreams, and even the future we imagine for ourselves. This is the spell: an invisible, inherited enchantment that directs our thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Breaking Free invites you on a journey of remembrance, reclamation, restoration, and renewal—not a dead end, but a path forward.
Also available for book clubs, chambers, and community groups.
“Breaking Free gives language to what many Filipinos in the diaspora have carried quietly for generations. Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy's Five SoulSteps helped me recognize parts of myself I had not fully named—my roots, my voice, the Babaylan and Dayang energy within me. This book is healing and awakening, a call to remember, reclaim, and live from the dignity that was always ours.”
Ellen Samson — Dementia Speaker & Founder, Dear Ellen
Drawing from decades of leadership development, interdisciplinary research, and her own journey of reclaiming identity, Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy offers more than a theory of healing—she offers a path she has walked herself. Weaving together history, psychology, and storytelling, she builds a bridge between neuroscience and ancestral wisdom: neuroscience explains how the “colonial spell” shapes the brain's invisible narratives, while ancestral wisdom provides the medicine to heal those pathways.
Through powerful stories, reflection, historical insight, and practical exercises, Dr. Bustos-Choy introduces the Five SoulSteps™—a framework for recognizing inherited limitations, healing cultural wounds, and reclaiming your voice, dignity, identity, and imagination.
This book is for
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Anyone who has ever felt they were meant for more
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Leaders seeking to lead with authenticity, heart, and wisdom
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Educators who want to awaken possibility, not just transfer knowledge
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Parents and elders hoping to leave a legacy of courage instead of limitation
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Immigrants, descendants of colonized peoples, and anyone shaped by stories of “not enough”
You will discover how to
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Recognize the invisible stories shaping your thinking and behavior
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Understand the lasting impact of historical and cultural conditioning
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Reclaim your voice, identity, imagination, and purpose
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Transform inherited limitations into conscious choices
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Become a bridge between the wisdom of those who came before and the possibilities ahead
Because when one person remembers who they truly are… generations begin to remember too. Join me. Tara na.
COMMUNITY VOICES
Endorsements of Impact
As a Filipino American publisher who has spent decades telling the stories of our community, I understand how deeply history, family expectations and the need to prove ourselves can shape the way we live and lead. Having also experienced Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy's storytelling circles, I have seen her gift for creating space where people can speak honestly, listen inwardly and recognize parts of themselves they may have set aside. Breaking Free is a meaningful and compassionate invitation to reclaim our voice, our worth and the freedom to live more fully as ourselves.
Cora M. Oriel
President and Publisher, Asian Journal Publications, Inc.
Breaking Free is a beautiful reflection of who Dr. Fatima truly is — full of wisdom, authenticity, compassion, and courage. Her message resonates deeply with me as a fellow Filipino immigrant and community servant. This remarkable book reminds us that true freedom begins when we embrace who we have always been. It is a gift to our community and to generations yet to come.
Ethel Luzario
National VP for Regional Affairs, COFACC
In Breaking Free: Five SoulSteps to Living Beyond the Spell, she names what many of us in the Filipino diaspora have felt but have not always had the words to express: the inherited narratives that shape identity, leadership, and our sense of possibility. Through the Five SoulSteps, she offers a thoughtful and healing path to remember who we are, reclaim our authentic selves, and lead with courage, clarity, and purpose.
Gerry Palon
President & CEO, Coalition of Filipino American Chambers of Commerce
Breaking Free is a powerful and deeply transformative work that challenges us to examine the invisible beliefs that shape our identity, leadership, and potential. This is more than a book—it is an invitation to reclaim who we truly are and lead with purpose for generations to come.
Ishka Villacisneros-Tusjakova
CEO, IMedia Ideas; CEO, Californila.com; President, NGA 911 Philippines
I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Dr. Fatima and witnessing this work firsthand. Breaking Free captures something our community rarely says out loud—that the hardest thing to reclaim isn’t opportunity, it’s belief in ourselves. This book is both a mirror and a map.
Jocip Sarmiento
MBA
Breaking Free gives voice to what many Filipino Americans have felt but struggled to name. With wisdom, courage and compassion, Manang Fatima invites us to reclaim our authentic identity and rediscover the cultural strengths that have always been ours.
Joel Jacinto
Cultural worker
With compassion, wisdom, and remarkable honesty, Dr. Fatima helps readers recognize the invisible stories that shape their lives and gently guides them toward healing. This is a hopeful, timely, and deeply needed.
Patty Aubery
14x NYT Best Selling Author, Chicken Soup for the Soul
Although grounded in the Filipino experience, Breaking Free resonates far beyond one community—its lyrical storytelling and deep excavation of history, memory, and heritage will speak to anyone who has ever questioned worth, identity, or purpose.
Susana Reyes
Former City of L.A. Commissioner, public servant and equity advocate
Drawing from decades of leadership development, coaching, and lived experience, Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy presents a framework that is both deeply personal and profoundly practical. The Five SoulSteps provide a roadmap for helping individuals reclaim their authentic selves, enabling them to lead their communities and organizations with greater purpose and impact.
Denise Lopez, PhD
Professor, Organizational Psychology, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant University | Los Angeles
With compassion, wisdom, and remarkable honesty, Dr. Fatima helps readers recognize the invisible stories that shape their lives and gently guides them toward healing. This is a hopeful, timely, and deeply needed book. This book must be read and shared with anyone who wishes to be the best they can be!
Faith Bautista Tamashiro
Founder and CEO, National Diversity Coalition
Breaking Free is a deeply personal and courageous reflection of Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy's life, wisdom, and commitment to helping others reclaim their authentic selves. This book is both a meaningful cultural journey and an inspiring invitation to live with greater freedom, purpose, and truth. It is a powerful gift to anyone ready to remember who they truly are.
Inna Tuler
President and CEO, Maintco Corp
Breaking Free is a balm to the soul. It answers lingering questions that had been weighing heavily on my heart as a young Filipina American. The empowering stories woven through the 5 SoulSteps create fertile ground for radical empathy, self-compassion, and immense transformation. A must read.
Jaquelyn Kothari
Imagine Philippines Pioneer
Breaking Free is incredibly honest, engaging, and healing. Dr. Bustos-Choy deftly utilizes storytelling, cultural awareness, and pragmatic leadership acumen into a life-affirming adventure, that should prove valuable to those seeking the path of meaning, authenticity, and courage.
Joe Arciaga
US Army Desert Storm Veteran, Co-Founder, FACC-GLA
I've watched Dr. Fatima's journey for years. Breaking Free is a distillation of her lived experiences and everything I admire about her and her work. She reminds us that freedom begins with remembering our true selves and that healing is not only about looking back—it is about imagining forward.
Linda Akutagawa
President & CEO, Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc. (LEAP)
Breaking Free is more than a book—it is a mirror, a guide, and an invitation to reclaim the parts of ourselves that were never lost, only forgotten. Dr. Fatima has given our community a profound gift: the courage to remember, heal, and lead from our authentic identity.
Joe Arciaga
US Army Desert Storm Veteran, Co-Founder, FACC-GLA
Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy provides us a blueprint (5 A's) to address the many barriers of colonization. Success is understanding the American culture while valuing the culture of our mother country whether you are a newly arrived immigrant or a member of a family that has lived in America for generations. Her book, Breaking Free, is a must-read.
Sylvester Mendoza
Retired HR and DEI Executive
ABOUT
Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy
A Modern-Day Babaylan
Born in the Philippines, Dr. Fatima Bustos-Choy came to the United States as a young girl, gaining an elite education and a flourishing career—while quietly losing touch with who she was before the crossing. Today she works as a modern-day Babaylan: in Filipino tradition, a healer, guide, and wisdom-keeper. Dr. Fatima embodies that role by fusing ancestral insight with thirty years of progressive leadership development, helping others reclaim their identity and align their work with their deepest truths.
Over three decades, she has moved fluidly between roles as corporate executive, university professor, and nonprofit leader—working with organizations including Citibank, IBM, Wells Fargo, and Cisco, Fil-Am chambers of commerce, COFACC, LEAP Inc., and the Institute of Brain Education, where she directs the Master's program in Integrative Brain Education. Across every setting, her work centers on one pursuit: helping individuals and organizations discover their inherent greatness.
That pursuit led to her seminal book, Breaking Free: Five SoulSteps to Living Beyond the Spell, an interdisciplinary roadmap for personal and collective liberation. Drawing on history, psychology, neuroscience, and indigenous wisdom, the book explains how the “colonial spell” shapes the brain's invisible narratives—and offers indigenous wisdom as the medicine to heal them.
Dr. Fatima also founded the Imagine More Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering the Filipino diaspora through leadership development, cultural healing, and intergenerational education across five pillars.
At its heart, Dr. Fatima's work is an act of generational stewardship—rooted in the belief that healing from colonialism's psychological impacts is essential to becoming our fullest selves as leaders, partners, and parents, and to authoring a new story rooted in ancestral wisdom and purpose.
Educator
Leadership & Organization Development Consultant
Holistic Life Coach
Culture Identity Guide
Author
Founder
FREE DOWNLOAD
The Five SoulSteps: A Guided Reflection Journal
A gentle place to begin. This guided companion walks you through the Five SoulSteps with reflection prompts and space to listen inward—so the remembering can start today.
AWARENESS ACCEPTANCE AWAKENING ARISING ACTUALIZING
“The Mirror within you was never stolen. Only forgotten. The remembering has already begun.”
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Curious about a program, a speaking invitation, a storytelling circle, or simply want to say hello?
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