Nineties kids would easily recall the name Chubi del Rosario. He was the sweet-faced teen actor who rose to fame as one of the stars of the youth-oriented show T.G.I.S. Fans were charmed by his boy-next-door looks, and he and Anne Curtis made for a pretty cute love team. In the show, he played the goody-two-shoes in the barkada, the bushy-browed kid who Anne’s character was secretly crushing on.
The Chubi-Anne tandem was so well-received it led to several other TV projects including the series “Anna Karenina” and “Ikaw Na Sana,” and movies like “Ikaw Lamang” and “Honey My Love So Sweet.” In 2003, the two starred alongside a powerhouse cast that included Christopher de Leon, Alice Dixson, and Richard Gomez in a TV romance drama series called “Ang Iibigin Ay Ikaw Pa Rin.” This would also be the young actor’s last regular gig before finally bowing out from the spotlight.
In the years that followed, Chubi dabbled in different things: theater, events hosting and organizing, even e-commerce. He’s been away from the public eye for let’s say about 15 years. And then he started popping out of people’s social media feeds. This time around, he’s re-introducing himself in a different role. Chubi del Rosario is now a holistic confidence coach.
Chubi’s “Secret”
After leaving show business, Chubi says he found himself needing a bit of soul-searching. “I grew up in showbiz kasi,” he tells ANCX. He started acting at age nine and was actively doing the entertainment grind until age 24. So when he quit showbiz, it felt like experiencing a “normal life” again for the first time.
But living a life away from the spotlight and the public attention came with certain adjustments. “I felt my confidence kind of went down, because I was used to performing in front of crowds, then all of a sudden, it's just me.”
Embarking on a soul-searching journey led Chubi to discover wellness thru his older brother, who introduced to him the popular documentary “The Secret.” The film, in case you’re one of those who didn’t ride the wave when it exploded in the 2010s, discusses the “Law of Attraction”—which basically suggests that positive thoughts bring positive results into a person's life.
“When I started understanding the Law of Attraction, I began to realize that I have to start fixing this inner me,” Chubi tells us. He is 38 years old now but can still easily pass for a matinee idol. He is always smiling. He sounds engaging. If he did lose confidence at one point, it seems he gained it all back—and the universe threw in a bit more.
The change in mindset steered Chubi to discover Eastern philosophies, starting with yoga. He says yoga helped him deal with alcoholism. “A lot of my years in showbiz, I was drinking a lot,” he admits. “I was in showbiz from age nine to 24. Starting at the age of 13, I was already drinking.”
He continues, talking animatedly about the past: “I remember my mom was so concerned about me. She’s like, ‘Chubi, you’re drinking almost every night.’ I was drinking four to five times a week. Minsan umiinom lang ako mag-isa sa bahay. Meron akong isang long neck ng Emperador, tapos manonood lang ako ng ‘Oprah,’ iinumin ko yung [brandy] until like 7am. On other days, I would have drinks with friends. I would join beer-drinking competitions.”
His affinity with liquor didn’t escape the attention of his coworkers, he tells us. They’d point it out to him, if jokingly, that there were days when he looked fine and lean but there were times he looked bloated from too much drinking.
Seeing the light
As his showbiz journey went into that inevitable slow fade, Chubi just continued his drinking binges. “As you hit these low points in life, that's kind of when you see the light. Nakita ko, ‘Eto na naman ako, may hangover na naman ako. Ilang beses na naman ako uminom this week.’ Having experienced drinking so much…I realized that I had to get myself out of it. For some people, it can be challenging to get out of rock bottom. But for me, I just knew that there was something more for me out there. There was a calling for me.”
Yoga provided a way out of the rut. Chubi says it got rid of the toxins in his body and led him to a healthier lifestyle. “I got into yoga and eventually became a yoga teacher,” he says. “I got into Zen. I did meditation to clear the mind off these inner demons. I attended Vipassana—that’s 10 days of intense meditation, walang nagsasalita, which is a very, very interesting experience.”
Wanting to eat healthier, he explored adopting a plant-based diet and stuck to it for almost 10 years. “I just had to go off plant-based recently due to gut concerns, which is an effect of my alcoholism days pa, so I had to kind of fix that a bit,” he says.
About eight years ago, Chubi got into pranic healing, an energy “no-touch” healing modality, and became an instructor for that too. He just attended a pranic healing retreat last weekend with over a thousand participants from all over the world. He also got certified for life coaching and transformative coaching, as well as for teaching Vinyasa Yoga.
Completing his healing journey were psychology retreats, where he got to fix mental patterns and heal old traumas that developed thru the years.
“I'm at a point in my life now where I would say I found myself already,” he says, smiling. “I have explored so much in life. I’ve gone thru a lot of the hardships. A lot of those picking-myself-up moments. I’m at a point where I've started to flourish internally—emotionally, mentally, spiritually.”
Today he just wants to share his life journey and help others become better versions of themselves. He’s in the process of launching what he calls his passion project. “I'll be inviting people to my Facebook group soon. And eventually, I'll be launching a three-month program called the R.I.S.E. effect. It stands for Recalibrated, Integrated, Sensational and Embodied. It’s a four-step program to help people get into this holistic confident version of themselves,” he says.
What he’ll be sharing in the program will be a condensed version of his collective personal experiences, which include those from his show biz years, as well the knowledge he gained as a business, communication, and wellness practitioner. Chubi says he wishes to help Filipinos deal with their stresses, anxieties, and insecurities.
“What I had discovered when I was in my teens was that, there's always someone better than you. And so these were one of my insecure moments,” he says. “It got me thinking, even if I work harder to become a better actor, there's always going to be a better actor than me. So I was going down that rabbit hole and I was like, ‘When does it end?’ If I keep on comparing myself to other people, it really never ends.”
One of the biggest lessons he learned in life, says Chubi, is that one doesn’t need to be perfect, or great, to have inner strength and unshakeable confidence. “In recent events, we saw that literally anything can happen in a snap. You can lose money, fame, fortune. And so, what is the one thing that can't be taken away from you? It's that self-belief, that self-value that you give yourself,” he says, no longer sounding like a kid but a self-evolved grownup.
Chubi says it best in an Instagram post, “You just need to know that you're capable and willing to put in the work required for success. Inner strength is powerful—it allows us to look at our lives honestly and make changes when necessary so we can live our best lives possible!”
Photos courtesy of Chubi del Rosario