January is loud with urgency—the need to prove, to reinvent, to arrive all at once. By February, the noise softens, but the eagerness doesn’t disappear. The first half of the year still pulses with quiet pressure: to be seen, to stay relevant, to keep up with a world that never stops watching.
For Waynona Collings, this season marks a deliberate shift away from that glare. Her journey today is no longer about chasing milestones or performing growth for public consumption. Instead, it centers on choosing authenticity, protecting her mental peace, and allowing herself to exist without constantly proving her worth.
It’s a striking contrast to where many of us first met her. We remember Waynona inside the Pinoy Big Brother house, living under the intense scrutiny of cameras and expectations. When you stay too long beneath it, you risk shrinking yourself to fit the frame, slowly replacing your own voice with what the audience wants to hear.
For our #MetrosceneProfile this February, Waynona shows us what it means to step out of the blinding light and into something quieter, steadier, and more honest. Waynona is settling into a version of herself that feels real. In doing so, she reminds us that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is walk away from the spotlight—and listen to your own heartbeat again.
Crushin’
The transition from the high stakes of reality television to the hushed reality of everyday life can be jarring, to say the least. When you have lived under a microscope where every move and every word is dissected by cameras and strangers online, your survival instinct tells you to keep moving. There is often a lingering, quiet fear that if you aren’t being loud, you might be forgotten.
For Waynona, navigating this chapter with a sense of ease is her most rebellious act yet. She is choosing to be off on her own terms. The draining, frantic energy that used to define her past resets has been replaced by something much more sustainable.
“I’m not trying to reinvent myself or outrun my shadows anymore. I’m just settling into what actually fits now, which is being present. The chapters I’m leaving behind were loud and crazy. They were always about proving something or pushing through. This one feels steadier. There is less pressure to perform and more room to breathe,” she added. She admits that for a long time, she stayed in that loud lane because it felt safe in its predictability. “I realized I was feeling boxed in by things that used to feel fine,” she says. It is a trap many people fall into, believing that if you stay predictable and contained, you won’t disappoint anyone. But eventually, the box gets too tight. “I was holding back out of habit. I was getting tired of shrinking myself just to make the people around me comfortable. Once I noticed that, it was clear I needed more room to be honest.”
The Power of Wide Open Spaces
There is a specific kind of freedom that arrives only when you stop asking for permission to grow. Waynona is living proof of that shift, carving out space to discover layers of her personality that had remained hidden. At the same time, she was busy trying to meet a million different expectations.
There is a psychological lightness that comes when you stop over-explaining your choices to the world. When you stop justifying your peace, you suddenly find the energy to create something for yourself. “I’m discovering how much lighter I am when I’m not overthinking every move,” Waynona says. “I didn’t realize how much the noise was stifling my creativity. There is a new kind of confidence that comes from trusting my own gut instead of a comment section. It feels easy in a way I didn’t know I was allowed to have.” She pauses on that phrase, "allowed to have," as if realizing for the first time that the gatekeeper to her happiness was always herself.
For Waynona, growth in 2026 isn’t about a massive career break; it lies in the subtle, unglamorous, daily work of protecting her peace. It is the realization that better does not always have to mean more. “Right now, growth just feels like getting comfortable in my own skin," she continues. "It’s about small shifts, firm boundaries, and leaning into the things that feel real. I'm letting go of the things that don't matter to make room for the things that do. It is slow, steady, and real.”
Into The Unknown
By choosing the slow and the real over the fast and the fake, Waynona is quietly setting a new standard for what it means to be a public figure today. She is proving that boundaries aren’t just walls to keep people out; they are the pillars that keep a person whole. As she moves further into the year, she is being incredibly intentional about the energy she brings into her work and her life. She has consciously chosen a path that leads away from the modern culture of burnout and toward a life of alignment. She still wants momentum, of course, but she refuses to buy it at the cost of her mental health. “I’m carrying a very steady kind of energy into this year,” she says. “Less forcing, more trusting. I want the kind of success that comes from consistency and being aligned with my values, not from exhaustion. The focus is on showing up grounded and open,” Waynona noted.
While many people are terrified of an undefined future, Waynona has found it to be her greatest source of strength. Having spent so much time in forced, scripted environments, she now knows that the most beautiful things usually happen when you stop gripping the steering wheel so tightly that your knuckles turn white.
“If the stars align, they align. It’s about doing your part, staying open, and letting life surprise you,” she said. “No forcing, no overthinking. Just trusting that everything is working out exactly as it should.” Waynona is stepping into the unknown not with a map, but with a compass. She is telling us that she’s all right, and now she’s bolder, and she’s finally found her way. Her story isn't about the destination anymore; it’s about the beauty of the walk.
#MetrosceneProfile | Waynona Collings
Photographed by Miguel Alomajan (@migotilyomanila)
Creative Director Arthur Osin (@arthur.osin)
Art Director : Elwyn Baccay (@markelwyn)
Makeup by Ting Duque (@tingduque )
Hairstyling by Jan Edrosolan (@jan.edrosolan)
Assistant Ash Briones, Allan Sumaya
Styling by Studio 24C (@studio.24c) Melville Sy, Maita Baello, Chelsy Estrada, Zia Dela Rosa
Story written by Lanz Aron Bendaña (@la_bendana)
Special thanks: Nina Ferrer (@ninagferrer)
Video Production
Bloc 22 (@bloc22ph) Dani,Jeric Tan Villanueva, and Betchay
Set by Rocket Design Studio (@rocketsets)
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