Journal Entry Jan 9 2021 talking to the Universe when I'm sad and stuck

I know when things get hard or confusing I can always choose to be gentle with myself - I who just came to this world in this lifetime to experience things. I know I can let go of the pressure to become or serve or achieve anything or to 'work harder' to show my measurable worth to myself and others.

I don't have to pressure myself every day on finding the 'perfect career' that would 'fulfil my purpose' the most. I fulfil my purpose through the practice of just being. I fulfil my purpose by embracing the present moment so fully and openly and acceptingly. (My soul came here to learn after all)

Truly, I do not mind what happens. It can all be a kind of beauty in its own way, or at least, an interesting human experience. Nothing in this world or life is ever really 'mine'.

I find comfort in knowing that I can take life lightheartedly, living it as if it were a game.

I know life's blessings abound for me.

'Undesirable' things may come my way when least expected, but I can welcome and allow all to unfold in front of me, the 'good' and the 'bad', the 'exciting' and the 'boring' - I can embrace it all as it happens in the now. I do not have to look forward or wonder or worry about anything.

Appreciating the present moment is what will bring me peace. (Maybe that's what keeps me loving and gravitating towards spending time with those I love despite how much I also love solitude - the fact that when I am so engaged with them I think of nothing else that's past or future.)

Accepting things as they are. Allowing things to flow in their own genius way. The God in me (in everyone) sees and allows this.

I know that worrying is a prayer for the worst. And whatever that I do not want to experience in the future, I can hold space graciously for these possibilities and ultimately stop peering into the endless future. For happiness and contentment and peace will always follow me for as long as I anchor myself mindfully into the present moment. Peace and acceptance always come with (acknowledging, honoring) each precious present moment, and they set me oh so FREE.

I am free from my suffering when I give myself, my body, mind, spirit the chance to melt into and fully engage with the present moment.

No external change besides this choice and allowance can shift me into this amount of peace and freedom that I give myself.

So much gratitude I feel when I realize and remember this, this power.

There are not many other choices I need to make except this, and to be forgiving and compassionate towards myself and others. I do not have to tire myself with decisions.

When I DO experience wonderful and blissful, amazing things and miracles, the unexpectedness of it all would make them evermore wonderful and joyous.

This way, I can feel balanced at any time, and not thrown off by the intense polarities of my emotions and desires.

Even if I so painfully ache and long for something, I can choose to be okay with the fact that in that particular present moment, I am without this thing, and how strange but uplifting accepting that feels! At this rate, maybe I can always be okay, and maybe in some sense I never really need anything or anyone at all (to be content).

All that I DO truly need is already provided for by the Universe, who would never give me more than I can possibly handle.

Quarantine Diaries: Bliss and Gratitude.

Fully acknowledging I'm coming from a place of good fortune and luck as I write this. Obviously the Covid situation sucks for many, and even now as a laid-off employee I'm pursuing whatever funding I can so I might continue paying my rent. A lot of people and communities are definitely having it SO much harder though. May we always hold them and their struggles in our thoughts, and remember our privileges if we believe to be having them.

Pacific Spirit Forest

Painting nook in our house with some last rays of sun

All That Matters.

A 10-page journal entry I wrote right after my very first shroom trip. Did this because I want to always remember it, even the smallest details. As with many other things on this blog I hesitated for months after writing to post it up here. Undoubtedly some might find it unsettling, others might think 'been there, done that', but heck I'm just going to share what has been meaningful to myself, for people to take whatever they want from it - we all go through the same emotions anyway, and I believe sharing our stories is a potent way of connecting with one another. As a human collective we share whatever we experience. We are in this together, healing and growing. I am working on no longer shaming my own stories or hiding things I've been through. On being transparent, dissolving barriers and judgement, and trusting every other individual more intimately. To embody that there is no separation between anyone.

Thank you for reading.

Around this time a year ago I remember I used to hate the endless autumn and spring downpours in Vancouver. And I thought the snow was such a pain to trudge in. Loving the sun, I dreaded its early descents into the night at 4pm during the winters. Even a few months ago, I would shut all the blinds on my big windows whenever darkness fell, feeling unsafe from it.

Now it's different - now I think I love everything. It's all just beautiful

A Return To Love

[heads-up that this is a more vulnerable piece about my spirituality journey]

beautiful world from my room window

Following up from my last post, I'm writing this to express a return to love. The last post might have seemed like a frustrated one, but I assure you it's not. Even anger is a shade of love. Anger that comes from a place of fear or ego, is very much different from anger that comes from a place of love. How else are we to empathize with those who are mistreated and taken advantage of? Our anger on behalf of them is an intolerance towards violence and injustice, and is an act of compassion in itself. I have to constantly remind myself, whenever such a feeling starts to creep in, any feeling at all which we might mostly consider 'negative', to sit with it, feel it fully, and let it out healthily if I have to, and all the way, because to pent it in would allow it to latch onto us and so we'd be carrying it around for days, and risk letting it consume us.

Thoughts On The World - A Ramble

How quickly things can change over the course of a few months or a year! I mean this with regards to my 'sustainability' journey (and when I say 'sustainability' I don't refer just to the environment, but to the way we sustain ourselves, physically and emotionally, our relationships with ourselves, people around us, and of course, the earth). This meme I came across some days ago perfectly sums up one of those big changes:

Vegan Recipes, Waste-free (Savory Ver.)

Just some meals that I like to make, with as little waste as possible when buying their ingredients. Of course, always having a folded tote bag handy in my bag when I go out is a given! Or literally just anything to say no to plastic bags at check-out.

* - Bought at any grocery or farmer's market, with almost no plastic packaging (fruits and veg can be put directly into the cart without wrapping any of those flimsy plastics round it. they'll be washed later anyway! Glass packaging and metal cans can be recycled continuously unlike plastic that gets downgraded quality-wise each time it's recycled, til it finally can only be discarded)
* - Bought/refilled in bulk at a package-free grocery like Nada or The Soap Dispensary, reusing any container that I already own.
* - Refilled from the extensive bulk section at Save-On Foods grocery. I fill my plastics, transfer the food into my reused glass jars back home, wash the plastics and then bring them back to the grocery each time to keep reusing them.

So the pics here might not look the best because I've been getting by with dim lighting and my iPhone, but I promise they taste great!

SCRAMBLED TOFU

Intengine's Sustainability Leadership Congress - plus some deep topics

As more and more blessings pour in over these past few months, one of them was being funded (thanks to UBC Sustainability) last month to attend the Intengine Global Change Foundation's 2-day Sustainability Leadership Congress. Having taken away new showers of information and inspiration from this weekend, here I'll try to coherently condense 12 pages of my notes from the conference, into a single post. I'll mention from the get-go that sustainability talked about here was concerning literally everything to do with our lives - from the environment, to society, to economy, to our communication and connections with one another, to ultimately, love. So much thoughtful discussion was going on that it'd be a waste to not share it.

(My Personal) EASY Tips to Break Further Away from Plastic

While it definitely is great to see growing awareness and attention surrounding plastic pollution in the recent year or so - even in Southeast Asia which I'm super glad about, I think we're still a long shot from alleviating it, probably due to the common notion that a single action or a single individual 'doesn't make that much of a difference' when it comes to tackling this big of an issue. I'm a strong believer of the opposite opinion though, and have seen with my own eyes people changing (their mindsets, their habits) at least partially through following the examples that others around them set - and it's definitely a happy sight.

First I'll set the mood of urgency around this topic using this lovely infographic (I've started to LOVE infographics - appealing, visual, informative, condensed. Great communicators) about the whale in Indonesia that recently died, plus a nice lil tweet:

The Consumer's Choice - Yes to Circular Economies, No to Fast Fashion

Christmas brought me home to family and back to the urge to write. Here is once again a post where I ramble about more things I've learned over the past two(?) months.

First off I'm super thankful to have met and learned from amazing people who've helped broaden my horizons and sparked my interest in the other two pillars of sustainability - the economic and social. It's high time my mind was opened to encompass other fundamental fields into my vision of sustainability besides just the environmental one. I think it'd be most appropriate for me now to talk about circular economies and my new steer away from fast fashion.

In a nutshell of what I took away from a business-focused sustainability conference I attended last month, for the longest time the economy we live in has been very much Linear: raw materials are used to make things (resources & energy are used up) -> we buy these things -> things wear out (sometimes too quickly) -> we discard its waste (landfills get bigger, oceans get dirtier). Whereas in a Circular Economy that we strive towards, items are produced using renewable energy and non-toxic inputs, distributed using renewable energy, used by consumers ideally through leasing or sharing rather than ownership, reused/repaired at the end of their lifetime, and only then recycled. The design of new products would then incorporate these recycled materials, with a lesser need for raw materials. To illustrate:

Things I've Learned: Reducing Environmental Impact - How and Why

Following my last post in which I ended with a lot of questions on what my next steps should be regarding environmental action, once again I was blessed with all kinds of advice, help, inspiration and opportunities reaching out and pouring in and it was all amazing and has been helping to change my lifestyle into the way I wish it to be. The universe or God (or whoever you believe in) really does pave out the rest of the path for you and make things align in your favor if you're keen on and work towards a dream/goal enough while keeping gratitude at the same time. Really thankful for all the sources and people that have been helping me on my lower-impact journey. Over this summer I've been learning loads and trying to apply them to my life, and it'd be a shame or even a guilt to not at least try and share this new knowledge (well, new to me at least) in any way I can, so here is this post.

As condensed as I tried to make it, it first starts off with a list of environmental concerns and why certain things matter, followed by a list of tips & solutions to those concerns as well as some other things I've learned. They also answer questions I very often hear (though some of them weren't directed at me but my nosy self would like to answer them anyway!). These lists are copy-pasted from my Listography page :

Problems With Plastic & Other Waste

• plastic, made from fossil fuels, take a lot of energy to create and dispose of. An estimated 29% of U.S greenhouse gas emissions result from the manufacturing and disposal of plastic goods. 60-80% of marine trash also comes from plastic, which has been continuously killing all kinds of sea animals and birds who mistake them for food. [Images and stills by Chris Jordan below: Laysan albatrosses on Midway Island, with consumed plastics - including cotton buds - remaining intact even while their bodies are decaying.] A sad example is the whale in Thailand that recently died from swallowing 80 plastic bags.
  

More Things I've Learned + Thoughts: Consuming, Fossil Fuels, Climate Communication

I find myself lately typing down notes in my phone that I want to remember every time I learn/realize something new regarding environmental concerns. These scattered notes pile up until I decide it's time to lay them all out in one place, in a comprehensive way, for the purpose of reflection and sharing them with whoever might be interested. This is my prompt to write, and I do it here whenever I feel like it.
I'm not some expert on environmental impacts or climate change. If you are a pro environmentalist reading this, maybe you'll wonder why I write about such things that is basic knowledge to you or anyone who has long been involved in sustainability, but as I slowly learn more about these I'm compelled to share them in whatever way I can because there are people who do care about the earth but perhaps would like to know more in order to take concrete action, and I know how that feels because I only fairly recently got out of that directionless maze. I hope anyone reading the stuff I write can take away a thing or two that's helpful to them on their personal journey towards bettering themselves or our planet. So here are whatever lessons or thoughts that come to me, in point form if you don't mind, because I love lists and they're easier than stories or essays.

Canoeing Down The Fraser River

By some unexpected blessing, an application to the 3-day Rivers Clinic for Environmental Leaders (RCEL) program saw a small group of us UBC students going on a canoe-camping trip (courtesy of the UBC Sustanability Initiative!) over the weekend, along with students from other unis around Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. 18 of us - along with two coordinators and two canoe guides - made an unforgettable 60km paddle down the Fraser River from Fort Langley to Richmond's McDonald Beach Park in our two canoes, staying the nights out in our little tents. And every bit of it was fantastic.

On Change (A Reflection On My First Year At Uni Abroad)

(Note: this blog will likely get more textual than visual from now on. I'm in a writing phase.)

Now that it’s been a little over a month since first year ended, the days of summer school get warmer and go by quieter as most friends have flown home for the summer, taking with them the precious rowdiness that had filled my daily life with so much vibrancy throughout first year. A kind of lull settles in now, in a good way. Between classes and work, the summer somehow spares me time to bask in sun, in the outdoors, in books, and inevitably because of the quietness – in more of my own thoughts. I realize my passions for doing certain things (playing the piano, binge-watching films, reading voraciously, etc) approach me in waves, and now it is the wave of going back to writing.

On Empathy

[edit: took this down earlier bc of how 'vulnerable' it seemed but Amanda pushed me to re-upload it so here it is!]

Artistic expression holds such power to evoke empathy – empathy, one of the greatest emotions mankind is blessed with being capable of.

Untitled

The photo results of my piling makeup and fairy lights onto Mareena from the other day, plus some random, recurring (and irrelevant) thoughts:

Kyoto On Film.

In December 2016 my family and I made our second visit to Japan, this time in the winter and this time only to Kyoto. Despite the absence of the picturesque orange-red abundance that thoroughly blessed my eyes the last time we came to Kyoto during autumn, winter in this beautiful city and less bustling part of the country proved to be equally wonderful. Visiting temple after temple and shrine after shrine, and in between toasting ourselves up in any small but warm and cozy ramen or sushi restaurant (because almost every one serves quality meals, no matter which eating place on the street you choose to walk into. Makes meal-planning incredibly stress-free, really), all at our own slow pace to match the city's tempo of lifestyle, was real therapy.

Chatoyant.

verb(fr.) 1. to gleam like a cat's eyes

Pt. ii - Ineffable.

"Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish."
-Herman Hesse

Pt. i - Être fragile, être forte.

Happy new year everyone! Got inspired some months ago and December saw those ideas being turned into actions at last.