I am sitting in my comfy lounge chair on the balcony. The kind that reclines horizontally. I love that chair. I hear the birds chirping. Jacaranda flowers are blooming. The air is crisp after a brief moment of rain. The sun is high and hot. There’s no single cloud in the blue sky. I hear kids and adults playing soccer on the grass. My sheer curtains are dancing in the gentle breeze. Neighbors’ wind chimes are ringing softly. I’m wearing a white cotton tank, feeling the warm sun and the cool winds on my skin. My bee sting from Wednesday is healing okay. I’d just baked banana bread for me and a friend. She’s on her way. My door is unlocked to let her in. My room is filled with the sweet aroma. I’m just gonna sit in the sun until she arrives. I am journaling about the dream I saw last night. I’ve been having lots of vivid dreams lately. I sip on mint tea and take a deep breath. It smells like the beginning of summer, of something new and extraordinary.

#stories #vibes

Every night, I look at pictures taken a year ago today, two years ago today, three years ago today, and so on.

Five years ago today, my hands were covered in oozing eczema caused by a combination of anxiety, extreme stress, and an imbalanced diet. I was pouring all of my energy into things that weren’t mine. I was depressed and burned out. I was frustrated. I didn’t know who I was. I kept convincing myself, “This is what I want.” It wasn’t. By the end of that year, my ex-husband and I started living separately. We’d been together for fourteen years.

Four years ago today, I hiked to the summit of the Acatenango volcano in Guatemala and saw the sunrise. It was cold, misty, and unbelievably majestic. The climb was brutal because of the loose volcanic gravel. You take three steps forward and two steps back. My intuition had told me I needed to do something physically challenging to reach a particular realization, and I did. A couple of weeks later, I finally had the courage to tell my ex I wanted a divorce.

Three years ago today, I was healing from a sliced finger and a broken heart. I was supposed to meet and have a conversation with someone significant to me. The night before the alleged convo, I sliced my finger while cooking and spent all night at the ER. The incident must have been an ominous premonition. The conversation didn’t happen, leaving me saddened, unfulfilled, and unsettled.

Two years ago today, I’d been back home in Japan for two months. I caught COVID in late 2022 and needed to heal and recover under the care of my family. I had all these weird autoimmune symptoms and ended up staying for seven long months. I thought I was only staying for a couple of weeks at the most. During those months, I worked out and sweated it out, changed my diet completely, and rebuilt my foundation. I tackled the root causes of my health issues through trial and error without relying on prescriptions and temporary solutions. I also made painful visits to the past and faced my childhood traumas. It was some of the most emotionally difficult, lonely, and uncomfortable times of my life.

A year ago today, I was involved with a man who questioned my worth like no other. With him, I applied the lessons I’d learned from facing my parent wound head-on. In the brief period with him, I finally realized that what I knew to be okay wasn’t okay. This involved unlearning and re-learning of my lifelong beliefs. I was so overwhelmed once I reached the revelation that I couldn’t do anything for a month. I needed to heal. That was heavy but necessary.

Today, I am looking back at the past five years of my life. I am thankful for all the things I got to enjoy, experience, and overcome. I feel light, optimistic, and peaceful. I know that I earned this peace. I faced my demons. I didn’t run away from what scared me. I love the person I’m becoming. I love discovering unexplored parts of myself. I keep shedding and evolving.

#stories #healing

I’d just finished my potato samosas and baingan bharta. It hit the spot. So delicious and tasteful. I was surprised I was the only customer. Maybe it was too expensive for the locals.

I didn’t mind. I had the whole place to myself. After the meal, I sipped my chai and chatted with the host. I tried speaking to her in Spanish, but she responded in English. She was lovely. Her husband was the chef. He’d relocated from Northern India only a few months prior.

Halfway into the chai, I felt a visceral shift in the air. Two men had walked in. The entrance went like slo-mo. The younger man walked past my table and looked into my eyes. It was the most steady gaze I’d ever seen. Our eyes were locked. I couldn’t escape it. I seriously wondered if his eyes were made of seawater from different oceans. In those brief seconds, I began to remember things from the past that didn’t happen in this lifetime. Something much older. I didn’t know that was possible. I was experiencing this inexplicable nostalgia for his eyes.

The younger man joined his friend at a table next to mine. There were many tables, and all of them were empty. I found their choice odd, but maybe they were regulars, and it was their lucky table. I was the visitor after all. As I signed the check, they ordered a few items with the host woman. I was about to leave.

The older man asked me if I was local. I knew they were going to talk to me. I was going through difficult times back then (hence the travel), and I was more alert than usual. To my surprise, I felt relaxed by his presence. My guard was down. The conversation flowed.

The older man had soft, silver hair, with an even softer smile. There was something androgynous about him. Gentle, surreal, otherworldly, with a hint of madness. He was unlike any man I’d met. His body language was refined and open. Next to him, the younger man looked like an anxious little lamb with those big curious marine-like eyes. He was quiet during the conversation. I thought they were a father and a son.

Until they arrived, I’d made myself at home in the restaurant. I filled the space with my sole energy. The space was now transformed into something else. Something shared, with a quirky mix of tension, familiarity, and the kind of mutual understanding that I’d just learned existed.

“You are ready to enter the next phase of your journey,” said the older man. All my life, I’d been collecting dots unknowingly, from different experiences and lessons. When he said that, those sporadic dots connected inside me. I felt that. It was the first time I innately understood spirituality. Oh wow, I’d been a spiritual being this whole time.

The older man didn’t know anything about my circumstances. I didn’t tell him anything personal, actually. He knew. I got that because I have that in me, too. The intuition. The inner knowing. Being in his presence woke up that part of me.

When we parted, along with many other things, he told me, “You were born to save this planet.” I was overwhelmed and stressed by the comment. Legitimately. At the same time, it felt so right and so wrong, and I was scared and excited. I didn’t know what to make of it. I wanted to cool my head. I took the longer route back to my hotel, slowly walking through the small streets, vendors, tourists, and marimba performers at the plaza.

When I finally returned to my room, I collapsed into the bed and stared at the ceiling for hours.

#stories

I want to share with you what I’ve been up to. As the lunar new year approaches, I am looking back at 2024. It was a year of discoveries.

I modeled for a national insurance company. They hired me to model for their media library of stock photos. I came, posed, and made a month-worth of money in 30 minutes. At the set, I shook hands with a man, who I only later learned was a Hall of Fame baseball player from the New York Yankees. He was the brand ambassador. It was interesting to be on the other side of business. As an Art Director, I used to create marketing campaigns by accessing clients’ media libraries.

I was cast for the lead role in a short film. After the shoot, I told the young film director that I had never acted in my life. She was shocked and told me I was natural. I, too, was surprised at how relaxed I was. I enjoyed being the center of attention and was able to make everyone around me comfortable. I overheard someone saying “Acting is responding,” which still lingers in my head.

I volunteered as an energy healer at my yoga studio. There’s a class where healers with various expertise go around and offer healing during a yin yoga class. The opportunity to work as a healer came to me just when I was starting to feel like myself. Over the past year, I worked on so many people, from all kinds of backgrounds. My method of healing involves hands-on touch. The more I practiced, the more in tune I was able to connect. It feels like a silent energetic conversation.

I worked as a sales consultant at a fine art gallery. This opportunity felt fated. Last summer, I went into the gallery as a visitor and had an amazing conversation with an unassuming man who I later found out was the owner and curator. He then offered me the job. On the first day of that job, I worked 9 hours straight. There was an event nearby, and we had more visitors than usual. Well-spoken elders. Quiet collectors in Patagonia jackets. Passionate art lovers with pungent coffee breath. Newly-wed couples looking for the perfect painting for their bedroom. Influencer-type women in fits that slayed. I conversed with all of these people. And I was very good at it.

So why am I sharing this? Because all these experiences led me to realize my gift of connection through listening and talking. Most importantly, being my authentic self brought me all of these opportunities.

Authenticity is powerful. Only you can be you.

#shares #updates #stories

There was a man in gray hoodies sitting next to me in the waiting room One of his upper cheeks was pierced with a black piercing His backpack pockets had a bunch of crinkled tissue in them His eyes were glazed His vibe eccentric and otherworldly His body language chaotic, erratic, and anxious Saying random stuff whenever he wanted to Yet there was a sense of freedom to his energy

Nobody was talking in the waiting room Everyone staring into their phones To avoid looking at each other Dead silence

A song was playing on the speaker It must have been a playlist of 2000s hits He said to me, “I hope I will fall in love again” It was a part of the chorus lyrics I smiled at him and said “I hope I will, too.”

#stories #vibes

I had social anxiety as a low teen.

I started experiencing it after one of the biggest tragedies of my life.

There was a boy I was into. He was the captain of my school’s soccer team. Athletic, charismatic, and flamboyant. Beautiful hair, full lips, husky voice. He had strong thighs and calves like a proper soccer player. He wore a navy and orange Le Coq track jacket to his practice. He looked like young Gael Garcia Bernal, but East Asian. I was in love with him.

He became my boyfriend for like 2 months. It felt like heaven. We would go to the local mall for dates. He would walk me home from school, and we held hands. We planned our first kiss over the phone and made it happen the next day. Such little nerds! I never wanted it to end.

Then all of a sudden, he told me that he liked one of my girlfriends and he couldn’t be my boyfriend anymore.

Every day felt like darkness. It went from romantic to hopeless in no time. What even is the point of living, said my 12-year-old self. I’d never ever experienced that kind of pain before. I liked him so so much, yet I couldn’t have him. It was excruciating.

I don’t remember much from the following two years. I have no memories from the period actually. I was legitimately traumatized. It was shocking to my whole system and altered my way of being. Social anxiety was one of the outcomes I suffered.

Up until the boy came into my life and left, I was quite extroverted. Vocal, outgoing, and social. I loved to be around people and especially to talk to people. The experience completely changed me, and it took me a few years to sufficiently recover. I honestly feel like I’m still making my way back to the old me.

#stories #love #healing

I sleep a lot.

In my waking consciousness, my antenna is always on. I am constantly observing and connecting to everything around me. Most of the time, I am unaware of such activities. This is just my natural state.

When I’m engaged in a conversation, I give all of myself to whom I’m talking to. On the other hand, I often zone out to the point I fail to notice words said by someone who’s in my face.

When I hear a beautiful piece of music, or when I am immersed in nature, I get goosebumps and tears brim in my eyes.

When I am lying on the ground and feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, I am reminded of my past life as a living soul in a strange place with intense heat.

When I am in the presence of someone who is hurting, my heart aches, with tightness in my chest.

When I spend time with someone who is very negative, my neck and shoulders turn stiff and I experience pain and fatigue the next day.

I’ve learned to manage the influence of outside energies all my life, but especially the past couple of years as my awareness has grown even further.

It is exciting to be me. Yet very exhausting. I don’t know how to turn my antenna off.

That’s why I need a lot of sleep.

#stories

My great-grandmother was a traveling psychic and a shaman.

I learned this for the first time just when I was about to leave home for the airport to return to LA. I’d been back home in Japan for 7 months for health recovery.

I never got to meet her, my great-grandmother. She was my father’s grandmother. I was told she was loved by her children and grandchildren. She would travel all over her town and perform rituals in people’s homes. She would use drums and other instruments and props as part of her spiritual rituals.

When I learned this, I felt the dots connecting within me. The dots I’ve been collecting as I move through life. They suddenly made sense. It’s in my blood, the gift. I’ve always felt that in my heart. In my soul.

She’s been with me this whole time.

#stories #ancestors

It was a chilly winter day. The sky was gloomy and the temperature was low. I met him near the Venice canals just before sunset.

He called himself a scientist from the hood. He really was. He was a lab chemist and grew up in Compton.

It was a second date. We sat at a table in the patio of a Mexican restaurant. He talked about his upbringing in South Central LA and some very complex and sophisticated processes of his work. He showered me with a collection of terminology I’d never heard of. I remember watching the flames in the fire pit and thinking, “I’m lost.” Like, was I just given an episode of podcast about science all to myself? While sipping on a margarita and munching on stale tortilla chips on a cold winter afternoon? Maybe.

My date was polite. There was sweet innocence to his nature. In contrast to his good manners, his body, though compact, had a sturdy athletic build. His hair was as wild as his passion for science. His skin had the kind of darkness only the world's most powerful kings deserve.

We left the restaurant and started walking towards the beach, still hoping to catch the sunset. Then I immediately sensed tension in the air. There was a man coming towards us with no shoes on. He locked his eyes with me. “Oh shit,” I said.

His head was shaved unevenly. His face was covered with dirt and anger that had nowhere to go. He was screaming derogatory words and phrases at everyone who passed him. And now, he’s found another target.

“Fucking chink” he shouted. At me, of course.

The Scientist from the Hood was furious. He acted as if he was the direct receiver of the disrespect. He took it personally, to his heart.

Me, not so much. Actually, not at all. The man with no shoes kept saying horrible, nasty things to me. Even I was surprised that did not affect me. I remained calm the whole time.

Right there at that moment, I remembered the time in college I received a compliment from a man at a grocery store. “You look like Lucy Liu,” he said to me. He meant well, although I look nothing like her. But my younger self was hyper-race-sensitive and believed the praise was culturally inappropriate. I was naive. If it happened to me today, I’d gladly accept the flattery. I mean, Lucy Liu is a gorgeous woman. But back then, I found the man’s innocent yet ignorant comment offensive and took it personally just like my date.

So much has happened to me since college. A few years ago, I decided I was not to take personally of negativity thrown at me by those I don’t respect. It was a conscious decision. The experience with the shoeless man and the reaction of my date only assured me of my growth. I was happy. I was proud of myself.

Needless to say, we split for the day. We never saw the sunset. I drove home drenched in joy, alone.

And I never saw the Scientist from the Hood again. I sincerely hope he’s doing well because I am grateful for the meaningful nuance he added to my epiphany.

#stories #healing

When I was in my late 20’s, I was offered a full-time position at a global ad agency. It was my first six-figure salary.

I was given a glorious job title, doing creative work for renowned brands, in a posh office in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.

With the money, I was able to afford to shop and lunch at nearby spots every day and live comfortably.

Soon enough, I found myself feeling out of place, totally disconnected from everyone around me in the office.

The people were nice. I didn’t receive any direct treatment that was unpleasant. But there was something off about some of them. I couldn’t really put that into words at that time.

And I blamed myself for feeling that way because I was young and unable to trust my judgment. I felt guilty for not vibing with my colleagues and the atmosphere of the office.

Every morning, I dreaded going into the office. I felt so alienated although many “nice” people surrounded me.

A couple of months after my start date, I decided to make up a fake reason and resign from the job. I was terrified about lying just to quit. I didn’t want to burn any bridges.

Years went on. I saw a headline on LinkedIn. A head of an agency was accused of harassment and was fired, along with a few other men who partook in the action. It was the agency I lied to leave.

#stories