Letting Go, Letting God - March 26, 2006

Ever since I was very little, I’ve suffered from a shoulder pain on the left side. I remember that it would always hurt when I played the piano. The pain was never unbearable, but it would always be there, whenever I’m just about to forget about it, subtlely creeping on me, as if it had a little voice of its own.

One year in college, after several years of regular teen-age partying craze, my shoulder problem took a sharp turn south… One day, after seeing a physical therapist, my shoulder, along with my entire neck and several vertebrae on my upper back, felt like a stack of cubes unwinding in all different directions. I could feel that each vertebrae was dislocated in a different and funny way, and the result was – sharp shooting pain whenever I try to turn my body in any direction! This pain persisted for months and I got really desperate. I tried many different doctors and pillows and massages. Nothing was helping. At moments the pain was so intense I was going hysterical. Several months later I was diagnosed to have rheumatic heart disease, a disease in which some valve in the heart doesn’t close properly because it has hardened. Wow! My heart was hardening! In retrospect, I see the symbolism behind the illness to be that there was a deep lack of love in my life, so deep that the heart has decided to shut off all flow of energy and therefore grew hard!

I don’t remember the exact time now, but about more than six months later, I met my Chinese bone and “gua sha” doctor, who slowly treated my back and heart problems. For several years I had this treatment, which really worked on me and I was slowly healing. The pain diminished. My heart problem got better. I had enough energy to work long hours and do regular activities. I was told by this bone doctor that, because of the way my back was out of alignment, I wasn't supposed to bend my back backwards. And it really was the case, for, whenever I did try to bend it backwards, it would hurt a lot and feel like the bones have gone completely berserk and I would need to get it adjusted again. So for about six years now, I did not allow myself to engage in any risky backbending activities.

About a year ago I met a healer and have since embarked on a journey of tremendous healing and spiritual awakening. There has been many ups and downs throughout the journey, and, although there were moments of seeming darkness, every step was a step closer to more light. My heart and upper back problem (they’re interrelated) surely came up in my healing journey, in fact, it is one of my core issues that needs healing. In short, my heart problem led me to heal my relationship with my mother, which is one of the root causes of my disappointing romantic relationships. The issue with my mother involves my grandmother, for ever since I was a child, I was resentful of the way my mother was treating my grandmother. What I chose to perceive as a child and internalized on an unconscious level, was that my mother was a sinner. And to play “let-me-carry-this-burden-I-am-a-martyr” role, I decided (unconsciously of coz!) to carry her sin on my own back, while carrying loads of resentful feelings towards my mom. When I was a child, I used to stay up all the time at night crying over my grandmother. Looking back, it’s incredible to see how issues can develop into as we grow up!

Recently, I’ve been praying for more healing to my heart. I was becoming impatient with the progress of the recovery of my back pain, as it continued to hurt. At times, I was even losing faith in all this healing work. In retrospect, I understand that there is a divine timing to all progresses in life.

In one of my Rainbow Warrior classes with Eva, this issue came up and I was reminded by Spirit that it is time to set myself free from carrying this psychological burden or "backpack", which does not serve me any longer. The night after that class I had a really vivid dream. In the dream, my mother, grandmother and I traveled together in a train which traversed through a tunnel, and on the train, I was carrying my grandmother on my back. The train came to a stop and my grandmother unloaded from my back. She said to me, “You don’t have to carry me anymore.”

Two days later, I went to a Yoga class. I’ve always had a fear about doing Yoga because of my perceived inability to bend my back, however, my heart’s been telling me to do Yoga for a while, and so I decided to give it one more try. During the class, I asked my spirit guides to give me the courage to do each posture. Then came this simple backbending/stretching posture, and I thought to myself, so if I really screw it up again, I will just go to the bone doctor and get it fixed (and that has been exactly what happened in the past!) As I embraced my fear and performed this posture, I burst into tears of release and relief! The repressed energies in my back were released like a dam broke loose. In my third eye, I saw my spirit guides clapping their hands in the air, they were applauding me for having reached a new milestone of my journey! I walked out of the yoga class with a new body and it’s been feeling like that since.

The journey does not end here. The journey will continue. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is not. But again, every step is a step closer to more light. This is my journey, what is yours?

Meditation: Rediscovering Our Eternal Flame - March 7, 2006

Recently I've been reading stuff written by Osho, who greatly advocates meditation. So I thought I'll write a lil' something on my experience with meditation. I first learned to meditate from my Reikidou Naturopathy ("gua sha" as is more commonly called) master who taught us a way to practice Qigong which is basically a meditation that focuses on taking long deep breaths to and from the solar plexus. When I first experienced it, I found it very hard to sit still for more than five minutes. After several uncomfortable attempts, I quickly gave up. It was not until I started to heal myself emotionally and spiritually that I slowly fell in love with the simple act of meditation.

Much has been written on the benefits of meditation. To me, meditation, like my pendulum, helps me reconnect with my true self or inner being. When I find myself feeling a lil' under the weather, I meditate to re-experience that eternal flame of joy within my soul that never sleeps. When I'm under stress or getting emotional or grumpy, I meditate to restore my balance such that I can move forward once again with strength and trust. I like to think of meditation as a way of turning off the mind and turning up the volume of our inner voice. When I find myself unable to make certain decisions in life, I meditate to speak with my inner being for the answer that is most true to myself, myself alone.

Finally, meditation is just great, it doesn't cost any money, it takes up very lil' space (you can sit, lie down or even stand!), it generates great value by making me happier and lighter afterwards, and it doesn't actually take up any time of all - it functions in a space of non-time. Because when we meditate, we become fully conscious of the present moment, we experience pure existence which is only possible in the Now. The present moment isn't actually a function of time, there's no continuum to it. The Now is constantly moving into the future, and moving away from the past. It is not the past or the future, it is all there is. The only way to experience it is to be in it, with it, become it. So next time, when you meditate, let your concept of time fall away, and focus on how you feel in this very precious moment which only you can grasp. And when you start to feel your heart swell with joy, you know you're home.

Looking back, I can hardly conceive that I once found meditation to be difficult. But that is only normal and I'm sure many of you must have felt this way sometime in your experience with it. It's almost like saying that sometimes, everything around us is so distracting and overwhelming (busy schedules, other peoples' needs, media's injection of fear in us, etc..) that it becomes even difficult to just be ourselves. Because meditation is sort of a way to just BE ourselves, completely, 100%, without any distractions whatsoever.

Let me share a quote with you by Osho before I part on this topic - ".. when a person meditates he starts flowering. If he is a painter, he will become a great painter. If he is a poet, then suddenly tremendous poetry will arise out of his soul. If he is a singer, for the first time he will sing a song that is close to his heart's desire. When you are silent, rooted in your being, centered, your talents automatically start functioning... You become spontaneous. You start doing your thing - and now you don't bother whether it pays or not, whether it makes you more respectable or not. It makes you happy, and that's enough. It makes you tremendously joyful, and that is more than enough"

(Painting by Sofan Chan - "Forest of Light")

What is Healing? - February 20, 2006

Since I started healing myself, I have had so many healing experiences, from regular energy healing sessions to all kinds of self-awareness workshops, to meditations (group and self), to getting sick (that’s healing too!) and to sitting through events in life that forced me to face many hidden fears. I am not going to discuss the different healing modalities I’ve tried, there are just too many! It is not my point here to discuss them today, for, as Eva has said, and so it is my belief as well, that literally anything on the planet can be healing, so long as you choose it to be...

Healing is a way of living where we consciously choose to look within ourselves for answers to issues in our lives. Healing is living in the moment, rather than in the past or future. Healing is walking closer to love, and farther away from fear. Healing is sitting in pain and understanding it. Healing is kissing your fears and realizing that they are only your illusions. Healing is seeing beauty in the not beautiful and seeing extraordinary in the ordinary. Healing is letting go of something precious, and then having it back triple-fold, because in the process we realize that nothing is ever lost. Healing is becoming vulnerable so that we can become stronger, happier, more peaceful, which is our natural state of being. Therefore, healing is re-becoming our true self.

I believe that suffering exists in this world only for us to learn to heal ourselves. We fall such that we will one day rise again. Therefore diseases are healing, as they teach us to grow, to live in the moment, and to trust. Dying is also healing, because through dying, we are forced to embrace the fear of death and to recognize that we are not separate but connected, whether in one lifetime or another. I've also read that some people like to use death as a motivator of change. Because if you just remember that we will all die one day anyway, then what excuse do you have to not choose to live your life in joy, but choose to waste time molding over the past, which no longer exists, and planning a future, which may not ever exist?

Healing is not to be sought, healing seeks us, and it is courage that allows us to see it.

(Photograph by Vicky Yeung)

Is this Another Groundhog Day? - February 5, 2006

If you have seen or remember the movie “Groundhog Day”, it talks about a man who had to relive the same day in his life over and over again until he undergoes a transformation of self-discovery. Reality is sorta like that too. Things seem to repeat themselves over and over again. We tend to attract similar situations or people into our lives. We get pissed off or annoyed over similar things, we get cheated in a similar way, we worry about the same things, we injure the same ankle over and over again etc… So why is it that life has chosen to be so ‘predictable’ in some sense? If I were to tell you, that life or our higher self (an unconscious part of our psyche which I identify as the driver of our conscious reality) is always looking out for us, serving us in our best interest, and that therefore these seemingly boring repetitive patterns in our lives are merely their best attempts to keep us in balance, will you believe me or shun me to hell?

Every one of us has chosen to come to this planet to learn some lessons, therefore even though some may seem to be happier, smarter, richer, luckier than others, we all have our fair share of challenges. Unfortunately, life isn’t exactly like a school course where whatever we are supposed to learn are spelled out on a syllabus on the first day of class. But even in school, we may get pop quizzes with test questions that blow us away if we haven’t paid attention during lectures. And life does also sorta function in a similar way here. We have to pay attention to what is going on around us. We have to be aware.

Repetitive patterns are clues to our core challenges. It’s our higher self’s or "fate’s" way of letting us know that something’s out of balance of which the underlying issue wants to come to light. In order to restore balance in our lives such that the pattern can be broken, we gotta first become aware of the issue, understand it, learn the lesson behind it, and finally, let it go. Sometimes the lesson may be to forgive someone or to forgive yourself through releasing self-guilt for something you may have done in the past. Sometimes the lesson maybe to learn to speak out our feelings, for the sake of learning to love ourselves enough that we are willing to speak up despite risking rejection or humiliation by others. For example, injuring our foot has to do with us having fears of moving forward in life because the foot is responsible for moving ahead. Recognizing this fear and then releasing it by learning to trust that everything will be ok in the future will help to restore balance into our lives. The list goes on and it is for you to explore what your challenge is. Awareness, my friend, is the key. Until then, time stands still.

Why Do People Get Angry? – January 30, 2006

People who get angry easily really have a lot of sadness inside, because anger is actually a mask of fear or sadness that hasn’t been expressed or released. Remember the last time you were angry at someone, was that someone you cared about or loved? Or was that someone whose view of you you cared very much about? I get angry at my parents for telling me to do something that I don’t want to, because deep down I feel threatened that if I didn’t do what they wanted me to do, they wouldn’t love me for the way I am. Sometimes lovers get angry at each other easily because when we are in love, we care alot about how much love our partner has for us, so whatever they do that threaten to say that they don’t love us, could make us feel angry. Or if a good friend decides to keep something from us, we get angry because we are scared our friend no longer treasures us as her good friend. Feelings are afterall feelings and cannot be easily explained by the rational mind. Some of us are more sensitive and others are not. There is no right or wrong to how we feel about something, we are the way we are. So next time if someone you care about get angry at you, tell them it’s ok they are angry (even if you really don’t get it!), rather than trying to explain why they shouldn’t be, and watch for the wonderful miracle - their anger will go away much more quickly! Because all we need is a bit more love and acceptance, however way we choose to express ourselves.

(Photograph by Vicky Yeung)

Swinging with the Pendulum - January 8, 2006

Meeting it at a nightclub:

My first encounter with the pendulum was at a night club where someone used it on me to tell when I will get married. I soon fell in love with this supernatural gadget and was swirling it on everyone-I-know’s palm and fortune telling their marriage age. To be honest, my accuracy so far is actually not bad, probably teeing in the seventies. But anyhow, I am not here to boast how accurate I can get with it in telling others’ future. What seemed just a little toy turned out to be much more.


Telling the future or tapping our hearts?

Learning to use the pendulum for me was a journey unto itself. Like many people, I wanted to know what the future holds for me. Why wouldn’t I? The future seems to hold all these wonderful things, finding the perfect mate to settle down with, becoming rich, changing to a better job, having children, moving into our dream home etc… So, in no time after I mastered swinging the pendulum, I was having every major and minor future events read for myself. Very soon I realized that none of what my pendulum ‘predicted’ came true and that all its answers were but projections of my own expectations of how my life should be based on others’ beliefs, past conditioning and more often than not, my fears developed from past events. As reality bit me, I figured that this little tool cannot actually read our future, what it can do however, is something far more wonderful - the ability to tap into our hearts.

What served as a fortune-telling tool, later served to teach me how to co-create our own realities by connecting with our inner voice, or our heart. Our heart is the key to our happiness and ultimately our future or destiny, for whatever we desire we can create, so it is very important to develop a clear communication with it. This may seem to be easy, but many of us have lost our abilities to listen to our hearts because we lead such busy lives and are constantly influenced by the thoughts and projections of people in our environment, society’s conditionings, beliefs acquired from past experiences that may not necessarily serve us at present or the future. So instead of asking my pendulum when something will happen, I ask for guidance on what steps to take that will take me closest to being happy. Oftentimes, what our heart tells us may not initially seem to be the good or right thing for us - I call that the battle between the heart and the mind. But, it is important to learn to trust it, follow through with it and then just let things unfold. With practice and trust, our heart will guide us to many wonderful things. Afterall, it is more important to be happy than right, as all we really have is the now, and who knows what will happen tomorrow.

Learning to follow our hearts in life also calls for letting go of certain fears, because sometimes we sabotage ourselves from even wanting to be happy because we are scared of change, scared of the consequences of doing that which makes us happy. Fear is but a creation of the mind, for whatever we fear will not come into existence until we follow through with the action of which we fear, and see it for ourselves. And if whatever we fear does come true (and this could happen because what we fear we become!), find out what we are really afraid of, acknowledge that it exists and understand why it is there. It may not necessarily go away immediately, but at least we understand it. And in time, step by step, with increased awareness, we will no longer have to live under its shadow. It is only when we try to run away from it by pretending it is not there, that it keeps running after us.

(Painting by Toni Carmine Salerno - "Towards Eternity")