LITTLE THINGS MAKES BIG THINGS

Tags

actions, Christian women today, faith, faith without action is dead, Give your best and god will do the rest, marriage

This photo was taken when we attended the Hot Air Ballon Festival 2017 last February. It’s a miniature hot air ballon put up together and it’s really really beautiful.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed when I think about rebuilding the church here in Penang Malaysia where we were sent to as a young missionary and leader .As a leader, as a mother and a wife, as a sister, I got discouraged when I don’t get the response or result that I am expecting in different areas of my life.

After listening to the lesson shared by my husband,  I am reminded that I just need to do little things, and God will bless that and make things bigger!

I think through out the years I forget God works that way …

of course when we talk to people we Say that… “just do you best and God will do the rest”…
it’s like a template when someone express to you something.. you immediately reply that. I’m not saying that we are lying when we say that .. we meant that and we believe that but subconsciously our minds doesn’t…and our action doesn’t follow..

Do I really believe that I just need to do my best in my quiet time and in loving others, in my job in my marriage and God will do the rest???

There’s two extreme and I think sometimes I’m in other extreme the other times the other one…

Here’s the 1st…
Some of us.. we trust God we tell ourselves trust God! We pray God I trust you help me to trust you.. God will do great things.. God is good all the time! God will do the rest! but we never do anything, we don’t give our best we don’t act on our faith..

In my marriage, sometimes I trust God that god will help my marriage that he will change my husband one day! I expect, but
I don’t do anything, i don’t really pray for it, I’m not open about it.. I don’t decide to love my husband as a godly woman.. I don’t decide to get help then I really see that my relationship with my husband is going down!

Some of us..in our marriage, we come to a pint that can we question God and we got bitter! God I trusted you so much, how come u let my marriage become like this? But what have you done in your part?

The other extreme is this.. Maybe the first part yes.. some of us we do our best .. 120% do your best! Work hard!! But the second part.. God will do the rest! The second part requires trusting God..we have difficulty..

If I believe that God will do the rest .. Then why I got so anxious and want to be in control with everything and got so discouraged and no faith so easily??? Why am I so impatient of God?

even doing my best sometime is not enough.. why ?? because I thought if I do my best.. that’s the only thing I need things will get done! so I got tired and forget that God is there! Forgot that it’s not just through my efforts but also Gods power and will.

Then some of us the attitude becomes like.. I’ve done that before! I got burnt out ! I got hurt I don’t want to try anymore.. I give up!

Let young Christian do it not me.. been–there-done-that attitude… that’s our faith now you know!!! Married couple need to go on a date???No.. that’s for honeymooners not us!

We become faithless, self focus , independent and self centered! We acted on our experiences and not out of trust anymore.

Everytime I’m in extreme I realized The reason I get tired Is because I’m doing the work alone!!!it’s not suppose to be that way! God’s Holy Spirit want to work with me together!!

My question to myself is this: Why do I need to carry all these and want to do big things on my own if God can do that for me???

I just need to start small. God knows my capacity and my limitations so he knows we only can do so little..

If i be in both extreme I cannot be happy and God cannot use me.
This reminds me of my little victories when I am a young Christian:
Examples:

1. A have a classmate when I was in university, I gave her a book in wanting to reach out to her and in turn ask her to study the bible. She became a Christian now she in US doing great spiritually there.
2. Before graduating that year We decided to just Evangelize in many campuses that week. We met a guy.l who is so open .. he got baptise, praise God!!! He even baptised his classmate after that and after few years become his girlfriend.
3. Here’s another one. There’s this guy who just got baptised in the campus ministry and he seems so quiet and serious. So me I am just a year old as I Christian I said I will be encouraging to brothers even to brothers that I’m not interested in especially young Christian because they need encouragement.. So this brother I ask him for a spendtime and Someone organised a date and change it to a date. We had a great date, he was friendly and a bit quiet still for me that time.. surprisigly After a month he ask me for a date again! I think this brother likes me right?? Hmm After five years we got married! You all know who he is! He become my coleader mission partner and a father of my child. If I didn’t encourage that young Christian brother 12 years ago I I will not be standing here speaking today.

I need to do little things that God can bless.. the big things he is the only one who can do that.. the glory is not mine! God does that because God want to be partners with us!

But if I want to se victories I need to act into something! And not just wait for God to do a big miracle!!

Why do you want to be cool and betray yourself?

Tags

acting cool, authenticity, Brene Brown, cool is a straightjacket, dance, facebook, fear, joy, social media coolness, social media effect, song and dance, vulnerability

 

 

I hate people who act cool, want to look cool, talk only to people who are cool, comment on post that are cool, post on social media only cool stuff, refuse to be seen as someone uncool, look down ridicule or even shame people who are not cool.

I hate them because I am one of them. Sometimes.  I know. I am not cool! At all! But I want to be cool and act cool and be approved by peeps who are cool.

We want to be like that dude who is so cool. We want to be his friend and want him to see us as someone who is sooo cool!

But who is cool anyway? Who define coolness? What does it take for someone to be cool? Who sets the standard of who is cool and who is not?

Sometimes the person we thought cool Don’t even know they are cool..

The sad thing about this is that more and more people are becoming like this.

I am definitely like this when I was in my teens and early twenties. I am thirty years old now and I have to admit that I still feel the same not as bad a 10 years ago of course.

Sometimes I find myself composing a post in social media and I try my best to sound cool..So other people can find it cool and my post will be more likeable.

We try hard just to sound so cool in our post in social media, we talk to people who we know are cool in a cool way.. Even in the expense of being true to ourselves.

When your post was not liked by people who you think are cool.. You think twice and tell your self, I am not cool enough, I need to be more cool! or I should not have said that or included that sentence, maybe that will sound more cooler.

Sometimes we base our self worth on being cool. If we are cool, we are interesting, we are worthy to others , we are intelligent, we are not so affected by others.

I google the definition of coolness and it says,

” it is neither too cold nor hot”.

Its seems to me that society views coolness as to be able to always in control of your emotion. Doing fun and not “childish ” no so “mushy” stuff, saying safe and funny things all the time. Engaging in fun and adventurous activities. Being able to always be in control.

If you show too much emotion, whether its too happy or too sad.. you are not cool.

If you seems to not get hold of your emotion whether its happy or sad or angry or discouraged..you are not cool.

If you are too loud or too excited.. you are not cool!

People who considers themselves cool will be uncomfortable when someone shows too much emotion. Or even sometimes when a person is too real..

What is the danger of this?

According to Brene Brown (A Shame and Vulnerability expert)

“Wanting to be perceived as cool isn’t about wanting to be “The Fonz”—it’s about minimizing vulnerability in order to reduce the risk of being ridiculed or made fun of.”

Excerpt From: Brene Brown. “The Gifts of Imperfection.” iBooks.

You see, we try to be cool and love cool people because we hate being vulnerable. We are not comfortable with vulnerability.

I want to be vulnerable! I do but it’s just so difficult. It’s difficult because a lot of people surrounding me don’t know how to deal with vulnerability and not comfortable with it either. But I believe they want it. In fact I think they crave it just like I do.

The thing is we can’t be real to one another because we have this thing called ” coolness” that stops us to be genuine to one another.

Sometimes when I have the urge to be kind to someone or compassionate to someone, I see myself pausing thinking what other or even this person will think of me. That I’m too soft, dramatic or that kind of thing if I will act this way.

“When we value being cool and in control over granting ourselves the freedom to unleash the passionate, goofy, heartfelt, and soulful expressions of who we are, we betray ourselves”

Excerpt From: Brene Brown. “The Gifts of Imperfection.” iBooks.

Yes when we try to fit in to the people we want to impress, we betray ourselves.

What I realised that even for me, before I thought maturity is based on being able to handle your emotion just by yourself, crying alone, solving your problem independently without the need of others and then you tell them afterwards when you already figured out yourself.

The tougher I am the cooler I am. That’s the message I have in my mind or maybe with some of us.

But as I grow older, I realised that maturity and real positive growth is being able to express your true feeling without thinking of other people perception of you. True maturity is about not handling your problem and emotions alone but being able to show what is really happening to someone you trust.

We suppress our real self. Our real expression, real emotions and that stop people from connecting to us. Typing this makes me emotional because I see it so rampant now a days to view coolness as the norm.

I think I will always have the tendency to feel like I want to fit in and I want to be regarded as a cool lady, cool mom, cool wife but I need to remind myself that this is not what i really want and not what i really need.

I need to stop myself from contributing to this society that cultivates coolness.

So far here’s what helps me in practicing to be more authentic.

• Dance and sing even other people are looking. Me and my husband dance together with our almost 1 year old baby at home and sings to her even we are in public.
• When I try to compose a social media post and find myself editing it to sound cool, I delete the suppose to be cool post and write what I truly feel.
• When I am talking to someone and I want to sound cool, I talk to myself and say relax and just be yourself.

I want to be an example for my child. I want her to be real, able to express herself. Able to dance, be goofy, get crazy over something she loves and embrace life challenges with the opportunity of crying with someone.

I WANT HER TO BE FREE. 

I don’t want to teach her that being cool is an achievement instead I want to tell her that it is a betrayal.

I WANT HER TO KNOW THAT BEING COOL IS BEING HERSELF.

Want to end this post by quoting this:

“The Hopi Indians have a saying, “To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.” I know how much courage it takes to let people hear our hearts speak, but life is way too precious to spend it pretending like we’re super-cool and totally in control when we could be laughing, singing, and dancing.
”

Excerpt From: Brene Brown. “The Gifts of Imperfection.” iBooks.

When is too much knowing becomes destructive?

Tags

connection, fault finding society, flaws, gifts, knowledge is destructive, label, listen, love, mistakes, shame, strengths and weaknesses

Sometimes we cannot just simply brush off people’s feedback and opinion just because of their weaknesses and our knowledge of the way they are personally. Specially for those people we LOVE. For those people “we thought” we know best.

Though it’s helpful to know a little bit more, when do we know when too much knowledge is destructive? Destructive to our connection to one another.

When we know a person, whether that person is close to you or you got to know them from other people, we either use that information to connect to them, empathise with them or use that information to LABEL them.

We LABEL people based from their looks, accent, race, history, background, or recent mistakes and failures in life.

We focus on each others weaknesses instead of each others strengths. We know exactly and in a very detailed way what are the flaws and mistakes of one another. And of ourselves.

We may not label them, but we try to fix them, we try to “fix” those people we love because we are so in tune on what they need to improve in.

Guys we are not all human experts! We are not all counsellors or psychiatrist.

If we do that to one another, connection will slowly weaken and society of scarcity will thrive.

What I am realising more and more is that we are living in a “fault finding society”. There is always someone to be blamed.

Knowledge is destructive sometimes..

Knowledge is power, both positive and negative power.

We are our friend’s friends. We are our neighbor’s neighbor, our sister’s sister , our mothers and fathers daughter / son. We are our husbands wife or our boyfriends girlfriend.

We need to listen! As friend would listen.

If we don’t listen and we just blame things on the way the person talking, there no more dialogue, no more conversation, no more understanding and so connection becomes impossible.

 Weaknesses of people doesn’t define them and that doesn’t make them less. Yes, So yourself too.

Sad truth is most of us including myself  use other peoples weakness and use  that to not take our own responsibility and to dismissed what are they saying.

We need to use knowledge in the right way.

Believe in people, have hope that they can change and there still good in them.

I want to grow more on this. To look at a person more deeply and see their gifts and strengths more than their flaws. To believe in them and to see hope in them.

I know its not easy but I believe thats the way it should be. If we want to go back to one another, we need to LOVE people go you they are, not just one sided. We love them not just accepting their flaws but by recognising their strengths and seeing theirs gifts as unique individuals.

You Are Not Your Body

Wow, watch this video guys.. It is so inspiring so I need to share this.

Kudos Janine Shepherd
Line that impacts me: “When you let go on what we think we are, we become what we might be -LT.”

Talk about unending possibilities ! It make me get excited to dream and to use the spirit and will in me.

Go girl!!!

Out of a Great Need

Wow!  This video was included in Asha International’s newsletter post today.  I just had to share…fantastic video!!!

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Courage, Compassion and Connection

Tags

Brene Brown, Compassion, compassionate, connection, courage, fear, gifts of imperfection, numbing, shame, vulnerability, wholehearted living, worthiness

We Just finished our women’s bible talk tonight and our topic is

Courage, Compassion and Connection Are the gifts of imperfection!

In Breńe Browns research, wholehearted people practices these 3 Cs. In order for us to grow in our worthiness, we need to practice these 3 Cs.

Because of our imperfection/ weaknesses/ vulnerabilities , we can embrace connection, compassion, courage.

When I had a bad day because I did a terrible mistake or I just simply don’t feel enough, I can choose to reach out to my friend and tell her what’s going on and be courageous to accept my mistakes or I can choose to stay at home in a self-pity mode.

Our weaknesses makes us closer to people and makes us connected because we are imperfect humans.

Our weaknesses gives us opportunity to open our lives to others and bring them in to our hearts and lives.

If we act tough and cool all the time, the gifts of CCC will not come. If we don’t say what we need (self-sufficient) , we don’t invite compassion and connection in our lives.

We are not robots that is design for perfection, we are beautiful imperfect humans and we are wired for connection.

That’s what we truly need! You need a lot of connection in your life whether you like it or not. 

We can know this by knowledge and still be the same so the Key word here is PRACTICE. Let take a closer look on the meaning of this three magic words.

1.Courage– to be imperfect and courage to accept that we are wrong, courage to ask forgiveness, courage to be real to yourself. 

Courage from Latin word “Cor”- heart

courage means To tell the story of who you are  with all your heart.

Ordinary courage – being imperfect and still showing up. 

if we want our worthiness back we got to choose to be courageous or resentment will always be our companion.

2.Connection – energy between people when they feel heard, seen and valued.

It’s also a result of authenticity. Not faking it.

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

–Matthew 18:3-5

How do you describe a children if they are struggling?

– they are real
– they will tell you they are in pain
– they will cry and let you notice it
– they will tell you they need you.

We love children because they are real. The more we get older the more we become less vulnerable.

We should strive to have that childlike heart too. If we want to go back to one another we need to see the heart of a child.

We are humans who are made to connect.

WE ARE WIRED FOR CONNECTION

The more i learn this, the more I am amazed how great our creator is. we are so complex . We are created to love, because our creator is LOVE Himself.

1 John 4:8(NIV)

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

3.Compassion– Latin work “pati” and “cum” means To suffer with

How do you respond when you made careless mistake at work?
To me I usually, feel down on myself and will say something like “stupid me, or I hate myself”.

How do you respond when someone you truly treasure as a friend made a mistake?

To me I will tell her, “it’s ok no worries you can try again, you are human”

Is there something wrong there??
I think so.
If we can be compassionate to others, why can’t we be for our own selves??

We need to be compassionate with your self first before others.

Our tendency when we are in vulnerable situation or in Pain is we self protect! That’s the natural

When we self protect we find who is to be blamed! But we need to practice compassion instead of blame.We blame and shield ourselves by judging others . We disconnect when we do that.

To suffer with! accept yourself , feel for yourself and be compassionate.

Wholehearted people also fully embraced vulnerability.

Vulnerability– core shame and struggle of worthiness, but it’s also birthplace of love, creativity, belonging

If we numb vulnerability because we are afraid, we don’t want pain, we don’t want the exposure, we also numb love, joy, belonging..

We can’t numb vulnerability of we want to live wholeheartedly.

What stops CCC? SHAME AND FEAR

It is the killer of our worthiness.
If we give power to shame and fear to control our lives, CCC cannot thrive and we will not grow in our worthiness.

But if we keep on practicing connection, compassion and courage, we will grow in shame resilience and fear cannot control our lives anymore. That’s the hope that we have. CCC IS OUR HOPE.

We will practice courage, connection and compassion  together so we will cultivate worthiness. 

Till next time.

love, J

Are you really vulnerable? Think again..

Tags

avoider, Brene Brown, gifts of imperfection, setting boundaries, sugar coating, vulnerabilty

I need to write down my thoughts recently…

It’s tough to own up what you really feel. Watching in youtube girls that can really speak up and confidently share what they feel..and even meeting an acquaintance that is really confident, it makes me I shrink a little bit.

As a ministry person leading almost 80 women, some people may see me as confident and gutsy individual. But that’s not completely true, I realized that I have a lot of things to work on with my security.I need to mature emotionally more and more.

And I feel its a part of growing up and I’m just grateful that I’m becoming more aware.

There are times that I’m confident and not thinking about others think of me.Those are the times that I’m super close to God and I prays a lot. But there are also my unspiritual days that I goes back to the old me, getting my strength from me, myself and I. I suck up my feelings and move on because there’s lot of things to do and expressing to others what I really feel is super uncomfortable. I would rather feel it alone, cry a little bit , pray a little bit and move on.

Yes, you are right I’m the greatest avoider of all time.

And I know it’s not healthy and I am trying my best not to use that as my coping mechanism anymore.
I always thought I’m pretty vulnerable already.. I can say I love you and I can appreciate people in what they are good at.

But I will avoid as much as I can confrontations that requires me to be firm. I will always say it in a nice way, sugar coat it or simply avoid it through procrastination.
Sometimes it does work but most of the time it doesn’t. And most of the time with sugar coating, I waste a lot of precious times and opportunities to help a person. And this really makes me sad. I know this is not the life God wants me to have.

I don’t set boundaries. I will say “yes” when I mean “no”just to be safe. And no when I mean “yes”. Trust me, I do it so subconsciously so sometimes I don’t realized that it’s wrong because the bible say so. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

I am very good in listening though, so people are naturally drawn to me and wants to be with me.

I have a fairly peaceful life, when I say that at least in my interactions and relationships. I seldom go into fighting mode, or have quarrel with someone. I don’t really loose friends because of conflict. And I will always let them have the says what movie to watch, what restaurant to go and I always thought that it’s submitting but the truth is I just want to please people I always want them to be happy and everything at peace. But peaceful inside? Not necessarily. A lot of times I am anxious and disconnected.

Also at the same time, I question my friendship and relationship, I question how deep is my relationships around me… I’m learning more and more that speakin up, being vulnerable showing what you really feel and think is so crucial in building true and genuine friendship. It’s crucial for building trust.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love my friends and I truly want to be connected with them but its just so automatic for me to act tough and to always be in a helper mode.
I also find myself not enjoying friendship much because I tend to give and give , listen and listen. The fixer, the adviser, the protector. And I get tired sometimes.. And I start to get angry, judgmental and negative. (All passive of course it’s me)

I am a conflict avoider. And I please people a lot. I am not comfortable showing my anger (accept to my husband and physical sisters). But not even to my mom. So people generally see me as nice, gracious, forgiving, subjugated type, easy to get along gal.

There’s this one lady in church telling me that yah she could tell that I am a subjugated person, nice person and said it in a very casual way. I ask her what make her say that? She didn’t say why but that remarks made me feel insecure and made me feel a little defective.

“Hello shame it’s not nice to see you again”.

It’s difficult to balance it unfortunately. I don’t think there something wrong with me being kind and nice and sensitive to people around. Graciousness is a gift I think and empathy is a blessing! I need to recognize that as my strengths. But you see, even these strengths of mine can shame me if I don’t have a balance.

I need to see that I need to be honest, authentic, vulnerable and firm as well if I needed too and not to betray my own self values.

What do I value the most?

Connection to the important people in my life. Connection to God, my husband, my family , my friends. There is no connection without authenticity and vulnerability, No way!!!

If I don’t get intentional in opening and showing my heart, there’s no way for them to enter it.
It’s only recently that I am growing in finding myself, who really am I, what is important to me, who I want to be.

Again I will say this. It’s easier said and done. The more I teach vulnerability with women in my church, the more I realized how far I am from being one.
But there’s hope and I will practice being vulnerable untiI master it.

Psalm 74:1. ”Rescue me from the mud; don’t let me sink any deeper.”

That’s my psalm prayer to God. I want to grow and be the woman God wants be to be the women he created me to be. Imperfect and enough. Unique and beautiful . Connected, Courageous and compassionate.

Wholehearted Revolution

Tags

brene brown ecourse, gifts of imperfection, John 10:10, living life to the full, vulnerability, wholehearted revolution

The wholehearted e- course has ended. And it changed my heart and my life.

Though I will say that it’s been tough and I still ask my self if can really make it.. Can I really be more wholehearted? Seeing the little improvement in me in the past 5 months, the most important thing that I got from these classes is the HOPE that I can grow and be a better me. The hope that comes from being aware.

A better daughter of my Heavenly Father, a better wife, a better daughter of my mom, a better sister and a better friend.

I definitely learned a lot of thing, concepts and things that stops me to connect and hinders me to see my worthiness.. But the question is how can I put these things into action?

From my mind to my heart … From my heart to my life…

That’s the toughest thing isn’t it?

This photo will remind me to stay awake to work on the things that I have difficulty with .

To choose authenticity and to avoid numbing.
To bring back music and dance and laughter into my life .. (I owe that to my soul)

And the biggest thing to me is to embrace vulnerability. Even when it’s difficult and excruciating sometimes.
It’s difficult to me to be completely honest and vulnerable even to the people I love the most.. I can be vulnerable to my husband but to My mom and my close friends..to my supervisors, it’s just difficult. And I hate it.
To make those hard conversations, exposing my heart, my needs, my anger, my feelings. To show the real me, to disagree when I need to and not please men anymore. Just writing these makes me cringe. But at the same time excited. I want to try. Wholehearted living is a process..
It’s ok to be fearful and brave at the same time remember?
And totally alive!

That’s the only way to connect and to find back my worthiness and to claim my life back!

I am inviting you to this wholehearted revolution. Join me!

As the bible says..

John 10:10 (NIV)
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

We are here on earth to live our lives to the full , A wholehearted life.

Start to connect, to be courageous and be compassionate.
Embrace vulnerability and embrace our imperfections. That will free us from the thieves that steals our worthiness and makes us feel lousy and useless.

There is a hope and there is a better life ahead of us. Let’s do this together.

Cultivating Meaningful Work :My superpower

Tags

art-journaling, arts, Brene Brown, cultivating meaning, ecourse, meaningful work, my kryptonite, my superpowers, oprah winfrey ecourse, slash carrer, spirituality

Lesson for last week was:

Cultivating Meaningful Work
Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”

The week’s intention: “I will own my superpower.”

In cultivating meaningful work, I was asked.

What does it mean to have a work that has meaning and perspective to me?
How do I define meaningful work?

In this activity, first, I am encouraged to think of one strength of mine that I know that is truly my superpower. Two weeks ago I suppose to do this exercise but it’s difficult for me to pin down one strength of mine that I truly believe my superpower. I mean if you say super power it’s really is your gift!

And that’s difficult.
I have hard time accepting that I have gift.. I can enumerate few good things that is in me but not superpower.

So after much thinking and reflecting.. I realized that my gift is empathy. Compassion. This incident makes me decide that this might be my superpower.

Allow me to say the story.

When I’m about 18 y/o I remember going to the park every weekend to help a beggar for maybe a month or so.

I would buy a bag of fresh bread and would talk to him. I remember weeping on my way home after a short conversation with him about his life . I feel for people, I care for people. There are point that I felt I am not normal because I easily cried and got affected when I see people suffer or going through difficult situation in life.

My kryptonite though would be this:

Society has its ways of shaming us even with our own strengths.. Ourselves also can be a culprit sometimes.
Though we have our own strengths , this can also be our weaknesses if we don’t reflect and use our gifts in way it should be.

Sometimes I find myself being taken advantaged of, or I find myself lonely and resentful because of a one way relationship. Or maybe I can’t control the situation with all the strong feelings.

But This doesn’t mean that I should give up with my gifts altogether.

What is meaningful work looks like to me?

It can be different from you and can be different from people that I love and respect and want to gain approval from.

Meaningful work is where I will channel my strength so I will not feel defective, useless, not good enough and lazy. As others can make us feel that way sometimes. ( maybe more than sometimes)
If we are sure what meaningful work for us “supposed to” voices from society won’t sway us. We know who we are and what we wanted.

What I realized is that whatever gives us meaning in the work that we are doing, for me in this case is spirituality, loving others, and inspiring , our creator gave us strengths and gifts that can satisfy and fulfill that .

Empathy and compassion helps me to find meaningful work. Work that will not burden me but will give me joy because it is my very heart.

Not all people have works that can satisfy their meaning, but we can always find it. It doesn’t need to be your full time job.

I’m just grateful that I happen to be in a job that I can practice compassion and empathy. I’m working for my church and this exercise helped me to appreciate this calling more. I wish I can have slash / career though. I know I can do it along the way of life.

Find your strength that will satisfy the meaning of your life.

I listed mine and it’s intimidating at first to really pen down what’s inside my heart. Do not be fearful but permit yourselves to be let go of self doubts and don’t think of “supposed to ” of the society . It’s a part of me owning my life back.

Here’s my dream list slash career.

Healing the Art scars..

Tags

art scars, creative wounds, cultivating creativity, healing the art scars, ice skating, painting

Healing Our Creative wounds was the goal of this exercise..

Growing up, we are encouraged to be creative, and we are creative naturally.. but then many of us start hearing messages that we’re not good enough and someone is better than us in this area so why do it? . Etc etc..

Then we started to believe those messages.

When I’m about 10 years old, I remember painting an angel photo and give it to my mom as a birthday present.. I know it was not noticed by her or any family member and I saw it up in the cabinet gathering dust..

I also remember painting alone in my room but nobody notices it.. I’m not complaining or bitter about it.. But talking about scars, I think those are some of my memories..

Above are my scars.. And hearing positive messages against that voices can help us get healed slowly..

These scars, stops me to create and include art in my life because those messages were loud!

So now, start creating! You are a creative being whether you like it or not.
I drafted writing songs few days back and getting more and more artistic when it comes to my home decorations.

Last Sunday, I went to ice skating rink for the first time for a double date, and then my college who was a professional skater thought us the 101 of it.

I am thrilled though a lot of people in that rink are so good .. I can’t compare myself to them , I need to enjoy what I’m doing.. And I definitely enjoyed it. It’s an art:)

P.S. I Fell badly three times, I don’t know how to stand up and on Monday my whole body was in pain.. I didn’t regret it though😊

Realized that there more into life only if we notice it and put our creativity into it!

I love this quote from BB.

What is play? Really…

Tags

joy, meaning in life, perfectionism, play, playlist, society

What is real play for me? How about you how do you see play in your life?

Lesson for this week is to embrace play as essential in our lives..wholehearted people that live their lives to the full live their lives full of play and rest. Exhaustion is not a status symbol for them.

Brene said:
“The opposite of play is not work; the opposite of play is depression.”

This is so true to me, because I always feel guilty when I play and I always thought that if I’m playing, I’m not working and I’m lazy.

Well I naturally don’t believe that but I think as I started working as an adult, things just drastically change , working in a first world country where colleagues, bosses and even friends sometimes will just make me feel guilty when you are resting and playing.

As if they are saying, the more you are exhausted, the more you are hardworking and valuable as an employee.

This is just the society today sad to say. Playing becomes just a luxury that you will get once in a while if you are lucky.

But not playing will lead me to a dull life-less Jackie..
We cultivate meaning when we take time to play and enjoy our lives.

It’s so healing writing these properties of play.. Realizing what plays really means to me! Excited to make more play a part of my life without shame and guilt!

So here’s my playlist:)

I will try my best to do some of my playlist regularly:)

The key is PRACTICE.