it’s been a long time, and i apologise for my absence.

i want to be frank about what’s been going on in my life, and fill you in on what’s been happening.

there’s a lot going on in the world; but this is the thing, there always has been. the US has always been acting the way that it intended to, except now, the clown show is on full display, no longer lurking in the shadows. the curtains have flung open, and we’re seeing for ourselves the true cold blooded nature of the US empire as it fights its own collapse.

in the last couple of years, especially since the genocide went full-force in Gaza (though, again, the genocide and displacement of Palestinians has been happening since 1948), everything has changed. as it should have. people became aware of US and zionist war crimes, and started to connect the dots of history, especially when it comes to US intervention, political coups, and downright brutality. on top of that, it’s been a LOT of unlearning, because the US empire undoubtedly has the most sophisticated propaganda network, dedicated to spreading its capitalist hegemony, and smearing the nations of the Global South who refuse to be controlled by them.

but Palestinians and their resistance broke all that propaganda too.

the truth has been revealed. and it is sickening that it is at the expense of over 73,000 human beings in Palestine, who have been murdered on their own indigenous land.

this is the most urgent and harrowing pain that is happening in real time, along with the crisis in sudan, congo, and america’s bewildering intervention in venezuela. and yet, doesn’t it feel absolutely insane that everything, somehow, our lives, must continue? while we continue, keep connecting the dots.

—

i don’t want to make any of this about me, but part of the explanation of my absense is that i’ve spent most of my time the last few years keeping my head down and learning. really learning. connecting the dots, and seeing the web of violence that US imperialism and white supremacist colonialism expand before my eyes. it’s an extremely important time to learn, for all of us.

i’ve had a lot of imposter syndrome speaking about anything, or feeling like i’m capable of relaying any of the information that i’ve been learning in an eloquent or accessible way. but i feel ready. it’s a new year, 2026, and i know this needed clarity is dawning on all of us on how we can move forward and shed the necessary light on the current crisis of humanity; western imperialism and capitalism.

some of you may know this: i moved to china. i was going through visa dilemmas in the US and my decision was to leave my life in new york for good. i miss my people out there so much, and they were all so supportive of my move. but ultimately this decision was necessary, because i’ve been able to see the alternatives to a western capitalist society, to feel my brain become rewired, and to unlearn the parasitic imperialism that intoxicates us through so many different mediums.

i’m hoping to return to longform this year, so i can further share what i have learned, not just from the books i’ve read or the classes i’ve attended, but also the life experiences i’ve had. i’ve started a youtube channel, which i’m hoping to update every week, because i really hope to share these life experiences with you, and maybe something within you will shift too.

there’s so much to learn/unlearn about china, and as a chinese person i feel that it is my obligation to understand clearly, and more properly, the truth of my motherland. i love it here so much, something resounds deep within me, and i see that a socialist future is not only possible; but here. however, i never have claimed that china is a perfect utopia and think it’s absurd to make those claims. it’s a rapidly developing country of 1.4billion people, a country that was semi-colonised, also ravaged by feudalism, capitalism and occupation. i want to be realistic and disciplined in my dialectical materialism (learning through the material conditions of the world around me) and share with you the china that i see and reflect on. i elaborate more in the video below.

i know many people are not as lucky to leave the US as i am and so i name, again and again, how grateful and lucky i am. and i promise to use this life-changing decision to share the wisdom that i am lucky enough to absorb everyday. it’s small interactions; like being asked if i’ve eaten and then being offered food by every villager i meet, dancing with uncles and aunties in public spaces every weekend, or being able to use a public restroom with ease. being treated like a human being.

thanks for sticking with me through all these years.

—

here is a list of resources/books that helped me learn what i know now:

1. Western Marxism by Domenico Losurdo

2. The Tricontinental Institute for Social Research

   1. Everything, but specifically this study on Poverty Alleviation in China

3. Fanshen by William Hinton

4. The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins

5. Upstream Podcast

6. Perfect Victims by Mohammed el-Kurd

7. Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad

8. Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949 by Elisabeth B. Armstrong

9. Culture and Imperialism by Edward Said

10. Blackshirts & Reds by Michael Parenti

—

You might know the phrase by Toni Cade Bambarra in which she describes her job as a cultural worker as making the revolution irresistible. I recently found the lesser-known elaboration of that thought in a conversation between her and a peer via this Ismatu Gwendolyn essay. She says: 

“The task of the artist is determined always by the status and process and agenda of the community that it already serves. If you’re an artist who identifies with, who springs from, who is served by or drafted by a bourgeois capitalist class, then that’s the kind of writing you do. Your job is to maintain a status quo, to celebrate exploitation, or to guise in some lovely, romantic way. That’s your job.”

–

I majored in art history at university. Learning how to look at art expanded my ability to reflect deeply, but the question of these histories always occupied my mind. What histories were being focused on, and how were they taught?

For some reason, there were classes, even entire courses dedicated to Jackson Pollock’s work. What I learned was that this American artist refused subject vs. object and took to the canvas and splattered all over it in a flurry of his individualistic subconscious expression. His “abstract expressionism” was heralded as a signifier of his freedom as an individual artist, and hence, his liberty as a “free American man”. He could denounce form, escape reality, and even make his own. No matter how much these paintings were being shoved down my throat, I did not get it. They were not particularly interesting to me. 

I learned recently that Jackson Pollock and his peers in the emerging Modern Art movement in America were being used by the CIA as a tool for the Cold War. Modern Art in all its abstract expressions was the perfect rival for Soviet art’s Socialist Realist paintings, which at the time were very popular, and mostly depicted Soviet workers in realistic paintings. Soviet artists painted these works to honour and build confidence in the people who were building a Communist society together. 

The CIA created an anti-Communist group called the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and funneled money to MOMA to curate international art shows to target Soviet artists and intellectuals. Jackson Pollock’s splatters on the canvas particularly interested the CIA because these paintings were visually in opposition to the realistic paintings coming out of the Soviet Union at the time.

Pollock’s abstractions were latched on to and deemed as apolitical, and the CIA co-opted his work to further charge the anti-Communist narrative that deemed Soviet art as “authoritarian” and “rigid”, contrasting American art as free, compelling and the celebration of the artist’s individualistic expression. When we think of this strategy, we can apply it to how most bourgeois institutionally supported art is being used today. America is hellbent on depicting itself as a free democracy, which clearly, as we have seen since the dawn of its imperialist creations, is not the case. 

I do not personally know whether Jackson Pollock’s politics or how he felt about the CIA’s cunning manouvers, but I tell this anecdote to highlight the fact that throughout history, and still today, Western Imperialists have long used art and culture as a tool for their violent agendas, and are particularly conniving in their plot to uphold bourgeois art. 

Let me also make it clear that I am not making a case against abstract art, nor saying that we all need to start painting like the Soviet Socialist Realist painters. I am being critical of how artists are being exploited and used by art institutions as tools to uphold Imperialism. As cultural workers, we need to be weary, intentional, and firm in the struggle against the Capitalist ruling class.

So how can we anti-imperialists use the art that we make and combat their lechery? How can we make sure we are not being used?

– 

I am not above admitting that my goals in art used to be rooted in scrambling for the attention of the art institution or the recognition of people in higher places. I am not above admitting that I used to determine my success with collaborations or invitations to stand in the hypnotic light of glamour and exclusivity. Like almost all of us, that is what I have been told to strive for. 

However, it cannot be more clear to me now that these institutions have strategies and tangled relationships that only intend to exploit you for their Imperialist agendas. While dangling the carrot of wealth, comfort, or luxury in your face, they want you, as an artist, to demonstrate your so-called freedom of expression without ever being free. You can only say and feel what you want if you are willing to be part of the extractive, exploitative Capitalist society that they have built. You can be a “successful” artist if you are willing to be used as a tool. You can be a “successful” artist if you abandon and betray the working class.  

I want to ask you simply: who is your art for? I am not saying we cannot make art for ourselves, and I am not against being expressive of the vitality of our emotions, but I want to ask you about your target audiences and your intentions. The Imperialists know how important art and culture is – do you?

As somebody who writes about emotions all the time, I started to wonder if my work held importance. However, I know emotions to be an outstanding force of power in the revolution, and furthermore, I know that my feelings do not stand alone. My feelings are inherently connected to everyone’s, and they are entangled in the rage, the grief, and the love that invigorates me to continue to resist Western Imperialism. I am not creating work to be heralded as the exceptional artist who feels an exceptional way, but as a person who is part of the intricate tapestry of emotions that have been felt throughout the people’s history when they combat Imperialism, and then recover and rebuild. 

The bourgeois classes intend to isolate you and separate you from the people’s movement by fluffing your ego and tempting you with capital. While it is also a troubled trek that I am navigating myself, and I have by no means been perfect, I am trying with all my might to be steadfast in my intentions, to remember my audience as the people, specifically the working class, and to make my work accessible, retiring any aspiration for it to be behind institutional glass, and organising toward dismantling these Imperialist institutions altogether. What is the freedom of your individualistic expression if the people are not free? How do we use our voices to conjoin in a chorus of protest?

If the motivation behind your art is to slip into a place of wealth or comfort, fan your ego, and tend to the bourgeois classes just to get a seat at the table, then it is an active betrayal of the people, an active betrayal of those currently being slaughtered during a genocide. I would go further as to say that it is not art. Art is truth-telling, and you are lying. 

Marxist academic Vijay Prashad once said that the revolution is artful. I let that thought twirl in my head for a while, because it sounded delightful, agitating and puzzling all at once. He said that insurrection is an art, and requires the following; Creation, Clarity and Confidence. Creation, which requires experimentation, reflection, being aligned and in touch with the truth, a truth not under the chokehold of an Imperialist agenda, but that which we must seek together.

What is art if not reaching out to the masses, being firm in your position with the popular classes, stating that you are willing to commit class suicide and seeing to the demise of the furlined trap of the art institution?

What is art if not trying to tell the truth by being present with and facing it? What is art if not trying, experimenting, in so many ways, with your hand, your brush, your voice, your vision, to articulate that which you see when you look at what is happening around us, flowers shedding their blossoms and bursting into lush green leaves, students setting up highly organised encampments to take care of each other while protesting a genocide, and the people, our elders and our children, all around the world, resisting every single day for a Free Palestine. What is art if not trying to depict and make sense of life, and hence, to fight tirelessly for it?

Further resources that help me sharpen my political education and think deeper of the role of the artist and cultural worker in the revolution:

1. Tings Chak’s class on Art, Culture and National Liberation at The People’s Forum’s 8-Week Course on Marxism and National Liberation

2. Culture as a Weapon of Struggle: The Medu Art Ensemble and Southern African Liberation by TriContinental

3. Artists Against Apartheid: Sign the Statement

4. Organized Labor, Unions, Strikes and Palestine with Zaina Alsous and Venus Roots’ Getting to the Root of it

where do i start?

i’ve been treating myself like a machine my whole life. these systems call us to do so; for our parents to do so to us and themselves. i thought writing the book would get me to a place of stability and solid accomplishment, but the pressure feels impending and neverending. i realised that if i continue this self-punitive mindset, then enough will never feel like enough. i don’t even have a publishing house whispering deadlines in my ears; no, it’s my own voice. the one who hisses, who punishes, who calls me lazy. for lifetimes this has been my normalised state of being, and i have forgotten what it looks like to…simply exist.

i am going through post-book depression. i spent three years excavating my wounds and putting them to the page, treating the body of work like a marble sculpture, chipping away at the jagged edges and smoothening it down to prose. i loved the process of reading, researching, and writing, and i tried to be as present and hopeful as possible while the book came into being. my goal was to heal through that writing, to write a book that i would have needed as i went through an abusive relationship, and to allow it to resonate with whoever allowed it to.

when a project you’ve been working on that means so much to you is released into the world, it requires letting go. for the last nine months i spent most of my time promoting and traveling with it, revisiting it in different conversations with loved ones across the world. it is overwhelming and beautiful to know that it is branching out and making meaning in the hands of thousands of people. there is nothing more i can do.

as the book embarks on its own journey and i think about all that i poured into it, my brain is tired and my heart is fatigued. i still have not had a real break, because i live in a city that is so expensive that it is constantly nudging me to know what is next. what is my next project? my next big book? how will i pay my rent?

and while these questions swirl around my head, writing has felt tedious and like a chore. i have not felt this in a long time, and i started to panic and ask myself: what if i have nothing left to give?

right now i am going through a lull. my inbox is quiet, i am not getting booked, BNAOL’s momentum is slowing down, i don’t know how many books have been sold nor do i want to, but i know it did not reach any NYT bestseller’s list, the accolade that institutions and publishing houses ask you to strive for. i started to panic about this period of quiet, “shouldn’t i be the busiest i’ve ever been right now? shouldn’t i be booked and even swatting opportunities away? was writing this book not enough?”

but enough for what?

enough to make me perpetually busy? successful? rich? is that why i had written the book? i had to breathe deep as these questions started springing to mind. i had fallen into a trap that i have always tried to be mindful of. i am embarrassed to even say it, but i had started to think of my book as a pillar of success, of a gateway to more opportunities, as something i made just to prove myself. i had reduced my book to a medal that would measure my worth and open doors, instead of the body of work i had poured my heart into for my survival.

there’s nothing wrong with wanting the book to be successful, nor with wanting to have access to more opportunities so i can continue a career of being a writer. i do not want to punish myself for thinking that way but i want to investigate the fear that exists beneath these questions, the egoic desires that have driven me to lose sight of what writing means to me.

writing has always been the tool that allows me to become closest to myself. it allows me to swim in the stream of my consciousness and be as candid and honest as possible so i can see all the hidden spaces of my internal world. now that it has become the work i make a living with, it is inevitable that i merge my financial needs with my spiritual needs. while i feel so lucky to be honest and get paid for doing so, i must question when the need for financial stability calls me to be dishonest with myself, to polish what i say or sell my words/self in the process.

this is the problem. living under capitalism forces us all to know our gifts, our talents, and what we love to do, and then package them to be marketable for us to make money. when the art you make is tied to the rent you pay, it is not surprising that the art can become compromised or controlled by somebody else. every moment of success, failure, loss, and slowness can feel deeply personal, like a direct reflection of our inherent worth, and there’s a panic that creeps up my throat that asks me to churn more out of me, when maybe for now, i want to be quiet for a while and just love the book that i wrote.

enough will never feel like enough. the race to remain relevant and stay busy makes slowness feel like a failure. we exhaust ourselves at high-speed just to prove ourselves, continuing the legacies we may have felt within our families growing up. it feels familiar, so we engage in these vicious cycles, in which we think peace and presence are “wastes of time” or “laziness”. the cycle continues within ourselves and opens up a bottomless pit. the greed within us widens, swallowing whatever it can consume, including ourselves.

if i continue listening to the frameworks of greed and capitalism that bleeds into my subconscious, no matter what i “achieve” with my book, i will always compare myself to writers who seem more successful than me. no matter how many book deals, manuscripts, or essays i write, no matter how many institutions and publications feature me, we are not taught a limit nor a time which we can be proud of and content with ourselves. we are taught to always want more.

if enough will never feel like enough, then when will i?

the last nine months spent touring the world, i met so many new friends and readers. i have been to places i never would have imagined would reach my writing. people have told me that their book has changed their lives and even saved them, these feel like huge declarations, and i often get overwhelmed and do not know how to respond. when people tell me how the book has transformed them, it transforms me.

i do not want to regard these experiences as accomplishments. what that does is reduce the fullness of these connections to things i gain from, things that “serve” me. i know spiritually i am not interested in that.

i want to feel the fullness of these experiences. i want to feel fully how proud i am of myself for writing this beautiful and honest book. i want to feel melancholic about letting it go. i want to feel grateful for the people who took their time to read and understand the work and feel it all too.

while experiencing perpetual fears of not-enoughness, i have not allowed myself to feel anything fully at all. or, i have squeezed my emotions out of me to generate some kind of essay or think piece about them. i have struggled so much with merging what i create with how i make money. i am not coping well with my writing also being some kind of business, it feels icky to say and is heightening many childhood wounds of needing to prove myself, to take care of everyone around me.

my therapist asked me to feel my fears, name them and then say to them, “ok, then what?”

i am afraid that i will never write again. i am afraid of being a “one-hit wonder”. i am afraid of asking for things, of asking people to pay me for my work. i am afraid of being forgotten. i am afraid of never being enough for these publications. i am afraid of never being enough for my friends. i am afraid of never being enough for my family.

ok. and then what?

do i hate myself, then? if i never write another book? if i do not live up to impossible standards? if i do not do any of those things, i still exist. can i find peace in that? can i love that foundational spiritual truth? what if i want to learn how to be a person instead of a writer? what if i just want to be a person who also loves to write?

maybe i have nothing left to give right now. maybe for a while, i can give to myself. maybe that is enough.

PROMPTS

• when is the last time you let yourself feel something fully, without turning it into art, or a passage, or an essay? without sharing it? what will make you feel like you are enough?

• when is the last time you looked out the window and noticed an earthly element you had not seen before and been so moved and not know why? what was it?

• what will make you feel like you are enough?

while i am taking a short break from writing work, the scope of my internal work has been overwhelming and vigorous. i’ve been in australia, in the home i grew up, and i am processing not only the last six months, but..somehow…inevitably, my entire life. i write this newsletter to tell you all about it.

PART I: THE PATTERN

i’ve been alive for nearly three decades now, which feels like forever, and also nothing. i think enough time has passed for me to distinguish the patterns that have formed in the timeline of my life. when i think of patterns, i think of waves and ripples and zigzags; sequences of shapes that hold consistency; as repetition provides a sense of comfort and familiarity, sometimes even home. but what happens when these patterns are toxic? what happens when home is an unsafe space?

i have deep difficulty writing about my family, even in my own private time, and there is so much that i do not feel comfortable sharing publically. i feel immense shame vocalising some of the things that Chinese families always want us to believe should only be known in private. but i also know what it’s like for our Chinese family to choose isolation, to choose “saving face”, to protect our pride instead of our relationships with each other. with all the secrecy and unwillingness to admit to any “weakness”, the distance between us grows wider, and we become strangers even to ourselves. and so, that is the first pattern i will break. as i write to explore the mysteries of why and how we love (or don’t), i need to explore my relationships; starting with the ones that have shaped me most.

my heart has been breaking since last december, after i had a nasty experience with my father, and finally accepted, after nearly three decades, that i’ve been in an unhealthy and emotionally abusive relationship with him. he has used me as his emotional punching bag since i was a child, nonconsensually appointed me as his therapist, and neglected me and my family for most of my life. i have spent decades yearning for his love and approval, and this december, after an explosive interaction between us, i finally gave up. he can’t love me because he simply does not know how; and saddest of all, i do not think he is interested in learning how to either.

while it was utterly devastating to comprehend letting my father go, everything became abundantly clear. a nonlinear timeline of my personal relationships started forming, swirling like a spiral, in which faces and energies and behaviours and arguments began to parallel and even interact with each other. while so many of these relationships were different, they also shared some kind of cosmic connection; there were similarities in how we engaged with each other, and what we seek from each other. i have historically been attracted to chaotic energy that always left me feeling uncertain and unstable. i would overcompensate and bend over backward just to earn this person’s love, and when i would get that “love” in unpredictable spurts, it was the satisfying reward that i was risking it all for. the highest highs came with the cost of my emotional security. i resented these lovers so much for it, and my intuition was begging me to stop, practically crawling out of my skin. none of these relationships lasted very long.

having this realisation initially led me into a doom spiral. am i damned in love? am i not cut out for a healthy relationship? am i the problem; seeking only what is unavailable to me and making yearning a personality trait?

i had to pull myself out of this vacuum of despair. yes, because of my parent’s relationship and my own relationship with my father, i have spent a long time seeking emotionally unavailable masc people just to win their love. i have become a mother, a therapist, a guide; and i have neglected myself to do the work for others, to show them i am worthy of not being left. it is a toxic pattern, but it is familiar; it has reminded me of home. but something snapped last december; a thread of awareness was illuminated in the dark, and i stayed close to its light. i finally knew what had seeded itself into my subconscious for so many years and driven so many of my unhealthy behaviours. last december, i became determined to dig it out.

shortly after the conflict with my father, i sobbed to my therapist in messy, mucusy tears. she said something that jolted me with clarity, “your dad is your greatest teacher, he is showing you how to let go.”

the revelation of this pattern was challenging and painful; but it was also liberating. now that i could see the pattern right before my eyes, i could also learn how to break it. i could set myself free; and see how, in some ways, i was already on my way.

PART II: THE OUTLIERS

the pattern is clear. i see it without a doubt, the way attraction, repetition, and reenactment work. i spent a few weeks fixating on the pattern, feeling sorry for myself and eternally damned, though again, the thread of awareness beckoned me to zoom out and direct my attention somewhere else for a second.

the same spiral of relationships emerged, but this time i saw outliers, glinting like stars around them. they were also connecting, though they were branching out. they were the faces of my chosen family, my friends, some past lovers, my community, and people i met during my book tour.

i thought about these relationships; most of them with queer people of colour, and how i didn’t feel anxious with them, how i didn’t feel like i had to earn their love, how our relationships, after some mutually communicated work, felt reciprocal and even balanced. there was conflict, there was disagreement, but there was also a willingness to be accountable, honest, and put our pride aside. even though i know so much queer cinema and art is about yearning and unrequited love, which is very real, so much of being queer has also shown me that the love we seek is within our reach and already in our hands; we invent the rules, and we carve out new patterns of our own.

these new patterns feel like stars, like milky ways, like sparkles…but they are also vast and wildly unfamiliar. it took me a while to accept that love, and sometimes i took them for granted. i’ve also had lovers whom i’ve shared such sacred times, who made me feel safe and held, who didn’t make me question whether i was too much or not enough, and who were grounded in enjoying the time we shared. who were truthful and honest about their feelings, which felt so confusing to me that it was almost uncomfortable. in all the panic i had about never experiencing a healthy love, i realised i had, multiple times before, they just looked differently than i had envisioned them to.

australia has been so hard, and in breaking my secret-keeping pattern, i decided to reach out for support. i spoke to my best friend and life partner sammy and told them i wasn’t doing too well. we had spoken for years about them one day coming to australia, though it always felt like a far away dream. i asked for help and then immediately minimised my experience, backing away from even uttering a request for them to travel so far. i told them, “please don’t if it’s too much”, and they hushed me. they said they would be here. and they came.

we traveled together by the australian shore, taking in tropical rainforests and spending time by the concrete beaches on the shores of unceded gadigal land. we were silly and joyful and saw sea urchins, blue gropers, foggy mountains, rockpools, moss, and rainbows. they came to my book tour event in sydney, and i heard sobbing coming from the corner of the room and i knew it was them. during the scariest of times, they held me as i broke down. i became a child in their arms, utterly silent one moment and then blubbering in tears the next. they gave me the space to be; something i realised i hadn’t known too well growing up. it felt unbelievable to bring this person to the place where i became who i am, and i realised that it is also possible to rewrite home.

i see these stars, shimmering and also navigating their own patterns, finding me, finding love, finding each other. i see how our paths cross, how it’s possible, anything is possible, for us to create new patterns and break the ones that broke our hearts. our intuition, our silver threads of awareness, our gut feelings, have been redirecting us all along. instead of fixating and centering the toxic patterns that have drawn me back to an unsafe home, i want to be an explorer, and i want to see with crystal clarity the love that already exists in my life, and invest my energy into those relationships. i want to let go, and i also want to let in. i write to rewrite.

WRITING PROMPTS

• what is your toxic pattern?

• what do you do for yourself to slightly alter that pattern?

it may surprise you, but you may already be rewriting it.

MUSIC TO WRITE TO

my NTS radio show that my friend Thierry aka ONY let me guest on and my family Tin Mai helped me put together!

hello again,

here i am writing to you at the end of this wondrous year, a few months after the publication of my first book Be Not Afraid of Love. i am reflecting upon the ways i have transformed, and realised that i haven’t written to you in a while. amid all this change and opportunity, i will always return to this newsletter as my first love.

i haven’t written much in the last few months at all. i have spent a lot of time promoting my book, embarking on an international book tour, feeling intense bouts of imposter syndrome, and cocooning for a while. publishing a book is no small task, and it took a lot of intention and collaboration to launch it with care. while it may have looked glamorous (and sometimes very much was), it was also very challenging and often tugged me across the fine line between spirit and ego. here are some honest reflections.

—

the holidays are a difficult time for so many of us. it beckons us to be pensive and introspective about the past year and how we’ve spent our time. we cannot help but become swept up in the capitalist addiction of comparing our achievements to our past selves or even each other. we are forced to think of family, biological and chosen, and the relationships that make us feel cozy and safe during this time of hibernation and celebration. that brings up thoughts of those who also make us feel unsafe, even though we might feel obligated to see them. it brings up what we perceive as our failures and sometimes makes us push and punish ourselves. the holidays feel like a time of immense pressure, where we feel like we have so much to prove.

my therapist recently sat with me as i sobbed my heart out. i was crying over how i felt like i was failing in some of my close interpersonal relationships, especially with my family. i felt myself retreating and lashing out in the same ways i did as a child, and i was beating myself up about it, calling myself a hypocrite and a fraud because i had written a book about love and still struggle so much with practicing it.

she told me that a deep and unrealistic pressure for perfection has been ingrained in me since i was a child. when i make mistakes, i turn myself into a villain, and i use every crumb of energy i have to make up for my shortcomings. i try to become the best daughter, sibling, friend, and lover i can be. i bend over backward and compromise, and i agree through gritted teeth on things that i don’t want to do. i forget myself over and over again to appease people who have hurt me, to feel like i have some purpose in the world, and then i resent them for it. i am begging to be loved, and i am hurting myself while doing it.

i wept in frustration to my therapist, “i released a book! i achieved so many things this year! how is it possible that i still fail and fail and fail and still yearn to be loved? aren’t i finally loveable now?”

—

i nearly forgot myself a lot this year, and i made a lot of mistakes. i also did many wonderful things, and so many of my dreams came true.

both those realities co-exist.

while the book was coming out, i fell in romantic love with a dear friend of mine, and i was challenged to look at myself with a mirror that i had left in the dust for many years. i had to confront some of the toxicities that still flow through generations of my bloodline; the very specific habits that only come up when i am intertwined in romance and am triggered by jealousy or a need to control my circumstances to not get hurt.

i thought that the release of my book would mean the release of a lot of my shadows. i thought my self-esteem would exist at a constant high, and that my anxieties about stability and safety would be settled. i thought that i had written a book about love, so suddenly i had to be the expert on it. i held myself to an impossble standard, just because of something i had accomplished. i thought i had earned my way to love. what i forgot was that once i completed the last page of the book, i continued to be the full, messy and miraculous person i was writing about. i continue to exist and have weaknesses. i did not grant myself the generosity i so often do with everyone around me; i make mistakes, no matter how many wonderful things i do.

—

i want to recall one of the most profound experiences i had this year.

i went to my favourite monastery in upstate new york a month after the book came out. i was familiar with the meditation routines, though every time i have gone, i experience something new. we went on our usual walking meditation, a silent and long hike through a long unfolding trail. it was the end of summer, and while it was cooling down, there was still humidity in the air. there was morning dew on the ferns, and the moss was soft and bouncy beneath our feet. the sun was shining through the trees, and the heart-shaped lake was sparkling in its glory. the monastics led the way with every slow and steady footstep without saying a word.

it was difficult at first to immerse myself in the present moment, as it can be when we meditate. the voices in my head had been particularly loud, fretting about a new romantic relationship i was exploring, and all the anxieties i had about what else i could do for the book.

but after a while, the sounds of the forest flooded my being. all i could hear was cicadas in the trees, the sound of a gentle tinkering stream of water, and the soft whisper of the late summer breeze. i closed my eyes at times, trusting that my feet would carry me as the path of moss unwinded. i breathed with the rhythms of the Earth, and i felt warmth radiating all over my skin. my eyes welled up with tears. i felt so loved. i didn’t have to be anything but alive.

and suddenly, a simple thought came to me: what if i gave myself the luxury of having nothing to prove?

—

recently i watched the quiet first snowfall of new york. it was magical, and i felt like a child again, full of wonder and awe. the city is very rarely quiet, and the only thing i could hear was the magical powdery snow falling gently onto the concrete, forming little precious mounds of ice. i felt at ease.

my greatest lesson this year: with me, i have nothing to prove. when i am in my own safety, and in the loving arms of those who have shown me what real love can be, i do not have to be perfect. i must be accountable, but i do not have to be flawless or put-together or high achieving. i have permission to breathe deep and cry deeper. i have full permission to make space for my liveliness, and furthermore, to honour my life. as in, not to fixate on what i have done, but to relish in the delicious truth that i exist.

i do not need to earn or beg for love. it already exists within me, and only recently have i understood how to access and nurture it. i continuously make mistakes, and i forgive myself for that too. i am learning how to share love with people without constantly sacrificing myself in the process.

i am proud of myself. it is a new feeling.

yes, for all my achievements, for the heartfelt book that i wrote, for the material dreams that all came true. but i am especially proud of when I have loved myself in my imperfection. when i have relinquished the idea of being the perfect person for everybody around me; the perfect daughter, sibling, lover or friend, but a person who is learning and trying their best. i am proud of when i had enough self-compassion to forgive myself for a difficult childhood, soften my edges, and give and receive love. when i no longer stood at resolute attention, thinking of how i can do better, how i can show up, how i can make myself useful; but to ease my posture, relax my shoulders, be quiet, and breathe, while the first snow falls.

WRITING PROMPTS
I haven’t done this in a while, but I intend to bring them back. I would love it if you took some quiet time, so nothing-to-prove time, to write reflections as messy and stream-of-consciousness as you’d like.

1. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN TAUGHT TO BE PROUD OF YOURSELF GROWING UP? WHAT WAS IT MEASURED BY, AND DO YOU STILL HOLD YOURSELF TO SPECIFIC STANDARDS AT YOUR CURRENT AGE?

2. NOTICE YOUR BODY AND YOUR BREATH. RECALL A MOMENT THAT WAS QUIET AND ALSO PEACEFUL, IN WHICH YOU NOTICED SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL THAT YOU FELT CONNECTED WITH.

3. WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO FEEL MORE OF NEXT YEAR? NOT DO, BUT FEEL.

PLAYLIST

Unfortunately, this has uncovered some difficult truths that I have been reluctant to face. My relationships are shifting. Sometimes, quite naturally, we drift apart, and sometimes, we deeply grieve a closeness that hurt us too much to maintain. I have experienced a lot of relationships where our mutual inability to face our own pain brought us “closer” together. We were not taught how to love each other, and we used each other for distraction. We could not possibly know each other because we did not know ourselves.

Being in close relationships is not easy. As I have committed to nourishing deeper relationships with my loved ones, I have noticed within myself a subconscious tendency to recreate biological family dynamics that may not always be healthy. I have noticed my anxious attachment, avoidance of conflict, and an intense impulse to appease. Being aware of it has provided me with the first step in undoing those patterns and creating new ones. Connecting the dots of our ingrained familial conditions allows us to see the tools our families were given, understand each other with compassion, and also do the rigorous work of reshaping what family and closeness can look like.

But as we do that reshaping, we grieve. We grieve who we used to be, we grieve old patterns, and we grieve the coping mechanisms that weaved themselves into our lifestyles. And sometimes, we grieve not the people that we lose touch with, but the fact that we never really got to know them at all. I am realizing how important it is to be seen and heard in honesty; sometimes more so than being liked.

My therapist of three years told me that “people-pleasing” has always been a struggle I face. Because I grew up quite lonely, my greatest goal was always to be liked. I observed characters and tropes and collected a list of charming personality traits that people thought were likable. I experimented with them and performed them with exuberance. When I figured out how to make myself likable and popular, I adapted behaviors that solidified that image of me. It felt like I had discovered a secret formula. I felt powerful when I was popular.

But, of course, people still disliked me for their own reasons. Sometimes we were incompatible, sometimes both of our projections got in the way, and sometimes they just weren’t interested in being my friend. I would always take it personally and overcompensate to appeal to them and win their affections. Sometimes it would work, but I was always exhausted by all these relentless efforts that felt unnatural to me.

This came from a childhood belief that I had to earn the love of my parents, especially my father. I had to do so with achievements and accolades, and even then it was not enough. When I would finally say no, that I had had enough, I would often be punished. My "no”s and my feeble attempts at setting boundaries were usually, and unfortunately, met with fury. I know a lot of us may have experienced similar kinds of trauma, and while we are reckoning with compassion that our parents were raised in a different and difficult time and that their behaviors are passed on through generations; the harm has been done.

I have learned that one of the most difficult and healing practices I have ever engaged in is being honest with myself. Now I am called to really be honest with everyone else; especially when the truth is ugly. I’ve had to let people know the painful things I was feeling, I’ve had to say no, and I’ve had to ask for what I need. None of these are easy tasks for people who grew up in households that put pressure on them to be the caretakers, the strong, and the silent.

The biggest challenge of all is seeing that even when I am trying my best; being honest, vocalising my needs and honouring my choices, people may dislike that. I have to learn to be okay with that, and I have to let it go.

Being a people-pleaser is, in some ways, grasping at control. It is controlling my image, which in turn controls people’s perceptions of me. However, even if I had some people’s perceptions under control, I do not feel free, and I am exhausted by the need to continuously perform. Many of us, especially queer and trans-BIPOC, have to shapeshift to survive in different environments. I know that some of us have to people-please just to get through our day-to-day lives and make it through another day at home or work or school. So, when I talk about renouncing people-pleasing, I’m specifically referring to my close and chosen interpersonal relationships as spaces in which I want to feel free. How painful it is in our close relationships when we cannot feel liberated in honesty with each other.

I am realising each day that I do not have much control over what you might think of me. Sure, I can control a fabricated self-image, but I don’t have much energy for that anymore. I’m tired, and I want to feel free, especially in the ways I engage with you, people who I may not personally all know, but still care about, because we are connected through the bizarre worldwide web by the bond of the written word, and by a collective dedication to our healing.

My book Be Not Afraid of Love is coming out in two months. I’m terrified and I’m nervous, and I’m worried about what you’re going to think of it, and of me. I’m scared that you’re going to find me stupid, pretentious, or corny. I’m frightened that I’ve made a colossal mistake, that important dimensions of the truth have slipped my mind, and that this book will be an eternal document of that…I’m scared that the book is not perfect.

And it’s not. I know it’s not, because it’s a complicated document of what I felt when I wrote it; still healing and deeply vulnerable. It was what I needed to write to survive. It is a book I wrote to continuously work through my trauma-informed coping mechanisms and my fear of intimacy. I received my advanced copies a few weeks ago, and when I did, I was mixed with emotions. I was deeply moved because a dream sat in my hands, touchable, feelable, readable, and then a dark cloud of doom loomed over my head. I can’t change it anymore. It’s done, it’s here. It’s real. I have no control over the book, and I have no control over what you will think when you read it. But I am proud of it. I really am.

So, all I can hope for is that you like it. I cannot control how you feel about it, though I can control how I want to take care of myself at this time, and how I want to talk about this book and the writing process. I just know that I don’t want to lie because silencing myself to accommodate everyone’s desires comes from a deep-seated belief that I don’t deserve to be loved for the person I am, trying my best. And if there’s any takeaway from Be Not Afraid of Love (which I still have to rigorously practice every day), it’s that I do. We all do.

So I’m very excited to reveal to you the cover of Be Not Afraid of Love, which is coming out on August 23, 2022 with Penguin Random House. Furthermore, you can go this very special link where you can find more information about the book. <3 More to come, very very soon.

It might not please everyone, but I’m very pleased to have written it and to be sharing it with you.

I have returned to the States after four months back home in Australia, and I want to tell you a tale of imperfect healing. I was not on vacation. I was seeing my family and friends, and with that, I was doing deep emotional, shadow, and trauma work. My therapist told me that I was in the eye of the trigger zone, re-experiencing painful memory after the next, while simultaneously feeling the joys of being a toddler, child, and teenager again.

Home is complicated for all of us. It is a place where most of us leave, and at some point, return. Maybe we no longer regard it as home as much as a place of origin. Maybe it is a space that we cannot even think about because we have endured deep trauma there. Maybe it is still the most comforting place on Earth. Regardless, home has its homes in us, and it fuses into every version of ourselves and arises when the shadows fall.

What an immense trip that was. In my childhood home, there were mirrors everywhere. I saw myself playing in the playroom, having violent fights with my parents, sobbing desperately in my bed, and cautiously bringing lovers home. I was watching a montage appear before my eyes, and I was subconsciously recreating some of those memories. I watched the butterflies I used to talk to in my garden when I was 3, walked along the beach where my family and I frequented when I was 6, went back to the park I would write in when I was 16 and slept in the same bed that I secretly had sex in when I was 21. Each time I re-enacted my memories, I felt that version of myself ignite. They were still in me, and not only was I reuniting with them, but I also found myself healing with them too.

When I was 22, I left for America. I was determined to get out of this small predominantly White suburb. I wanted many things, but I mostly wanted to escape. After experiencing an abusive relationship, I was navigating intense and immediate trauma and I was often dissociating. When I think back to that age, I can’t remember much at all. I was not in my body because it did not feel safe to be. Every version of me, at every age, was cowering in fetal position in a small dark cave somewhere deep in my chest. I felt like a shell, and all I knew how to do was run. When I left Australia for the first time, I barely felt anything at all.

When I returned, I felt myself becoming many versions of myself again, including the parts of me that I have not always been proud of. I became insecure again about certain aspects of my life, and I saw how much I hinged my self-worth on my (especially romantic) relationships with other people. As I was growing up as the oldest child, I was assigned the role of a family caretaker. I diffused fights between my parents, and I tried to take my brothers under my wing whenever my father left for extended periods of time. It began to feel like the only thing I was useful for, and I usually felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I had a huge breakthrough when I was home this time with my therapist when she told me that I should not have been the caretaker at that age. I was only a child.

I have put myself on some sort of strange pedestal, or at least, assigned myself a role that requires me to always be perfect and set a good example for others. Mind you, I was no angel, and I was very rebellious and sometimes very selfish in my desire for distraction. I worried my parents when I went out and I did not know how to communicate with them. Leaving felt like my only time of reprieve from all the pressure that was placed on me at home. I think I left for America for those very same reasons, except I found myself recreating the caretaker dynamics with people that I was romantically involved with. I attracted people who required caretaking from me, I felt resentful when they wouldn’t exercise care in return, and I would end up feeling deeply insecure, anxious, and unworthy when they did not know how to love me.

This happened again on this trip. As you may have read in my previous newsletter, I rekindled a relationship with a past lover. While the relationship was sticky-sweet at first, and we both knew that it could not last beyond the time I was here, unfortunately, it turned sour. This ex-lover was emotionally unavailable and scared of his developing feelings for me. He was enamored with what I had to offer him, which was mostly emotional support, physical nurturance, and the time and effort it takes to keep in constant contact, without considering the reciprocation that was necessary for our relationship, regardless of its nature. When I brought this up, he told me that we were “not in a serious relationship”, which felt extremely dismissive, and it hurt me. I have experienced these “situationships” enough times to be able to discern the signs, though my greater challenge now is peeling myself away from the familiarity of this dynamic.

So, I ended things. I didn’t want to be the caretaker anymore, so I decided to take care of myself. I started to remember all the lessons I’d learned in my lifetime, all the vigorous healing practices I engaged in, all the journaling and meditating and intensive self-care I have practiced. I wanted to spend my time refocusing and devoting attention to the people who deeply love me, who showed up (both in Australia and the States) for me while I was in the eye of the trigger zone. Breaking the pattern to the best of my abilities. I was proud of myself for saying goodbye.

But I also slipped. I texted him one day, overcompensating with kindness. I checked in, wanting to speak with him, wanting to see how he was doing. I was looking for his attention, more unattainable affections, and I was trying to slip back into my caretaker role. When I realized this, I punished myself for it. I called myself stupid and foolish and I asked myself, “Have you learned nothing??!?!?!” I accessed a nasty voice in my head that shamed and blamed me that was familiar in my childhood. I called myself self-destructive, useless, and incapable of true healing. I imagined every ex-lover who had gaslit me; and every vulnerable Mimi who had cried in bed about it, and I looked at them all with disgust.

Deep breath.

I had gone from wanting to be the perfect caretaker to wanting to be the perfect healed version of myself. I wanted to follow every rigorous “step”, perfectly without flaws, and without ever slipping up. I wanted to prove that I could overcome heartache, that it could no longer affect me as it did when I was younger, and that I could quickly become unphased by somebody who had hurt me again. I was rushing.

In my pursuit of “true and pure healing”, I had forgotten something crucial. Healing is imperfect, and so am I. I will have moments where I slip up and return to the familiar. I know that can sometimes be self-destructive, though at this stage in my life I really am trying my best. I want to be happy, and I want to be loved. Sometimes these moments are just moments, and we learn from them if we allow ourselves to.

I feared that I was “regressing” in my healing, turning my anger toward my younger selves instead of the people who had hurt me. Regressing feels like an unfair word to use because it assumes the linearity of our healing. Healing does not go backward or forward, and there are no instruction manuals that we can strictly follow to reverse our hurt. Healing is unpredictable and usually shapeless, though there are wonderful points along the way. You uncover love on this journey, reshape and remold stubborn and toxic behaviors, laugh a lot and cry tears of relief. As I was punishing myself for my imperfect healing, I realized that I was punishing every younger version of me. I still had not learned to love them. How nourishing was this healing when I could not even forgive myself for my mistakes?

In the work that I do, I put an immense amount of pressure on myself to be perfect in my healing. I always want to encourage the most prolific and “productive” ways of being with our feelings, though it feels counterintuitive to punish myself when I am not. The layer of healing that I neglected was the one that lay beneath all the actions I could take. It was the layer that required me to be kind to myself when I fucked up, and to really hold the younger versions of myself that fucked up too.

I hold myself in my imperfect healing.

My mother and my relationship has undergone an imperfect process of healing. It still is, and it is beautiful. We have experienced much hardship in our relationships, and we have gotten into extremely violent fights. While our opinions still sometimes differ, and my identities confuse her, I truly see her and understand when she makes mistakes. She has her moments, but fuck, she is trying. Four years apart have forced us to foster closeness in a relationship that we both simply cannot lose. She listens to me, even when she does not understand. She truly sees me instead of jumping to anxious conclusions about my life choices. She has held herself accountable and even apologized to me. Her need to protect me has converted itself from being controlling to trusting my instincts. Her love for me encourages me to do the same for her, each and every day.

While I was stressing about this boy who could not show me love, just like the times when I was 16, 19 and 22, I stopped and looked toward my mother. I told her everything. This time, she was there, and she was not blaming me for anything. She was loving me at every age, in ways that she may not have known how to when I was a child. I had to do that too.

I am bawling my eyes out. I miss her so much already. It’s so fucking hard to live so far away from her, and I can say that now because I have healed so imperfectly, and so has she. We have both experienced so many road bumps, and mishaps, and made so many mistakes along this long and winding road, but we found each other at the end of it. It feels like we fought the same war that was fought in Everything Everywhere All at Once (if you’ve watched it, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then go watch it now!!!!). She is there for me as I am there for her. Forever.

As I return to New York, I am experiencing a long-delayed reaction. I am so present with this hurt, grief, and gratitude. I grieve a life that I know I could not live, though I step into a life in which I bring all my imperfect love and healing with me. I am finally present enough to count my blessings and hold my younger selves. I am not the perfect healer/healed person, and I am learning how it feels to take care of those who also show care to me. I could not have felt this way four years ago because I simply did not know how to, and I forgive myself for that too. I am no ideal healer, no prophetic poet, but deeply, imperfect, vulnerably human. Going home has a way of making you feel like that.

PLAYLIST:

A collection of songs I have cried, shed, danced, and held myself to:

I’ve been reading “Polysecure” by Jessica Fern, a book about attachment styles, relationships, and consensual non-monogamy. I’m reading it in my childhood home, reflecting on the ways that I become attached to people and how I act accordingly. The book talks a lot about how our parental figures shape the relationships we form in our adulthood, which is really interesting for me to read as I spend time with my parents in my childhood home. Sometimes they treat me as they did when I was a child and it is deeply painful to re-experience. Although our relationships have grown so much since then, there are many days when I feel like a lonely child again.

I’ve been feeling quite spiritually lonely. Though I love my solitude, and I adore spending time alone, it is the feeling of not being able to express myself with a fullness that makes me feel alone. I have to code-switch, cover up my queerness, and I perpetually feel guilty; as if the person I would really want my parents to meet is a version of me that would not make them proud. You know, some real inner child shit. Always seeking the approval of those who have found it hard to express it. I know that is part of the experience of going home, and I do not want to feel entitled to my parent’s understanding of these new languages I speak or the queer theories I try to practice. It is a realm of its own, a realm I am privileged enough to thrive in. However, the fact remains that I feel lonely here and my needs are still important. Whenever I feel that way, it is habitual for me not to look within, but to look without. Many times I look toward external validation, the online world, and for the attention and affections of others.

My loneliness is usually spiritual and comes from feeling a lack of closeness with the people physically near me. Over the last four years, closeness has also changed in meaning to me. While it used to mean something way more instantaneous and physical, it is now inseparable from deep communication, transparent nonjudgement, and mutual liberation. I feel so close to my friends in New York, and coming home to Australia I was reminded that I had some relationships to rebuild. Some people would be open to it, and some would not.

While it has been challenging, I have found this revisitation to childhood quite fruitful in its revelations. My addiction to validation shows me how social media and the online realm are built to temporarily stifle this existential loneliness that we feel. Our relationships with Capitalism show us that we have externalized validation as achievable, attainable, and purchasable. We are sold quick fixes to our loneliness that come in the form of shallow consumption and instant gratification, and we end up feeling even lonelier. There are very few things that tell us how to spiritually move through this loneliness, let alone teach us why we may be feeling this way. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we are not taught to be our full feeling selves in our relationships with each other and ourselves. We are afraid of the loneliness, but we are afraid of its alternatives too.

One day I went to the beach by myself. I needed to spend time alone and ground with the Ocean. I was feeling this intense loneliness again, the type that made me feel reckless and thirsty. I drove an hour away and sat by the beach, and as corny as it may sound, I realised that I was not alone. I felt wholly seen, held, and accepted by the unconditional ebb and flow of the waves, and so I quickly sprinted in to Her loving embrace.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but sometimes when I find myself doing something ethereal and freeing, I imagine myself being watched. I imagine somebody perceiving me, thinking I am beautiful, and falling in love with me. Very manic pixie dream girl. On this hot summer’s day, as I was running into the Ocean, hips swaying and hair flowing dramatically in the breeze, I imagined somebody looking at me lovingly in awe. I imagined my crushes seeing me feeling so free and so divinely connected to my surroundings. And then I stopped in my tracks. Why was I fantasizing about myself through the eyes of another? Why couldn’t I simply just look at myself that way?

This told me a lot about a deep craving to be seen, and perhaps even a sick pleasure I have in feeling surveilled. It showed me that I’m so used to having a watchful eye on me that I almost want that eye to love what it sees. Do I know what it means to be seen without being surveilled? It told me that I had a complicated and toxic relationship with surveillance, and that I had almost grown fond of it, despite the fact that it made me feel unsafe. It told me that those toxic pleasures of my existence are built on maintaining a performance pre-determined by somebody else; probably by the heteropatriarchal male gaze. As much as I speak about my frustrations of social media, I also know that I can be co-dependent on the short bursts of attention it provides. Because of this, I have forgotten how to see even myself, and I rely on people to applaud a theatrical version of me. I become more spiritually lonely.

So then I imagined an alternative vision. I imagined that the figure who was watching me with adoring eyes was myself. Not just angelically running into the Ocean, but also snacking on the beach with my stomach out, or anxiously fidgeting with the pages of my book. What if, before we fret over how others perceive our every action, we look through our own eyes to see ourselves? I know we have to codeswitch and perform to stay safe in many situations, but sometimes, when we are experiencing an intimate or quiet moment by ourselves, or even a moment that is full of anxiety, self-doubt, and unknowing, what if we dedicated a moment to look at ourselves with eyes of love and understanding, the ways we would look at someone we love? And then we expand that, into our relationships with each other, and further into our culture, so we can also feel safe and reciprocally seen with each other? Maybe then we would feel a little less alone.

As I sat on the quiet beach with this newfound revelation, I saw myself, no longer performing and feeling relaxed. I felt safe. This was a lesson, and loneliness was my guide.

When I talk about moving through loneliness, I am neither suggesting that we spend all our time alone, nor that we rely on seeking validation solely from our relationships. Instead, I am suggesting that we see ourselves with loving eyes, and also invite the possibilities of finding honest connections with each other where we can feel wholly seen and heard. In “Polysecure”, Jessica Fern talks about how the healthiest relationships are those with a balance of both personal autonomy and nourishing connection. I often veer to one extreme or the other, either being super guarded in fear of losing my autonomy or feeling my walls coming down and becoming completely absorbed in my relationships with people. Finding the balance allows us to move through loneliness because it asks us to honour our relationships with others and ourselves. It encourages me to ask myself the questions: Do I feel lonely with myself? Do I feel lonely in my relationships? What needs to change?

My relationship with my parents is slowly changing. My mother and I are communicating quite openly, and the other day she offered to hug me, which rarely happened in my childhood. I’m proud of us, because I know that we’re both combatting our own spiritual loneliness, and it finally feels like we’re seeing each other with compassion instead of projecting who we think the other should be. We are sharing our needs, and we are both changing because we are committed to our autonomy and our connection.

While loneliness might strike us to seek instant gratification from people we know cannot provide it for us, it also illuminates the personal needs that we have been taught to neglect. To no longer feel lonely is to feel wholly seen and appreciated by those you share closeness, including yourself. It means to ask you loved ones to fully see you, or to meet at common places where you can see each other as more than projections of company. We are equally afraid of closeness and loneliness because they both require us to move with immense and non-performative honesty. Loneliness has challenged my addictions to validation, asking me to interrogate the unnerving pleasures I get from being accustomed to a life of feeling surveiled and unsafe. While loneliness nudges me to vocalize my needs and nourish my true relationships, it is also a guide that asks me to look at myself with loving and understanding eyes. Loneliness is a guide that brings me closer to me and you.

I made a playlist for those who are feeling the energy of loneliness. It is high energy, and I hope that you can transmute that energy into dance and feel closer to yourself by the end of it. You deserve it.

i’ve been home in australia for over two months now, and i’m so very happy to be here. i have been spending so much time with my family, reconnecting with lifelong friends, and merging with many past versions of myself. i’m in my old bedroom and i see all of my different phases displayed before me; manic pixie dream girl, rockabilly appropriator, literary nerd. i’m still all of those people at once, with many more divine layers, and i remember all the emotions i felt as i was experimenting with my interests. i was always looking for something outside of myself, someone to see me, a community to belong in. i am reminded that i was such a lonely child.

i am called to remember all the times i’ve been heartbroken, all the boys i trusted and let into my room, all the tears i cried because i had all this love with “no one to give it to”. it didn’t occur to me that i was the source and that i should have also been the reciever.this spiritual loneliness led me to believe that romantic love would fulfill me in the places i felt malnourished. i searched for lovers in all the wrong places, attracting the attention of people who were equally as lost. i’ve had a string of unhealthy romantic relationships, ones where i felt deeply unfulfilled and small. i compromised so much of my being to teach my lovers about their own emotions. they usually ended poorly, and we never stayed friends.

the last five years have been gruelling in their lessons in love, especially after the demise of my relationship with my first love. after that, i went to the polar opposite side of the spectrum. i stayed far away from the prospect of partnership and kept my heart guarded. i did not think of myself as worthy or capable of falling in love again. i kept my cool, shunned my feelings, and ran from any semblence of intimacy. my hyper-independence became a coping mechanism for me too.

in the last two years i have felt a huge shift. i have become both the giver and the reciever of love. i learned how to channel my lingering loneliness into learning my needs and enjoying my own deeply stimulating company. i transformed my yearnings into the constant practice of loving myself and letting love echo out toward my relationships. i have experienced intimacy and kinship with my queer friends who have completely reshaped what romantic love can look like. i have learned to ask for what i want, and certainly what i deserve.

i have dated friends, and i have learned that the friends-to-lover trajectory works well for me. romantic love used to mean sizzling attraction and butterflies, though it has morphed in front of me over the last few years. now, it means feeling free, safe, and comfortable with each other, without feeling the anxiety of maintaining gendered performances. it’s still exciting, although now the foundation is stronger. i never thought this could happen, but with the friends i have dated, even though our romantic relationships have shifted, we still remain friends today. i want to dedicate this year to melting down the hard protective barriers i have made in compartmentalizing love, romance, friendship, intimacy and sex. what i thought impossible in my lonely teenage years feels like second nature to me now. love, in all of its many myriading forms, cannot be categorized nor even defined. it is constantly imagining and imagined, and there is so much more to learn.

this time being home in australia, i started seeing someone.

this sweet someone (who has given me permission to write about this) is a friend who i used to have a casual relationship with four years ago. way back then, i was in a very emotionally chaotic place. i was emotionally unavailable, though my loneliness led the way and still seeked physical affection. my friend and i shared a mutual understanding of the bounds within our relationship, and we were deeply fond of each other. although we spoke to each other with mutual adoration and respect, a lot (for me) remained unsaid. back then, i was terrified of expressing my feelings, and it was difficult to be present when vulnerability was required.

four years later, we have reconnected, and to both of our surprise, it has been very romantic. this is a layer to our relationship that i think neither of us were ready for four years ago. we have both grown and shapeshifted in ways that have brought us closer to ourselves, and it’s beautiful to see that it’s brought us closer together too.

the added layer of romance started to make me nervous. my protective defence mechanisms came swarming back and i started to conjure many reasons to “take steps back”. i have always taken a shallow pride in maintaining a sense of placated cool, and i started drifting back to my usual guarded tendencies. while i knew that our romance can only last the australian summer, i was also hesitant about this change in our dynamic. i was reverting to the self i was, four years ago, the self who kept a distance because i was too afraid of getting hurt.

one day, we were lying in bed together. it was a sunny summer australian morning and i could hear the trees rustling outside the window. while we were both experiencing this slow morning, entwined in this newfound intimacy that we never dared to explore, i found myself overthinking in his arms. all of those fears were swirling in my head, asking me questions that started with, “what’s the point?”, ‘what am i doing?”, “what if he…?”, “what if i…?”. there was so much noise erupting in my head that i drowned out the sounds of the morning birds. my rapid intusive thoughts were overcoming every sensation in my body. i didn’t believe that i deserved this sweet and slow moment.

then, for whatever miraculous reason, i stopped thinking and had a moment of repreive. this is when i thought of the love meditation. i’ve been a practicing buddhist for a while, and i have learned that meditation is not the practice of escaping your thoughts, but being one with every sensation, even the thoughts themselves. instead of adding to the clattering volume of my intrusive thoughts by telling them to stop, i told myself this: “i am thinking these thoughts, along with all the other sensations i am experiencing.”

and then i started to feel the other sensations emerging. i could feel my own shallow breathing, though it began to deepen as soon as i noticed it. i also felt his chest beneath my head, slowly rising and falling with his breath. i could hear his heart beating, constant and strong. i felt my fingers entwined with his, and the tactility of both of our skin. i then felt the warmth that we had incubated between both of our bodies, and i started to feel myself mingling with the moment. every element of the moment enhanced, calm, and in sync. my fearful thoughts started to quiten, all on their own, and my eyes closed as i allowed myself to bask in the pleasure of the now. that was my love meditation.

i call it that because i believe that falling in love, or in this case, experiencing romantic pleasure, is an experience of deep presence. it is like a meditation, merging with every tiny detail and feeling that surrounds us. we can only enjoy it when we are fully submerged in embodying and experiencing each surreal sensation. when we are enraptured in romance, every sensation can feel so visceral. looking into someone’s eyes, breathing in unison, hearts beating in a shared rhythm…these all begin to become blessings that we ordinarily overlook. it is allowing yourself to feel the full expansiveness of our shared aliveness. it is merging with the miraculousness of sharing a moment of closeness with someone. closeness not being falling in love with the traits or qualities that you like, but more so about just seeing them be alive, and seeing how that life fuses with yours. this love meditation liberated me from second-guessing and doubting myself. it allowed me to experience a warm embrace that i deeply deserved. i am grateful for every moment that allows me true closeness.

i will always stand by the fact that romantic love should not be heirarchised as the most important form of love. so much of my loneliness stemmed from that misguided sentiment. i cannot however, flee to the other extreme and denounce romance all together. i love love, in all of its many forms, and i think that romance is miraculous, visceral and intense in its own unique ways. i still invite romance into my life, and i can finally appreciate the moments i get to experience it.

while i meditate in solitude, i forget to meditate in my relationships. meditating in love and intimacy has been so lifechanging because it has helped me calm the tumultuous fears that have come with my romantic trauma. while i know how to discern the red flags that come with dating, i have also finally allowed myself to enjoy the company of others without telling myself that i’m afraid/undeserving of that pleasure. i do deserve pleasure, and romance provides such a specific and beautiful joy that i no longer wish to cut myself off from it. i’m ready to recieve, not just from myself, but also from those who wish to provide for me.

i’m not free from the pangs of my childhood loneliness nor my adult heartbreak, and both of them come to visit me every once in a while, especially when i compare myself to others. but when i do, i try to practice my love meditations and fuse with the romance of the worlds within and around me. i savor the sensations that comes with crushing and infatuation and i watch my heart blossom open. i am deeply grateful for everything in the universe that allows me to welcome the presence of romance and love. that is my love meditation.

happy valentine’s day.

a playlist for first dates and fig trees and crushes that make you happy:

hello to you, it has been a while.

i want to apologise for my absence from this newsletter. i really appreciate every single one of you who supports me with such patience, and who financially supports my work. i also totally understand if you choose to unsubscribe from the paid option because i have been writing this newsletter a lot less frequently, though it would mean the world if you could reserve a small portion of your funds to support my upcoming book Be Not Afraid of Love when it is released next year.

Be Not Afraid of Love is a book about re-learning love after a toxic and abusive relationship. it will follow the relationship i had with someone who was simultaneously my first love and abuser. it will explore the nuanced emotions that come during my different spiraling stages of healing, and it will zoom out to take a look at all of my relationships with my emotions, friends, family, the state, Earth, and myself. it will be out in the summer of 2022.

the last few months have been dedicated to writing the book. it has been an active dreaming into fruition, and i have been bleeding onto the page. i feel like as i’m waiting for the book’s release, spiraling internally, being super self-critical, and putting my heart on a plate, waiting for it to be consumed.

i’m scared. i’m really fucking scared of releasing it into the world. i’m scared that it’s stupid, that i’ve overlooked something critical, or that i’ve been careless with anyone’s heart. i’ve gone over the manuscript 100 times, on paper and on my computer. i vow over and over again to write from the “i”, and to always fully acknowledge the people who have shared their wisdom with me. i feel like i am a sculptor; like i am chipping away at the work and shaving all the excessive marble to reveal a “perfect” work of art. i’m scared that it is imperfect, and the fear beckons me to reflect on that thought.

i write about the oscillating natures of love and fear, and i am seeing now that i am harboring much fear in my heart. one of the key themes of the book is sitting with the challenging healing practice of being with our fear instead of resisting it. i sit with my fear now and i uncover shining pearls of care. i care so much about this book, about everybody who reads it, and i deeply care for my own heart. i care for my relationships and i want to thank everybody who has shown me how to relearn love, including the you who lives, the you who is within this tiny community of lovers that started three years ago. i hope the book moves you in whatever ways that it may, though i cannot predict what will tug at your heartstrings. my honesty is as it is, and i acknowledge that my truth is not perfect nor smooth, but messy and difficult, which is the place i choose to write from.

no matter how hard i try to chip away at the sculpture of my work, i cannot chip away at the core of my story. my wonderful editor amy told me that editing can be an infinite process if you want it to be. i could edit forever, because everything continues to change. but at some point, i have to stop, and i have to allow the fear to pass. i have to release the work of art, like a baby bird i have been keeping in my nest. i have to share it, because i write for the love that holds our millions of interconnections. i write because it has allowed me to survive, and i share because i have seen the power of the written word, the ways that our interconnections strengthen and reverberate with resonance. i see how it strengthens me and us, and how even in times where we may feel alone, our connections never die.

it is an act of self-love to trust myself enough to release Be Not Afraid of Love and to wholly believe in my truth-telling. as i submit my manuscript, i can only sit with immense gratitude, because i truly could not do it without any of you. ♡

—

upon waking up a few days ago, i learned that bell hooks passed away. my heart is broken, and i am praying for her safe passage home. i hope that we can all openly grieve her and honor the many wisdoms of love that she left with us. i hope that we can collectively mourn and send her spirit safely to the afterlife.

she inspired me to write about and explore love. she always wrote with strength and tenderness, and taught me that both these qualities are inseparable from each other. she writes so vulnerably about her experiences as a Black woman in the so-called united states of america, navigating abusive relationships with the state, her family, and lovers. she writes about how she harnesses love as a force of radical resistance, and as a commitment and a choice. i could not and would not be the writer i am today without her generosities, vulnerability and wisdoms.

bell hooks’ love has eternal life. despite her passing, her love lives on. in All About Love, she writes:

redeemed and restored, love returns us to the promise of everlasting life. when we love we can let our hearts speak.

i read All About Love after escaping my abusive relationship, and it felt like it cracked me open. it was the first time i had ever read someone say that love cannot co-exist with violence. her writings made me spiral into a deep mode of reflection, and i say the word “spiral” because i always returned to myself. she always encouraged me to hold myself (and ask to be held) during the process. she radicalized me, and profoundly changed so many of our lives. she writes deeply from an ethic of love and her work is referenced and weaved all throughout my own work, especially in Be Not Afraid of Love. i am so deeply grateful for bell hooks and i owe so much to her. she showed me love when love felt like a stranger.

i read a tweet by poet Danez Smith that spoke about bell hooks’ passing and legacy. they wrote:

“what a way to go, you pass on to the next and everybody talking about love, love, love, love, love, love.”

as i am sitting here, writing this newsletter, i sit here with love and i know that bell hooks has left pearls of eternal love in all of us. it is because of that love that i feel courageous enough to submit my manuscript, share my story, and express an everlasting and loving thank you.

—

PLAYLIST:

I am spiraling.

In the last few months, there has been a lot of uprooting and change. It has affected my relationships, my mental health, my everyday life, and my writing. In this upheaval, a lot remains uncertain, and there are a lot of blank, ambiguous, and shifting spaces floating all around me. I know so many of us who are in times of transition, where we once again are beckoned to ask ourselves, “what do you want?”. This question always seems to fail me, and while I try to get in touch with my gut, I realize that there is never really one concrete answer. I want many things, or sometimes, I don’t know what I want, and that is okay too.

I am floating in a time of deep unknowing, where I am training and tightening the muscle that is my intuition and asking myself some difficult questions. Not only am I asking myself what I want, but I am also asking myself what I deserve. The second question is usually the trickier one, and unfortunately, the answers to both do not always align.

For four long years, I have been making it work in the US. I immigrated here from Australia to find a queer community and explore the possibilities of being a writer. I don’t have any family out here and have not seen my family in four years. For two of those years, I was arduously going through immigration struggles, being rejected from one visa after the other, and every six months I’d have to go through the strenuous efforts of compiling paperwork, hiring lawyers, and ensuring a sense of stability. I could not see my future beyond six months at a time. All I knew was that I wanted to stay, and I built my reality from there. That does not mean that I always got what I deserved, and I was usually put through a tailspin of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and vigorously learning my rights. The system forced me to prove myself as a “model citizen”, and I spent years paranoidly watching my back. This state of unknowing became normalized in my everyday survival, and I had no choice but to get creative with these ever-shifting circumstances.

I have wanted to give up so many times. The immigration system pushed and pulled me into a perpetual state of scarcity and urgency. In order to have a peaceful long-term home, I felt like I had to be on my very vest behavior and prove myself worthy of it. This mindset has persisted, and my therapist Aditi pointed out to me that I have been operating from a scarcity mindset for most of my life, just like my mother. Scarcity mindset tells me that there is nothing out there for me, that my dreams must wait, and that even if I know what I want, that it will be a long time until I get what I truly deserve. It caused me to believe that there is a finite amount of love and blessings to go around, and I would constantly compare myself to people who seemed like they were experiencing stability and homeliness (an assumption). The scarcity mindset made me terrified of asking for help.

Truth be told, there is a sore lack of resources, especially for marginalized communities. The state pumps the earth of her natural blessings and hoards them for a small percentage of billionaires. Material abundance is purposefully distributed unevenly, and for those of us who grew up poor and financially struggling, a scarcity mindset is instilled in us because the state tells us that scarcity is all we will ever get. This mindset makes us believe that we need to perpetually prove ourselves of worthiness, goodness, and basic needs. Shifting into an abundance mindset is not acting as if scarcity and accessibility are not deliberately enacted onto marginalized communities, but more so realizing that we can enact many creative ways to redistribute and regenerate abundance with each other.

In the last four years, every time I reached a terrifying challenge, my scarcity mindset was activated. However, I was always be met with abundance. The abundance came in shapes that took me by surprise because it came in the form of love. Tapping into an abundance mindset was not pretending as if money and material would magically appear before me, but more so feeling less afraid to ask for support and believing that there is kindness that people are willing to multiply and share. Any time that I asked for help, I found myself surrounded by people who were willing to get creative and figure out how we could overcome these obstacles in solidarity with each other. We are the beholders of possibility, and when we are in crisis mode, the Earth splits open and allows us to create from these spaces of fertile unknowing.

What emerges from these times of struggle is creativity. In these uncertain moments, our perspective splits open. We have to generate new ideas and ways of survival, and new ways of interconnection and interderpendence. These times of unknowing are so difficult, and yet they also feel like fertile openings. They provide us profound insights into the possibilities that we can generate together. They beckon us to ask serious questions about how our love, desire, and joy is interconnected with each other. In these states of unknowing, so much is generously revealed to us, and that too is a form of abundance.

I want to challenge myself to always notice the abundance around me. In crisis mode, I want to become particularly tender and perceptive to the kindness and generosity of the Universe. Slowly throughout the years, I have found it less uncomfortable to ask for help. While I have braced myself for rejection, I was usually welcomed with warmth. My friends and chosen family have shown up for me in ways that we are imagining together, and what I want and deserve begins to align; perhaps not in the ways that I had initially envisioned, but because what I truly want and deserve is love. What we all deserve is love.

As I sat in my favourite park during Sunset one day, I had no choice but to notice the abundance around me. The towering trees were sprouting from the Earth, especially lush this NY Summer. Butterflies were fluttering in pairs, couples were intertwined in their heated Summer love, Chinese Aunties were doing their daily aerobics exercises, and flocks of birds were flying in formation towards the waterfront. The answers to my erratic questions began to emerge in many ways. Despite all of my unknowing, I knew that I was inseparable from the abundance all around me.

Our unknowing is a time that allows us to notice the blessings that we sometimes otherwise forget. There is abundance that emerges from the unknown, new possibilities and imaginations bubbling up, and surprises that await us. my unknowing reminds me that even stability is impermanent, and it calls for me to remember the constant forces of love in my life. Even amidst my heartache, love is an eternal reverberating force, and this place of unknowing allows me to access abundance from deep within.

PROMPTS FOR YOUR REFLECTION

1. WHAT IS REVEALED TO YOU DURING TIMES OF UNKNOWING?

2. WHEN DO YOU SEE ABUNDANCE AROUND YOU?

3. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABUNDANT WITHIN YOU?

PLAYLIST

A playlist of remembrance. Enjoy.

summer isn’t easy, especially this particular “post-pandemic” season. while it is a time that is abundant with celebration, i can see so many of us pushing ourselves to the limits and making up for “lost time”. i started to do the same and re-indulged in many of my favourite past times. i had deeply missed the euphoria of dancing and sweating in togetherness, for there is nothing quite like it. i went back to some parties, and sometimes i felt ecstatic, while other times, i felt a melancholy that would linger wiht me through the night. while i was doing things that usually made me “happy”, so much pain began to re-emerge too.

one of my greatest lessons during the pandemic was about my co-dependence on partying and being seen. going out in NYC was a way for me to meet people, some of whom i now consider my closest kin. i am grateful for those spaces and the magic of nightlife, but like all indulgences, pleasure and attachments, we need to implement boundaries. partying for me was one of my biggest distractions. whenever i would go through bouts of insecurity or instability, i would itch to go out. i would venture deep into nightlife, even if i was physically exhausted, in order to look good, be seen, and have my ego stroked. when i would party from a place of insecurity, my ego would take the driver’s seat and block out my desires for introspection, rest, and grieving. when my priority was to be seen, i was no longer be able to see myself.

in a way, partying can be a form of release. dancing is an opportunity to be in movement and presence with your body. dancing allows us to shake out any energy that weighs heavy on your height, and doing it in a crowded room of people feels like synergetic catharsis. i missed it. however, during the pandemic, i had to learn that it’s not the only way of release, and that i had to find many other ways to let go. ironiclly, i found that sometimes sitting still with my suffering was the best way to let it go. accepting my suffering and befriending my shadows was also vital to my survival. during the pandemic, i had nowhere to run, and so as i sat still, i also allowed space for my melancholy.

now that the US is “re-emerging” i find myself feeling guilty about my sadness, as if i am not spending the summer as i’m supposed to. what happens when we pressure ourselves to feel joy, even when so much of our grief still trickles through our body and reminds us of summers past? with much anxiety and confusion, i revisited therapy because i realised how difficult writing this book has been. this book is my opus, it is the story that i have been holding on to for years, it is a body of work that details many sad summers, and it talks about how i only survived them because i (finally) allowed myself to sit with the fullness of my feelings. i couldn’t do it without guidance and support, and i couldn’t do it without forgiving myself for my experiences in suffering. finding the words has been difficult, and being present in my body has been ever harder. i am being presented old lessons in new forms, but i believe that this Summer, the Universe is guiding me in truly learning them, only if i allow myself to.

my friend jas lin and i spoke one day during sunset about the beauty of holding multiple truths. we talked for hours about all the complicated feelings that we are expierencing at once. my therapist often teaches me about the magic of both/and, and how simultaneous realities are in constant co-existence. while in the summertime i am excited and active, i am also anxious and need time to be still. while in the summer i am laughing and joyful, i am also sad and triggered by summers of the past. while in the summer i am restless, i also require deep rest.

so this summer i have been sitting with my melancholy. while i’ve been returning to my social life and partying again, i’ve also been making space for my sadness. my sadness did not disappear once the seasons changed, and demonising them to the shadows does not resolve those feelings either. as i honour my joy, i honour the impermanence of all my emotions by sitting with the ones that don’t also feel too good. in this sense, i am honouring the full spectrum of my feeling instead of pushing any of them aside. i will allow myself to be both joyful and sad in the sun, and i am grateful for the fact that she is guiding me through it. she is guiding all of us.

PROMPTS FOR REFLECTION

1. WHAT FEELS DIFFERENT IN YOUR BODY THIS SUMMER?

2. HOW HAVE YOUR INDULGENCES AND PLEASURES SHAPESHIFTED OVER THE LAST YEAR?

3. WHAT MULTIPLE TRUTHS DO YOU HOLD IN THE HEAT?

PLAYLIST TO WRITE TO

birthdays and anniversaries bring up a lot of pressure and anxiety, and they also invite much self-reflection and renewal. yesterday i was in conversation with my good friend Brinda (@brindanotbrenda) and they said something poignant that made me want to cry. i had asked them what makes them feel beautiful in their body, and they responded by saying, “i feel beautiful when i witness moments of love.”

i can’t stop thinking about what they said, and at sunset, on my daily walk around the neighbourhood, i started to notice all the moments in love around me. i saw a couple kissing on the back of a truck, and a little boy engrossed by a miniature world he had built on the Earth. i saw an older gentleman taking a nap in the sun, and i saw flowers that had been dormant the week before, blooming into life. there is this one rose bush that i walk past most days and secretly call the “mum” bush, because there is always only one flower in bloom at a time and it always reminds me of the resilience of my mother. every time i see it i send her a picture, and yesterday i felt so blessed to see that the entire rose bush was in bloom. i think about my sweet neighbour Hollie Bee who is only two years old and is so perceptive and sensitive to the moments in love that surround her. one day she left me a little orange flower on my stoop, and to thank her i bought her a teddy bear and we shared a Filipino dinner in her family’s warm and cozy home.

the past year has been rattled with pain and violence and grief. we have witnessed death and violence and fascism in plain view. we have endured intense personal feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression. we have experienced immense loss. a year ago, i was feeling worthless and on the brink of self-destruction, and i had placed all of my self-worth into the arms of another person. i came to the stark realisation that i was in deep pain, and that i had depended on unhealthy coping mechanisms, external and material validation, and institutional standards to determine my liveliness. a year ago, i had to come to the realisation that everything that i had normalised in my life was in fact not normal, and that i didn’t really know anything at all. i certainly did not know myself.

a year on and there have been many challenges and difficult lessons. i went through a separation that felt monumental because it shed a light on all of my previous romantic relationships and ideas of love. i moved five times across the country and back without really wanting or expecting to. i lost my grandfather and miss him so much. i lost some friends and committed to nourishing relationships with my cherished chosen family. i read books and crocheted which were some of the most grounding moments in my spirit. my career took a turn that i never believed would happen. i got my green card. and i relearned love.

as sweet as it might be to recall all the lessons i’ve learned/accomplishments i’ve made in the past year, i don’t want to fall again into the trap of determining my worth based on what i have done or who has seen me. instead, i want to recall what i have felt inherently connected to and all that i have been moved by. i think about the moments in love. i think about crying under a full moon with my friend fatima during one of the darkest times in my life. i remember the hummingbird that would hover outside of my window for weeks on end. i remember the comrade britney movement that was unexpectedly sparked by a passage i had written. i remember reading robin wall kimmerer’s braiding sweetgrass alone in bed and weeping upon learning that yellow and purple flowers naturally bloom next to each other because of the natural “laws” of attraction. i remember listening to beverly glenn-copeland on long drives through dense forests and trees. i remember dancing in parks with my friends while socially distanced to celebrate my greencard. i remember learning how to celebrate and forgive myself. i remember every sunset. i remember wanting to live.

i’ve been doing this for a long time, this act of writing. for the first time this year i learned how to celebrate myself and absorb and receive blessings. i learned that receiving can sometimes be even more challenging than giving. this year i learned how utterly deserving i am, and i recall with tears in my eyes how i have been writing this newsletter for three years now, and how so many of you have accompanied me in this intensive, transformative, moving life. i will always believe that we are all intrinsically, delicately and spiritually connected, and because of this firm belief, celebrating my life is also celebrating yours. being grateful for my life is also being grateful for yours. i want to take the time to thank you for accompanying me on this very moment in love, and i am so excited for you to read the book that i’ve been writing and dedicating my time, energy and love to. i love you all in many different ways.

as i was writing this newsletter, i started thinking about my grandfather who passed in august of last year. i was listening to a franz liszt’s composition ‘consolations no. 3' and thought about how my grandfather introduced me to classical music. he was always so kind and sat by me while i played the piano. my father would always punish me when i made mistakes, and my grandfather would be the one to encourage me and tell me that playing music wasn’t about being perfect; it was about feeling. my grandfather walked me to school every day when i was a child, and he taught me what it means to be actively anti-racist and queer. when i heard the news a year ago, i wasn’t able to process or accept this reality. i started weeping while writing this newsletter, and could not help but feel that my birth is intrinsically connected to both his birth and his passing. as i wept and wept and felt the grief rise through my body, i also felt the love create a warm and loving embrace. he is everywhere around me. he is in the budding roses and the bird song and the cacti and the butterflies. this is a moment in love, and he is right here with me, experiencing it on my 27th birth.

PROMPT

1. RECALL FIVE MOMENTS IN LOVE FROM THE PAST YEAR

PLAYLIST

27 songs that have accompanied me during some beautiful moments in love in the past year of my life, enjoy:

Two months ago, I received blessed news that I would be publishing a book with Penguin. This book is called BE NOT AFRAID OF LOVE, and I have not only been writing it for most of my life but also living it in my waking reality. Every day I wake up and embark on a repetitive daily routine, one that is committed to writing, researching, and reading for the book. All my time is dedicated to this book, and a lot of that time is spent editing, deleting, beaming, loving, adjusting, reading, panicking, and crying.

I know it might seem extremely privileged to be writing about the stresses that come with writing a published book, but I also vowed in this newsletter to write from the “I”, to write in real-time, and not to police nor judge myself for the feelings that come up with my lived experiences. I want these newsletters, and my book, to feel like I am your friend, extending my arms to you, telling you about my life. And of course, you can always respond and begin conversations with me, for one of the most beautiful parts of these newsletters is receiving responses and witnessing your own sacred relationships to the words you read. Because this newsletter will always be my baby and always remind me to illuminate my truth, not as good or bad but as it is, I am going to talk about the imposter syndrome I’ve been experiencing and the origins of those feelings.

Lately, I have been experiencing intense bouts of self-doubt. I have had intrusive thoughts, telling myself that I am not good enough to write a book and that I am not knowledgable, skilled, or linguistically gifted enough. I have made comparisons between myself and published writers that I admire, and I have been extremely punitive toward myself about my work. This is common, that taunting voice in my head, the one that polices me and makes comparisons in the name of insecurity. This has allowed me to see the oppressive forces that still live within me that require constant unlearning. It has also allowed me to see how deeply I care.

My book is about emotions and relationships and love. It will detail my personal survivor-hood and the feelings that arose during and after an abusive relationship with my on-and-off intimate partner (now ex) of three years. I am committed to writing a book that will explore the nuanced array of emotions that I experienced after and during the abuse. I have found that a lot of books, films, and television talk about abuse while centralizing the abuser and assault, and not so much elaborating on the very long, winding, and intensive emotional aftermath (except for Michaela Coel’s INCREDIBLE I May Destroy You). My own period of arduous and nuanced post-traumatic suffering caused me to doubt myself, return to my abuser, lose my confidence and ideas of self-worth, stop believing in love, crave belonging, enter new toxic relationships, or avoid relationships altogether. I am committed to this book being an exploration and re-learning of love, and a means for me to get free from the abusive notions of “love” that held me hostage in a violent partnership. What I write is bursting forth from me because I live it. I am it.

Even though it has been years since my ex and I parted, writing this book has allowed me to see the ways that I habitually use the same self-deprecating weapons that my ex used against me, against myself. This book lives with me, and it is also my companion in everyday life. I am forming a deepening relationship with this art while I am writing it. When we are devoted to our writings, our projects, the things we create and make out of love, I know that more often than not we worry that we are unworthy of creating those things.

We must identify the oppressive forces outside and inside of us, the ones that tell us that we are not worthy of telling our stories. I have felt unqualified because I am not a licensed therapist or psychology professor and I did not have a prestigious ivy-league education. I catch myself measuring my self-worth with the same standards that the state uses to measure people worthy of life, abundance, and joy. We cannot allow the state to determine our worth through classist and racist forms of credibility, and understand that what we create is intrinsically connected to our worthy, beloved, being. What we create is not separate from us, but it is also not all of us. We are deserving of love and care, whether we choose to create or not.

So as I have spent time scolding or degrading myself while writing this book, thinking thoughts that are harsh and insulting to my own character, I remember that I am writing about relationships. I contemplate with resistance and then tenderness, about my relationship with myself. This is a relationship that I was raised to often forget. Where do my insecurities come from? Why do I feel like an outsider, and where exactly will I ever feel “in”? I ask myself, “who cares enough to hear what I have to say about emotions and relationships?” which translates to “who cares enough for me?”. I remember then with clarity, that I care for me.

Imposter syndrome is insidious because it takes us away from ourselves. We determine our worth through measurements that have been taught, drilled, and disciplined into our thinking. It makes us turn away from our spirits and into the eyes of our egos. It teaches me though, a deeper lesson; a yearning for belonging in my own body. When we feel like “outsiders”, we must ask ourselves what we feel “outside” to, and whether there is something ingrained inside of us that is attempting to displace our spirits. This pressure I put on myself comes from elitist institutional standards, white supremacy, pretentious intellectuals, and intimate-partner abuse. In writing this book, I must constantly practice unlearning the forces that have hurt me and promise to not weld them to further hurt myself. The act of writing this book is honouring first, the act of being alive. I must write this book with tenderness, just as I endeavor to live my life. If there’s anything that I truly try to carry with me every day, it’s that life is deserving of softness, even when it is hard.

This light work that I am doing is sometimes not so light. It is difficult to look deep within, and can sometimes be re-traumatising to recall, and so while writing about care I am also learning what it truly means to care for myself. It means to be gentle, to be discerning, and to be cautious about when I over-extend myself and excavate too deep. I am writing a book about my life, and in the stresses and uncertainties of writing it, in all the imposter syndrome and the “not-good-enough"s, I have to remember one thing: the body of work that I produce in this lifetime is in no way more important than belonging in my body. Writing my book is not more important than my own precious life, and truly living that will allow me to write from the heart. I must be kind to myself.

Although our precious lives were always intended to be shared with each other, it is important to love ourselves beyond how we think we are being perceived or accepted. A yearning for belonging, companionship, and partnership does not equal self-destruction or neglect. We must love ourselves beyond our identities as artists, survivors, storytellers, friends, and lovers. We must love ourselves as beings on our beautiful Earth. There are no imposters here.

PROMPTS FOR YOUR REFLECTION

1. WHEN I EXPERIENCE IMPOSTER SYNDROME, WHAT DO I FEEL AN OUTSIDER TO? AM I REALLY OUTSIDE OF A GROUP OF “BETTER” BEINGS, OR DO I FEEL LIKE I AM OUTSIDE OF MYSELF?

2. WHEN I FEEL OUTSIDE OF MYSELF, HOW CAN I BE TENDER AND RETURN TO BELONGING IN MY PRECIOUS BEING?

3. WHAT IS MY RELATIONSHIP TO MYSELF? HOW DO I ROMANCE, DATE, LOVE, SEE AND HOLD MYSELF?

PLAYLIST 4 U

A playlist of songs that allow me to feel present and belonging in my body. Most of them are sparkly, multidimensional, and ecstatic, which is how I feel when I love myself fully!

RESOURCES

My dear kin Natalia collaborated with Lizette and Rin to create a beautiful and resourceful website called SOLACE that compiles resources for survivors including therapy, healers, mutual aid networks, and a Q&A column that I will be responding to.

If you are looking to partake in mutual aid or are looking to re-distribute some of your wealth, here are two GoFundMes that I am avidly sharing of two of my dear friends who are in mourning:

1. Blackbird’s Mourning Loss of Son Fund

2. Philip’s Family’s Funeral and Medical Expenses

Nearly two weeks ago, on March 16th 2021, a white supremacist went to three different Asian massage parlours in GA and killed eight people, six of them Asian women. I am not going to include their names in this newsletter because all of their respective families have not given public consent for the sharing of their names.

The speculation of the murderer’s intentions seemed to be at the forefront of the media whirlwind coverage of this tragedy. I assume this was for the comfort of white people and to cushion the shallows of white guilt. Whatever. I am not going to waste any more time centering whiteness. This is not why I write.

Eight angels’ spirits have ascended their physical bodies too soon. This was a targeted act of violence against Asian migrant women who dedicate their time to providing comfort, body, and movement work. Whether the women who were working at the massage parlour were/identified as sex workers or not, they were still stigmatised with the evil hands of sexualised violence and racial misogyny that continuously endangers sex workers today.

I attended the virtual vigil held by Red Canary Song that featured a group of Asian organizations such as Butterfly, Asian American Feminist Collective, 18 Million Rising, and more. I could not stop thinking about what Kai Lin Zhang, one of the co-founders of Red Canary Song, said about the tragedy, and specifically, violence against Asian sex workers. I was on the road while listening to the speakers mourn, so I could not write down the quote verbatim and do not wish to butcher her words, so I will write down what I learned:

These churchgoing white men often cannot deal with their own shame and self-hatred that derive from their “sinful desire”. They don’t know how to process their emotions and fantasies, and therefore take it out on the folks who involuntarily live in their distorted and projected shames. Asian women, non-binary and trans people SHOULD NOT BE the receivers of a man’s self-hatred, shame, and confusion. Women, non-binary and trans people of colour are not scapegoats for the emotions and desires that men have an incapacity to process. Unfortunately, I know very well how that feels. Does this experience sound familiar to you?

—

All that has felt unsayable in my life feels like it’s beginning to be said.

I am unraveling a lifetime of sexual fetishization and infantilization that my mother, my grandmothers, my ancestors, and my friends have all been subjected to. My WOC and QTPOC siblings have also been uncovering a lot in the last few weeks. We are all hurting and unraveling. We are finding a language for something that feels like it’s been silenced for centuries, so excuse me while I try to find the right words for what is inherently wrong.

I am fuming, and my rage is directly linked to my survivor-hood. I am a survivor of emotional and sexual abuse. I am thinking about all the times I was followed home as a child, a teenager, and an adult. I’m thinking of all the countless times I’ve been referred to as “animé girl”, and how many men have told me how surprisingly attractive they think Asian women are, expecting me to lovingly receive this “compliment”. I recall the times people have yelled, “ni hao” and taunted me about happy endings. I think about being tormented and targeted by men who have projected their flattened, two-dimensional ideas of my Asian femininity, onto me, expecting me to be grateful for their desire.

I AM SEETHING. I think of my previous relationships and how I have had to ask every non-Asian person I have dated how many Asian people they have been with before me, to ensure that I was not a part of an ongoing cycle of fetishisation (and surprise! I usually am!). I think about voicing these concerns to partners and being gaslit and told to get over it; an active silencing. I think about internalizing all of this inherited self-hatred and projecting them into feelings of jealousy and insecurity, competing in some imaginary and cruel rat race with fellow Asian people, just to feel desired. What is that desire when hollow and obtuse? What kind of scarcity mindset have I inherited that has caused me to perceive true love as these crumbs and morsels of a fattening fetish?

In Anne Anlin Cheng’s book “Ornamentalism”, she describes how Western Imperialism has shaped the perception of Asian femininity:

“We know by now that Asiatic femininity in the Western racial imagination has never needed the biological or the natural to achieve a full, sensorial, agile, and vivid presence. Asiatic femininity has always been prosthetic. The dream of the yellow woman subsumes a dream about the inorganic. She is an, if not the, original cyborg.”

Our perceived identity has been comprised of pieces and parts of the mechanised masculine imagination. To these men, our bodies do not matter; or they enact as ornamental pieces propped up for display, decoration, and servitude. It is becoming clearer to me that Asian people affected by misogyny are treated as objects, items, trinkets, and accessories to the fullness of manhood.

I am not grateful for a man’s obtuse desire. I am grateful for women, queer, GNC, trans people of colour who I send warm hugs to from afar. I am grateful for my friends, for grassroots organising, for Black feminist writers who have laid the groundwork for ALL movement work, for Black and Asian solidarity, for Red Canary Song, for sex workers, for migrant workers, for bodyworkers, for Grace Lee Boggs, and for my mother.

—

I have always been afraid of my own anger because I’ve associated it with the violence that ripples through my childhood memory. Lately, however, I have been harnessing my rage.

Lama Rod Owens, author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, said in an interview on the For the Wild Podcast, that “anger is the bodyguard of our woundedness”.

I think about it all the time.

Our woundedness reveals our softness, and our softness is worthy of protection. Our wounds are open right now, and it feels like a transformative time to tend to each other’s wounds, learn of each other’s hurt, and find language for the pain that may have been neglected before.

There is a reason I am so triggered, and so angry in my mourning. It is because all of these things are connected to the violence that lead to the killing of these eight people, especially the six Asian migrant worker women. The core of this violence is the racial misogyny that rots at the center of the racist misogynist’s shame. I also believe that many men are complicit in this and continue to perpetuate the core of this violence. Do fucking better.

Now that what is unsayable is finally being said, and although the English language that was forced onto so many of our ancestors is failing us, we will still find our way. All these words seem to avalanche into the crevices of my mouth; this has been happening for as long as I can remember, and those memories can no longer afford to be suppressed. It is not that I do not have the words, it’s just that I don’t know where to start…so this feels like a humble beginning.

—

To my fellow survivors who have been affected by racial misogyny:

You deserve unconditional love that is full and flowering for your whole and spacious abundance. Do not allow the flattened perceptions of your beauty to affect how you see yourself. You should not have to experience suspicion or skepticism of somebody else’s desire. You are not bits and pieces of somebody else’s projected fetishistic fantasies. You deserve to mourn however you wish, and to use your rage as a sacred protector. Find the words, in spite of the failures of the English language, or be as quiet and still as you need to be. Take the space you need, and take up the space that you have been told to shrink yourself in.

The Libra Full Moon is here, and I encourage you to light a candle for the eight angels who illuminate our hearts. Send well wishes and love to the families of the victims, and remember that the light works through you.

—

PS. I don’t want to have to address white people directly, but now I share a specific message I wish to say to you. I know a lot of you subscribe to my newsletter (for free…) and I need you to read this carefully:

Do not ask BIPOC for labour during their PERPETUAL grieving (or ever, actually). Keep reading about the history and effects of Western imperialism and colonisation and ORGANISE with the systemic and generational privileges you hold to end white supremacy, end racial misogyny, and repair for the acts of violence caused. Sponsor therapy for BIPOC and continuously redistribute your wealth to the BIPOC who educate you in your work towards allyship. If you enjoy my writings and learn anything from me, please send funds to the families of the victims of the Atlanta shooting. They are listed below. Be committed to dismantling these systems of Western imperialism beyond performative allyship. Thank you.

GOFUNDMES TO SUPPORT (they are all verified!)

1. Fundraiser for Xiaojie Emily Tan’s daughter Ying Tan Jami Webb.

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/atl-spa-shooting-family-survivor-fund-jami-webb

2. Memorial for Yong Yue and Peterson Family, organised by her son:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/memorial-for-yong-yue-and-family

3. In Loving Memory of Sun Cha Kim, organised by her granddaughter’s friend:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-sun-cha-kim

4. In Loving Memory of Hyun Jung Kim, organised by her sons:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-hyunjungkim-to-support-my-brother-i?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

5. To Help Elcias Hernandez Ortiz’s Recovery, organised by his wife:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-elcias-hernandez-ortiz-cover-medical-bills?fbclid=IwAR2GMQkKVs-98RJeI8spj7Tke0uZtyuF62GFvY69RPKOzs7-ipmxhkrUfjQ

6. To Help Survivor Marcus Lyon’s Recovery:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/cherokee-massage-parlor-survivor

7. In Loving Memory of Paul Michels, organised by his wife’s co-worker:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/atlanta-spa-shooting-victim-paul-michels?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

8. Funeral and Family Support for Delain Ashley Yaun, organised by her family:

   https://www.gofundme.com/f/funeral-and-family-financial-support?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

ORGANISATIONS TO SUPPORT

1. Red Canary Song

2. Butterfly: Asian And Migrant Sex Workers Network

3. Q-Wave

4. NAPAWF

5. Asians for Abolition

6. CAAAV

THINGS TO WATCH / LISTEN TO / READ:

1. A Conversation Between Grace Lee Boggs and Dr. Angela Y. Davis

2. Ocean Vuong — A Life Worthy of Breath

3. Lama Rod Owens on Liberatory Rage

4. Anti-Asian Violence and Black and Asian Solidarity Today, A Lecture Presented by Tamara K. Nopper at Asian American Writer’s Workshop

5. Why This Wave of Anti-Asian Racism Feels Different by Cathy Park Hong

6. South Korean Protest Music with Miia Laine on NTS

7. We Do This Till We Free Us by Mariame Kaba

PLAYLIST:

A small gift for my healing survivors of colour. A playlist of moving music by artists from the abundant and beautiful Asian diaspora. Title based on the song “The Moon Represents my Heart” by Teresa Teng.

I have been mourning my grandfather for the last six months. That grief has mostly looked nothing like I expected grief to look like…I haven’t cried as much as I thought I would, I haven’t talked or written about it much as I write about everything else. When I was a child, I had panic attacks at the thought of…

Read more

I am a triple mutable sign; Gemini Sun, Sagittarius Moon, and Virgo Rising. For those who do not follow astrology, allow me to translate: it is extremely easy for me to adapt to change. I am used to the process of adapting and rearranging, of grieving former ways of life, of moving across Oceans to nest in new homes.

However, I am getting to a stage in my life where even though I am skillful at adapting to change, I do not necessarily seek it. They come to me as life comes to me. The inevitable changes that we are experiencing collectively and inter-connectedly are beyond our control, but my desire to spontaneously “switch it up” in my personal life seems to be dimming. I want to root myself deep into the Earth, I want to be still, build a library, a record collection, a home. As we in the Northern hemisphere are in the season of hibernation, I think a lot about how this is a time for roots to be grounded in the soil, to think about what home means to us, to allow all our magic to be done underground, in stillness and in rest. Now that I move forward with that intention, I must look at the roots that reside deep within me. How have they grown?

I recall the last six months in this wonderful home and I think, with warmth and gratitude, of all the times I met myself again. I’ve been housesitting/plant-sitting for some friends, and I was experiencing living alone for the first time. I was so nervous at first, scared to be alone with my thoughts, terrified of the spaciousness that I have never been taught to fill…but my intuition knew I needed it.

Months before, I was in a deeply co-dependent relationship, I did not believe in the gravity of my own existence, and the thought of being truly alone made me panic. When I found myself in brief moments of “isolation”, I shrank in the spaces I was in. I neglected my mental health as all former ideas of “normalcy” dissolved. I (like many people) could barely answer the question, “Who Am I?” anymore. Our vices were gone, what we were once dependent on seemed unsustainable, shaky, or unsafe, and we were presented with selves in a new dimension. In the last few months, I have learned that there are many, many answers to that eternal question and that there always will be.

During my time alone, I met myself again. I was shy at first, not even realizing when it was happening. I have a tendency to forget that my relationship with myself is just as in need of nourishment as my friends/family/lovers. I will be with me for the duration of my “forever”. I had to describe it, it felt like the beginnings of falling in love with someone, noticing their quirks, their habits, actually listening intently to their thoughts and feelings, exploring their childhood with them, assuring their safety. Imagine doing this with yourself. 

I have had miraculous moments where I was able to meet (again) my many dimensions. I met my inner child by feeling comfortable enough to openly weep, I listened and danced to Cantonese pop that my ma would play, I talked to myself a lot. There are invisible threads that tether us to all our past selves, and they allow all our memories to play out simultaneously, crystallizing into beautiful moments of self-remembrance; both familiar and new at the same time.

I met my shadows and my heartbreak; all converging with each other by generously sharing lessons I have learned in love. I met them sometimes with horror and disgust and had to learn the extremely difficult task of forgiving myself for having flaws and self-destructive habits. I met versions of myself that were neglected by me, pushed to the side by my own punitive gaze. 

Each moment conjured feelings that felt spiritually familiar…I listened to songs long unheard with words I still remember, I found presence in the notes of a dusty keyboard, I remembered my own clumsy body, in heartbreak, in dissociation, in movement. I gravitated finally, not to outward chaos, but toward calming the storms that have rippled through me for years. Tending to them, paying attention, and nourishing the multitudes I had abandoned and flattened over time.

So as I prepare to depart this incubator of healing, this place that came to me in faith and by chance, I can only think fondly of the ways that this space allowed me to see my own bounty. I am not so afraid of change because I can take it with me, knowing also now of what I seek for my multi-dimensional selves, my body, and my spirit. Meeting myself allowed me to see my loving spaciousness. I learned that I can continuously expand, that I can actually be millions of things at once, of how all of my past, present, and future selves merge into moments in time. When I truly pay attention, I can love all of them at once. 

PROMPTS FOR YOUR REFLECTION

1. HOW AND WHEN HAVE I MET MYSELF AGAIN? AWAY FROM THE SCREEN? READING A BOOK? LISTENING TO A SONG? RECALL A TIME YOU MET YOURSELF AGAIN, WHERE IT FELT FAMILIAR AND NEW AT THE SAME TIME.

2. WHAT IS A MEMORY FROM YOUR PAST THAT MAKES YOU FEEL CLOSER TO YOURSELF? CAN YOU REMEMBER THE WEATHER, THE EXACT FEELINGS AND SENSATIONS YOU EMBODIED?

3. WHAT LITTLE THINGS CAN YOU DO TO RECONNECT WITH PARTS OF YOURSELF THAT YOU STILL REMEMBER?

PLAYLIST

i invite you to write/reflect to this playlist i made for tending to your own garden. these songs allow me to meet myself again, and remind me to tend to the spiritual gardens of my heart.

i am currently staying opposite an apartment building in new york, where its walls are windows and it is easy to peek in and see entire lives unfolding right before your eyes. of course, i don’t watch for more than seconds because it feels like i am invading their intimacies, and when i zoom out it becomes apparent that each of these people, parent, child, sibling, lover, have full, difficult and abundant lives, just like you and me.

on tik tok/twitter there’s a meme that uses the phrase “i’m the main character”, which basically refers to going through an experience that makes you feel like the main character in the enthralling story that is your life. in this moment, everybody around you is a side character that enriches your narrative. i remember when i was younger i would often convince myself that i was the “main character”, that people who perceived me, talked to me, cared for me were all part of my unfolding story, all feeding into the Sun, the central figure; that was me. this came from a place of insecurity, of growing up lonely in my family, and therefore trying to assert my own self-importance by forming a binary in my life; me and not me. me, being the most important.

moving away from the meme because i know it’s just a joke…when you think of yourself as the central figure of the Universe, you propel yourself into a perpetual and dizzying competition with those around you. this competition forces us to think that “there can only be one”, causing us to feel threatened by those who feel empowered, strong, and like they might threaten your status as “main character”, even in your own story. this competition, fueled by capitalism, feeds your ego with thoughts that lack nutrients, thoughts that never truly nourish or feed you till you feel full. when you put so much weight on the ego-driven self, you flatten those around you, neglecting the fullness and richness of their breathing and their existence. people around you do not exist to serve you or make you happy. instead, in our togetherness, we engage in conversation, interaction and intimacy, creating natural chemistry of joy and abundance.

the thing is though, that there is truth and joy in the “main character” meme. i am in ways, the main character, as in, i see from my own eyes and walk through the world with my own body, experiences, privileges and emotions... and so is everybody else. when we are being fed to think from a mindset of scarcity, and we are convinced that there can only be “one”, we forget that there is the Universe has room for abundance, for a world full of people who realise how sacred, important and incredible their existence is.

can there not be a billion Suns? and isn’t the Sun just a star after all?

i have also learned this of non-human life too, and have zoomed even further out to think about the ways we have created a binary between human and non-human. this again creates a flattening and imbalanced relationship, where “non-human” can be translated to object, to a lifelessness, to usable, to mere resource for mankind. Robin Wall Kimmerer, an Indigenous writer from the Potawatomi tribe, spoke of a phenonenom called “species loneliness”, where human beings have isolated themselves from every other lifeform on the planet, in an attempt to be known as superior..or the main character of the Universe. it is interesting how during this virus, in the midst of isolation and loneliness, i have realised that humans have been isolating themselves for a very long time from the rest of the natural world.

“Philosophers call this state of isolation and disconnection “species loneliness”—a deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. As our human dominance of the world has grown, we have become more isolated, more lonely when we can no longer call out to our neighbors. It’s no wonder that naming was the first job the Creator gave Nanabozho.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (my favourite book i read this year!)

covid-19 is a virus that is literally transmitted by breath and closeness, and so physical intimacy has become a rarity, a privilege and challenge for all of us this year. our interconnectedness has revealed itself by the ways we must take care of each other, despite being separated by ceilings and walls. this year has affected us all deeply in so many ways, and when i was dancing at virtual papi juice the other night, i saw all of us in our rooms, sweaty, sexy and wishing we could be together in physical space. although we may not have had huge collective spaces to discuss and process our feelings out in the open, i do feel like we felt comfort knowing that we are all discovering new unfolding parts of our stories that are interlinked with each other; be it the trees shedding their leaves in the winter, a stranger from across the road, or all the beautiful living beings we miss being close to.

it is in our isolation that i actually became closer to those i love and miss, closer to the Earth and closer to myself, understanding that all of these beautiful elements, full of life, are intrinsically interconnected and will continue to be as we take care of each other in isolation. as the year ends, i am grateful that these interconnections have not been fragmented but in fact strengthened, and that even as we enter an elusive and mysterious new year and embody a heightened sense of renewal, that we are centered in gratitude for the fullness of all of our lives and the ways that it connects us all. 

i leave you with an offering i wrote while reflecting on the new year, and how we will carry all these difficult and illuminating lessons with us into the next solar rotation, deeper into the flux, prepared with deep gratitude, wisdom and renewal. happy new year! i love you!

writing prompts:

1. WHAT IS ONE WAY YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THE EARTH? HOW DOES THAT CONNECTION UNFURL INTO A SERIES OF INTERCONNECTIONS?

2. WHAT WAS YOUR GREATEST LESSON ABOUT INTERCONNECTEDNESS THIS YEAR?

3. WHAT LESSONS WILL YOU CARRY FROM TODAY INTO TOMORROW THAT CONNECTS YOU STRONGER TO THE UNIVERSE AROUND YOU, THAT LOVES YOU AND CONSPIRES FOR YOUR JOY?

playlist:

i offer you a playlist i made featuring songs from this year that provided a sense of tenderness and sentimentality. it explores a range of genres that are all interconnected in ways, just like us.

in this essay, i will write them out to you in three parts: 

part i 

sometimes i scorn at the fact that i no longer know (like my ancestors did) how to travel by starlit constellations or understand the Sun or Moon transits just by observing them. i become frustrated at the same plethora of culprits; capitalism, colonization and social media. today, while i was reading Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, an incredible book by Tyson Yunkaporta, an Aboriginal Australian writer from Queensland (where my family immigrated to and i was born), i had to ask myself this question: is there not space still, to learn?

how long can i look at the stars, the Moon, the Sun without dividing my attention? how long can i pay attention to the sky without acting upon the impulse to tap into the digital constellations within my phone?

one day while i was working out with my friend and personal trainer Landyn, they told me about a moment that they were watching a sunset, were moved by it, and thought of me. i was touched! my eyes welled up with tears because i was grateful that Landyn experienced that miraculous feeling of gratitude and then decided to make a connection and share it with me. isn’t that part of the beauty of experiencing life fully; the fact that we can share it with each other and create constellations of our own?

in ways, i do know how to read the Sun, the Moon, and the stars’ movements by following them with feeling. my ancestors live within me, whispering their pearls of wisdom, allowing me to translate them through my lived experience, through the glimmer of my eye. and through each time i encounter a cloud formation, a moonrise, or a shooting star. i have cried during so many sunsets, almost blinding myself from staring at the Sun (don’t do this lol) with such intensity, traveling the distance just to sit on top of a hill and marvel at this miracle that happens perpetually in the sphere of time. no matter what time it is where you are, somebody is watching a sunrise or a sunset somewhere in the world, and that in itself makes me weep. 

part ii 

tw: mentions of violence/abuse

a sunset i remember extremely vividly is one that i experienced in Cairns, Queensland. i was with my first love, who had come to Australia to visit me for three months. we had taken acid (one of our favourite things to do together which i honestly do not advise because you will be spiritually entwined for LIFE which makes separation very difficult!!!) together and were roaming around the tropical coastline, wooed by the mangroves and wow-ing at the huge blue monarch butterflies that were migrating from one lush rainforest to the next. our relationship was going through a rough patch and at this point, he had started to become violent with me. i didn’t know how to escape, so in many ways doing acid together felt like our safe space, our retreat, and a place for our inner children and spirits to reunite into a simpler state of being.

we were coming down from our trip after a full day of roaming around the rainforest, literally hugging the trees, watching a group of Chinese tourists gasp at the beauty of the botanical wonders that were surrounding them for the first time, and seeing a local community of Aboriginal people sharing stories and cooking food in the park. we had walked to the beach, he was being playful, jumping in the puddles that were left by the brief tropical rain showers, and i was walking where Ocean meets the Sand, feeling at peace.

i looked into the distance and noticed that the Sun had began to set. it was pink and blue and yellow, and as time began to dissolve, i found myself in a trance. i started coupling parallels in my mind, noticing the change of each shade and movement of each cloud, and realizing that the sun was passing me by, being perceived as a sunrise in a different part of the world, being witnessed and adored and documented by humans and birds and trees. like all beautiful things, the sunset passed and i knew that just like this beautiful and terrifying relationship, that you cannot grasp onto beauty because you have no ownership or control of its passing. i took no photographs and did not feel the need to document the imagery of the moment. ironically, it is the most vivid sunset i can recall in my lifetime so far.

my first love looked at me and was surprised to see that tears were streaming down my face. this is when i knew that our relationship had to end. 

part iii:

in a time where much of our pleasures are shifting and being re-oriented and redefined, i find that there is a simplification in the convolution of existence. things are becoming clearer amidst the chaos. we are becoming increasingly aware of the individualistic, capitalistic, and egotistical conditions that were born out of systems that have proven to be harmful and unsustainable. we are part of a totally different system, the natural order of togetherness and interconnectedness of life on Earth. i believe we must return to it in order to destroy the systems that destroy us.

sunsets are moments of such miraculous beauty, not bought/produced from a place of scarcity. sunsets teach me infinitely about abundance. the beauty of this abundance is ongoing, ever-changing, and eternal in memory. love is not fixed and therefore cannot be contained or possessed, but with deep gratitude, all i can do is cry, remember, and anticipate the sunset’s return in new and transcendent forms. i see new hues in every single one.

i hope, that as we take precautions, and take care of each other by staying inside, that you are getting to know yourself intimately and without fear. i hope that even as you miss and yearn for all the pleasures that you once indulged in, that every now and then you can look outside the window and see the celestial wisdom of a sunset.

PROMPTS FOR YOUR REFLECTION

MUSIC TO WRITE TO

the following mix that i’m sharing is deeply intimate. i made this as a release of my most recent love which held a deep significance to me. in ways it feels like i am waving that relationship off into the sunset.

https://shop.madhouse.press/

anyway!!! shameless plug over!!! don’t think i forgot about october! i wanted to drop this newsletter right before the HALLOWEEN FULL MOON, because all the themes i’ve been exploring have been coming up a lot in preparation to be let go of on the 31st of october. much love to everybody and please stay safe this weekend <3

link to playlist: