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22.05.26 - WALLOWING AND ALSO HAVING FUN

oh em gee it's been a while since i was here. five weeks flew by with no pause on the brakes, going from full-time work to a five day conference to twelve job applications for my hopes to start psychiatry training next year. running low, nearly running dry, bursts of cortisol pushing me over the finish line of each day, edging closer towards the brink of bursting myself. when things are moving so fast and there's not much time to reflect, it's easy for me to default back to an activated amygdala initiating top-down autopilot thinking and the body just acting accordingly. i.e. existence without presence. no time to connect with or process my emotions on an embodied level, no time to say hello. just succumbing to the growing resentment of their presence alone, feeling burdened at the thought of having to deal with anything that appears to threaten my forward flow. not that this frame of mind is unusual for me – dare i say it's become the dominant form of being in contemporary society! it's been something i've been trying to make an active effort to shift over the last year or so, but being back to 100000000times daily instagram checking has programmed my desire to do everything that everyone around me is doing and to be able to do it RIGHT NOW, which then has consequential impacts on my sense of self-defeat. i forget that the whole point of what i am orienting towards is to slow down, so i can go deeper, so i can be more present and aware of what is happening around me instead of getting caught up in tunnel vision focus and demanding results without effort.

you could say i am in a state of wallowing again, and assume that through this time i have been bathing in headspace of self-hate. but if i ended my journal entry here it would be a deceptive portrayal of how i have been experiencing life. yes i have been wallowing, at times miserable, exasperated, anguishing. but the undercurrent i have been returning to has always been led by hope, keeping me connected with the seeds planted by higher powers. returning to the third space/ middle way/ non-duality thinking has allowed me to cultivate greater strength in trusting the unknown, sitting with uncertainty, and coming back to the power of the present moment. i might mean experiencing a few days of turbulent derailment, but eventually i am able to find my way back to the anchor of trust and hope. and i'm starting to gain experiential understanding that progress or growth isn't about the absence of mistakes entirely. it's about reducing the gap between awareness and change, bridging awareness between past and present. YOU COULD SAY IT WAS INTEGRATION. the reality is that i'm going to keep making the mistakes until they're completely dissolved from my memory, which will only happen when i have managed to shift behaviour on a subconscious level. LIFELONG WORK.

in other news i'm tired of taking life so seriously. i am growing my hair out which means i'm letting my hair down which means i'm going to have lots of fun!!! i was speaking to a mentor about job interview preparation and he reminded me that it's all just a game. life is a game. life is a game which means it's about having fun. BYEEEEEEE 🤩🤑

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tags: #thirdspace

14.04.26 - ANOTHER DAY IN LUTEAL

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER DAY IN LUTEAL PHASE. The first week of my luteal phase was going quite pleasantly and I was thinking oh em gee! I must have taken care of myself alright last cycle because I'm not getting any symptoms this luteal phase! Because apparently, according to traditional chinese medicine, the way you take care of yourself during your menstrual phase will determine the course of how your symptoms will go over the next cycle. so if you take it easy during menstruation, you're more likely to thrive in the subsequent phases of your cycle.

think of your menstrual cycle like the four seasons. the menstrual component is likened to your inner winter, therefore the focus is to orient towards hibernation - resting, withdrawing from the social domains, introspection, conserving energy, taking things slow, keeping warm. follicular phase is like spring - energy and momentum and qi is building, you start to reconnect with the outer world again. then ovulation is like summer - where you have the most energy, therefore want to connect with the outer world, socialise, digestion is at its peak so you can eat a cold salad if you really want to. luteal phase is like autumn - preparing to slow down, your body is possibly making way for another life, so you have to nourish yourself accordingly. i find it so funny that i studied at medical school for five years, during which time i covered the menstrual cycle at least 3 times, and i never understood the different phases until i read a random article from sunshine coast acupuncture about intuitively connecting the cycle to the seasons. and it just clicked and i've never forgotten since. !!!!! sigh.

but this week rolls around, day 8 of luteal phase, and i'm literally about to hit the fan. all irritating sounds in my vicinity on my way to work are evidence that the world hates me and i hate the world. anything that anyone asks of me that does not serve my immediate best interests feels entirely unnecessary and if they do it again i will literally spit somewhere as an effort to expel the boiling rage that is about to erupt inside me. ordinarily i don't think i feel that deeply but then i experience luteal phase. but it's been almost a year since i've been noticing the vortex it can suck me into, so i'm trying to quicken the response time of taking a step back and trying to observe the situation with a view not tipped with daggers. this time my saving grace has been amber akilla's 'being hot and having fun' videos on youtube, where we are learning different nuanced perspectives on leaning into the shadows until we find the light. if i've used this metaphor before i'm using it again because i need to. it's one thing to know something at face value, it's another thing to know it on an experiential embodied subconscious reflexive level so it can be retrieved at any moment no matter what state of mind or phase of your cycle you are in. so i'm continuing to practice it, finding slightly different ways of saying the same thing so it becomes more enmeshed in my neural pathways.

i'm combining these things with other things, like deep breathing or journalling or listening to 'between dreams' by mindy meng wang. or just trying to be without doing anything at all, which in itself serves as an action of disruption to my pattern of reaction and reactive contextually inappropriate or at the very least surprising urges of behaviour. I AM NOT SURE IF I'M MAKING SENSE BUT I AT LEAST MAKE SENSE TO ME. this is all to say that i came across this annoying bro instagram post but it actually said something useful which was that THE ANTIDOTE TO ANXIETY IS ACTION. it cemented some of the things amber was talking about and instead of welling in my despair i decided to write a list of all the things i could think of that were perpetuating my sense of insecurity and despair and started writing action points of how i could feel better about them. it sounds intense i know but better to face your fears rather than pretend they're not there?and i'm not doing everything at once, or focusing excessively on the negatives, but i'm just trying to normalise their existence so that i can bring myself back to the present and remind myself of my radiant essence!!!! :)

***

tags: #lutealphase #noticing #thirdspace #routine

07.04.26 - looking back, moving forward

day one of work at the new hospital wasn't too bad. i know it can get worse but it could have been better too. my colleague was surprised at how chill i was in relation to the unpredictable conditions of mess that we were grappling with post the extra-long weekend. but i just said to her that i'm tired of being neurotic and i'm trying to just focus on what's within my reach of control. it's a tuesday night and i'm feeling surprisingly buzzed, maybe it's something to do with the fact that for once in my life i've been mostly hitting my sleep targets or maybe it's just from the lager i've slowly been sipping. whenever i go to a new place my habitual self is inclined to nest at home, re-grounding myself into familiar comforts of routine and frugality in the imagined appraisal my parents would provide in the knowing i am not being reckless with my spending. but i'm trying to peel away from these habits so i can be more contextually open to the place that i will connect to for the next few weeks. i start to get curious about my surroundings and chase the crashing waves slowly crumbling sea cliffs against the distant fading sun. afterwards i find myself washed up in a sea of white faces at the local bistro, feeling not too bothered by the racial discrepancies of my geolocation given the unexpected nostalgia it brings to the last time i lived in a coastal town of a similar size. if anything surprisingly comforted to just observe, to just be.

a few days ago i damaged my ankle running, maybe a ligament strain or stress fracture. it was all taped up for a few days and i was hobbling around feeling anxious to stand, concerned i wasn't going to be able to make the 15-min walking commute to work from my accommodation. but today i've done over 10000 steps and it's small things like this that i want to let run laps in my head. the other day in my intuition studies course we were talking about past present and future versions of myself being besties in real time. if present me does something for future me then future me will be able to look back and thank past me for thinking ahead. i read a quote by george orwell saying a similar thing – "who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past". and it made me think of the special and very sporadic journal i've been keeping in a hand-bound book one of my long lost friends made me for my 21st birthday. my last entry was in June 2019, before my whole life completely transformed through the queering of my perception of existence, the first year i decided to break away from familial expectations and do something for me. it was pretty cringe to read back and reconnect with visceral recollections of my lost languishing loneliness, and the anticipatory readiness i felt to drop everything, including my very own body, for anyone who offered me any wavering amount of attention. but in these less resonant moments of my life, i was also able to trace a steadfast consistency in how i oriented to life with sincerity, curiosity, and gratitude which looking back has been with me no matter how trying the times have been. nowadays i feel a lot more comfortable in uncertainty and a lot more comfortable in myself, and it just feels nice to name that and anchor in it when things start to feel rocky again (today is day 2 luteal phase).

***

tags: #noticing #lutealphase

06.04.26 - rest

a couple months ago i had the realisation that i struggled with resting. could not hack it. can't nap during the day, can't do something without feeling like it's going somewhere or for someone else, over-exerting, over-performing, over-compensating, care too hard, care too much, simply cannot stop. maybe something about being the eldest daughter of asian parents, i got that dog in me and cannot let it go. sometimes it would be hard to wind down, switch off, the neuroses of my neurons churning circles in a closed loop never letting go and letting myself be. so i talked to my somatics coach about it, tried to poke below the surface and get to the core of it all. AHHHHHH. the denial of rest because my environmental upbringing influences have programmed my sense of self-worth to be contingent on my output of usefulness. different shape but same shit. the session goes way overtime because of how long this repressed belief has gone unchecked, and so it takes longer to shift the heaviness in my body to something a little more tolerable.

not joking that i think i worked harder in my childhood than i ever have any other time in my life else, 5am starts on the weekdays 7pm finish, study til 9 or 10 or 11 then hit the sack for another day. saturday was a back-to-back fiasco of extra-curriculars, leaving each activity early to make it on time for the next. 8am start 7pm finish. i'm not going to pretend this work didn't happen without the work of my parents, as i mentioned that dog in me is from the dog in them. anyway the session leaves a mark on me and i feel like i'm going to collapse from fatigue for days after. there's something about the excavation of a repressed belief that has never seen the light of day, that shakes you up with an impressionable force. it was kind of painful to reckon with but i knew it had to come out. it's ok i'm still ok everything will be ok!! when something like this is activated my brain churns away again, in a way that's positive and practical and kind of helpful, i never resisted this part of me i just found it inconvenient some of the time. hmmm.

anyways what i'm trying to get at is that i have been sleeping for 10 hours a day sometimes!! the body clock has completely reset and given up on my 5am starts and i am mourning. i crashed before 9.30pm last night and was hopeful i could wake at 6.30am at the very least, but here we are 8am. it's beautiful that i experience this i won't lie i'm not upset that there are parts of me that are starting to soften, let their guards down. it's all part of the process i think. it's kinda gloomy out there but i'm about to head to warrnambool for a month, if anyone wants to meet me on the train and hang out for a night or two just flick me a message.

***

tags: #somatics

3.04.26 - i in relation

i want to take more funny photos. by which i mean taking myself less seriously in a way that is decentring myself without being demeaning. and also, i want to be more obnoxious, try and figure out how i can take up as much space as possible. to do this by taking myself more seriously, by centring myself just enough before it tips into glorification. i want to become a better version of myself, not to prove myself to others, or for status or recognition, but for and in the very process of getting to know myself better, learning to see my habits, accept my perceived flaws, nourish myself with compassion and in turn do it all for others. there's a difference between being triggered and being harmed, there's a difference between self-surveillance and self-observation, and that difference derives from the intention and angle of your gaze. what is the motive of bringing yourself under more watchful scrutiny? how do you know what is true, and how do you remember that there is more than what you see?

is it for self-optimisation, external validation, or self-transcendence? or is it a combination of any or all of the aforementioned? what is the most compelling driver and what its rippling implications, on self, other, the energy field, the collective body, the community, the society, the earth? and how can a shift in the weight of that driver, at any point along the way, shift meaning and outward expression? authenticity is a big driver for us. but at what point can authenticity be co-opted by governing systems and redirect us towards inauthenticity, for the sake of reality, in its rising fuel costs and increasingly divided communities?

and at what point does a journey towards authenticity become absorbed into the inauthentic system? i am trying to illustrate the deterministic duality of existence; the assumed defiance in which we seek to define other, not recognising when other becomes us or when discernment drips dry. when things start to change do we follow their flow, demand their return or resist their inevitable transformation? abstraction can be difficult to fathom and impossible to adapt to when routine runs linear and automated? which is why our brains seek comfort in familiarity, and change can feel impossible to accept when we already feel so scarce. we don't realise how much we are attached to something until it's taken from us. and i'm not talking about novel things. i'm talking about the things that have become deeply accepted as a part of 2026 human existence in the western world.

***

tags: #autism

26.03.26 - scrambled soup

been feeling a lot of overwhelm these past few weeks making it hard to pin down a post. decision fatigue. hard to take care of myself, hard to cook meals. feeling sleepy but too excited to sleep last night. woke up feeling tired after 10.5 hours in bed. tried to take a nap in the morning, too excited to nap. lots of personal things going on in the scheme of broader transitions; i would like to externalise blame here to the cosmology, namely eclipse season and mercury retrograde in pisces -_- but the more i learn about it the more i realise that significant events are constant, and i think it's ultimately the universe trying to tell me that if i want to find the clarity/ peace/fulfillment that i'm looking for, i just have to change my perception!! everything feels so fast at the moment and sometimes it feels hard to slow down. but i think slowing down is really where the antidote lies. it’s kind of dysregulating though because i’m used to moving so fast. but i think there are some big cracks forming in the surface exterior of my life and either i can let them drag me against the gravel like the reversed chariot card i pulled earlier today, or i can slow down to regain 'control.'

there’s just a lot of tabs open in my brain and I’m trying to spill them out into my various organising systems but there are so many to choose from and it’s kind of paralysing me. milanote, obsidian, scrivener, a physical calendar; trying also to get off the cloud but right now the current mood and expression of my thoughts and plans is a scrambled alphabet soup. ah!!!! the first three months of the year (up until equinox) were about scheming the bigger dreams i had to come and for a hot second i thought i had momentum. but something about eclipse season and mercury retrograde left me feeling more questions than answers, and the pressure feels high because most solar/ lunar/ lunisolar calendar years having begun afresh, meaning that things can only move forward. but these assumptions we have about time are beginning to be debunked in quantum physics, the future can change the past is that true more information is needed!!?!?! what i'm trying to say that scarcity can always be reframed when you bring yourself out of your head and back into your body and look at things from the context of right here right now.

i went to an in-person poetry class the other day, the first time I had engaged in some kind of physical institutionalised learning space since 2019 when i signed up for a semester of arts/fine arts before the planned drop-out at census date. thinking about how a lot of learning happens online these days and also been thinking a lot about deep concentration spaces. how hard it can feel to fully engage yourself in something, let alone process the learning, now that a lot of our learning is done online. something about learning in a physical environment and experiencing the energy of other people in real-person, but liminal transit zones/ third spaces that allow processing time between one commitment and the next. a physical third space offers time for one to reflect, dream, dissociate, be bored, and ultimately process and integrate the learnings of what was experienced. the fact that intentional boredom must be labeled now that we always have something to distract us. namely our phones. tbh i think it’s kind of a blessing that i get kinda motion sick when i’m looking at a screen in a moving vehicle, but i still find a way to sidestep the boredom by plugging in and trying to download more data. but again, it comes back to noticing, and the more i become aware of this habit the more i can bring myself to break it. i'm not done with this thought i'm gonna come back to it again some day.

***

tags: #haste #noticing #astrology

16.03.26 - noticing

i talk about noticing a lot in this blog and this time i am noticing i can often be so darn hasty. which might come as a surprise to people who don’t know me very well. but i was thinking that even people that do know me well they may not be acquainted with the farcical storm that can sometimes be brooding within. last night i was writing a birthday card for one of my closest friends and i realised i have no idea what their favourite colour is or if they like polka dots, because unbeknownst to me at the time the inner cover of the card had polka dots and if i had been aware of this prior to purchasing it may have impacted whether i proceeded with the transaction. it doesn’t matter now though and don’t think i’m ruminating on this because i make a point of mentioning it. even though intrusive guilt may have had me feeling like a bad friend because i didn’t know if they would resonate with the polka dots, the reality is that we are extremely multifaceted individuals, full of unknowns and contradictions, and most of us don’t even know ourselves properly so how can we expect others to? ????

autism gives my brain an extremely analytical predisposition, almost to the neurochemical level. i tend not to understand or remember things if they have no apparent association or connection to the existing body of knowledge i have accumulated over time. as a consequence, friends have laughed at me for how slow i can be to pick things up, because i simply do not understand the sequence of neural firing that leads to outward embodied action. it’s ok because i laugh too (although between you and me these experiences have probably contributed to my fear of trying new things in front of others), and i’m trying not to take these reaction too personally. in actual fact people often find it a relief to know that i do have some flaws. which brings me back to the hastiness. my hastiness pervades a large spectrum of my daily patterns of thought and behaviour, whether it be clanging around in the kitchen at 6am, erratic and unnecessary lane changes just before a red light, or an unsuccessful effort to communicate an idea because my excitability haves me starting multiple new sentences before finishing the first.

sometimes when i’m going to the gym, and by sometimes i mean almost always, i have a compulsive urge to get changed into my gym clothes in public space, which is anywhere but the change room. the action is driven by an ill-conceived belief that it will be more efficient and convenient for me to do it this way. at times this has meant changing under the fullness of a midday sun, parked on the street car boot open nearly clipped by passing cars because my lack of spatial awareness has me standing in the middle of the road, or else in plain view of the driver that pulls up behind me. i am almost flashing myself because of the awkward transition of switching from tight fitting clothes to loose fitting clothes, and the hastiness with which i overlook whether the garment is positioned correctly before i pull it under my clothes leaving me to untangle myself. it is definitely not for the attention because there’s nothing to see. it’s just pure haste and miscalculated action. i usually find myself frustrated and a little alarmed when i realise the incongruence of this behaviour in relation to conventional social etiquette. i don’t know if i unconsciously justify this hasty behaviour with the fact that i’m an aquarius, or if this specific pattern of behaviour goes completely unchecked in my self-reflective practice.

sometimes i feel ashamed of my haste. but in this journey of self-love and self-acceptance, i am allowing this feeling of shame to guide me towards deeper understanding of why it exists in the first place. in all honesty i think hastiness emerges from the anguishingly detailed thought processes that my autistic brain engages. it feels excessive and draining to consider all possible options for every single decision i make through the day, no matter how big or small or consequential that decision may be. so the brain flips to the other end of the scales with pure unadulterated haste, because the middle ground does not exist. but now that i am bringing this pattern to the fore through writing, i am hopeful that i will broaden my noticing of haste in my daily actions, leading to more moderated and nuanced expressions until it translates to tangible shifts in behaviour, thereby bringing closer alignment and greater accuracy to people’s perception of me when they attribute me as being a highly thoughtful, easy-going and considered individual.

***

tags: #haste #noticing #autism

4/3/26 - NO MORE RABBIT HOLES. UNLESS THEY ARE INTENTIONAL.

I’ve pretty much been off ig for the past 3 months, with the exception of checking messages, events and mutual aid posts. however it gradually crept back into my life after a series of minor stressors led me to old coping strategies of using it to manage a sense of overstimulation and overwhelm. prior to that i had been very intentional with its use, checking occasionally for messages, mutual aid posts and events. i felt largely unaffected from the pull of its dissociating algorithmic vortexes, mostly through conditioning myself to exit the app whenever reels would start playing. however with the anticipated release of this website, i entertained the idea of re-engaging with the public interfacing features, with vague thoughts of posting about it on my story. i was caught off guard at a particularly vulnerable moment spanning five minutes of use earlier this morning, as described in detail below:

* 10.54am: i am completely mesmerised by the book i am reading by elif shafak, and seek to understand her as a person outside the spellbinding stories she draws me into. i search her account on instagram and find a reel pinned on her feed, which I watch. this reel is an interview segment where she reflects on the distinction of information, knowledge and wisdom, and how the role of social media gives us access to information, but how the pace at which it is presented undermines our ability to retain it as knowledge, let alone embody it as wisdom. we think we know everything, but there’s a difference between knowing something on a cognitive level, completely removed from personal context and being able to recite it as a fact in a vacuum, compared to embodying that information through repeated application to your personal life until it becomes deeply incorporated into your perception of the world, influencing the way you see and think about things. it takes time, a lot of time, and absence of information excess, in order to truly know something. you must develop a personal relationship with information in order for it to mean anything to you, for it to be able to be applied to your life and therefore embedded into the stories you share. it also becomes a lot easier for people to understand, because if there’s limited context then that acts as a barrier for access. i feel grateful to now understand some kind of framework for understanding these distinctions, which i had previously only felt and not been able to express.

* 10.55am: i return to the home feed and see a post by alice sparkly kat. by association i recall their most newsletter where they share their plan to include a zine on ‘the anatomy of a pisces rising’ in next month’s issue. i myself am a pisces rising, and feel that this placement carries a large responsibility in why i am the way that i am, eliciting a mixture of excitement and existential anguish. i am feeling particularly hasty this morning, and perhaps a little attention seeking as well. i decide to post a story on my instagram for the first time in three or so months, putting a call out to any other pisces risings that may resonate with the pained sentiment that i expressed above.

* 10.56am: as is the way with my behavioural pattern of posting to instagram, publishing one story often tumbles into another, where i turn my gaze onto myself from the perspective of my followers. ‘what has liv been up to of late?’ i post the most recent photo in my reel, a picture of heavy cloud coverage in the north eastern quadrant of the sky, taken the previous night, with NO eclipse in sight.
* 10.57am: it then occurs to me my plans of imminently publishing my upcoming blog website. i take a screenshot of the home page and upload it as my third and final story for the day, with an accompanying caption to inform viewers of my future plans.
* 10.58am: it is upon publishing this that i start to notice an immediate sense of panic in my throat and chest. old thought obsessions for external validation and instant gratification keep me rechecking the stories for a bit, and very quickly after i experience a flurry of commentary from my old friends (self-doubt, perfectionism, shame, imposter syndrome) who arrive whenever i try to express myself publicly: “WHY ARE YOU HERE. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY. THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE OF VALUE TO ANYONE? WHAT KIND OF PERFORMATIVE STUNT ARE YOU PLAYING? ARE YOU EVEN BEING POLITICALLY CORRECT? JUST GIVE UP”

* 10.59am: the voices are roaring and i feel completely defeated, with my thumb automatically motioning into the reels feed. the distress i was starting to experience from this tired inner dialogue is immediately overtaken by the loud commentary of an influencer and panning video shots changing every microsecond. at this point i try and exit the app, not without another bombardment of some reel i never actually remembered assaulting my tired brain. i put my phone down, feeling stunned, disoriented and destabilised.

***

It takes me the next couple of hours to unpack and recover from the abrasive vortex my nervous system just travelled through. In the aftermath of posting the story, I felt a resounding sentiment of frustration and avoidance towards instagram, in conjunction with a high degree of skepticism and judgment and loathing as to the integrity of why I am wanting to pursue this project. These feelings left me with fleeting desires to either log off from the app or abandon the project altogether. But there was a part of me that knew this may be another kind of self-sabotaging trauma response, and so I took time to understand why it was that I wanted to pursue this project in the first place.

I reflected on the courage I had slowly been building to conceptualise and follow through with this project, feeling proud of myself for the positive strides I had been making in to overcome hindering patterns of self-doubt. I remembered that beyond anything, to create this website and share my experiences was simply an exercise of learning how I can show up for myself, learning to let myself be witnessed by others, no matter how imperfect or messy or politically problematic my ideas may be, and being able to return to self-compassion and self-acceptance for however that may be expressed. Of course a part of it is curiosity of how I may be received or responded to by others, but to focus on this becomes a big slippery slope that clouds my attempts in maintaining authenticity.

I think many of us feel very complicated by our relationships to instagram, and how it skews our ideas of how to attain happiness, belonging, or connection. What starts as a dopamine hit to lift our day often ends up as a two-hour dissociative scroll leaving us feeling empty and numb. What begins as a curiosity to connect with others evolves into an obsession with our self-image and anxiety for not being able to afford a product we wouldn’t have otherwise cared about. Not to mention the heavy censorship and suppression of content/ creators attempting to organise against oppression and build community, or the way its algorithms silo us into increasing intolerance of difference.

But in saying that, I can recall many experiences of Instagram that have brought me closer to others and myself, without the excess of dysregulation that it causes to my nervous system. I don’t think that logging off is going to bring me the peace within myself I am seeking, because it’s clear that the issue relates to something deeper that the way I use it. Whatever I’m experiencing in life is just a mirror in allowing me to understand how I can be accountable to myself. Whether it be using Instagram, continuing this project or anything else, they are just vessels for me to practise showing up to myself. So in all of this, I have decided I want to keep going with this project for now. And if it gets too much and I notice that my efforts to show up are not coming from an authentic place, then I’m going to slow down and pause. Whether or not I continue will be decided in the future!

***

tags: #autism #haste

03.03.26 - healing????

I BELIEVE THAT HEALING HAPPENS IN COMMUNITY, AND IT HAPPENS RELATIONALLY. OBVIOUSLY THERE ARE VERY HIGH PRESSURES IN MODERN DAY SOCIETY TO BE ABLE TO EXIST AND FEEL A SENSE OF MEANING. AND WITH A SENSE OF THE WORLD IMMINENTLY ABOUT TO IMPLODE ON ITSELF BOTH GEOPOLITICALLY AND DIGITALLY, IT IS EASY TO BE CONSUMED BY PARALYSIS AND DESPAIR, LETTING OUR EXASPERATION BE TAKEN OUT ON EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF ACCEPTING EACH OTHER AS THEY ARE AND WORKING FROM THERE. WHEN WE ARE BEING EXPOSED TO SO MUCH INFORMATION IT CAN BE REALLY HARD TO LISTEN TO WHAT OUR BODIES ARE TRYING TO TELL US, WHAT OUR NERVOUS SYSTEM IS TRYING TO TELL US, WHAT OUR SOUL IS TRYING TO DIRECT US TOWARDS, AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO MOVE FORWARD. IN FACT MORE THAN EVER I BELIEVE WE ARE HAVING A HARD TIME TRUSTING OURSELVES, AND AS A RESULT TRUSTING EACH OTHER. WE LIVE IN AN AGE WHERE ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND THEREFORE EDUCATING OURSELVES IS MORE ACCESSIBLE THAN EVER. HOWEVER THIS ACCESS HAS TIPPED INTO EXCESS, AND WE ARE LOSING SIGHT OF THE DEEP WORK AND DEEP ATTENTION NEEDED TO TRANSFORM INFORMATION INTO KNOWLEDGE INTO WISDOM AND SUBSEQUENTLY, MEANINGFUL CHANGE.

AND SO I GUESS MY AIM OF BEING HERE IS TO MODEL AN EXPERIMENTAL VERSION OF WHAT IT MEANS TO TRY AND LISTEN TO YOURSELF, TRY AND TAKE YOURSELF SERIOUSLY; AND WHAT CHANGES MUST OCCUR IF YOU ARE REALLY INVESTED IN THE LONG-TERM WELLBEING OF YOURSELF, WHICH IS HONESTLY AND IRREVOCABLY TO SPEAK OF THE LONG-TERM WELLBEING OF THE COMMUNITY, AND THE EARTH. YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AS ONLY BEING THIS BODY IN THIS LIFETIME, BUT DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE FUTURE UNBORN VERSIONS OF YOURSELF OR THOSE DEAREST TO YOU IN GENERATIONS TO COME. IN ORDER TO VISION THE CHANGE WE ARE TRULY SEEKING, WE MUST LEARN TO RECOGNISE THE WAY TRAUMA IMPACTS OUR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, THE WAYS IN WHICH OUR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS MAY PUSH OURSELVES AWAY FROM CONNECTION, INSTEAD OF BRINGING US CLOSER. CONFLICT ISN’T BAD, NOTHING INHERENTLY IS. IT’S JUST A WINDOW TO UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENT WAYS IN WHICH OUR ENVIRONMENTS AND PREDISPOSITIONS HAVE SHAPED US. CAN YOU BLAME A PERSON FOR THEIR ACTIONS IF THEY ARE COMING FROM A COMPLETELY UNCONSCIOUS OR IGNORANT PLACE? THAT’S ONE OF THE THINGS THAT MAKES ME SO GRATEFUL TO BE QUEER, OR TO HAVE EXPERIENCED INTENSE LONELINESS. BECAUSE IT MADE ME QUESTION MYSELF, MY CIRCUMSTANCES, MY REALITY, AND IGNITED A DEEP PASSION TO FIND CHANGE. I HAVE QUESTIONED MYSELF OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO THE POINT WHERE I NO LONGER HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHO I AM OR WHO I WILL EVER BECOME. I AM CONSTANTLY TRYING TO BE REAL WITH MYSELF AS TO WHETHER MY ACTIONS ARE COMING FROM A PLACE THAT IS ALIGNED TO MY VALUES, A PLACE THAT IS AUTHENTIC, A PLACE THAT I CAN REALLY TRUST AND FEEL CONFIDENT IN ACTING FROM. AND HOW DO YOU DO THAT? YOU DO IT THROUGH PRESENCE. YOU DO IT THROUGH RECOGNISING PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOUR AND DISRUPTING THEM. YOU DO IT THROUGH AWARENESS, REFLECTION, CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION.

PALESTINIAN PSYCHIATRIST DR SAMAR JABR TALKS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT GATEKEEPING ACCESS TO HEALING, NOT KEEPING THE ROLE OF A HEALER TO PROFESSIONALS, BEHIND PAYWALLS, BEHIND PRIVILEGE OF ACCESS TO RESOURCES OR COMMUNITY OR EDUCATION. HEALING SHOULD HAPPEN IN COMMUNITY AND ANYONE CAN BE A HEALER IF THEY HAVE STARTED THE INTERNAL WORK TO HEAL THEMSELF. WHEN YOU LOOK WITHIN YOU BECOME MORE COGNISANT OF THE WAY CONSEQUENCES ARE SHAPED BY YOUR ACTIONS. AND IT IS OUR ACTIONS THAT LEAVE THE BIGGEST IMPRINT ON OTHERS. WE MUST NOT LEAVE HEALING TO SO-CALLED EXPERTS, WHO DO NOT HAVE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE LIVE IN OUR OWN SHOES. WE ARE THE TRUE EXPERTS OF OUR OWN LIVES, AND IT ULTIMATELY JUST COMES DOWN TO HOW WELL WE CAN ACCESS THAT UNDERSTANDING, HOW MUCH WE CAN BUILD TRUST IN OURSELVES, AND THEN HOW MUCH WE ARE WILLING TO PUT IN TO BRIDGE THE GAP TOWARDS CHANGE. EMPOWER YOURSELF AND BELIEVE IN YOURSELF THAT YOU CAN CREATE THE CHANGE YOU ARE SEEKING IN YOUR LIFE, IN THIS LIFE, IN THIS WORLD. AND DO NOT DESPAIR THAT CHANGE DOESN’T COME AS QUICKLY AS YOU WANT IT TO. IT WILL COME WHEN YOUR BODY IS READY. IT WILL COME WHEN YOUR BODY TRUSTS THAT IT’S READY TO CHANGE. THE BODY NEVER LIES, WHICH MEANS YOU MUST COME TO ACCEPT WHATEVER IT IS TRYING TO COMMUNICATE TO YOU. IT IS THROUGH THAT THAT YOU CAN LEARN TO ACT FROM A PLACE OF CONVICTION WITHOUT LOOKING BACK. LEARNING TO LISTEN TO YOUR BODY MEANS LESS DISSOCIATION ON SCREENS, LESS AUTOPILOT ROUTINE, LESS PROCESSED FOOD, MORE SILENCE, MORE ATTENTION TO EVERY BREATH, MORE GROUNDING IN NATURE, MORE NOURISHING FOOD. EVERY MOMENT YOU ARE EXISTING IN THIS LIFE. EVERY MOMENT UNTIL YOU DON’T LOOK BACK.

***

tags: #thirdspace

28.02.26 - morning routine

today i wanted to do some writing for a blog post but first i wanted to get through my morning routine. it is now 2 o’clock in the afternoon and i still haven’t started my morning routine. ordinarily, my morning routine is as follows:
* sip 500ml warm water with my vitamins, (vitamin c, fish oil, and also an antihistamine, because i am a highly sensitive person)
* heat some milk on the stove and add 2-3 teaspoons of ghee; this is an ayurvedic remedy to help my predisposition towards constipation.
* refill my water bottle with warm water
* brush my teeth.
* breathing exercises (30mins),
* meditation (15mins)
* tarot card journaling (30-60mins)
* stretch stretching or yoga or gym or run or walk (time and motivation depending)

this can take about one and a half hours at best, usually more if i end up journaling or dilly dallying. typically i like to start this routine when it’s quiet, which means getting up around 6 or 6.30, but in an ideal world i would be getting up at 5. although that would require me to be more diligent about my bedtime routine which isn’t working out for me at the moment.

this routine is focused on a combination of grounding and debriefing with myself, allowing me to see how i’m feeling in response to the events of the days prior, clear my head if anything is lingering, and try to set intentions of how i want to feel and move through the day. it was developed in response to the turbulence of my year last year, where i was away from my primary living circumstances for about eight and a half months, spread across seven or eight different trips. to say the least,the movement and disorientation was exhausting, and towards the end of the year i was desprately craving to feel a sense of stability. initially i thought that could be obtained through external means, largely around the idea of finding a long-term partner to settle down with, however when this was unsuccessful in multiple attempts i eventually realised i needed to create a sense of stability from within.

i found the practises in this routine so anchoring towards the stability i was seeking. this is not to say that i am constantly stable, but the continued practice of observation (developed through conscious breathing & meditation) and self-reflection (through journalling) is helping me to gain awareness of howi can move beyond the conditioned habits and patterns that do not serve me. i decided to do tarot card journaling because I wanted to find ways to tune to myself in a deeper way. when I’m feeling anxious or ungrounded it’s easy for my mind to slip into more scarcity/ protective outlooks on life, which can limit me from seeing other possibilities beyond my conditioned patterns and habits of thought. tarot journalling helps to challenge that tendency and point me towards another way of reframing my current circumstances. the practice simply consists of finding silence in myself to set an intention of what i should be focusing on for the day. i then shuffle the cards and pick the one that energetically calls me. if i don’t have a good grasp of the card i refer to online sources for interpretations of how it may relate to me, then begin to journal all the thoughts that arise in response.

***

tags: #autism #routine #noticing

19.02.26 - abundance (luteal phase part 3)

yesterday i was lamenting to a mentor about not being able to wake up at 5am like I used to. this morning my eyes snap open at 3:50 in the morning with a kind of smugness and rigour so compelling that makes it irresistible to stay in bed any longer than 3:54. this kind of rigour appears to be increasingly rare these days, with most of us feeling burnt out and exhausted and apathetic and a bit on edge in response to the increasingly tenuous conditions that underpin the archetypal predisposition of a 2026 human existing in western society. i assume because of my sleep debt that I will be feeling tired, but presence quietens my mind and opens my heart to the abundance that exists around me. it’s only when it hits 6am that I find the need to crawl back into bed. my fitbit broke two weeks ago when the promise of a waterproof mode lied to me, and now i’m letting my body wake itself up when it wants to, back to rawdogging life I suppose. my presence in the absence of my sleep tracker makes me feel naked sometimes, but then i remember that i’m wearing clothes and also that there is always more than one way to see a situation.

i’m walking down elizabeth street and leaning into the sensation of trapped warm air between my back and my backpack. it’s a nice reprieve from the overcompensated air-conditioning at the library i just left. i decide to venture towards new modalities of learning chinese by loitering near chinese people who are loitering outside chinese restaurants. this time its gong cha in the cbd. the estimated wait time for my matcha is four minutes and i patiently wait six minutes for it to arrive. in the surplus two minutes the chinese crew i’m eavesdropping on ask me in english if i’ve already ordered and I say yes. i take a step out the way and as i continue waiting for my matcha i whisper to myself the affirming reminder that there is more than one way to be chinese, there is always more than one way to see. warm can be hot and no sugar can still be sugary. warm can actually be burning hot until i put my phone in my pocket to adjust my grip on the cup and add a protective barrier of clothing to make it slightly more bearable to hold.

i want to stay but I want to go. i want to gym but i need to rest, because my body is tired and i am in luteal phase. luteal phase has kicked my ass once again and yet i find myself in a sadistic state of hope to ultimately reach a state of mind where in the future i can welcome its impending arrival with an open heart and a warm hug. so i tell myself some more stories about the joys that luteal phase brings:

in luteal phase, i learn self compassion through its pain. i am learning to slow down because of its pain. i am learning to rest because of its pain. i am learning boundaries because of its pain.
i love luteal phase. luteal phase is one of my greatest teachers, guides and/ or spiritual healers.
i am so grateful to be in luteal phase for half of every month of my reproductive years. to look at it in another way, to relish in its bountiful possibilities from a different stance; i am so grateful to consider the prospect that I will be in luteal phase for approximately 1/6th of my entire life. 1 in 6 days over the span of my entire life, including the pre-conscious early childhood years before the age of seven, will be graced with the presence of luteal phase.
i am so grateful to be embodying the wisdom that only experiences can bring, and luteal phase is a particularly intense experience that provides me with many opportunities to touch vulnerability, self-compassion, and my higher purpose every two weeks.

something so tragic about western society is its insistence on domination and individualism and duality which makes it very difficult appreciate uncomfortable inconveniences like luteal phase, to not to gaslight yourself into denying yourself of your authentic painful experience, and instead feeling pressured to define yourself through distinct categorical experiences. it is especially because of leaning into the consistent challenges that experiences like luteal phase brings, can learn to unlearn these limiting ways of being and choose greater purpose in my life.

***

tags: #third space #luteal phase

18.02.26 - luteal phase (part 2)

the start of this luteal phase was so encumbering!! i haven't felt the urge to punch something for a long time. most of my rage is suppressed but unfortunately contact with those most close and consistent to my heart can elicit its most unapologetic expression. how humbling to be riding a wave of accomplishment and self-satisfaction, effortlessly taking on obstacles and uncertainty without being swayed – only to crash out to the most brutally honest droves of luteal phase irritability. i become almost completely intolerant to change or resistance, and attempt to remedy my searing fury by desperate seed cycling of sesame seeds to every meal (within recommended daily portions). unfortunately collateral damage is inevitable for anyone i deem to have acted towards me in unjust ways. and a secondary viciousness superimposed on this vicious cycle of victimisation finds its way back to me through the subconscious activation of self-loathing and disgust, leaving me to wallow in a spiral of shame.

last evening i was feeling exceptionally unmotivated to prepare food. i let myself be cared for by aunties at the pho shop down the road. i step outside into the golden hour of sun-drenched trees shimmering like a dessert mirage, with a show of raucous galahs shaking tree branches to the ground as they feed their bellies for their final meal of the day. i notice myself feeling oddly calm as auditory overstimulation clashes with visual tranquility for a perfect balance. or perhaps it is the embodied feeling of permission as each footstep brings me closer to the desire of my innate bodily cues.

i arrive at the restaurant and am invited to sit by the last empty table by the window seat. the soft shadows of plant decor bounces against the cream wallpaper, creating an ambient invitation for me to sink into the chair and feel it support the weight of my tired body. my sympathetic nervous system clocks off for the day and gives space for my lungs to breathe 1% more. rest seems hard to come by these days, and as i slowly sip the warming chicken broth i find my hunger being satiated both physically and spiritually. with the spaciousness to fill into my body that i find a sense of ease returning to the presence of everything that surrounds me. how wonderful it is to reconnect with the joy of existence, the reckoning of mutual delight brought to other visitors in the restaurant as they too tuck into their own nourishing bowl.

the first step to change is to notice, and as i've been noticing my patterns for some months now, i'm slowly starting to change the unconscious reactions that form the shape of my vulnerable side. the damage feels less eternal, its shadow merging into its own light to guide me back towards hope. it's not about expression of rage, more that it's about the choice i make to respond differently for next time, and that thought building more and more momentum until it eventually replaces the action with a more intentional approach. there's no point resisting a reality no matter how dark it may be. i'm just grateful that i can see it now, and collaborate on a way forward together for the future. and i think that's exactly the point.

***

tags: #third space #luteal phase

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