Tag Archives: books

Quiet Listening

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Yesterday was one of those days. One part chaos, one part overwhelm, and before I knew it, frustration gave way to deep sadness. My tarot reading reflected a sense of heaviness before my day even began. I reached for a deck I haven’t worked with in quite some time, one I usually reserve for the autumn season, yet yesterday morning she seemed to call to me. After sitting with the reading for a few minutes, its message became clearer yet I still had a hard time embracing it. She’s an honest deck, one that doesn’t soften the truth, and perhaps I wasn’t quite prepared for what she had to say.

In any case, I moved through the day as usual — morning coffee, quiet ritual, and then the arduous process of setting up my sound equipment to record another mini sound journey for social media. Well… let’s just say things unraveled from there.

After hours of troubleshooting, I think I’ve identified at least part of the problem. I may need a higher quality condenser microphone, along with a much better understanding of audio mixing. The microphone I purchased, after much research and deliberation, is at best mid-range. My sound therapy mentor recommended a far more expensive model, one I probably should have waited and saved for. I finally got everything connected correctly, hit record, cautiously optimistic, and when I played the finished recording back… it sounded awful.

When I record, I have to wear headphones because no sound comes through the speakers directly during the recording process. Through the headphones, everything sounds one way. But once I export the recording as an MP3, it’s a completely different story — louder, filled with static in the background, and completely unlistenable. That the sound itself was louder, however, meant the microphone wasn’t necessarily the problem. More likely, it’s my lack of knowledge around audio mixing.

Ugh. I had convinced myself this would be easy because I’d produced a podcast years ago. Then I remembered something I’d conveniently forgotten — editing those episodes was painstaking work. This is more difficult than producing a podcast by far with my singing bowls strewn all over my tiny space floor and barely enough room to walk without knocking one over!

By late afternoon, I decided to call it quits. Every one of my 18 singing bowls, both crystal and Tibetan, had found its way onto the floor. I tiptoed carefully through my tiny space, mindful not to knock one over. A couple of months ago, I accidentally chipped one of my clear crystal bowls after clipping it as I stood up from the couch! Ouch, the whole set was a major investment.

Instead, I surrendered. I snuck into bed and took a long afternoon nap, something highly uncharacteristic for me. My body had been talking all day. I had simply been too distracted to listen. It wasn’t asking me to solve another damn problem. It was asking for rest.

I’m trying, with great difficulty, to slow down every day. To listen to my body. To trust my intuition. To spend less and less time on social media and to loosen the grip of pressure and expectation that the world seems to demand. It’s a daily practice. Some days it feels nearly impossible.

When I turn inward, I realize that I’m still deeply fatigued. Even small amounts of stress pull me back into the nervous system dysregulation that has shaped so much of my life. How can I invite others into rest if I haven’t fully embraced it myself? There’s no way around that truth. I must first tend to myself.

Yet I still can’t seem to escape the feeling of living inside a pressure cooker. The world is simply too loud. Notifications. Expectations. Constant urgency. Even my new neighbor’s child (one of three), whose daily tantrums spill through the walls, has become another reminder of how desperately I long for quiet.

I can’t escape the world around me. But I can control how I choose to connect with it. I’m still learning new ways to pause, be still, listen deeply, and be at peace with not accomplishing everything I think I should. For years, it’s felt like I’ve carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. These days, I’m seeking something radically different — more quiet, less noise, and the simple practice of being.

It’s a daily commitment, one I fall short of with some frequency. Perhaps that’s the practice.

May your day hold a little less noise, a little more joy, and moments of harmony that remind you to listen inward.

Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash

Crossroads

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I did it. Yesterday, April 17, under the New Moon, I resigned from my job. The New Moon symbolizes fresh beginnings, intention-setting, planting seeds, and quiet reflection. My last day will be May 20, the end of my contract and the close of the semester. A chapter is ending.

I began this role as a university psychotherapist in June 2023, just three days after leaving my ex-husband and moving into a small apartment of my own. In many ways, that job marked the beginning of a new life. But the work proved far more demanding than I had anticipated.

During my time at the university, I came to a quiet but persistent truth: I’ve never really enjoyed being a therapist. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. Instead, the work grew heavier, increasingly draining. And I’m afraid not even the summer, winter, and spring breaks could prevent burnout.

What did light me up was my role as the Asian & Pacific Islander (API) Cultural Center Liaison, work rooted in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of API students. That space felt different — lighter — and the students were an absolute joy to work with.

I believe I’m a good trauma therapist. The starry heavens know I’ve poured years and more money than I care to recount on trainings, books, and a lifetime’s worth of lived experience. It just rings hollow. That may sound harsh. I wish I’d known then what I know now. I can’t reclaim that time, but I can choose what comes next: a slower, simpler, more artful life.

I’m hoping to grow my sound therapy practice, Om Sacred Sound Journeys, and leave room for whatever else wants to emerge. I know music will be part of this next chapter and writing, too. I’m planning on beginning a new book.

My last book never found commercial success. I’ve only just started reading it for the first time since it was published in 2017. I mean, how many times did I reread, reshape, and edit the draft? The story of my first trip to Taiwan to meet my birth family marks one of the most significant chapters of my life. Publishing it wasn’t for nothing. A younger version of me wrote those pages from a very different place. And still, the emotions are just as vivid, from the search to the moment we found our way back to one another.

Earlier this week, the oracle card “to the stars and beyond” surfaced in my (tarot) reading from Rose Bae Tarot’s These Blue Bones, a deck having a moment right now. It felt like both a spark and an affirmation for my decision to resign. Lately, I find myself thinking about mortality, not out of gloom, but clarity. Time shifts as we mature. There’s less time to do what makes you happy. In this season, I get to choose how I live it. Autonomy. Personal sovereignty. Independence. Let me embody this new path, to the stars and beyond.

This song brings me back to my younger self. I’ve been especially nostalgic of late. It may not quite fit this post, but it fits my mood perfectly.

Big Magick

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I have been home sick. Worked remote yesterday but today called out. I really don’t like to call out sick. I cannot remember the last time I felt so run down. Ah, it was when I contracted COVID in 2020, followed by a chronic subdural hygroma that was excruciatingly painful. So weird. Who knows how I ended up with a hygroma. I did not anticipate that the work at my present job would be so tough … Seriously, I don’t think I’m a hypochondriac. I typically love life, freedom, creative expression, music, art. I’ll be out for winter break in a month, at which time I will glory in slow mornings, drinking a full cup of coffee, and avoiding the damn 405 like the plague. Nearly a month off, yessss!

I watched an interview with author, Elizabeth Gilbert, who appeared on the Mike Birbiglia show after my work day. I followed Gilbert’s Big Magic podcast for a while and greatly admire her independence, her break from the long held expectations of females. I love that she feels happier in solitude and perhaps more productive, certainly, freer outside the confines of romantic entanglement. I appreciate her views on creativity and work and her ethics related to avoiding that pressure to utilize your creativity as a sole source of income. She noted that she had multiple income streams until her fourth book, Eat Pray, Love, took off and made her a successful author. I have been considering what work path to pursue that allows for increased quality of life and creativity, less stress, and less “helping others,” as truly, I am burnt to a crisp. The more intuitive side of me begs to come out and play. I keep telling her to be patient until I have more space, stillness; her time will come. Life is short, is it not? Especially at this age when there are fewer years left to live. I’d love to engage more in what inspires me – writing, nature, reading, playing music, sound medicine, growing plants, animals, magick.

I am possibly the worst business person ever. I learned that after having a private practice for a couple of years prior to my current job. I admire those who run their own businesses. Self employment comes with a caveat. You have to be successful to sustain a living! And California ain’t cheap. Lessons from Liz Gilbert. Don’t quit your day job to pursue your creative interests. I appreciate that Gilbert was her own sugar mama. I also resonate with the notion that there has to be another reason to make art besides the market. She talked about the book she decided not to publish, The Snow Forest, due to the war between Russia and the Ukraine. Ukranian readers expressed their disdain at the release due to the book’s Russian setting. Gilbert said it took three years to write. But she got the message, how harmful it would be to release the book at such a time, two years after Russia invaded Ukraine. Wow. It is sitting on a shelf for another time or maybe never.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of creating work for the simple joy of creating, whether others see it, read it, like it or not. Wouldn’t it be dreamy to make money doing what you love, but for some of us, perhaps it’s not in the stars. There will always be others who are more talented, more ambitious, more successful, in their prime. Maybe I need to aim higher. Manifest more diligently. One can daydream, even in mid-life, and make shifts slowly towards a path that is more fulfilling. I am too old to work this hard, at least my body tells me so. And I must listen. Wimp or not, it is personal choice and the freedom to have that choice. When I have figured it all out, I will let you know. It may be a little while yet.

Photo by Sofia Holmberg on Unsplash