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The Flower Grows Where Its Planted (Think Globally, Act Locally)

4/22/2021

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Happy Earth Day and I hope you are healthy, happy, and well! 
Ventura is a beautiful place that I’m fortunate to call my hometown. When you picture Ventura, you will probably think of the west side where the beach, pier, and downtown are located. The west side has a small town feel that’s ideal for tourists and locals alike, but I’m from a place just around the corner called Ventura Avenue.


For the most part, the avenue is kind of avoided, but it’s such a unique place, especially because it is located right between downtown and the huge oilfield that’s sitting in Ventura’s backyard. Has anyone else noticed the large oil operation all over the valley or is it just me because I grew up in the neighborhood right next to it? Maybe it’s just me, but I can see this clear juxtaposition between two different scenes as I drive down the avenue. 

There’s about a 3 mile stretch between KC’s Market and Vons, and one thing that I’ve noticed on this drive is my community’s access to healthy food. There are 2 grocery stores, 3 if you include Vons at the end, 8 liquor or convenience stores, and 4 smoke shops. Ventura Avenue isn’t a total food dessert, which is a low income area with limited access to healthier food, and on the bright side, the avenue is also home to 11 Mexican restaurants, a solid taco truck, and it now has 3 community gardens.

Good food links to good nutrition, and good nutrition to good health. Sure, there are more food options once you turn onto Main Street or drive into town, but in the age of covid, there is this greater social distance and food is just one way to try to communicate this. 

Downtown is around the corner and the city has been pushing for tourism in our picture perfect town, promoting the downtown business club, and constructing all these luxury apartment complexes on the west side. I can’t help but feel that this social distance is also woven into our city’s blueprint because the avenue and the oilfield are still right there and it appears that this area has been masked and developed around.

Investing more into the luxe side of things is not flattening any curve, it is creating a greater social distance between downtown and the avenue, and masking the oil field with a low income neighborhood puts those who live there at risk to potential environmental health hazards. 

Structural racism and environmental health have been ongoing conversations on the internet and I reflect on that with examples I see in my own community. First, is the oil field an environmental health problem? It is causing pollution or harm to the environment and others? Next, is the avenue an example of structural racism? It’s a low income neighborhood located right next to the oil field and the avenue would be the most severely impacted area if an environmentally related health crisis emerged.

Just to be clear, those are candid thoughts and not accusations, but that’s the sort of thing that I wonder about. Things like food, nutrition, health, wellness, sustainability, environment, and race are all connected in the bigger picture. I am not going to call this structural racism, but it appears to be laid out in the blueprint and I am writing this because I hope that my city will have a good conscience to do something about it. 

Now, this is also not breaking news or an immediate call to action because things have been like this for decades. This is nothing new and no one’s going to riot over it, but after 2020, we should really consider the environmental health and wellness of the people who live in our city, especially the residents on the avenue who live right next to the oil operation. With all of the city’s recent development plans for the west side and all these luxury apartments being built, I just ask that the unique nature of the avenue will be taken into serious consideration in moving forward with the city’s overall sustainability goals. 

We can start by making an effort to increase this community’s access to healthy and affordable food options, address the potential environmental hazards that could harm the land and the people who live there, and bring the city’s sustainability programs like fire safe landscaping and drought resistant gardening to this neighborhood. The city can include Ventura Avenue in its sustainability efforts in other ways besides dumping the recyclables there. 

We don’t necessarily have to abolish oil or start a food forest or do anything too extravagant, but a little effort goes a long way and I just wanted to start the conversation because we can act locally about a broader global problem. 
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Gal Wonder vs Galzilla

4/15/2021

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Gal Wonder vs Galzilla
The Mental Health Journey of a Sexual Assault Survivor

Disclaimer: I am about to give you a piece of my mind. This isn’t so much about sexual assault or being Asian, but if you are a survivor or battling mental health or need to make a breakthrough with your spirituality, maybe you can relate to my journey or just listen because this is a bit much.

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I can’t recall the exact details of my incident because I was unconscious when it happened. What really changed me was the aftermath of waking up with the feeling that someone invaded my room the night before. Someone violated my body—and what drives me crazy is that I don’t know who did it or who would believe me if I said anything about it. 

This wasn’t all in my head. Some things were missing from my room, so I think I was robbed. The sheets around me were wrinkled like someone else was in my bed. There was pain in between my legs. My belly was abnormally bloated. Then there was a trail of unknown liquid to the edge of my bed which confused me. Like there’s no way I simply wet the bed because that would be a puddle, not a trail, right? What did they put on me? What did they put in me? 

I don’t know, but place your hand on your lower belly and feel my pain. 

I was so scared. My heart sank when I called my mom and told her to pick me up because I had just been r—raped. I was too scared to change or shower. I just packed up my belongings and left by the end of the day. 

I never talk about this but that’s why I dropped out of college.

Leading up to this, I was probably slipping into a low-key state of psychosis. Sure, I was on medication, drinking more, and riding on an all-time high because my smoking addiction made me feel oddly more in touch with the universe, but what really confused me was not my substance abuse. It was the feeling of social disconnect with others that started to make me feel paranoid. Like what was everyone saying about me behind my back and why wasn’t anyone telling me? Was something going on?

There were small things that made me skeptical. Like who stole my OBEY jacket because I definitely did not misplace that. Why did I feel like I was being watched or followed to class? Was it really a coincidence that I ran into that person eyeing me on the route I usually took? Why were people talking about me but not talking to me? And who had sex in my bed when I was gone because there’s a used condom in my room and that’s not mine. It was small irritable stuff like this that made me wonder what was going on.

So I got a little paranoid and became kind of schizophrenic. When I started hearing voices and feeling like I was being watched, the plot line inside my head became so absurd. Imagine feeling like your every move is being watched. You hear a voice in your head and you converse telepathically, but if anyone actually tried reading your mind then the joke is on them because it’s probably just Blink-182 lyrics. No, but really, the joke is on you because your life is being live-streamed and the person in the corner of the screen who is talking to you and making commentary about your life is your ex-boyfriend. 

That was what the beginning of insanity felt like. 

I had zero clue of what was actually happening because my radiohead was tuned into another station, but after that, I just had to leave and felt like no one even cared that I was gone.

When I got home, I stayed in my parents’ room and quietly cried myself to sleep the first night. I got examined the following day, but I was still very confused and traumatized by what had happened to me. For a while, my stuff stayed in piles along the hallway, I slept in a small tent pitched in the living room, and I had terrible frights and night sweats for nearly two weeks. Then one night when I really could not sleep, I just watched Endless Summer at like four in the morning and could dream again. 

I was pretty emotionally dead for a while, but when I remembered that I had medication, I started taking ritalin with medicinal marijuana. The combination got me to bounce back enough to distract me from the trauma I still had to process. Then I started painting again and guzzling IPAs to help suppress my feelings, but then my mom confiscated my weed. That didn’t keep me from smoking, but when I needed to actually find something to smoke out of, I just picked up my teapot. I put a nug on the spout and lit it up. 

Pause and take a deep breath with me right now. 

The plot line inside my head came back stronger and more absurd than ever, which was amusing, but probably inappropriate for the situation I was actually in. I got to be the city planner of my own world, it looked pretty epic, and I was going to go there soon. Eventually, the voice drove me out of the house on an unplanned misadventure and told me to kill myself, but I was unprepared for suicide on the spot. Like wait, what am I doing out here, and that got me held at a mental hospital for a week. 

The whole time I was dealing with this, I didn’t even understand what I was going through. I didn’t really think about mental health as something I struggled with or even thought of myself as a sexual assault survivor. I even forgot about my depression. I just kind of got through each day and let this hit me in waves. 

After I was released, my happy brain chemicals were at zero again and I just didn’t know what to do anymore.. Maybe I should go back to college. 
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Ah, I forgot about that. 
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Part 2
Can you imagine the painfully awkward moment I experienced when I was sitting in the middle of a school assembly and found the words to describe myself as a sexual assault survivor? There was a guest speaker who described what happens when the police respond to instances of sexual assault and how they examined victims, and I have been in that seat before. I tried to remain calm, but I was actually flipping out because we had an entire school week dedicated to the awareness of domestic and sexual abuse.

That was also the semester I was slut-shamed by my teacher in a school assignment. I took an online gender studies class because that was the last GE I needed and that was the easiest class to fit into my schedule. There were mostly girls in this class, but for the randomly assigned group project I was placed in a group with all boys, which did not feel random. The assignment was to read a horrendous lime green book titled Slut! and my group had to read the chapter about a slut named Alyssa, which did not feel randomly assigned or teach me anything about gender studies. If anything, I realized that people must have spread rumors about me in school and that was the story that got told because I’ve haven’t said a word to anyone.
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I flipped out even harder with all of the subliminal messages at school that triggered my trauma and I brought up my concerns about this assignment because that was not a coincidence. The teacher dismissed my concerns until the next semester by sending me to the principal’s office (in college!) and she didn’t even show up. 

What’s your concern? Sir, I believe that I was just slut-shamed by my teacher and what I experienced was not actually randomly assigned, but intentional. Have you talked to a school therapist? Yes, during that awareness week, and both times the therapist couldn’t even handle me and I had to talk to an officer instead. Is there anything else we can do? Yes, that Slut! book my teacher assigned should not be taught in school and it teaches absolutely nothing about gender studies. 
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Part 3
I started taking care of my mental health by working on my spiritual health, whatever that meant. By this time, I had sobered up but was still on some antidepressants and antipsychotics, but I didn’t want to be on meds forever so I opened my mind to holistic approaches to health and wellness. I started to meditate regularly before bed and before I started my day. Then I started learning more about Zen Buddhism and I changed my meditation technique to zazen.
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Zazen is a little more hard core than regular meditation. There’s no soothing background music or positive affirmations. In this technique, your sitting posture should be elevated on a cushion. Your hands should rest at your center with palms up and thumbs touching. Your back should be straight but comfortable. Then you should be facing a wall even though your eyes are closed. Once you have your form, relax and breathe deep and even belly breaths. The objective in zazen is to not think. In zazen, we will discover that there is a lot on our minds. When a thought arises into your conscious awareness or you realize that your mind is drifting, just quiet your mind and return to the present moment.

Practicing zazen made me confront some of the tougher parts of my mental health. There was also a huge mental health awareness in school, and here I was years later realizing I had already experienced most of the spectrum. Like I started on fluoxetine and ended up on lithium. It was difficult at times, but my mental state was more manageable when I focused on my breath. In zazen, everything that I had suppressed over the years crept back to my conscious awareness and I had to process it, and then let it go.

Zazen and zen philosophy also made me seek to understand more about Buddhism. I grew up in a Buddhist household, and even though my grandma was a female monk, I had a language barrier with my grandma and my understanding of religion. When I was younger, I didn’t learn much about what Buddhism actually meant and I wasn’t taught how to meditate, but I used to observe how my devoted grandma spent hours meditating and praying. Eventually, I came to it on my own terms.

I meditated so much that I felt like I should do some yoga again, but I hadn’t gone to an actual yoga class in years and felt socially anxious about going anywhere, especially class. Then one day, I just dropped by and didn’t realize it was a hot yoga, but I stuck with it for every breath and every move until the hour was done. At the end when we got to savasana pose, my heart was beating so fast and I was sweating all over. I closed my eyes and noticed the physiological effects of increased oxygen circulation happening in my body, which relaxed my state of consciousness. The objective in savasana is to be still, but the micro movements throughout my body reminded me that I was very much alive when I had been sitting still for so long.

I talked to the lady at the front desk about working out a membership, and she connected me with the studio owner to become a karma yogi. All I had to do was clean the studio once a week to work for my membership, and it was done. I was a karma yogi for about a year until I was ready to begin teacher training. It felt pretty natural for me to blend yoga mechanics and zen philosophy together, and I was able to pick up a few yin and vinyasa classes after I finished training. I liked planning my yoga classes with themes that transitioned well, but then my studio closed because of covid and I got too anxious again so I took a break.

I also started dating someone my mom introduced me to. I really plained myself down and I wasn’t looking for anyone, but I gave him a chance because my mom wanted us to be together. It was nice to open up to someone and finally have some good conversations because I barely talked to anyone over the years, but one recurring argument that came up in our relationship was yoga vs. Christianity. I was a yogi and he was a Christian, and to him, Christians shouldn’t do yoga because yoga is a spiritual practice that derived from Hinduism. I have never heard that before, but I’ll respect your beliefs if you can also respect mine.

This conversation kept coming up even after I took a break from yoga. There were other things we didn’t agree on and I couldn’t deal with the heartache of putting up with a partner who would always try to debate me on my views and beliefs, especially during a politically charged year like 2020. Eventually he broke up with me. That hurt, but if there’s one good thing I can take away from that relationship, it’s that he introduced me to Christ and made me aware of God’s love and presence. I didn’t meditate anymore and I started to sincerely pray for God to lead the way for me.

I acknowledged that I needed God in my life and I changed for myself. I started with reading out of the Bible, watching videos online, searching for churches near me, and I really started praying to God to lead me to find a church because I was lost on the internet. It went from sermons, to dreams about Jesus, to prophetic conspiracies real fast. When I finally found my church, I knew that God was nudging me in the right direction to reach out already because if I stayed at home on the internet alone, I would have missed out on the opportunity to really grow in my faith if I wasn’t brave enough to join a church. 

It seemed like this happened so suddenly because I didn’t talk much about it, but I spent years meditating to be closer to peace with myself and I was praying to be at peace with God. I am the only person in my family to convert and take the leap of faith, which was huge considering that my grandma was a monk. When I made the decision to get baptized, it was because I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. You could meditate all you can to deal with your mental health, but you won’t reach enlightenment if you can’t even acknowledge God’s might. 

So I joined my church to guide me through that season of my life, and I’m thankful to my group for listening to me process my candid insanity. As I learned more about God, I also finally confronted my feelings and all this heartache I didn’t realize I held onto. We each had to share our stories, and I went last so that I could finally put all of this into words and let it go.
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Part 4
If you are in a similar boat, I hope that you can also overcome the battle inside your head by hearing my story because I can see God working in my life now. I’m grateful to have learned more about myself by exploring the eastern and western sides of my mental health. My faith in God has guided me to where I am now and I’ve changed a lot over the years. Now I don’t smoke or drink anymore, I don’t rely on taking meds, I’m not manic depressed, and I am no longer a paranoid schizophrenic. I’ve got a better grip on how I cope with my mental health although it comes and goes. My mental health journey has made me explore odd states of my mind with a unique perspective. 

This is weird to put into words. Even though there’s more I could say, I don’t like talking about mental health because people usually bring awareness to it and then share the suicide hotline as a mental health resource. Or they’ll suggest talking to a therapist, which I’ve tried. I also don’t like talking about sexual assault, but there’s an awareness day for just about everything now on social media and those triggers bring back sad thoughts. 

I don’t like being told that I have a chemical imbalance in my brain, but it happens. Medication and therapy can certainly help, but we also need to nourish our physical, emotional, and spiritual health to reach the root cause of mental health symptoms. It takes time and it takes self-compassion. So before you call the hotline or even think about suicide, please go take a shower or a nap or eat or pray instead. I know bad days happen and I’ve been at that low point where I’ve said those five words (I feel like killing myself), but the moment will pass and tomorrow will come. There’s more to life and there’s more to death, and you will want to be at peace with God whenever that time comes.

Just to be clear, I don’t expect everyone to meditate or explore religion on their own mental health journeys because I realize this is all pretty insane.

I hope that I didn’t offend anyone’s beliefs as I shared my candid thoughts about insanity and changing my faith. I can truly thank God for inspiring me to paint in a better state of mind and for helping me collect the words to finally articulate my voice after years of silence. As I wrap up this thought, I’d like to emphasize that this is what I think at this moment. This is a lot to process and it could change. I am fairly self-conscious about sharing this and I still haven’t made up my mind on how I feel about Buddhism or yoga, but it’s on my heart because I acknowledge that my eastern side has helped me grow in my faith and understand myself as the woman God created me to be. 


(What still annoys me about that gender studies class is that I didn’t learn anything from reading a book about slut shaming and now I’m here second guessing if it’s incorrect to use cis-pronouns because I don’t want to offend anyone for identifying as a woman, and not a slut.)
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​Featured on the April 1 Issue on Overachiever Magazine

https://www.overachievermagazine.com/wellbeing/gal-wonder-vs-galzilla
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A Different Kind of Sad

3/30/2021

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A Different Kind of Sad
There’s a lot I could mention on the topic of Asian Hate, but to begin, I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the victims and families of the shooting spree that happened recently in Atlanta, Georgia. The sad thing is that was not the only mass shooting that happened within the month, but what stood out about Georgia was that the victims were immediately identified by being Asian. 

When browsing the headlines for this recent tragedy, the first glances I saw were along the lines of “6 Asian Women Dead,” “Shooting at Asian Massage Parlors,” and “Asian Hate Crimes Rising.” My first impression from media headlines would be maybe this has to do with race, but my initial feeling to this was sorrow because those victims had names and families and unique immigration stories and the rest of their lives ahead of them. 

My second natural feeling was shock. Why did this happen? There’s more to this and race is not the only issue, but race is the first thing we usually see. The headlines of this tragedy in large part identified the victims by their race, but when looking further, the excuses and explanations given were on the basis of sex and addiction. The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, had a deeply troubling and disturbing sex addiction, but that is not a rational excuse for going on a shooting rampage that claimed the lives of eight victims. What was also infuriating was that this was downplayed by having “a really bad day.”

It appears that excuse is invalid. It also appears messed up to me that the suspect’s reasoning for carrying out his shooting spree was to eliminate his temptation because he has a sex addiction and can assure that this was not racially motivated. So he’s definitely not racist and he just has a sex addiction? When he downplayed race to highlight sex, he also forgot to mention the third issue here which is violence. Long specifically targeted Asian massage parlors because of his sex addiction and murdered eight victims who were mostly Asian women, and this is a tragic example of racial and gendered violence that did not have to happen. If Long was having a bad day then, well now he has to live with the consequences and guilt of what he did.

This shooting amplified the demand to Stop Asian Hate. Elderly people should not have to fear being mugged in broad daylight and women should not be the victims of sexual frustration and murder. Stop Asian Hate is not just a hashtag or an awareness day on social media. This really is a plea to stop racially motivated violence and misconceptions that could lead to further harm. 

Although sexual predators like Long would argue that they love Asian women and definitely aren't racist, that messed up fetish feeds into Asian Hate because that sexual misconception is dangerous to any Asian woman who can step into a room where she is not aware that’s what the men are really thinking of her. So because the suspect is definitely not racist, this also brought up sex and violence against women. Social media highlights more of the activism side of this issue while the news media describes more detail of how troubled the suspect really was. He was too stuck in this mindset of having a sex addiction and feeling bad all the time that he failed to see himself as a sexual predator who was weak to his own urges.

Another underlying problem here is that there are predators like him who perpetuate that harmful assumption of sexualizing Asian women because of their stereotyped misconceptions about race and unreal ideas about sex or women. I’d like to say that we don’t know for sure if they were sex workers and cannot assume that just because the victims were Asian women who worked at massage parlors—but Long was a regular and this entire situation is so messed up! 

Do not even try to shame the victims. Those women were just murdered and you must have serious issues if you’re still thinking about sex. He had a sex addiction? That was definitely not racially motivated or racist at all? Seriously? This makes me feel a different kind of sad. The online mediasphere is broadcasting Stop Asian Hate because it’s usually about your race when you’re a minority, but becoming the targets of violence is not the kind of representation any community wants. Please let the victims rest in peace and let this aftermath teach us all something new to be aware of. 

Featured on the special issue of Asian Hate on Overachiever Magazine
https://www.overachievermagazine.com/identity/stop-asian-hate
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Not a Normal Year or Thought

12/31/2020

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Image received from Fine Art America
I will explain this image in a bit, but I’m going on a circle of thought here.
I probably didn’t have solid expectations or plans this year, but I certainly did not expect this turn out. There are some opportunities in life that I am open to, like continuing my education at the graduate level or traveling, but I haven’t made real plans to make any of that actually happen, and with coronavirus as a huge economic factor this year, those opportunities slowly moved down the priority list for me.  I got caught up with job searching, then keeping up with work once I found something to do, then completing the extra coursework I started, and then I guess that seemed like a good time to start another art project. So, that was probably the train of thought which led me to where I am today.

On the other hand, I didn’t know that coronavirus would have the impact around the world that is has made by the end of an entire year. I could have never known or imagined that the virus would put the world in lockdown or take the lives of millions of people worldwide because I have never lived through anything like this. In America, covid was speculated as a conspiracy and it was further politicized by the media as well as the White House (How can anyone ignore how the president continually brushed it off by saying the “China virus” would just “disappear” and “go away” by “April with the heat” and then got covid as a result of ignoring social distancing precautions while rallying for reelection). Regardless of your political stance, that was not responsible leadership or taken very seriously, and this really could have been the time for a leader to unify us and encourage each other to get through this hardship, and it disappoints me that this was used in the advantage to confuse and divide us.

Despite some personal setbacks, I have been fortunate to have my basic needs met and to have a normal suburban life that was not completely turned upside down, and this year has made me really appreciate the big little things in life. In my down time, I have been able to explore art again and to reflect on life to really explore my faith. It also surprised me that I took the leap of faith to come to Christ because I didn’t start the year seeking anything in particular, but that faithful decision changed the outcome of my year and my life. When I think about what’s happening or what’s going to happen, I am no longer  overly anxious because I trust in God to lead me and I do not lean on Trump. 

The coronavirus is real and it has the potential to cause great harm, so please take care of yourselves and your loved ones. This Christmas Eve, there was a family member who passed away from covid. My thoughts and prayers really do go out to the immediate family, but what can I do from a safe social distance besides contribute to the Gofundme page? Well I also shared the link. Now, I am sharing a thought tangent in this written reflection which I hope is not too far out there. Just to be clear, I don’t always think about death. Like I‘m not hopelessly depressed or think obsessively about dying. Sometimes I wonder, but what comes across my mind is what really happens at that moment because there’s a time for everyone.

One thought that has come to my mind lately is that if I was born into a Buddhist family, am I still bound to a Buddhist fate or am I saved by Christ? Okay, that thought is really far out there, but it’s important to me. In Buddhism, there is an illustration of the circle of life, or the realms of the world, or Samsara. The image shows a circle of the realms that is held by a powerful being, and outside of this circle is an enlightened one. Are you free from this cycle if you are enlightened? I’m not enlightened, but sometimes I really wonder about these things. Like I might not be awoken, but am I aware enough? Because this is not a normal thought. Most Buddhists do not constantly think about enlightenment and are not overly spiritual or religious, but they do respect monks and their ancestors and strive to live good lives in the present moment. Many have probably seen this image at some point, but don’t necessarily navigate life by it because it’s not in the forefront of anyone’s mind when we return to everyday life.

When I change my worldview from east to west, and when I read biblical scripture, there is a grand revelation about Jesus that can help guide Christians with their own questions about life. In the book of Ecclesiastes, the Bible says, “Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them” (Ecclesiastes 8:16-18). I am not writing about this to try to appear wise or cool, and if anything, I’m actually shy about writing or expressing myself at all. The reason why I included scripture was to guide this thought, not to appear righteous because my understanding is limited and I come to God with my questions about how to navigate life in both worlds. 

It’s not just an eastern mindset vs. western, believing in Buddhism vs. Christianity, thinking about living life vs. after life, whether you hold Democratic values vs. Republican, or any other means of social division. Maybe
 we could all get along or at least be able to cooperate with one another if we think about what really matters in life, or at the end of life, but our problem as people is that we don’t really acknowledge our shared values or goals. We haven’t just socially distanced this year, but we’ve also allowed ourselves to become socially divided. We tend to highlight our differences, but we don’t have to look at things as opposites. Sometimes we lack context or understanding or compassion for each other, and regardless of your political or religious stance, we all exist in the same reality where we go on with our daily lives and some day we will exit. What happens beyond that moment is of faith.

There are a lot of factors and perspectives and scenarios that I did not include, but I hope that this thought was not too far out there or 
culturally unaware or insensitive, and I apologize again if I am. ​I shared this image to help explain what I am trying to understand, but I am by no means trying to change or challenge anyone’s beliefs or worldview. I’m also not sure if my thoughts and prayers mean anything to you, but I hope you will have a better year ahead of you.
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The Art of Change

11/26/2020

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*Disclaimer: I was given the honor and opportunity to speak at an outdoor celebration to conclude a 10 week discipleship I just completed at my church. I edited my story to tone down the candid insanity. This is one continuous thought and it might be weird reflecting on thoughts about God, so I apologize in advance if I might seem crazy because I probably am. This was written for my church, but I am sharing my story because it might help someone somewhere heal and to grow stronger in their faith. I am so thankful to have grown so much by God's grace so, here it goes.

Thank you so much for allowing me to share my story tonight. I have had to confront a lot of old and wild thoughts to honestly reflect on how I got here. I didn’t just drive here after work, like how did I really arrive at this moment? We just completed a ten week discipleship together and it feels like this is only the beginning all over again. I’m new here. I got baptized when we entered this program and I put a lot into perspective this season as a brand new Christian, and I’m going to have to go backwards a little before I can go forward with my flow of thought.

I am the only Christian in my family, but growing up, that wasn’t part of my identity. When you’re Asian, the most common question that people will ask you is what are you? What kind of Asian are you? Where are you from? I’d always reply that I’m Thai, and if you should know anything about the culture (besides the food) is that Buddhism is rooted in the culture and traditions. Although being Buddhist wasn’t my primary identity—like I wouldn’t say, “Hi my name is Alyssa and I’m a Buddhist,”—it’s just part of the family I come from and how I was raised. 

I grew up as the closest grandchild to my ying (which means my mom’s mom), and my ying was a woman dressed in white who shaved her hair like a monk and she lived a simple life of prayer and meditation so, I think of her as a great example of a good woman with a strong spirit. I didn’t understand what Buddhism was as a kid, like I didn’t know any Zen principles or anything like that, especially when this religion was chanted in the mother language, and I guess that I didn’t only have a language barrier with my grandma—I also had a language barrier with my understanding of faith. 

I got to live a fairly normal American life, but if there is anything that I have realized in hindsight, is that I did not know Jesus when I was a kid. God has always known me, God knows each and every one of our souls, but I did not always know God. I didn’t have the spiritual awareness to know about how He works in my life and I did not know that I could pray to Him when I experienced something traumatic in my past. I have tried so many different medications over the years— antidepressants, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics, lithium—and I don’t like medication. I don’t like seeing the psychiatrist or being told that there’s a chemical imbalance in my brain.

I coped with the battle inside my head by returning to the roots I knew—reading, drawing, painting—and then connecting that to my worldview, which was limited but began from within. I took myself off my medication and really recovered by building a foundation with meditation, and reiki, and yoga—but when someone told me that Jesus is the truth and that those practices actually led me away from God—I struggled with myself all over again because that was my truth at the time. I found that mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and holistic healing through yoga—so it took me a while to let go of what I knew. 

I was also let go from my job around the time Covid started affecting us and then my studio also closed, so I felt sad again. I took a break from yoga to give Jesus a place in my heart and mind, and what I realized is that God does so much more for us. I started with reading books of the Bible and searching for videos online, churches near me, and after a painful break up I really started praying to God to lead me to find a church family so that I can grow in my faith as a Christian. 

So, I feel very blessed to be here tonight because I found this wonderful church. You guys do it all—the online sermons, baptism, discipleship—and when I saw that was coming up soon, I knew that God was nudging me in the right direction to reach out already. If I stayed at home on the internet alone, I would have missed out on the opportunity to really grow in my faith and heal my brokenness if I wasn’t brave enough to change. I went from being a yoga instructor to becoming a follower of Christ. I am the only person in my family to take the leap of faith to embrace Jesus as my Lord and Savior because He is the truth to clarify any confusion, He is the light to shine away the darkness, and He is the only thing that makes any sense in the current times we live in. 

When I think about the state of the world or the weight in my heart, Christ helps me hold myself together. This is why I am so grateful for this church and my group to really guide me this season. We’ve taken the time to read the same book and to reflect on these lessons with our groups, and I am so thankful to my group for listening to me process my candid insanity. We learned who our almighty God is, how He speaks to us, and the power of prayer. I used to meditate before I started my day and before I would go to bed, but now that quiet space is my time alone with God to let Him know what’s on my heart and mind and to ask Him for His guidance in my life. People think meditation and prayer are the same, but the key difference is that meditation is to quiet the mind while prayer is to really connect with God and He doesn’t mind if you pour your heart out to Him.

God loves each and everyone of us, and I stand before you today because I took the leap of faith and I hope that you can also grow stronger in your faith by hearing my story because I see God working in my life now. He has inspired me to paint again, He led me to a better job where I can grow in my abilities, and He has led me to this church to grow in my faith with five other good people who I keep in my thoughts and prayers. We have prayed for each other over the weeks and one of the first things we prayed about was to hear God speak to us. One of His messages to me recently is to trust Him—like I’m driving and thinking why certain things have happened to me and I hear Him tell me, trust me—Yes I trust you, but what’s going on?--trust me, He says. He doesn’t want you to be confused by your emotions or discouraged by who you are or the mistakes you’ve made or whatever suffering you have gone through in the past. Put your faith in Jesus and trust Him. 

If you have the heart to change, you can let go of what you think you know about yourself but also get a better grasp of who you really are through Christ, and maybe I have a Zen approach to Christianity which all that really means is that it starts with a beginner’s mind. My group helped me realize that I had an internal rather than an external approach to my relationship with Christ, where I didn’t grow up with the Bible or going to church or knowing any better. I didn’t have this external knowledge to understand how God works in my life, like I experienced the definition or meaning of a word before knowing the perfect word to describe that feeling. 

I don’t have a whole lot figured out yet, but I know that God has guided me in the right direction to really grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord. Granted, there is so much more that I still need to learn and work on personally, but I am aware of that and I acknowledge that. Wherever you are on your journey of faith, I would like to encourage you to also reflect on your roots and to grow in His grace—and to be nice to yourself as you do. Don’t get too carried away by what everyone else is doing. Remember what really matters at the end of the day or at the end of life, and your peace with God is so important. 

I hope that I didn’t offend anyone’s beliefs as I shared my voice and candid thoughts about changing faith. As I wrap up this thought, I’d like to emphasize that this is what I think today. This is how I feel at this moment. I still haven’t made up my mind on my final thoughts about Buddhism and yoga, but it’s on my heart because I acknowledge that it has helped me in my faith journey to understand myself as the woman God created me to be. I used to end my yoga classes with this lesson here—that I hope you felt what you needed to feel and found what you needed to find. I experienced that through prayer because of the guidance I've had this season and my life has changed for the better knowing that God is with me, and I hope that you know that He is here for you too. “To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:18). Thank you.
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