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Signs & Wake Up Missives

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Align to your innermost desires and start now
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Did you ever have times when you hadn’t the vaguest idea what options you had? Even when those options were staring at you right in the face. Or you got into a state where you weren’t even thinking of getting out of it. You lacked trust in yourself, doubted your intuition, and may have even shut it down.

I definitely did, and it became difficult to spot signs, even when they were showing up. It was also tough because I wasn’t the asking type (meaning making requests to the Universe, praying etc).
 

Wake Up! Missives

Luckily for us, the Universe doesn’t give up on us, and sends “Wake Up!” Missives when we really need them. These Missives are like an emergency alert system – something in your life goes, “HEY, pay attention!”

Wake-up Missives can be a bit of a shock to say the least. What I’d experienced was closer to, “Wake Up Your F❤❤❤ing Idea!” as we say in Singlish (one of my favourite expressions!). These Missives usually came when I was:

  • being on auto-pilot and not being the conscious driver of my life
  • staying in my comfort zone even though I was unhappy
  • making unhappy compromises or settlements
  • being in denial about what I really wanted

 

A little story…

A loooong time ago, I worked in an Internet company, and it was hard work, but I’d reached a point where I loved most of my colleagues, I knew what I needed to do, and the workload had finally become manageable.

Except, my heart simply wasn’t in it.

Every day, I day-dreamt about going back to film & TV, OR going to Japan. Thing is, both options didn’t make any logical sense. The first offered less pay and longer hours. The second, I didn’t even know what I would do in Japan!

Still, I convinced myself I’d stay in it… build a nestegg and then pursue one or both of those things. It’s what smart people do, right?

Or so I thought, until I got a Wake-Up! Missive. By the way, these Missives are like Howlers in Harry Potter – ignore them for too long, and they go berserk on you.

One of the benefits of being an avid journaller, you get to look back. One day:

I saw a cab coming out the wrong way from Kent Road. ARGHS! This must be a sign! But, sign of what? That my current life is going in the wrong direction? That my thoughts are going in the wrong direction? What?!!? I so do not get it… tho’ it’ll probably be blindingly clear in hindsight.

Three days later:

I saw another car going in the wrong direction on a one-way street last night!!!! Immediately after I left work. Jeez. It almost caused an accident! This seriously must be some sort of sign… I have to do my cards tonight! 🙁

 

Flash forward…

Six months later, I quit my job, with nothing proper lined up (not saying this is for everyone, it’s important to do things *your* way), went on a roller-coaster of film/TV jobs.

In the span of 20 months, I moved from Singapore to Hong Kong (and back), travelled to Cannes on business (one of my dreams!), worked on several film projects, where I discovered both Absolute Heaven and Absolute Hell.

It was a very unsettling time, the highs and lows were extreme. Very stressful for me – I’m always telling the Universe: drama-free life, please.

This crazy period ended with me falling really ill, getting stuck in bed for a week (very bad by my usual standard of health), and nursing a broken heart to boot. NOT what I had expected when I chose to follow my Wake Up Missive.

At that point, the only thing I was sure of – even though I was doing something I supposedly loved, what I was doing didn’t really align to the life I wanted.

Somewhere along the way, I had surrendered myself and what I wanted, to pursue this dream. Hence, sick and broken-hearted. Time to find ANOTHER way.

After I recovered, I found a job that I stayed in for more than 3 years (LONG for me). Sure, there were difficult times in between when I occasionally considered homicide 😉 but this job gave me the opportunity to travel to some major film festivals & markets (another dream), and I also met several beautiful souls I’m lucky to call my friends now. It also laid the foundation to make my Japan dream come true. (Yay!~)

Clearly, Wake Up Missives don’t guarantee a smooth ride, but you’re definitely going to get a lot out of them. It was an intense period of lessons and insights, and am so grateful for having gone through it. Not funny at that time though!

 

The lesson…

My Missives showed up when I was in a fear-based state for too long but they were ultimately only a catalyst for changes. I still had to do the work, but recognising the wake-up call made me start thinking about what I wanted and valued.

And that’s all you need.

Wherever you are right now, is the perfect starting point. The further away you live from your innermost desires, the less the Universe is able to conspire with you to create what you want.

If you feel completely out of touch with your intuition, it can feel difficult to start your explorations.

Try this: Take baby steps, and start re-connecting with the Universe. Start a dialogue with your Guides (speak it out loud, write, pay more attention etc), and ask for assistance. Keep your senses on alert for anything that comes up. Wake Up! Missives won’t be too difficult to notice because they are by nature surprising/shocking 😉

Did you ever get out-of-the-blue and weird incidents that you realise now were signs/wake up missives? What impact did they have on you? What was happening in your life at that time? I’d love to hear about it!

P.S. There are a few other posts in the Sign Series: It’s a Sign! (Not), Signs & Decisions, and How to Ask For Signs.

Our Ultimate Purpose

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Yakushima is a beautiful island in the south of Japan, famous for the “Jomon-sugi”, an ancient Cedar tree from the Jomon period. It’s somewhere between 2,000 to 7,000 years old, and is what the Japanese call a “power spot”. Power spots are places where spiritual energy is supposed to be accumulated, so people visit them for rejuvenation, for blessings, to connect with divine energy, and so on.

The Jomon Cedar is a five-hour hike into the mountains, and some people camp overnight in the mountains, but many people do a day hike (10 hours in and out).

For experienced trekkers and the generally fit, 3 hours of up-up-up at that steepness probably isn’t a big deal, maybe a difficulty level of 6-7 out of 10.

Me, I was a complete newbie to trekking. My idea of going for a walk was taking a 5-minute stroll to the convenience store to check out their new desserts. My physical and mental make-up is a wonderful combination of unfit, scared terrified of heights, and best of all, clumsy. The clumsiness makes everything more scary. I think I’m putting my foot *there*, but in physical reality, anything could happen (blame the lazy eye.) Clearly, I’m on the extreme end of “unsporty” on the sportiness bell curve.

Going in, I was mostly excited, and a little scared. It was like being in an action movie. Except I was the stunt person. Yikes. Suspension bridges (sway sway sway, oh no the rope might break, RUN!), narrow bridges with no rails on either side (what if I fall over!), man-made stairs with steps 45 cm high on a steep incline (can.not..br.ea..th..e…*gulp* see ‘the bit that killed me’), slippery, moss-covered stones (oops, slipped, my shoe came off)… What did I sign up for?!

Here’s the route:

Route to Jomon Cedar
Getting to the Jomon Cedar

Unfortunately, that was not the most challenging part of the trek.

A couple of hours in, my negative mental chatter started up and wouldn’t stop. It took me by surprise when I started to get annoyed with the people I was with. “What’s the big rush?” “Why can’t they stop to appreciate the scenery a little more?” “Why do they expect me to be as fit as them?” “Why am I not allowed to be scared of heights? Or just be scared in general?”

At the same time, I felt bad for holding them back, because they were much fitter, had no fear of heights and it was just a more intense than usual workout for them. So there was also “Why can’t they just go ahead at their own pace?” “I suck, I can’t keep up.” “I’m so unfit, why was I so stupid to come on this trip?”

Yup, I’m ashamed to say, my oversensitive, selfish, immature self came out to play. But what the hell, when you’re on a mountain, you either go forward or backwards. You choose.

A couple more hours later, we finally got to the Jomon Cedar. Yay! There it was. Wow. 7,000 years of history, right before my eyes. (I’ll take the optimistic number.) I’m not sure I felt that surge of positive energy though. We broke for lunch, then started our trek back out.

Jomonsugi, Jomon Cedar
Take a look at history

That’s when the magic finally kicked in.

At some point, I managed to get out of my head, and started really engaging with the beauty around me. I thought, perhaps the power of the Jomon Cedar, lay in the journey, and not in the actual seeing of it.

And that journey is a perfect metaphor for how we choose to live.

There were hundreds of people on that path that day. Some going in, some going out. Some people said hi out of politeness, others out of friendliness. Some didn’t say hi. Maybe they were shy, or super focused, or didn’t care. Or maybe I didn’t hear them.

Some people were fully equipped with tools designed specifically for trekking. Others came with a mishmash of this and that. Still others came with the bare minimum. Some walked speedily, some strolled.

Walking Path to Jomon Sugi
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One path, in and out of the mountains, just as birth and death are the only certainties in our lives. The variety of people – uncountable.

Sometimes I walked with my friends. Sometimes I walked amongst strangers. Sometimes I walked by myself. Even so, there was an amazing sense of connectedness and camaderie amongst all the trekkers.

In life too, we also walk in the company of friends and strangers, towards the same destination. But even when we walk with others, it is our own legs that carry us to our destination.

How we choose to walk the path, is entirely up to us. What we carry in our minds and hearts… How we interact with the people and the environment around us… The decisions behind these determine the quality of our experience.

A Heart-shaped view
How do you see the world?

The difference we make in our individual journeys, lies in the choices we make, and the values that drive those choices.

I’d understood these points mentally for a long time, but the trek really hit the point home.

In whatever life area, business, love or spirituality, everyone has their preferred ways of being and doing. It’s not wrong, it’s just different. It also doesn’t mean that we can’t change or experiment.

It also doesn’t matter if we have one life or one thousand lives to live. Since the end point as we know it is the same, we might as well make the best of what we have, and consciously choose what kind of trail we leave behind.

In the end, there is only one purpose for everyone: to walk the path in your particular way.

 
I decided to live as consciously as I could moment to moment, to actively choose the quality of energy I brought to any situation, to make a small difference every day, in spite of knowing that there’s only one ultimate destination.

It’s easy to have clarity about this in the big picture issues, but applying this to everyday interactions is far more challenging. I fail, way more often than not, but this epiphany is never far in my mind. Thanks, Jomon Cedar 😉

What are you doing to own your purpose? Share in the comments!

Postcards from the Universe

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Last night I had a coaching session with ze wonderful Miss Michelle Ward, and we talked about writing, messages, opinions and soapboxes… Amazeballs as usual ♥ Better still, it made me think of an old friend.

We met when I was the executive assistant at a documentary production house in Hong Kong. Working as a freelancer in production, I always got to meet amazing people (that’s to make up for the more than fair share of nut cases and egomaniacs in the industry), but then we always had to say goodbye, and often quickly. Classic ships passing in the night.

Of course, you could get on each others’ Facebook to keep in touch but it didn’t really exist back then. And call me old-fashioned, but there’s nothing better than a good face-to-face catch-up or a nice chat on the phone/Skype. Plus, nothing compares to the time you spend waiting around on set… those stretches of time when you’re sitting around, waiting for your bit to kick in, that’s when you get to know people and learn so much from them, and about them. Oops. Gone off-tangent.

Anyway, it was always insanely busy, so we didn’t have many chances to hang out. Maybe twice? Once for dinner and once when he visited Singapore. We haven’t been in touch for almost ten years, much less seen each other, but a couple of things he said to me still ring in my mind to this day.

Over dinner, while I was lamenting over the lack of career/love prospects (okay, I can’t actually remember but this sounds ’bout right), he said, “Julia, you have to put down roots somewhere if you ever want to grow or develop anything.” (Location independent career wasn’t really a concept at that time.)

Obviously, that doesn’t apply to everyone, but in view of my semi-itinerant lifestyle up to that point – moving countries 4 times in 8 years, and let’s not even talk about my job history – you’ve gotta admit he had a point. But I wasn’t ready to understand that message at that point.

But those words stuck. Every now and then, they would resurface. For the longest time, I wondered, why, of all the things that people have said, this kept coming back.

Over the years, I started to see what my friend meant and its relevance to my life. But it was only nine years, numerous false starts and two psychics later, that I finally, truly Got The Message. The thing is, I’ve always been commitment phobic, stubbornly resisting anything that will “lock me down” (my perception) because I’m terrified that I won’t be able to change things.

I realised roots were exactly The Tool I needed to deal with this irrational fear. Besides, since I’m so good at doing change (I hear some ask, is that really a good thing? Yes it is ;)), I was already blessed with the Tool for getting out if I felt stuck.

Most importantly, I had reached a point where roots were where I needed to start, in order to create the next stage of my life. Even when something is Your Truth, it may need Time/Life to Percolate (don’t you love that word!). Even when you understand the message on a mental level, only when you’ve reached a certain point, will it all make sense and you will just KNOW the truth of the message in your bones.

Without his message at that time, I might never have reached this conclusion. As far as I can remember, no one else has ever said anything about putting down roots to me. Or at least not framed in a way that I was able to receive the message. Which is why I’ve come to think of that encounter as one with my Guide Team.

That encounter taught me to keep my ears, eyes and heart open and receptive, because the Universe, our spirit guides (or guardian angels, if you like) sometimes speak to us through other people (and vice versa).

Even though we are no longer in each others’ lives, I’m extremely grateful to him, and completely in awe of how the threads have unravelled. Don’t you think messages sometimes come through the most unexpected sources?