Hellbent On Bliss

The Practice of Good Enough

Posted on August 19, 2023 by lily / 1 Comment

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto: https://www.pexels.com/photo/happy-employee-tossing-papers-in-air-after-getting-paperwork-done-4560084/

Learning to let something be “good enough” is a practice of trust. At a certain point in your process, you have to let go and trust that a piece of writing, a parenting situation, whatever you’re working on, is good enough.

As a recovering perfectionist with ADHD who still struggles with procrastination, this is an important practice for me. To trust that it’s good enough, and now it’s time to move the frick on!

It’s so easy to “hoard” your words, your writing, to do it in isolation, in a silo just waiting to have the stamina to finally finish and someday share your masterpiece with the world. That’s how I’ve always thought. But now I’m realizing that in order to even create a masterpiece, I have to allow myself to fail, to allow myself to create absolute trash. To trust that what I publish, release out there, is simply good enough.

I have to trust that this is part of the process.

Trust, I realize also, is the antidote to anxiety. When you trust that it’ll be okay, that things will work out, this allows your nervous system to signal safety and to relax. Which lets you safely move on, to expand your creativity and imagination. To have higher frequency and energy levels to attract the right ideas, opportunities, and people into your life.

It’s not easy when you’ve been operating from fear of “not enough” for much of your life. But it’s time to bust these limiting beliefs and let yourself fail.

All you have to do is start.

tools for bliss/writing

Could Pace Be the Portal to Peace?

Posted on August 18, 2023 by lily / 2 Comments

My trigger, I’ve realized is being rushed. Feeling pressured. My triggers often involve pace. Yet surprisingly, pace as the portal to peace can be a balm to frayed nerves.

That is, the act of slowing down your pace. Until you reach a point where time doesn’t exist. You’ve forgotten time. You’re in a field of play. Infinite Recess. As if you have all the time in the world. Someone who can bend time.

This state is synonymous with flow state. It’s a magical time when you lose track of all time. You feel alive. In fact, to be alive, to stay alive, is to remember this incredible state of expansion: time expansion, heart expansion, creative expansion. A state anyone can reach if they just dare to slow down their pace. It’s free. You feel free. Your ideas flow free.

I often reach this state in the early mornings when I write, but it can be anywhere. I can be in a busy cafe listening to music with either my laptop or my notebook. Or in complete solitude at home with my headphones on. It comes when I don’t feel rushed. When I slow down my pace. My heart rate slows down, and I bet, if I were to measure my HRV over time, more flow states that add up will increase that number, translating to better fitness and even longevity.

“Steven Kotler explains the neurochemical changes during flow states that strengthen motivation, creativity and learning. ‘The brain produces a giant cascade of neurochemistry. You get norepinephrine, dopamine, anandamide, serotonin and endorphins.'”

Anandamide is also known as the “bliss molecule.”

In Sanskrit, ‘Ananda’ translates to bliss or happiness. Exercise-induced flow-states also call up these bliss molecules, along with the other feel-good neurotransmitters mentioned above.

In fact, just “two minutes of intense exercise” can “increase your production of anandamide and improve the sensitivity of its receptors.” Wow! No wonder why I now crave working out. This also involves pace; here, you’re increasing the pace to induce bliss.

When I’m writing or walking, I tend to prefer to slow down my pace. I feel almost high, an euphoria when I slow walk or slow write. There are times when I feel bliss (and try to practice equanimity; not craving it, ) when doing Vipassana meditation, focusing on just one small part of the body, like my left ear.

Recently, since August 7, I have been meditating daily for at least 30 minutes with a friend, followed by 60 minutes of writing. We have yet to break the chain. She calls or texts me and we agree on a time to do it at the same time or we do it asynchronously on our own. But we’re accountable to each other because we text that we did it.

It’s crazy to think, but you have the ability to control your own bliss states, in some way. Not always, but it shows up when you work out. Which is probably why I now crave working out. When I go without a week, I start to feel down.

I think had I known a list of naturally-induced and mostly-free ways of increasing internal bliss to signal safety in my nervous system, I would had been a happier person.

Exercise, working out, was something I associated with dread as a teenager in high school. I was that kid that snuck away to cut P.E., ending up behind the hand ball courts sneaking a smoke. Then when I was in my 20s, in my only-black-wearing Goth/New Wave days, I joined a 24 hour fitness because a friend encouraged me, but after ten minutes of the treadmill wearing Doc Martens, I’d go outside to chain smoke Marlboro 100s against the front wall facing the parking lot.

Back then, I associated exercise with athletes and people obsessed with vanity. I was reluctant to be any part of it.

Now in my early 50s, I wish I had known that exercise can certainly make you look better, but more importantly, it increases bliss, makes you FEEL SO DAMN GOOD!

Speaking of exercise, I just returned from the gym. It feels amazing to close that loop, to press DONE on each workout. Leg press: DONE! Leg extension: DONE! Plank (held up to 1:44 today!): DONE!

I have to say, ever since I switched from the gym app to this Caliber app (so far, using the free mode), I’ve been noticing my muscle mass increasing and visceral fat decreasing. Now, it’s slow, ever since reaching menopause, I’ve been noticing that it’s harder to lose fat. But it’s making a visible difference.

My plan is to pace myself, embrace the right pace — fast or slow — and trust that this might just be the portal to peace.

A place of bliss.

fasting for health/keto/mental health/writing

Morning Magic Hour Writing and A Nourishing Conversation

Posted on August 17, 2023 by lily / 0 Comment

Magic Hour is for Writing

It’s really lovely getting up before the city has awakened. When it’s pitch black, then faint orange horizon just above the Austin city line. From my apartment balcony, I can see, on the far left, the sun slowly rising above the capital. A band of orange, above a dark, brightening blue. The blue outside my window now is like muted ink, a wash of blue-gray watercolor, lights below on buildings, streets, houses and cars flickering a pale yellow. Earlier, the cats were playing with bugs. Now they’re chasing each other.

D has left for the gym. My heel pain is barely there anymore but I’m taking it easy this morning. No 6am Xtreme class for me today. But soon, I’ll head to 7am Pilates, which will be easier on my feet.

Not much time left to write. It’s 6:38am. For some reason, writing in the morning when no one else is around or has awakened feels like writing missives in the dark. Like I’m alone in space sending out messages to any human or sentient being who can read. Or like a shipwrecked sailor sending fervently penned notes in glass bottles.

Writing in the morning while it’s still dark is pure magic. I get why so many writers love writing in the early morning. It’s a time all to yourself, before the rest of the world and its noise comes flooding in.

A Nourishing Conversation

Last night, I listened to Dr Mindy Pelz and Dr Anna Cabeca talk on the free Fast Like A Girl Summit about hormones, how menopause should be relabeled “meno-power” and “meno-pausitivity.” How powerful it is to talk kindly to yourself, to your body, every part just as it is now. Not when you’ve lost the weight, but now. Your body and spirit thrive on postivity and self-love. How women when they lose their estrogen, are less likely to nurture others, but instead, it’s a time to return to nurturing themselves. It’s a powerful time, to step into your throne. Wouldn’t it be nice if we as a society can reframe menopause as a powerful time. This is when many women have second careers, start a business, know what they want or don’t want in their lives.

The conversation was nourishing. Surprising, as this was on a fasting summit. Yet I know firsthand that when paired with a low-carb, keto-ish way of eating, fasting can definitely be nourishing. Euphoric, in fact! It’s not, though, for those who suffer with bulemia or anorexia. But it’s a powerful lever to pull when you need to feel more clarity, lose weight, and prevent metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, and even mental health (which I’ve experienced firsthand.)

writing

The Other Side of Fear: The Practice of Writing Requisite Writing

Posted on August 17, 2023 by lily / 1 Comment

Today I finished a 28 day challenge to write everyday beginning on 7/20/23. It feels so good to get in the habit of writing requisite writing, not just writing around the writing (which is something I tend to do often afraid to dive into the actual deep writing).

I got the PDF to print out and track from Austin Kleon.

I love what he says on his website:

“Lower your standards for what counts as progress,” writes Adam Grant, “and you will be less paralyzed by perfectionism.” To get good, you first have to be willing to be bad. Don’t practice to get good, practice to suck less.

He’s right. I feel like I’m starting to “suck less” with fiction writing. Just taking it day by day and letting myself stumble and fall on the page. Like playing during recess, doing the Cherry Drop on the bars, daring to spin, release, jump, fall down. Kids naturally play hard, not afraid to fail. So why are we adults so scared?

I heard Bari Baumgardner speak recently about how she got started in entrepreneurship, and how she pivoted her events company during the pandemic from IRL to virtual. She said something along the lines of this:

Do it messy.
Do it scared.

Do it imperfectly.

But do it anyway.

On the other side of fear is the real joy.

I’m paraphrasing the above out of memory, but hot damn, I’m ready to get to The Other Side of Fear!

writing

Novel Excerpt from The Forever Life of Natalie Wong

Posted on August 15, 2023 by lily / 0 Comment

Photo by Andras Stefuca: https://www.pexels.com/photo/landscape-field-animal-countryside-17938483/

She was the only girl I had ever loved.

Like that.

And after that, no girl ever seduced me in a way that captured my heart — like that — ever again.

I was 15 when we first met. It started slow and came on fast.

I forget how we met, but it began with a crush on a boy. That led to a girl. Who left me for another girl. A girl who I thought had been my friend.

To be a girl myself who loved another girl was a sin. A mortal one. My mother said so. Jehovah said so. Everyone at the Kingdom Hall said so.

Except the girl I loved lived at the Kingdom Hall. She was the darling there, the daughter of an Elder. Whispers that she was headed for Bethel filled our ears. Brooklyn, New York, was the place to be. At the time, it was the HQ for Jehovah Witnesses.

My mom from Taiwan would prefer I go to Bethel rather than Stanford, where my dad from China, wanted us kids to go. Mom, like the rest of the Witnesses, wanted us to be a Pioneer, or at least, an Auxiliary Pioneer, to preach the Good News to all the goats, every chance we got, to turn them into sheep.

We were going to live forever. We were going to escape Armeggedon.

We were the chosen ones.

. . .

Except I had chose her. And for a little while, she had chosen me. But if we were truly going to be together, we’d lose the Forever Life.

And that would mean yet one more rule broken. We had already broken so many of Jehovah’s Rules.

I walked through life often wracked with shame. One of my favorite stories in the Bible was the one about the Prodigal Son. How after sinning he returned to the welcoming arms of his father.

I was always yearning to be welcomed back.

But what I didn’t know then was that the only person to welcome me back was myself.

Now, looking back, I see how it had all unfolded.

Self-Experiment/writing

My 30-Day Writing Challenge

Posted on August 14, 2023 by lily / 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve been on my own blog.

It feels, quite honestly, weird to be back here. I had abandoned this little virtual real estate I’ve parked here years ago and turned my sights to writing on Medium and Substack. And other writing projects I’ve been working on forever, like my novel, and a memoir-ish book on how I accidentally discovered that a low-carb ketogenic diet, which we used for my husband’s cancer back in 2014, could help with my own mental health. But for some reason, I have a tendency to get scared too easily when I start something, especially a writing project, and often lack the stamina to continue, to finish. It’s easier to dabble, to quit before I have to face too much rejection.

So to battle that urge to quit at the first sign of distress, I’m trying something different for the next 30 days.

Inspired by Austin Kleon’s book, Show Your Work! and his free 30-Day Challenge PDFs on his website, I’ve decided to show up every day and self-publish a blog post here. At first, I had wanted to go all out and publish a new post on Medium, but I realize that I want to be more intentional there, especially after attending Medium Day this past weekend and learning of their pivot to quality writing versus pumping out high-volume posts just to earn money on their Medium Partner Program. I want to intentionally decide what to publish, to apply for Medium publications–all of this I am still learning. This will be my canvas, my sketchbook, to work out what I’ll put out in all the different spaces.

I realize it is never too late to learn. That’s the beauty of this life we all have. Until the clock runs out, you can rewire your brain, you can teach your nervous system that the stakes don’t need to be that friggin’ high to write, edit, finish, submit and publish. The art of neuroplasticity.

Lisa Nichols has an amazing quote that I wrote by hand on a blue post-it:

Action is the antidote to despair.

That’s why, beginning today, I’ll be tracking this on a wall near my desk. Every time I write here and hit “publish”, I’ll cross it off with a giant ‘X.’ What a lovely hit of dopamine!

And also, as of today, I’ll begin to track all words related to requisite writing (that is, writing that I plan to publish, or eventually publish; not writing from my journal or notes taken while learning), pairing it with Jia Jiang’s Sisphyi Accountability camps (I chose “Flowy Writer” and “Habit Builder”), where I’m excited to start a new round, as of today. This is a place where Jia and his incredible team track your progress for you, whatever habit you want to build in your life (“Habit Builder”). And the “Flowy Writer” camp is where you report via SMS text each day how many words you’ve written. I’ve been doing it the past few months, watching my words add up in a beautiful Excel spreadsheet. But I was tracking every word coming out of my mouth, spilling onto the page or screen, including my Morning Pages and notes I take. So this month, I’m planning to track words typed for all the various writing projects I’m working on: blog, novel, Medium, short story, etc.

I’ve gotta say, I’m a sucker for accountability and challenges. And I’m grateful to begin again. That’s the thing about life I want to remind myself when I feel down:

You can always begin again!

uncategorized

Protected: Some Thoughts On What To Eat: A Simple Plan for Granny Lynn

Posted on September 17, 2021 by lily

psychedelics/tools for bliss/uncategorized/writing

The Great Pretender and the Portal to Remembering Who We Truly Are

Posted on October 16, 2020 by lily / 0 Comment

I am a fiction writer who struggles with fiction. Even with a Masters of Fine Arts expressively devoted to the study of fiction. I wanted to study the land of make believe that resides in the recesses of my mind. But it’s been twenty years and I have a novel manuscript that just didn’t feel right. Wasn’t up to snuff. No matter how much coaching or residencies or conferences I took, no matter how many writing dates I set up.

It dawned on me yesterday while on my journey that the reason I’ve been having such a hard time is simple. Because you know what? This world, this dimension we’re living in, IS fiction. We are, many of us (myself included), pretending. We are born into this world completely enthralled and free. Sovereign. Yet as we grow older, we are sucked in by the agreements of our time, our culture, our ancestral beliefs that have been passed on over the years.

We begin to act on this great stage. We slip into our roles.

I’ve been playing the Fool.

The imbecile.

The Ugly.

The Not Good Enough.

The One Who Can Never Figure it Out.

The Victim.

The Good Girl.

The Good Wife.

The Good Daughter.

The Good Mother.

The One Who Fights For the Others Like Me

The Judge

The Bitch

The Asshole

The Procrastinator

Subverting the Binary

What roles have you been playing, dear reader?

I am tired of the masks. The roles I’ve been playing. The Good Girl. Afraid to be Bad. But what if Bad is really Good? What if “Bad” is the way in?

What if we can subvert that notion of binary:

Bad/Good

Ugly/Pretty

Mean/Nice

Lustful/Pure

White/Black

White/Other

Vegan/Carnivore

Crazy/Normal

Accessing the Portal

What if we can integrate all of it? What if “crazy” was a portal? A portal to truth? What if “ugly” helped you fall in love with who you truly are?

Last night, in bed with my husband, I truly let myself become ugly. I saw his judging eyes, I saw my monster face. And instead of running away, I went toward the fear of being perceived as “ugly,” not conventionally beautiful. Lies I’ve been feeding myself all of my life in THIS world, stuck in a negative thought loop.

Yet as I loved my ugliness, as I embraced the horror of being truly monstrous, I was no longer numb or dead. I could feel pleasure again. Truly feel pleasure in a way I never have. And must I remind you that we need pleasure in our lives. Pleasure in all the ways. The way the light falls on the verdant grass, the way a body of water shimmers in the sun. The warmth of your compassionate hand on your heart. How each of us are jewels, if only we would remember.

The portal was open. And I was no longer pretending.

I am remembering.

mental health/psychedelics/tools for bliss/writing

I Just Wrote Myself Out of a Funk

Posted on October 1, 2020 by lily / 4 Comments

I woke up around 3am and haven’t been able to really go back to sleep. I’m here now at 6:26am about to virtually meet Julie to write via Zoom, physically located on the 3rd floor of our apartment building. I’ve been feeling all sorts of emotions, sensations and thoughts.

The eczema on my neck is more pronounced, like a raised brownish-red scar or hickey. A manifestation of perceived failures and disappointments. The sense that I can’t seem to meet obligations, expectations. My procrastination and failure disappointing all the people in my life. I’ve been eating more sugar, more flour. I’ve been drinking more alcohol. I’ve been MIA and unable to be accountable as much to people, get back to those I want to get back to. Everything just feels like too much. I have stopped exercising. I’m barely meditating. I stopped tracking. I feel like a hot mess. Yet on social media, I prop myself up as though I’ve figured it out. I haven’t. I feel like I’ve been preachy but can’t seem to walk the walk, just talk the talk. So sick of myself.

I just want to disappear. I just want everything I don’t want to do to disappear.
My eczema on my neck and the crease of my right arm is itching.

I feel like shouting: Get over yourself!

I want my ego to leave.
I want to feel ease.
I feel locked in. By others’ expectations and my own.

I feel like a fraud. I’m barely keeping up.
I feel like jamming a sock in my mouth.

Although I don’t want to kill myself, I can understand the tendencies, the ideations.
Sometimes, you just want the pain, the internal prison of anguish, to simply stop.

That’s why I love LSD. That one time I did it, I realized I could disappear. I could drop my ego. Just pure ease. I could feel as if time were standing still. There was no such thing as “out of time.”

. . .

I just meditated to the self-compassion meditation that Julie sent me a while back, with Dr. Kristen Neff. It did make me feel better. To remember that suffering is part of the human condition. That we all fail. We all make mistakes.

I remember my mom tumbling onto her knees, begging Jehovah for forgiveness, for being “so imperfect,” so “full of sin.” To this day, I’m not sure what my mom was suffering from, but honestly, the last day or so, I can relate. That ache inside wanting to be cleansed, to be redeemed, is real.

Life is a rollercoaster. A ride of ups and downs. And what a ride it’s been. I am sad as I look out the window outside, seeing two cranes face each other as the morning light in the sky begins to brighten. It’s now 7:07am. My breasts ache around the edges as I type. I’m not quite here. Yet I type, I think.

I hate that I don’t know quite what to do.

Today is October 1, 2020. Today around 5pm there will be a full moon. Julie and I usually plan to the lunar cycles.

What is my plan?

What will I do with this life that I have left? How will I design a life that matters?
How do I not alienate people and spread bad energy all over the place? How can I heal others when I am so far from healing myself? And how is it possible to heal others and yourself when the outside world is so toxic?

How do you love the white people in your life?
How do you love the nonwhite people, including yourself?
How do you write or think or act without triggering yourself or others?

How can you revise a novel when you don’t even know what to do? Perhaps I need to read a novel that I truly love. Perhaps I need to write a memoir. Perhaps this novel isn’t working. It’s not doing what I had hoped it to do, following formulaic writing techniques that make me feel like I’m doing it wrong, that I’m stupid and dense for not getting it. Especially when everyone else is getting it. Not me. I’m just standing there alone, stupid, naked and raw. Just unable to move fast enough. Not able to move forward. Stuck. Perhaps I’m moving in the wrong circles. Perhaps I’m not feeling safe. Perhaps I’m not feeling seen or heard. I am feeling judged, shamed, silenced. I am feeling compared. Guilt is not the whip I want to guide me towards success. How much of it is mine and how much of it is their’s?

Clearly I am attracting this into my life.

Is the answer in CODA? Isn’t that finite? Final. The end? That’s what I interpret it to be as someone who once read sheet music to play the piano. I think this is what that is.

The words are not tumbling out the way I want them to this morning. I am a puzzle I’m still trying to put together. I am a ball of knotted and tangled yarn I am slowly, impatiently, attempting to unravel. Self-optimization feels like a joke. Just when you think you have something down, you realize how you really don’t quite know the answers. There are no experts. How can you study yourself? Your mind? Your body? And are psychedelics, especially high dose ones, truly the answer to self-inquiry?

I am trying to figure out what I want to figure out in life. I am 48 years old. Is it too late?

What if I dropped EVERYTHING?

My novel I’m revising
My job as a virtual assistant
All of my clients
All of the unfinished tasks I said I’d do
All the obligations
My marriage
My kids
My parents
My siblings
My friends
My apartment
My Instagram account
My blog
My books
My ecourses — all the ones I signed up to do but can’t seem to finish
My diet
My bills
My ego
My fitness routines
Meditation
My anguish about racism
My goals and dreams
My fears around Covid and rising anti-Asian hatred
All my fears
All my stuff
All the people to get back to
Wanting others to respect me
Wanting fame and wealth
Wanting success and healthspan
Wanting youth and beauty
My constant procrastination
The over-promising and under-delivering

Who would I be? What would I have left?
Who am I without all the stuff? Who am I without a title, a job, a role? Without my usual identities?

Is this what Pema Chodron did when she left her children and life to become a monk?

Who am I without all the doing, all the striving, all the dreaming?

. . .

Quite honestly, I feel fucking free as I write this.

In fact, as I walked to the bathroom feeling happier than before it dawned on me that I had managed to resurrect myself via writing just now. This hypothetical question of “what if” shifted the negative energy inside me and gave me hope.

When I came back to my laptop, my friend and accountability writing partner, Julie, reminded me, as I read back to her what I had written here: “You are already writing. Like the playwright, Irene Fornes, you are writing to live.”

Who knew I had the power to write myself out of a funk? Who knew that by simply naming and dropping everything (even hypothetically) onto the page, it could make me feel better? Make me want to stay, rather than disappear?

This is truly the power of words. May you find the power within the next time you find yourself in a funk.

tools for bliss