You know, for someone who talks a lot about solo travelling, I’m hardly alone whole travelling.
The last week, I spent my days and night at this hostel on green island. And met with the sweetest bunch of Taiwanese who welcomed me into their friendship group. I wasn’t a volunteer but it reminded me of my workaway days.
“Jane you work too much,” they would tell me. “You’ve been on this island for so many days and you’ve done nothing but work” they chide me when we have dinners together.
And so, the next morning, I went snorkelling for 30 mins just to appease them. I have forgotten how good it feels to have friends.
I’ve lost many friends, especially over the last 3 years. One of them I thought was my ride or die till forever. They say you lose many friends in your 30s but you also develop deeper friendships. They were right.
I also met these 2 in the first few days of the island. And together we rode around the island and visited a few bars.
I had met her at the hostel we both stayed at in Taitung just before going to Green island. It took just 1 conversation to decide we were going to meet up again on the island. And maybe again in Bali.
The thing about making friends in your 30s is that you don’t waste time with people whose energies you don’t vibe with anymore. You just know whether or not people are gonna be your vibe. And many aren’t. Which is completely fine. Because then you can focus on the ones you’re meant to spend time with.
People who can ignite something within you.
Sometimes, after spending some time together, you fight. But even those fights teach us something about ourselves.
Spent the first week in Taiwan with Ania and Gaston
Like these two.
We had met in Bali, in ubud. We were meant to join a group of nomads to cowork together, then ended up ditching the group to sit together. 1 hour became 2, and we started hanging out together for the next 3 weeks.
They were also coming to Taiwan and so I booked the same flight with them. We spent a good week together exploring the city and realising gaston isn’t a beach boy and I most definitely am not a city gal. Yet I most certainly enjoyed precious time with them.
We all need friends in life.
Friends. Accomplishment from work. Love. Family. And sex. 🤣
Speaking of sex, a certain someone has slipped back into my life recently. But I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Just don’t get too excited about it. Stop getting your panties in a bunch. Okay yes…..I’m all riled up you got me.
You start out with a promise of forever. And when it ends, you think that everything you ever believed in is a lie.
How else can you account for that pain in your heart? How else can you explain why things have gotten this complicated?
When forever doesn’t last, what other societal promises will crush you next?
I remember lying in bed the next day, the certainty of our marriage being over tying my body to the bed like an anchor. The heaviness I felt seeped through me into the floor that was holding the bed and into the ground that was holding the building, all the way to the core of the earth. There was no picking me up at that point. I had reached a state of “rock bottom”
But the bottom wasn’t because my ex-husband had left our marriage. No. In fact, if I could sieve out all the different emotions I was feeling at the time, there was a huge sense of relief that was all jumbled up in the mix. At least we had an answer, one I had been waiting for, for many months. At least now I knew, I could start to move on.
Of course, the actual moving on took a lot longer than just that moment of relief, but it wasn’t the hardest thing to do in the 3 years since.
What devastated me the most was the knowledge that I had wrecked the train.
If my life were a train, getting married laid the tracks to a path I didn’t want to go on. So why did I swerve that way? Why did I betray myself, and when did the betraying start? It certainly didn’t begin with me saying “I do” to a man I barely knew.
When did I start fucking up?
It was a big mystery I needed to solve.
5 years ago, I could easily tell you what dress I would wanna wear to my wedding, why I chose that bouquet of flowers, and why we had a boat wedding. I could rattle off our “5 year plans” of moving to the US and having children, and tell you why I loved my ex-husband. I could rationalise what a good career would be, how to do financial planning, and what was important to watch out for during our house renovation. I was deeply submerged into a world….playing a character that became so after 26 years of surviving in a glass society – where every movement, thought, and action was and is heavily influenced by other people around us.
I could give you answers like an A.I. would because it had previously been instructed to do so.
But if you asked me what made me excited….If I had to answer questions like “What’s your purpose in life” and “what do you think about love,” there would always be a small little prick into my consciousness to tell me something was wrong. There was always this sinking feeling in my gut that was trying to get my attention. “Jane, you’re spiralling. Jane, wake up”
I was a walking machine who wasn’t in touch with her soul.
I was so competent at being a “member of the society,” but I had no idea….who Jane felt like.
As children, if we are taught that we have to earn our worth, happiness, and love, it places a seed inside of us that’s watered by fear.
I was running around getting a degree, a decent wage, getting married, all because I thought I had to. I thought I needed to pass all of these levels in order to play the game of Life.
The game of Life only lives in our minds as mental constructs.
When our marriage ended, I thought to myself – well, where did I go wrong? And why am I losing at this game?
It took a while….to learn. That you don’t lose or win at this game. The entire point of life is to realize you’re not a character in a game that was designed for you. You ARE the game master of your own lifestory. And everyone is playing their own unique game. 1 that lasts for a lifetime and will most definitely end.
There is no winning or losing in this life – only to experience. The point of the game is to learn some valuable lessons, yes…..but the point is just to enjoy the game. It is a privilege to be seated in the game master chair. To be able to co-create an experience that can be enjoyed in this 3rd dimensional reality.
Life is all about having fun.
And so if you’re struggling through something right now, perhaps a divorce or a loss or any kind of grief. Know that this is a huge opportunity for you now.
To wake up.
And let your existing life fall to pieces. Let it impode. Let the world as you know it…shatter into pieces. And don’t you dare pick those pieces up. Fuck that. We’re leaving those remnants behind.
When everything is gone, and you now realize that life will not make you experience anything you can not withstand, you will feel the pain. And you feel the entirety of it. But YOU decide that you feel it. Because we all know we can deny our feelings. So if you’re feeling the pain, it’s because you’re allowing it to happen, which is good. It’s a big step.
Feel the power of the pain, and then feel how much more powerful you are for holding it. You are the space that is able to encompass the emotion.
Just sit with it for more than 3 minutes at a time. Eventually the brain gets bored and you will start noticing other thoughts. This pain doesn’t last. The mind might get addicted to the chemical release it feels from pain and so might get you to relive painful moments over and over again. But know that the pain passes. I promise you. Hang in there. The hanging is torturous in itself. I know. I know it is. If you had to hang from a monkey bar for even just 5 minutes it’s an agonising time. Which is why you have to now instill discipline into your life.
Discipline to start a morning routine. To eat. To shower. To care for yourself as you would a patient who is traumatised.
Discipline will help pass the time. It will turn the seconds into days and the days into years. Because you are focused on something else other than your pain.
3 years on…and I am the happiest I have ever been. My life has changed so dramatically in ways I never could imagine.
Just don’t give up. Don’t get complacent. Don’t pick up the pieces of your old life and start building one that looks exactly like the old one. Your world shattered for a reason. Find that reason. Pull on that loose thread. Because of all this reckoning is coming from somewhere, from a voice, a desire, an intent.
The worst thing you could do is not to survive this. It is to go back to a sleeping state and not wake up from your living hell. Use this energy to transform.
And on this little island, perched on a little hill, a house with yellow walls and a pink door lives and breathes.
“Bruce, we don’t go in there honey, that house is a living nightmare,” his mother told him.
And so for 11 years of his life, Bruce rode past the house on the hill and never even dared glance at it.
For his 12th birthday, Bruce’s mother gave him a kitten. He named her “Xixi”
Xixi was a curious kitten who loved to play by Bruce’s side. Whether rain or shine, Bruce would bring her everywhere. The two were inseparable.
On a friday evening, after he had finished his chores, Bruce decided to bring Xixi to the other side of the island where the flowers were in bloom. He wanted to show her how beautiful the island was in spring. His mind registered the fact that the blooms were close to the yellow house, but he brushed it aside. “Nah, nothing will happen, it’s going to be broad daylight.”
“Look Xixi! There are so many flowers, pink, yellow, blue and purple!” Bruce said to Xixi. But when he turned around, she was nowhere to be found.
His eyes caught sight of the white tip of her brown tail as Xixi looked as though she was being swallowed by the pink door of the house.
“NOOOOO!” Bruce yelled. And he swore he saw the house let out a burp.
Timidly, he approached the house and grabbed a few pebbles in his hand. With all his might he started throwing them at the pink door while standing outside the white fence, now covered in wild bushes and weeds.
The pink door stood firm and barely moved, so Bruce got bolder and started throwing bigger rocks at it. “Give me my cat back! You stupid house!” Tears were forming in his eyes by now.
“Meooooow!” Bruce heard from inside the house and his protectiveness gave him a surge of courage. He swung his legs over the fence and walked right up to the house, registering a strange feeling in his chest.
Looking up at the house, he suddenly felt as if every colour was more vivid. And was he feeling a little more warm? Or why was there a tingling feeling on his fingertips?
Suddenly a little fearful, Bruce looked behind his shoulders and saw that his bicycle was still there, parked right outside the fence.
“Meowwww!” He heard again, this time accompanied by some scratches at the door.
Bruce took a huge rock and was ready to swing it at the door when suddenly, the door came alive!
“Would you please not hurt me?” a deep voice bellowed out and Bruce was so shocked he fell to the ground, the rock on his lap.
“Who…who said that?!” He cried, looking frantically around him, stumbling to his feet.
“Why, I did, young man. You were going to hurt me again,” the pink door said. And Bruce saw that a wood mouth had formed at the bottom of the door, with two wooden eyebrows peeking out from the top. The door looked and sounded like an old grandpa.
“I’m….I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, it’s just that you swallowed my cat,” Bruce apologized.
“Your cat? You mean agent 011288?” The pink door replied.
“W…What? Agent who?” Bruce said, as he realized how weird it looked that he was talking to a door.
“I’m agent 011288, Bruce,” a voice suddenly said, as a half girl half cat opened the door and stood infront of Bruce. She was a little shorter than him, but spoke with confidence and was so beautiful, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Her face looked like Xixi, but she had slender arms of a human and definitely human fingers. Her body was mostly human covered in shiny and silky cat fur. She didn’t have a tail, but Bruce saw that her hair was long and furry, tied up in a ponytail.
“Who are you?” Bruce asked xixi-agent.
“I’m an agent, Bruce, from a planet that has long ago been destroyed. I was sent here to meet you.” Xixi-agent said, in a calm manner. He noticed she looked a little sad, and that she sounded quite young, around his age.
“Me? Why me?” Bruce thought to himself but didn’t dare ask.
“You must have questions. I will answer them, I promise, Bruce. But first, we have to complete a mission. Will you help me?” Xixi said, as she started to make her way into the house, a house that Bruce was slowly noticing was…..alive.
What do we do, when we first wake up in the morning?
Since studying quantum physics and learning more about mind matter, I’ve been pushing myself to become more disciplined.
So I can change my thoughts and in so doing, change deeply ingrained habits.
I think because of that, I feel like a completely different person sometimes. Yet, on some level, I am exactly who I always was, but didn’t remember to be.
Habits create who we are. Thoughts create our realities.
And no one can control the future.
When we start diverging from the timeline, we make little tiny adjustments to our “fate” and become co-creators of our lives. Isn’t that cool?
Isn’t it cool that we get to literally decide where life goes and what happens?
There are a few people reading this blog on a daily basis, and I wonder who you are.
I write all the time. Not just on this platform. I write everywhere. But on this blog, I reserve the thoughts I’d like to leave for strangers. Because that’s also a side of me I’d like to honour.
There will always be a side of me who wants to speak to strangers and connect with them.
Strangers are just people who don’t yet know or haven’t quite met.
I’ve been in Taiwan for a week and a half and thoroughly enjoying it.
This life without obligation or worry is truly precious.
I spend my mornings either with a workout and then a meditation, or just decide to write and let myself emote.
Last night the staff at this hostel brought me out to dinner. Taiwanese people are cool. I think Thai and balinese people are probably very cool too – I just don’t understand them.
I observe myself while in interaction with others. And notice how much I’ve changed. The urge to be reactive and defensive has fallen away. The need to be seen and heard has quelled. The desire to express also doesn’t really exist as much.
In short – I’ve become quite a quiet person who occasionally comments on something but otherwise doesn’t say much. I’ve become more introverted than before, now choosing to hang out with only 2 or 3 people at most.
I don’t organise dinners as I used to anymore.
I don’t crave parties.
I always yearn to be closer to nature, away from the city.
These days I hardly recognize who I used to be just 03 years ago.
I had a really vivid dream last night. Of my ex-husband and his current wife. I had met them in their new home with their children. His wife and I had a great conversation, although I don’t know why she seemed kinda sad. He was the same as before.
Once in a while, they come into my dreams. We are never fighting, always talking politely, at a cordial distance.
I like to think dreams are a way to show us that we are all fractals of the same energy.
When I first experienced Source, or Love. That’s what I felt. That we are all just different possibilities happening at the same time.
In a way, hatred lies on the same spectrum as love. And you can always feel love. The extent we hate shows the extent we love.
In this journey of love, I experience different realities of what could have happened if only so.
And I’m enjoying observing these possibilities. It’s fun, being able to “jump” realities just by changing thoughts and vibrational patterns.
And so I know my current task is the journey back to Love.
What is love? This question would plague my mind.
Love to me as a child was duality. I felt it in the way my Dad would pick me up from school, make my breakfast and put me to bed.
I also felt it in the way my mum would provide for me financially, sending me to classes and activities she never could attend as a child.
But they presented love to me in such different ways that I was confused a lot as a child.
After the divorce, because of the anger I had against D, I painted him as a narcissist in my mind and said “I didn’t love him” but I did.
I loved him with all of my heart. The same way I would show love to a friend, a stranger, a relative. And I wondered – why, how, and huh?
How can love feel all the same to different types of people? Even the ones whose actions hurt us?
I started consuming literature that taught me how to think selfishly and from a point of fear, and I learnt how to build up walls against people.
The journey back to love has been a painful journey of breaking down all these walls brick by brick.
It has been looking towards the people whose actions caused me so much hurt. Looking at my actions that caused people hurt. And looking at all of us and saying, I forgive. I choose to forgive and move on. Because anything other than love is a lie. It’s an illusion that brings us away from love and towards fear.
This separation from Marco has taught me what love really is. And how I am capable of remembering. I have so much love for Marco. It really doesn’t matter anymore. Whether we are together or apart.
We are all of the same source. We are all extensions of love.
It’s been 6 years since I was 25. But it feels like many lifetimes ago. Since the day I decided to make the stupidest decision of my life, it has been death after death after death.
My human self has gone through so many transformations, if only to shed the many layers of conditioning and come back to my Self.
“Yeah I know, can you imagine….me? A wife? And of a fighter pilot as well?” I stared at my friend G and we burst out laughing.
I have no idea who that Jane thought she was trying to be, but I feel only empathy for her, and also kinda embarrassed that her life was full of delusions.
It’s kinda sad, though, when I think about her and realize how unhappy she used to be.
“But don’t worry, your ring was bigger than hers” I sometimes hear my ex-husband’s voice ring out randomly. That sentence was somehow the single most important fact I needed to hear, to realize what kind of a shit hole I had dug myself into. The fact that he had chosen that line to “console” me showed me that I had married an absolute stranger. How could he have ever thought I cared about a stupid ring? Or that I care about material things at all?
We were truly strangers to each other. And yet, at the same time, accomplices.
I read ‘convenience store woman’ and couldn’t help but feel exactly like the protagonist. Someone who denied her own interests and caved in to live with a man who made her feel horrible, only to appease what “society” wanted of her.
How many of us live life like this?
Every time I think about this, I thank God I never had children. That I now have the freedom I will never again take for granted.
2 days before I left Bali, I was getting excited for Taiwan
I knew our full moon romantic little thing had shaken up my heart a little, and I also felt so much more confidence in myself. That night simultaneously represented closure for the relationship we had and yet somehow also showed us both….what we could have been, if we were more equipped to handle life.
I think the full moon event shook things up for Marco even more so than it did for me, and 2 days before I was to leave Bali, he messaged me saying “I wanna talk, there are some things I wanna tell you, and I wanna know how you feel about them. For the good or the bad, at least we will have an answer so we don’t stay in this limbo”
I felt 2 things right away – an immediate fear that he had cheated on me before (trauma from the ex husband) and that it was so refreshing to hear him say “I wanna talk”
For 24 hours before he arrived in Ubud, where I was, I readied myself.
“This session is for him, so let’s hold space for him,” I told Jinger.
“Okay but I also want you to fully recognize and feel all of your emotions. You don’t have to react to them, just feel them” Jinger replied. I nodded.
I felt strong. I felt good. And I felt confident that no matter what, I would be still living an incredible life.
He arrived, and we had a good talk. He was hesitant but determined. He told me how he felt during the relationship, all the good, all the bad, and all the pain he felt.
I was surprised at how well I took everything. I could feel the immediate knee jerk reaction I used to get as well, especially when he talked of things I wanted to explain for. But I could easily calm my nerves down by telling myself “You’re not in danger, just breathe.”
The unconditioning of my psyche had really taken effect. I’m so proud of myself. Because it takes so much work to heal generational wounds and patterns.
He asked me how I felt, and I gave him only but the truth. How I felt….what I thought, and still think.
We both agreed we could never go back to the relationship we had before. We were also no longer the same 2 people that met in October 2020.
We have both transformed and grown so that if we were to enter a new relationship, it would be a more mature and communicative one.
“I’m scared. And I’m worried” – he told me.
“I understand” I told him back. I feel afraid too.
But underneath my fear, I felt jinger watching me with so much pride. I have grown so much in capacity to hold myself, that I can also do so for him. My heart beamed with so much joy at the expansion I could literally feel.
We left the conversation saying “when there’s nothing to do, do nothing”
I felt that we both felt the same – that it wasn’t the right moment or day to discuss the future. In that present moment, we were past partners and new lovers. We weren’t ready to talk about the future. We still aren’t. There are wounds to heal, and pain to go through.
“I can’t help but feel hopeful” I tell Jinger. “That’s good, honour that feeling”
“I know that either way, we will always be good. Either way, we will have incredible lives”
You know, for someone who talks a lot about solo travelling, I’m hardly alone whole travelling. The last week, I spent my days and night at this hostel on green island. And met with the sweetest bunch of Taiwanese who welcomed me into their friendship group. I wasn’t a volunteer but it reminded me of…
Wowwwwwwwww. 5 years. You start out with a promise of forever. And when it ends, you think that everything you ever believed in is a lie. How else can you account for that pain in your heart? How else can you explain why things have gotten this complicated? When forever doesn’t last, what other societal…
And on this little island, perched on a little hill, a house with yellow walls and a pink door lives and breathes. “Bruce, we don’t go in there honey, that house is a living nightmare,” his mother told him. And so for 11 years of his life, Bruce rode past the house on the hill…
What do we do, when we first wake up in the morning? Since studying quantum physics and learning more about mind matter, I’ve been pushing myself to become more disciplined. So I can change my thoughts and in so doing, change deeply ingrained habits. I think because of that, I feel like a completely different…
There are a few people reading this blog on a daily basis, and I wonder who you are. I write all the time. Not just on this platform. I write everywhere. But on this blog, I reserve the thoughts I’d like to leave for strangers. Because that’s also a side of me I’d like to…
Ahhhhh, the peaceful life I’ve been in Taiwan for a week and a half and thoroughly enjoying it. This life without obligation or worry is truly precious. I spend my mornings either with a workout and then a meditation, or just decide to write and let myself emote. Last night the staff at this hostel…
You know, for someone who talks a lot about solo travelling, I’m hardly alone whole travelling. The last week, I spent my days and night at this hostel on green island. And met with the sweetest bunch of Taiwanese who welcomed me into their friendship group. I wasn’t a volunteer but it reminded me of…
Wowwwwwwwww. 5 years. You start out with a promise of forever. And when it ends, you think that everything you ever believed in is a lie. How else can you account for that pain in your heart? How else can you explain why things have gotten this complicated? When forever doesn’t last, what other societal…
And on this little island, perched on a little hill, a house with yellow walls and a pink door lives and breathes. “Bruce, we don’t go in there honey, that house is a living nightmare,” his mother told him. And so for 11 years of his life, Bruce rode past the house on the hill…
synonymsforjane 