In the midst of these chaotic and uncertain times...
one must stay level-headed and zen.

Skill 19: Making Compassionate and Wise Decisions

Level 1:

I am able to make decisions that are compassionate toward myself. I am able to maintain a clear intention to develop and grow in spiritual intelligence, while simultaneously not berating myself for not yet being "perfectly enlightened".

Level 2:

I am able to be compassionate toward children, spouses, relatives, and friends who are not working on their own growth in a manner or speed I might wish they were. I am able to let these significant people in my life grow as they will, knowing that I don't really know what is the highest and best for every person.

Level 3:

I am able to be compassionate toward those who feel they are my enemy or who act to harm me. I set healthy boundaries around behaviours but don't hate the person who is acting out. I use power wisely, carefully -- and with loving intent.

Level 4:

Universal and Higher Self awareness is so strong that my decision-making process always factors in the pain and suffering of other beings. Yet I am not paralysed by this awareness. I take balanced actions that honour all beings.

Level 5:

Universal awareness and strong connection with Higher Self means that my inner guidance is strongly and clearly felt. With steady self-mastery, my inner guidance is translated into wise and compassionate action, which seems to flow through me from Source or Life or my Higher Power as I understand it.

I started watching When The Weather Is Fine...

and it's making me long for a holiday;

to some place quiet and beautiful like Shirakawa-go.

The show has a very slow, nostalgic feel, that isn't usually my cup of tea. But maybe it's Park Min Young, and she makes everything watchable, haha -- and maybe I'm in the mood for something reflective, and sweet. There are cute guesthouses in the story, and a bookstore, and a small town where everyone knows each other. And these friends who connect and meet for book club!

---

I miss this place. Or the feel of that holiday, at least.

It's nice that E and I are always pretty much on the same page on what we want to do when on a trip; also, most of the time, E has a lot of wonderful ideas under her hat and I usually don't say no to them. The most amazing times I had on that trip were literally spent just wandering places, and us saying to each other, "Hey, this looks cool. Do you wanna? Okay, let's!" and stumbling onto places that just turned out surprising and wonderful. It's the perfect type of holiday for our kind of people, I always thought, haha. We plan enough so we don't end up in dangerous places (most of the time), but then we just go with the flow and see what's good. The most classic example was the day we were leaving the mountains and we kept missing the train (because we kept venturing from one thing to another) and thinking we'll just catch the next one, and we ended up leaving in the night later than we meant to. And of course, we were of similar taste on what was deemed good -- random pottery shops, spending hours roaming some garden or park, and reading through the details of tiny museums.

I am due for a holiday, if not for the current global crisis.

Needed to post this tonight, but wanted to separate it from the previous fangirling post :P


This is Rasulullah s.a.w.'s famous supplication at Taif,
which I've definitely posted here more than once before.
But like all things true and everlasting and sustaining,
will crop up as a repeated motif in life, to remind
and cleanse and rejuvenate, and insya Allah
bring you back, closer, to the Divine and to the Beloved.

Ya Allah, to You I complain of my weakness,
my lack of resources and my lowliness before men.
Oh, Most Merciful of those who show mercy!
You are the Lord of the weak and You are my Lord.
To whom will you relinquish my fate?
To one who will misuse me?
Or to an enemy to whom You have given power over me?
If You are not angry with me, I don't care what happens to me.
Your favour is all that counts for me.
I take refuge in the light of Your countenance,
by which all darkness is illuminated.
And the things of this world and the next are rightly ordered.
I wish to please You until You are pleased.
There is no power and no might, 
save in You.

- Rasulullah s.a.w.


Tonight we were discussing about the attribute of forbearance,
or hilm in Arabic, which was exemplified by the Prophet s.a.w..
Just thinking about how amazing this man was and how I suck in comparison
for all the times I couldn't stay humble about my self and all the times I let anger
get the better of me and being horrible to people, it made me want to cry and cry and cry and cry.

And yet, it's not a despairing cry; it's a cry-and-then-I-know, that if I release all my weakness to God,
what's left is but a clean emptiness that can only be surrendered upwards, insya Allah, for the bounties from God.

hasbunallah wa ni'mal wakil

💗

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.
~ Carl Jung

It would be wrong not to post about BTS's latest comeback...

because this is officially my favourite BTS video ever!!! (for various reasons)

And in many ways, I've come to really love and appreciate

the Map of the Soul series so much, even more so than the Love Yourself series.

 

 

Before this, my favourite BTS MVs were Spring Day and Serendipity

(which are just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous):

 

This was one of the most amazing scenes in Spring Day;

I absolutely love this and still use Spring Day scenery as my phone background.

 

 

Serendipity had this simple yellow against blue motif,

with pure skies and minimalist photo composition;

oh my heart aches at the beauty of these shots:

 

 

 

And then, the ON official video came around and offered all these

fantasy/period-themed scenery that floored me;

it's unbelievable the way BTS continues to impress me

(from my early days of stumbling onto Dope

and then gradually falling down the fandom rabbithole, haha).

 

Look at this... it's like a movie!

There are so many possible references (and I like them all, ahah)

like Lion King obviously (Pride Rock!),

and Maze Runner, and people say biblical references.

 

It's just -- guhhhhhh.

Fans await BTS music videos like we wait for movie releases, okay.

 

 

And I have to add this screenshot here,

because I'd never seen a youtube comment get so many likes hahaha,

and gossssshhhh. A celebrity playing along now with within-fandom jokes,

and he used a purple heart! omg, so adorable, and a true fan.

 

I posted that Carl Jung quote above as an opening first, because if you're at all clued in, Jung's theories and archetypes are all over BTS's albums now. And I utterly love ON, partly for the beautiful MV as expounded on above, but mainly because it's about Jung's concept of individuation, which I've been learning so much about the past couple of years. I don't know if BTS truly influenced me to go down this path of discovery, or I've always been predisposed to Jung and all psyche-related phenomena (I'd actually wanted to do psychology after A-levels and had attempted to read Jung even then), and BTS is just a synchronistic part of my journey. Either way, the synchronicity now resonates very pleasantly.

I was just posting yesterday about being in a cocoon of pain and needing to metamorphosize; the theme song to it should be ON -- Bring it, bring the pain oh yeah, Rain be pouring, sky keep falling...

BTS is deep, and totally my cup of tea.
I never knew I'd love a music group this much.







I am sitting at coffeebean as I'm wont to do after my therapy sessions, and trying to ride this rather negative emotional wave that's made its round to me again. My emotional peaks and troughs are not that consistent anymore; in some ways what's left of it throws me more off-guard; there was a time when I knew my valley was coming because the time of the month was as well, and I would arm myself with self-affirmation mantras and social strategies that would tide me through. Now that I've caught brief glimpses of emotional freedom and stable highs (never knew such things could exist), I feel like the schedule is all messed up. This current wave -- the timing is all wrong. It's knocking me sideways, and I see the trigger, and it knocks me further down.

Come on, S, you can do this. Onwards and upwards!

It's okay to feel like you've messed up; life is messy ne.



It's funny, and possibly sad at the same time -- here I am wrapped up in my cocoon of pain trying to metamorphosise, and then I am told I apparently scare other people in a team (mostly men who are older than me, whatttttt); they were afraid they wouldn't know what to say when confronted with my questions. What! was literally my response to the team leader telling me this over the phone.

Guys, humans! however it may seem on the outside,
I'm really struggling too.
Can we all struggle together so life doesn't seem so hard?

It's like that common meme or something right; there are days, like yes, I'm super-pumped and driven about doing things right and doing things well, and going for the big things, and good things. But then there are many, many other days I just want to be a slug and bingewatch Outlander on Netflix and marvel at Jamie Fraser, you know? That's kind of what I really want to do right now.

The emotionally intelligent person knows that love is a skill, not a feeling, and will require trust, vulnerability, generosity, humour, sexual understanding, and selective resignation. The emotionally intelligent person awards themselves the time to determine what gives their working life meaning and has the confidence and tenacity to try to find an accommodation between their inner priorities and the demands of the world. The emotionally intelligent person knows how to hope and be grateful, while remaining steadfast before the essentially tragic structure of existence. The emotionally intelligent person knows that they will only ever be mentally healthy in a few areas and at certain moments, but is committed to fathoming their inadequacies and warning others of them in good time, with apology and charm... There are few catastrophes, in our own lives or in those of nations, that do not ultimately have their origins in emotional ignorance.

~ Alain de Botton