Sitting here, watching the cars driving fast
Lights bright and blaring
Humming busy
Exhaustion, trying to read but unable to quiet my distraction filled mind
Maybe I’m just supposed to sit here and do nothing for once
Tag: art
Gearing Up For 2 SHOWS- The Life of An Entrepreneur
Yes, some people find these dolls a bit creepy- but I’m totally obsessed with them. I hope that my customers will be obsessed as well. I even bought black ones. You know, dolls shouldn’t be racist.
Anyways, this week has been so filled with entrepreneurial endeavors. I’ve probably worked 80 hours without even knowing it. I think about my work right when I wake up and when I go to sleep. It’s not really work to me actually, it’s fun- it’s ideas and creativity. I was making some necklaces with cool baby bottles and suddenly yelled “I love what I do!” Though I can’t really see right now, because I can’t find my glasses (must be hidden under clothes or my jewelry) and my room looks like a tornado swept through….it’s been a most rewarding week.
I tell people- yah, being an entrepreneur is definitely risky. You don’t know if your work will really pay off, maybe at first you get a few sales, but the tremendous amount of work and energy, money you invest into it—isn’t exactly safe. You can’t say for sure that it’ll be successful, you can’t see clearly. But I believe in myself so much, that I know I’ll be okay, I’ll flourish. I walked for 2 hours today looking for supplies, it was good exercise. This week I got to spend time with my loved ones, and it was relaxing and satisfying…these are things you can do when you are self-employed (at the times of the day you want).
SAVE THE DATE!
I’ll be selling Jewelry, clothes, bags, kewpie dolls, costume sketch prints by me, shoes, etc.
Silverlake Arts Crafts Vintage Fair- December 10 Saturday!
*Location: Micheltorena St. Elementary- 1511 Micheltorena St. (off Sunset Blvd) LA 90026
*When: December 10, Saturday @ 10am-4pm
*Admission is FREE!
http://www.silverlakeartcraftvintage.com/
SHOP LOT LA – December 17 & 18
*Location: Parking Lot @ Sunset Blvd and Hyperion Intersection
*When: December 17 & 18, Saturday @ 10am-4pm
*Admission is FREE!
Do me a favor?
Like my PAGE on Facebook– http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rebekka-Lien/206081989431609
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And comment below telling me what your most difficult struggle is in being an entrepreneur?
December 10- REBEKKA LIEN @ Silverlake Art Craft & Vintage
SAVE THE DATE:
-
SHOP FOR CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (& yourself) DECEMBER 10 (10-4pm) @ Rebekka’s Booth!REBEKKA IS LAUNCHING!
Wondering what to buy your friend or girlfriend/girl friend? Visit my booth and find snazzy-+ REBEKKA.LIEN JEWELRY (buy it before anyone else! Limited Editions Not Posted Online)
+ ONE OF A KIND REBEKKA FASHION Creations
+ Vintage & UNIQUE goods from all over the world
+ Enter a drawing for a FREE Limited Time Only REBEKKA LIEN JEWELRY
GIFT WRAPPING PROVIDED.
Come support your local friend and artist (me). I appreciate your support!!
SILVERLAKE ART* CRAFT & VINTAGE IS A MONTHLY FUNDRAISER CREATED BY LOCAL LA ART GALLERY GHETTOGLOSS, TO SUPPORT THE STUDENT PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AT LAUSD.
http://www.silverlakeartcraftvintage.com/index.html
Check out My Page & LIKE IT!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rebekka-Lien/206081989431609Love,
Rebekka Lien
FACEBOOK EVENT: CLICK HERE http://www.facebook.com/events/249375365127373/
OC Fashion Week Designs- Enjoy!
Amazing Photos taken by John Garduno!
Click here to SEE ALL PHOTOS: Don’t forget to LIKE IT! 🙂
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Of course, subscribe to my blog! Cheers and have a happy day!
Deep Uncovering – Living With Intention
Here goes another very deep blog entry. Be prepared!!!
As you know, I’m reading Life Entrepreneurs- I’m on chapter 3 “Discovering Core Identity”. I encourage EVERYONE to read this blog post because it may wake up a few on-lookers.
1. Having a Clear Sense of Who We Are
“How can we achieve such self-awareness? The process if one of ‘dis-covering,’ or removing the layers of sediment that obstruct our view- layers of ego, pride, ambition, and expectations that so often bury our own identity. It is a process that requires not only reflection but also action. Knowing oneself is usually an outcome of an iterative process of introspection, action, change, and reflection”. Setting out as a life entrepreneur means that you must have a clear sense of who you are.
2. Digging Into the Past to Discover Future Revelation
“It may sound easy, but precious few of us mine the chapters of our personal story to inform and enrich our days. Most of us glance fleetingly at our history through a rearview mirror while charging into the future”.
The last couple of months of struggling and discovering have helped me to dig deeper into my past. Many of us live in denial. I know this, I lived in it for several years, only accidentally discovering wounds here and there, but never really facing them. It’s a lie to think that our past doesn’t affect our future. It does.
For example, my accomplishment driven self strove to become the best at everything in order to prove that I was worthy of love and acceptance. I was deprived of approval and thus, sought peoples’ approval. Then I realized that people who are empty themselves, have little love or acceptance to give themselves. A broken basket cannot give because all the eggs have fallen out. How did I know all this? I struggled through my experiences and gleaned new insights- I took time to analyze my response to the external, then meditated on my identity as God’s daughter. If I felt rejected, I heard God say “you are my daughter, I love you and have prepared a way for you”.
3. Self-actualization Above Physical Need (like money)
“…a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a writer must write if he/ she is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man or woman can be, he or she must be. This need we call self-actualization….”
“This speaks to why discovering our core identity is essential. Too many people lead a life that doesn’t cohere with their authentic essence. Too many see their true identity buried by external pressures, expectations, or circumstances, squashing their potential for authenticity and self- actualization”
I was thinking about this woman who goes to work everyday, 5 days a week and have little social life. What an existence to live! What is to be said the day she lies in her grave? She worked many hours in her life, she was a hard worker. I don’t know if I would want that to be said about me when I’m at the end of my life.
4. Coming Alive
“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive”– Howard Thurman
Today’s Conclusion
After coming back from Australia, I had many people come up to me and tell me “you are so lucky, I wish I could travel…if I only had the money!” Actually, most people can travel with enough planning and mostly, courage to risk a secure life. I tell them, “well, be prepared to be butt broke when you come back, otherwise, it’s so worth it!” Of course, that’s not very encouraging….
But going on a trip that changed my life – is far more worth it than my security. In fact, I freak out when my life is too consistent, it scares me. My biggest fear is consistency and routine. It makes me feel trapped. I’m glad that my sometimes lonesome and traumatic childhood removed me from normal life and caused me to reach deeper and reflect when the outside world was out partying. I found solitude comforting and learned to become a listener and observer. Being a listener helped me to listen to my heart, other peoples’ hearts, and love myself and others even more. I listened and found the spiritual world. I listened and saw the crying and the dying.
Today I still listen, that’s why I like music so much. When I listen to music, I imagine each note being played, I am imagining the venue, the live band, people. Music creates an internal reality which is externalized by dancing. Living with intention means that we have to dig deeper into our hearts and find the wounds that have created our current reality. Then we must heal, we must confide in trustworthy friends, journal, struggle- and let our reality become a miracle.
Alishan, Taiwan
11/11/11 – Day of Renewal and Birth
My Wall of Graffiti of Graffitis! I finished this yesterday and had so much fun staring at the wall. Most people will think it weird that I’m making wall art out of graffiti pictures while listening to Hawaiian music. I’m so alien. haha.
Here are some quotes to celebrate 11/11/11:
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination”- Carl Rogers
“It is much easier to walk along prescribed paths than to blaze our own trail”- Christopher Gerg
“It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born & God’s greatest gifts are given in compensation for what you’ve been through”- Wintley Phipps
I can attest to the last quote quite while, after July 29th, I stumbled through hills of uncertainty, not seeing, fumbling through the dark, wondering when I would get to my promised land. Little did I know that the promise land was “the now”, “the here” and “the who…whoever was in my life that moment”. After lots of wrestling with God, fighting opposition, and experiencing “the now” in Australia- I came back and went through another storm. This storm was the fear of not having enough.
Now I know that I had to battle every system that our society had built and socialized us to believe to “CREATE SOMETHING ALTOGETHER NEW”. I started meeting people and reading books that encouraged me to go on. I was forging a way, a new path that I’m still uncertain of. In the end, my new path was simply “LIVING OUT LOUD” and “FINDING FREEDOM TO BE MYSELF”- including work, life, the way I prioritize relationships in life. It’s continually learning and finding ways to challenge the norm, instead of accepting what is or what has been.
It hasn’t been easy because this process meant weeding out all the preconceived values that was basically crap, and stripping myself naked to the things that were basic and human- the need for love and the need to feel alive, to feel like I’m living OUT LOUD.
I found that:
1. I miss music a hella LOADS. So I tried out to be a choir director- next week I’m trying out again. My love for singing is being renewed and the suffering I went through has brought new strength and beauty to my voice.
2. I love getting to know people.
3. I need to see nature, to be in sunlight, to feel the elements of life.
4. Creating is NOT an option, it is living to me. Living is creating a story, each moment you are creating something new. Being creative then is just who I am, I can’t suffocate who I am.
5. If you can be still and know your worth and identity in each moment of life, no storm can bring you down. You will find peace wherever you are, however much you have, whatever chaos surrounds you.
What is one preconceived value that you still hold onto even though it is crushing the essence of who you are? (comments are welcome)
We’re creating a new world and it starts from within.
Insane Woman, Turned History Maker
I like to state my womanhood. I am a woman. I like to state it often because I embrace my womanhood.
They were, perfectly trimmed nails, manicured, perfectly waxed eyebrows, pssssttttt, seniorita, fake tanned, up-tities, gleaming lips with smack of lipgloss and perfect teeth with extra help. Fur lining their coat, fox, animal. Money blinging up and down from their toes, to their shoes, to their dresses, gleaming on their ears. Flash, choke, drown.
Drowning in luxury.
I was this ordinary woman sitting behind the booth watching as flocks and flocks of beautiful aged women walked in with their diamond rings and bags, swaying in their heels. Diamonds could not hide the wrinkles lining their eyes, their fingers, crispy and dried. I tried not to think about it, but suddenly my face froze and I zoned out.
“I can’t imagine being that woman when I’m 80 and I don’t want to be. If all our lives were…were about our outward appearance, and when I’m 70 I have perfect manicures, tattooed eyebrows, money to flood a nation….yet, no purpose, no meaning, no goals and passion…and all I did was get pedicures and have little lunch parties? and attend fundraisers (oh God bless fundraisers, without money we wouldn’t be able to fund many non-profits), but just in that moment, I zoned out and thought this…
I don’t want to be that, whatever that is.”
When I’m 70, I don’t want to spend money on all that. I want to have built orphanages with the money that could have gone to fox animal furs, diamonds, houses, rings…I want to have rescued kids from brothels, women from abuse, men from abuse…I want to have done something greater than just prove that ‘I made a lot of money in this lifetime’.
Later today, I bumped into several Hyatt hotel housekeepers. “I gotta go home now, and tomorrow I come again”- said this one cleaning person. I thought to myself, “to have the discipline and faithfulness to keep going even though you are doing mindless work…that is perseverance”. He helped me get my load off the elevator.
Suddenly, I was struck with a paradox. These well manicured, perfectly curled haired of a women would probably not raise a hand to help an ordinary woman unloading stuff off an elevator….but an ordinary, probably struggling housekeeper would find it easy to serve another human being. I was so struck with an epiphany, I almost zoned out again.
Having struggled for the past month, getting criticism about my choice of becoming a self-starter, shit from people I thought I trusted, eating ramen some days, denying my boba cravings, getting criticism from my buyers, etc….and just getting inundated with shit. I saw many things clearly.
It’s funny how we need to be drowned in dung, criticisms, hardships – to see life ever SO FREAKEN CLEARLY.
I am so grateful for the hardships and tears I went through in the past month. So grateful. There were times I found myself doubting the inkling of my identity, times I cried while walking in downtown LA, calling a friend quick- “I’m in shit, can we talk?”.
Times I thought to myself, “what is the very purpose for which I’m created”.
Things have started to turn around, my 12 readers that do read my blog posts. Perseverance and prayers have paid off. Fate has claimed its way in my destiny. I’m victorious in my little, finding hope in the essence of love. I met people who reminded me of who I am…people who grabbed a hold of my vulnerable heart and whispered encouragement, spoke into it my deepest desires, and pushed me to get up even when blood was dripping out of my nose, my knees were wounded by rocks, back with layers of scabs, head almost insane from hunger and insanity, confusion at times. Some were close friends, some were new friends, but all were in tune with the desires of my soul. Rather than mock me for my insanity, which I am insane 99.9% of the time (1% of the time I’m sane when I listen to naysayers), they joined my insanity and became my risk-taking comrades.
We will destroy the system of conformity and complacency. We will form new beauty and create a society based on love, not profit. We will allow uniqueness to flourish and romance in the specialty of being an individual, yet conspire in being always together in our insanity. We will let the moment take us by the hand, feet with music, not by logic.
Because who said life was logical? In fact, some of the greatest history makers were insane in their own time.
Yes, if you didn’t know – you are reading a history makers’ blog.
It’s a big, huge, claim to make- maybe even a little narcissistic, but I’ve been through too much crap to give up making sense of this beautiful life. I claim what I claim because I know this is true.
What about you?
From the top of a hotel I stayed in Taiwan last year for a night. It was the best solid alone time I ever got.
Intuition told me this photo represents what I’m talking about- you can do the analyzing.
Having a Satisfied Soul & Returning To My First Love
How could I have given into the lie?
How could I have stopped playing and enjoying life?
I let go of my vision of enjoying life, and became a slave to profit and money, that which society calls security.
When I found myself in front of the keyboard, creating rhythm, singing…I knew that for more than a year, I had lost my vision for playing.
I could not have discovered my loss if I continued to work, to survive, to “thrive” in those peoples’ eyes.
I could not have discovered my first love, my first language again if I pushed myself to “achieve” and to be like everyone else.
It is ironic how we need to be completely stripped of all that society gave us to believe, is security, to find what really matters.
We need to be completely broke, unable to sum up rent. We need to sell our cars, eat ramen noodles, suffer the humiliation of being unable to pay for a drink.
All that society tells us, through commercials, through people- need to be dumped into the garbage.
I feel so free, so relaxed, so myself. I cry and laugh when I want to. I’m in tune with my soul, with my emotions, with my goals. I’m in tune when I’m with people, I don’t think about what I’m doing next, what my schedule is.
I feel completely comfortable in my own skin. I feel no remorse, no anxiety, my muscles are laid back and in place. Tension was my yester-year.
It was the end of July that I left my full time job. I rested for a month and bought a plane ticket to Australia. There, I experienced life to the overfull. I experienced joy, deep suffering, lost, laughter, reflection, peace, and lastly “being”. I experienced what it meant to be. To be aware of all that my life was, to care deeply for strangers I just met. I experienced something that I wish everyone could sense, gain with their souls.
I experienced the deep connection of sorrow, joy, lost, apprehension, goals- the likes of which connects us human beings. Though we came from different nations, our humanity linked us, bonded us.
It’s October 27, 2011. Halloween is coming. Thank you God for giving me freedom to be me, to pursue my dreams, to live a life of love that embraces pain and has no regrets. I feel a twinge of thankfulness, that I am overfilled, overflowing, that it took me one year to truly regain what I had lost, the disappointment that caused me to give up singing and being free.
Today, though I am unable to spend money freely, I feel more joy than I have ever felt. I don’t need many external luxuries to satisfy my soul, I already have a satisfied soul. I pray that I may never go back to where I came from, that I would live out of simply being.
“Yourself” – A Beautiful Word
Self- Self is a beautiful thing.
Many people ask me in dismay “you travel by yourself?”
as though “yourself” is a despicable, ugly, loathed word, thing.
The word yourself can be taken apart to be “you R self”. To be able to to love yourself, you must know and understand self. Oftentimes we learn about ourselves by being in relationship with others…but only when you courageously spend time with yourself are you able to process who you are, in relation to your environment and community.
No. We are NEVER by ourself. The world is deeply connected at its core, we all have the same human anatomy, heart, brain, organs, desires…
to be loved, accepted, appreciated, known.
No. We are NEVER alone. Truly. I am deeply aware of my existence as a meaningful connection to those I meet.
As I travel, somewhere in time and location, I cross paths with another who is journeying as well. Our paths merge, or cross, but we were meant to meet. Some people call it an accident, I call it divine appointment. Some people are just delighted to find a friend, I see our souls commune, abstraction of spirits that words cannot suffice to explain.
We are not lovers, but when I look purposely into your eyes, gray, brown, blue, green, black- I am met with revelations of our common humanity.
If we could stop long enough in our busy lives to look deep into anothers’ eyes…we grasp and grip the essence of compassion lodged in a part of our heart for another being. Time becomes irrelevant. Plans fade. Agenda dissolves like tablets of nothing. Money, we could give it all. We would stop all mockery of the poor, the weak, the laughable beings of our current society. We would stoop low with the abandoned, we would wash the wounds of dying souls.
We would bravely smile back without a defensive heart. We would cease to protect self in fear, but boldly love the vastly different, the outcasts, we would treat others with dignity even if they no longer deserve it.
We all need a second chance, to mend our story, our past.
Rebekka Lien 