I woke up with this phrase in my spirit- “Don’t let what you fear losing prevent you from going after what you want”.
Life is full of change. In fact, life is progress and without it, we are not truly living. We go from being a baby to a kid to being a teenager to an adult. Our teeth grows, our hair grows, etc. But sometimes we need to let go of what is, what was to go after what will be or what we want to be. We need to pull a few wisdom teeth out, we need to cut our hair, get a trim, we need to chop those highlights because they start to fade.
I have been feeling a weirdness in my heart. It’s like my heart wants to progress but there is also a fear that I can’t handle the new season….that I’m not good enough, that I’m not truly ready for it. I am reminded that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
When we reach a new territory, it takes our hearts some time to adjust. WE struggle with letting go of “WHAT WAS” and eventually “what is” so that we can keep moving forward.
You may be in a “good” relationship, but you are not growing with your boyfriend/girlfriend, in fact, you feel stagnant and most of the time you are pulling him/her up to your level of spirituality or intellect. People are proud of your relationship, but deep down you know there has to be something more but you are afraid of letting go of what is.
You may have lost everything once, twice, three times and you have finally rebuilt yourself, but you are not doing what you love…you want to go ALL IN on your passions but you are afraid that you will lose everything again. Trust that your heart is worth investing everything for because authenticity and returning to WHO YOU REALLY ARE will bring joy back to your heart, even through pain.
You may have good friends but they are not supportive of your dreams because they don’t have the courage to do what it takes for their dreams. You fear losing them, you remember all the good times you had, but you know you have to choose yourself. New levels of friendship will arrive when you take that first step to go into your next level.
Today’s post reads like a fortune cookie, but I believe these are prophecies and specific words God has released into my heart.
“Don’t let what you fear losing prevent you from going after what you want”.
What do you want and what are you afraid of losing? You are enough.
Thank you to all my subscribers and readers who have silently read my blog and liked my posts. Although I have disabled comments, I do invite you to contact me in other ways, such as my instagram- rebekkalien.
Yesterday I was just thinking that I am so grateful for all the pain and shit I went through in my life. Though I could not understand it in the moment and often used to blame my parents (one who was absent for 10 years) for my dysfunctional heart, I grew up very fast and learned that forgiveness is everything.
If I didn’t move to two different countries after Germany, I would not be the world traveler that I am today. I can adapt anywhere and my mind and heart is open to change.
I didn’t have a fatherly voice in my life, but I grew very close to God, who I could not see but could talk to and feel. I became stable within.
After immigrating, my family experienced financial hardships, but it was in the hardship I learned to find my worth. I didn’t know how to be a child and never got allowance, which I later complained about….my own desire for independence led me to see how hard it is to do it on my own and I reconciled my familial relationships. With a heart to know my earthly father, I reached out to him several times. It took several years of visiting him to forgive and love him, but I needed to do it for myself. I could have complained about it for years, but God moved me to be the initiator. It wasn’t my fault that he wasn’t around, but how could I love myself in this situation, to let go.
I realize that my parents are perfect for me because I don’t know a lot of Asian parents who allowed their daughters to travel solo. Because they could hardly control me, I did what I wanted to. My mom also backpacked Europe when she was young.
I’m thankful for the pain and battles I’ve been through as an entrepreneur. I remember crying on my bath mat because I was barely scraping by. The mat was purple by the way.
I can look back now and say, wow, I was brave, I was a warrior. I’ve learned so much and I am thankful for how far I’ve come as a person.
What pain are you thankful? What do you need to release today? Who do you need to forgive, for you own heart?
I grew up going to church, Baptist to be precise. About 12 years old I encountered God in a divine, weeping way, I experienced unconditional love from the depths of my heart. My journey though had begun when I was young…in those wee hours where I was home alone and afraid of the dark. Somehow I knew that the Devil was as real as the darkness and as a 5 year old, I prayed desperately for God to save me from the hollow fear.
Since I had lots of time of solitude, growing up with a busy working single mom and lots of time alone, I developed an inner life that was rich and real. I was drawn to the holy spirit and basically “following my intuition”. I would tell stories about being led to talk to homeless people, miracles, hearing God- this was strange for a very legalistic baptist church. Eventually I left. Later on, I learned that what I experienced in my life was called being led by the spirit.
You don’t need to label it to know that your intuition is God speaking to you. When it feels peaceful, right, you feel urged on, you have little fear. Perhaps yes there is apprehension, but that is the ego speaking.
What I noticed though is that in the institutions of “God” many people still don’t understand the concept of the Father. The concept and being of the Father God is basically the loving, unconditional, light who embraces and loves to hear us talk even about our sadness, feelings of anger, and grief. He is not judgmental and treats us better than the best father on this earth. Because few of us have had good earthly fathers, we often feel that God must be the same way.
In addition, people are very scared when they can’t label something.
There were times where I followed the Spirit and I did very spontaneous things….sometimes Spirit led me to places where I met the right people at the right time. Before I was to be selected for a TV show to go to Cebu, I kept hearing Cebu over and over again. Sometimes of course I doubt what I am hearing, but as the stories in my life unfolds, I am assured once again that what I was hearing was accurate.
Trusting yourself- now growing up in the church, the only thing I heard was “put yourself last”. Self-sacrifice. I think this led to many people growing up deprived of self love.
The truth is since God already sacrificed all for us, “everything that has to be done is already done”. This is the concept of grace. The holistic way of thinking is that we are born a reflection of who God is and each of us have glory within ourselves. So our whole lives is really about getting to know God, but also the holy place within our own hearts which says “I am an heir, I am royalty, everything about me is brilliant, my heart radiates light and I am filled with love and I am complete because God within me has completed me”.
So while some institutions believe that all power is with God, the truth is if God is within us, all power is in us so that all power for change is cultivated once our spirit self accepts and has the capacity to embrace that truth.
In short, I have been on a journey of learning to trust my truth in every moment and to speak those truths even if they are “negative”. God loves all of who you are now, not in the future or the past. Yes, with all the things that seem negative.
So instead of living by a set of rules, Jesus sets you free to live in relationship.
So there is actually no right or wrong, but that which sets you free, the truth.
There are many things that are good for you, but if you feed yourself a bunch of sermons or motivational books when your heart needs space to heal, it can become destructive. For example, your heart may need solitude but a friend offers to hang out with you (she wants to help you)…in those moments I listen to my heart and ask myself what it is I actually need…even a “good thing” like hanging out with a friend can deprive you of what you actually need, time alone.
Good works, volunteer work might seem good- but if you are doing it as a way to redeem yourself or perhaps free you from the guilt of all the wrongs you’ve committed in your life, you will not be freed. Like I said, only God sees our heart. He says “I will free you if you allow me to give you the love you need, just receive it”.
When we open our hearts to receive the love that we do not need to work for, it is liberating.
What is practical and productive in the world may not be productive to your soul. More in the material sense is not more to your soul. You may continue to crave more and feel even more empty inside. For some reason, the more you buy the more lack you feel. That is your soul asking you to look within. The emptiness is a feeling and the feeling is always telling you something.
Slow down and ask yourself where that feeling is coming from.
Slow down and ask what during the day annoyed you so much that you started feeling pain in your neck. For me, I have pain in the left side of my neck when I am emotionally distraught, bothered or believing a lie, or perhaps I am trying to control my emotions instead of expressing them.
But our lives have just begun. The election sparked a passion within me to make a difference in the world. As the numbers came in I actually started crying, crying turned to weeping and found my soul anguished. Perhaps it was Spirit within me or my personal desire connected to the election. This went deeper than I thought. Perhaps my desire to see a woman become president was a personal desire to see my own life blossom into the impossibilities of humanity. And perhaps it was the last straw for everything I had envisioned for this year.
All of this came into apex of surrender.
I would have to surrender my personal desire and trust that God would protect, empower and push me towards the direction that even I could no longer envision for myself. Because we put too much hope in one person. We thought that maybe the “Right person” could save us, and the truth is we put not only the president on a pedestal, we put “finding the perfect spouse”, “finding the right opportunity”, breaking our personal goals on a pedestal, but all of that is fleeting in the light of perfect peace in each moment.
I have been reading 365 Devotions For Finding Rest and it has helped me to find solace in times of turmoil. I find my soul crying out for justice, for peace, for joy, for restoration. I’ve been in months of surrender and rest, saying “no” to things, opportunities, people. Letting the season pass so that the right things and people could enter my current realm.
Asking me to be still is like asking a lion not to run free with strength, but in the stillness I find the ache in my heart heal steadily.
I was walking on the street, saw a young man with his parents. He looked like a douche bag, and I just thought “how do parents live with the fact that they produced a douche bag who is out there assaulting women and think it’s normal?”.
Anyway, sometimes I have the strangest thoughts. But really, I wonder about that.
Today I had a big realization that my healing is going deeper. I had this dream about a young man proposing to a woman and happily did they live after. So I was crying because I introduced them or I was producing the show. After I saw a young man waiting for his girlfriend, but he was drunk in the car.
Somehow this dream translated to my big revelation:
I was feeling like a loner because when I can’t figure out what God is saying I feel like he has forgotten me or is ignoring me. But why? Because 10 years of not talking to my dad felt like I was being ignored and forgotten. I didn’t have the security of knowing that my dad actually loved me at all, and sometimes I struggle with that when it comes to God’s love for me…And somehow after that I was always the one to initiate…and same goes with the first 26 years of my life, initiating, getting shit done, becoming a career women, taking care of the house, the family, being the one to take care of friends, neglecting self.
So if you think you’re the only one with issues think again.
This year I’ve been learning what being adopted by father God means. It means allowing God to pursue me. Having been the independent, strong woman, it was finally time to let go of control and be the recipient of love.
Which is why when I explain to my friends “I have no energy to date” it means “I have no energy to initiate” because all my life I have been aggressively going after I want….and now God is saying “will you stop and allow me to give you what you want?”…even when it comes to dating and a life partner. Whew.
Basically get the fuck out of your own way.
No wonder I’m tired.
So many years of trying to get the shit together when the shit can easily come together, round itself together if I’d just let God do the work.
Rounding back to douche bags….most people don’t acknowledge that they have these deep seated issues that is basically fucking up their relationships, friendships, life in general. How do you start? Ask God. I promise you…it’s worth it. Sometimes it might be painful to face the issues, but healing is worth it. And yah, probably a lot of your issues come from your relationship with your parents, but our view of ourselves shouldn’t be based on how they treated us…but the unconditional love that God has for you. You are worth it.
5 out of 5. Natalie, a multi-Grammy nominate artist talks about living our your calling. I like how she incorporates examples of taking care of her voice or voice techniques to help us relate to how we can speak up for ourselves. She also talks about listening to your heart. A must-read 🙂 I liked reading her story because I can relate to losing everything to gaining it all back. This book was given to me for an honest review.
Middle of the night, being woken by a dream type of writing is usually my type of writing. The writing is clearer, more concise, less tainted by what I think it should be, like streams of thought writing. I’m less likely to judge and censor. I usually get a download of thoughts when I wake up in the middle in the middle of the night.
I don’t write for my readers, I write what I believe is true in my heart and what I think people really need. And it’s also a direct download from God.
Okay I’m obsessed with Terrace House on netflix.
I cried and laughed. I truly felt the emotions that every member felt in this Japanese reality show. It’s not like American ones. It’s not sex crazed, hyper sexualized, focused on mere skin. It focuses on the characters’ emotions, intellect, conflict resolution between roommates and lovers. I found it deeply refreshing and different.
Having been on reality TV in America, I know the pressures producers have to “produce good rating”….I’ve heard of my friend, who is also in the entertainment industry, being coerced to do things she didn’t want to do. I call that manipulation.
It is so important to stay loyal to your core, to who you are NO MATTER WHAT.
Spoiler alert:
Towards the end of season 2 there is a girl I won’t name since you’ll want to watch it after reading this…..she falls for a guy who is thugish and cool, but I think immature, and too young for her. Anyways, he rejects her and claims she is insecure….
She is heart broken.
I found her emotions refreshing and real. Because how many times do we put our hearts out there, later pretending it never happened. Her emotions were real and raw, that is something to be proud of….IF YOU CAN FEEL AND EXPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS- YOU SHOULD BE PROUD. To have the courage to allow your heart to feel what it wants to feel is brave.
OKAY- SO SHE MEETS ANOTHER GUY RIGHT AFTER WHO IS MADLY IN LOVE WITH HER. LIKE finds everything the previous guy criticized about her to be a strength.
GUYS AND GIRLS.
THIS is so key.
OMG. Never settle. Your breakthrough, the love of your life, your opportunity is in waiting for the RIGHT ONE! OMG. I can’t say it enough. Over the years, God has taught me so much about valuing my own heart. I’m finally in a season where I am more willing to love again….it also taught me that my ability to be happy in life is in direct proportion to how much I open my heart to life…
So while I healed from previous tragedies (breakup from long-term relationship and lost of best friends)……….there was only so much I could handle in terms of enjoying what God wanted to give me. I barely had energy to truly enjoy life.
As my heart started to heal, I found rest to be most vital. I rested, I let my heart heal, grow, comprehend, feel. I gave my heart the space it needed to flourish again. Sometimes I wanted to rush the process, but eventually I learned that it was causing my wounds to fester again….like when you get hurt and keep playing at the scabs wanting the scabs to go away…but it only opens the wounds up and doesn’t give it time to heal over.
I wanted it to be over, the process. I wanted to move on with life, but somehow God knew I wasn’t ready for it. He wanted to address issues I had, that went all the back to 5 years old, feelings of abandonment and rejection.
I went deep in this journey. Really deep, so deep I could feel pangs in my heart, like little heart surgeries. Digging up stones in my heart was difficult..not going to lie.
I faced my hurts, I forgave people, I came to understand my personality, my hangups, why I did what I did…you know those things that people go to therapy for. These things really determine what flows out of you during the day.
The truth is if you don’t deal with those issues, they will continue to come up in every area of your life….don’t ignore those wounds. Tend to them.
Until I could really see my true worth, it was difficult to overcome the offense, the hurts caused by other people. Because I was valuing their opinion of me over who God said I was. Yes people pleaser.
But now, I feel more free. I value my heart more. I am learning to put my heart and myself before other people. It is important because we determine how others treat us. I was taught to put others first, but I think it’s bad theology. God has shown me that when you can put yourself first, you are more able to love others out of overflow versus obligation.
You are responsible for the well-being of your heart. Yes, you are.
You are the landlord of your heart and you get to decide who and what resides there (landlord analogy by Christa Black). When I was younger, I’m 28 now, I opened my heart to lots of people because I thought, “well I’m taught to love people right?” but that’s when I realize that THERE IS EVIL out there. Real evil. And then I got frightened and closed my heart up after too many evil encounters. Thank God I’ve been healing from those manipulative encounters and learned to guard my heart.
I learned that it is important to have boundaries in your life. And you have to SPEAK UP for your heart, it’s your responsibility YO.
Which leads me to the whole controlling Asian parent thing again.
Recently I’ve been blessed with good food and have eaten well. It’s just this season of rest and getting fed. Well, my mom mentions a couple of times that “watch your weight”, your legs are getting fat or your stomach is getting fat.
And as you can see, I’m not an obese person, I’m a pretty skinny Asian woman that happens to have curves. (This just goes to show the impossible culture Asians live in).
I was totally fine the whole day, had no neck aches and for me when I have neck aches it is usually because I am fearing something.
SO at night I start getting these crazy painful neck aches and I start to do my inner healing, meditation, prayer time with God. I ask Spirit what the hell is going on. I look back on the day. I mean I had really great food, got this amazing dress from Nordstrom, felt so alive and free all day. I felt abundant.
Then it struck me, that moment when my mom….instead of saying “wow I had a great day with my daughter”, she said “your stomach is looking fat, watch yourself”.
Gosh, how encouraging.
So in that moment, subconsciously my self worth was struck down and subconsciously I heard and felt in my spirit “You’re not enough, you’re not good enough”.
Wow. I love healing sessions with God.
So then I start planning a speech about what I’ll tell my mom, how I’ll speak up for my heart so that I can protect it in the future. Then I have this crazy dream about a childhood friend who I am no longer friends with due to parental conditions (aka controlling Asian parents who basically took control of our friendship and ended it with, well their controlling spirit). 3 times I ask her what’s wrong, no answer.
Finally she tells me “my mom died”, I hug her and we cry and cry. Then my mom comes in and questions what I’m doing. And the light bulb went on. When do Asian kids ever grow up? Some of us, without knowing it, are still being controlled by our parents. We feel out of control, we view God like our parents…unrelenting, angry, controlling.
In Asian culture, there is no such thing as GRIEVING, we are taught to get over it, cover it up, Asian moms don’t really have much capacity to comfort or tend to your emotions (I’m talking about the older generation, now not all moms are like that but I have seen a lot).
So in the grieving, pain process, we are often commanded to ANSWER TO and name WHAT IT IS we are going through. And as you know, grieving is messy, you can’t always name it. People want to KNOW shit because they feel like they are in control if they know what it is you are going through.
Some Asian adults still feel that they are seriously unable to make their own decisions. They feel powerless in their own lives and a victim of circumstances.
Well, after my dream….I knew I had to just speak up.
“mom, can you not say anything negative about my body? It hurts my heart and honestly if I want to exercise or lose weight I will, but that’s my own decision. This is my body, not yours”.
And with that, she said okay, as long as you yourself know.
And even if I sometimes feel insecure, I know that this season is actually a blessing.
Why? Because most of the time when I’m traveling I’m losing hella a LOT of weight and I barely have an appetite sometimes, like in Cebu, Philippines, I was shitting out water, or food that turned to water, okay I know Too Much Info.
Which leads me to my point.
I once heard a relative of mine say after I chose DISTANCE from certain people in my life that “people have a right to their opinions about you”. Well I have a right to “who I want in my life and what opinions I want to hear” because most peoples’ opinions ARE NOT truth about who you are in LOVE.
Because LOVE feels good, love FIRST tells you your true identity, then in the encouragement, propels you TO DO GOOD….not the other way…like when people yell at you and tells you “you suck” and think that ‘s going to encourage you to change. LOL.
So guard your heart because out of the heart comes all the goodness and junk of life. You have a right to say NO and TO create healthy boundaries, use your speech, speak up like I did.
PS- I love Asian moms, don’t get me wrong. Not all Asian moms are this way. There are many reasons people become controlling or negative, most of the time they are speaking out of their own insecurities. AKA my mom just bought this weird massage tool that is supposed to massage the fat out of her body. I love my mom- she is REALLY amazing. Sometimes I have to write about her because well, it’s my experience and I believe it can free others.
This article doesn’t just apply to Asians or moms, or women, this applies to ALL HUMANKIND. Maybe even animals. I pray this article may help free you to LIVE IN FREEDOM!
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Heal from physical and emotional wounds
Let go of hindrances and blockages that are keeping goodness, abundance, health and wealth from you!
Get physically fit and loosen tension so you can activate your dreams in your daily life with energy!
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“I just missed my flight…there’s no way I can get to New York”- I thought.
My cousin said, well I’m also going there at 1pm, why don’t you stay over and we’ll go over together.
Suddenly, I woke up startled. It was 2 am in the morning. My head hurt from the dream, it felt like I was traveling in my sleep and reminded me of my 3 flights going to Ecuador. Each of my flight consists of layovers, 2 in Panama and 1 in Chicago. My internal being had been semi- processing and stressed out about my upcoming trip.
For some reason, an epiphany hit me.
I’m doing this trip for me. This was not for Marco. As much as it seems like it is for Marco, this trip is for me.
I know it might sound selfish, but selfish can actually be a good thing.
I was thinking about how the trip takes place beginning on Mother’s Day, a birth, a renewal, nurturing of a kid all the way in Ecuador. I also thought about how much I cared for a kid I hardly know. Why did I care so much?
Because a kid deserves to be known, a kid deserves for someone to buy a flight ticket to see him or her. This is something I never experienced. My own father never bought a flight ticket to visit me in America. I am not saying this to evoke your sympathy nor am I blaming my father. Lying in my bed yesterday night, I realize why this trip was so important to me. It wasn’t simply an act of compassion, some moral virtue or guilt trip to help the poor, this trip was FOR ME; this trip somehow symbolizes reconciliation, healing, an act of letting go and living a life different from my parents, different from any circumstances or people that may have hurt me.
This trip WILL change me. This trip is another Rebekka’s coming of age. I realize my whole life is a story of healing, of power, of passion….someday it will be such an inspirational story of hope. People will read my blog, my book, my memoir and attain healing and inspiration to go on.
Doing things for YOURSELF can actually be doing good to others. Being selfish, reconciling, healing…
Whatever you do is a projection of your inner being. What you complain about is the very thing that pricks you, for a certain reason. What you complain about others may be the very thing you’re scared to become or the very thing that seeks to limit your freedom to be you.
My drawing “Forgiving The Silence” is about my journey to well, forgive the silence. I believe that I’m not the only one. Probably half of all Americans grow up without one parent, or both. Some have never met their dads or moms. I encourage you to be the ones to bridge the gap of silence…or learn to become a parent to someone you never met.
Or you can also make a direct donation for my trip! $25 gets me one night @ a hostel, $200 covers cost of seeing Marco. $100 covers food & water for a week.
I woke up with this phrase in my spirit- “Don’t let what you fear losing prevent you from going after what you want”.
Rebekka Lien 