I know how exhausted you must feel with the constant on-calls, exam prep, and presentations, not to mention the endless commuting between clinics and seminars.
It’s completely natural to want to complain about such a grueling schedule.
But looking at it from another perspective, this is a vital chapter of your growth and learning.
You are essentially hiking toward the summit of your career.
Hang in there, stay positive, and keep climbing!
< in Hong Kong >
I know you are quite busy with clinical work and still have to prepare for the exam.
Be faithful and carry on. I am sure you will pass it!
By Hailey Magee
“Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.” ~Vironika Tugaleva
I plodded up the half-mile hill that led to my house, my backpack weighing heavily on my shoulders in the insistent summer heat. The mild breeze that drifted off the Boston harbor was a cruel joke, hinting at coolness but offering no respite.
Recently heartbroken, I felt tears streaming hotly down my cheeks for the third time that day as the pain of my ex-partner’s absence crashed swiftly on my heart.
I reached out to a trusted friend seeking solace. “Sobbing again” I texted her, knowing she would decipher the pain behind my words. She hesitated for a moment before responding: “Duh.”
I hiccupped mid-sob, surprised.
She went on: “Feel it. It’s going to hurt. But every moment you’re sobbing, you’re doing the work. Every moment you’re hurting, you’re healing. The only way out is through.”
I stared at the screen, digesting her words. That was the last thing I’d expected. I’d expected to be coddled or encouraged to look at the bright side. I’d expected to be force-fed an ice cream cone at J.P. Licks.
This was different. For the first time in my grieving process, I wasn’t told to gloss over my feelings with a coat of rose-colored paint. Someone I trusted was encouraging me to feel my pain in its entirety. Through her eyes, my pain was valid and productive—a necessary step on my journey toward healing.
Her direct acknowledgement of my suffering was the permission I needed to truly feel my pain instead of avoid it. Instead of worrying that I wasn’t trying hard enough to be happy—instead of worrying that I was taking “too long” to heal—I felt like I was doing everything properly.
I could celebrate the work I was doing, even when that work was breaking into sobs, for the third time that day, on the half-mile walk home.
My pain and grief had meaning.
It could serve a purpose.
It could serve me.
Since then, I’ve developed a new way of looking at pain:
When we allow ourselves to fully experience painful or uncomfortable feelings, we are doing work. Sitting with our feelings instead of disengaging or distracting ourselves is work.
Once we accept that we are doing work, we can silence our internal critic that believes that feeling pain means we’re “doing something wrong.” Instead, we begin to understand that feeling our pain is important and productive.
When we understand the true nature of our work, we can summon compassion for ourselves as we move through our uncomfortable feelings on the path to healing, peace, and wholeness.
This framework has changed my life. I’ve applied it to my most acutely painful emotions, like heartbreak, as well as milder ones, like unease.
Last month on a stormy Friday night, for example, a tide of anxiety rolled through me. Instead of texting my friends or sweethearts to organize an impromptu rendezvous—a surefire way to distract myself—I turned on my air conditioner, donned the biggest sweater I could find, and cuddled my pillow as I watched the rain streak down my window.
It felt uncomfortable. I felt the familiar tightness in my chest and shortness in my breath.
“You’re being anti-social!” nagged my inner critic. “You’re being boring. It’s Friday! You’re not trying hard enough.”
I took a deep breath and put my hand over my heart. I am doing work, I said firmly into my heart. This is important. I kept my hand on my chest, repeating these mantras in time with the falling rain, until my inner critic’s voice was an echo of an echo.
When I woke up the next morning to a clear blue sky and a bout of energy, I took pride in how I’d weathered the storm, so to speak. I learned that my anxiety was impermanent and, most importantly, manageable.
Then there are those darkest moments of sorrow, the moments when grief shakes even our sturdiest foundations. When we lose a loved one. When illness consumes us. When we experience a tragedy so emotionally excruciating that it redefines our very understanding of pain.
In these moments, when we can’t find a single silver lining for miles, we can summon the courage to sit with our sorrow. We can find solace in the truth that there is simply nothing else to do.
Experiencing our grief—if only for moments at a time—is work. This is the work of living on this Earth, of being human, and of surviving the universal rites of passage that mark our lives as we age.
When I feel existentially lost, isolated, and convinced of the meaninglessness of my pain, I take a moment to witness the people around me. I watch people walking hand in hand at the park, or reading novels on the train, or sunbathing at the beach.
Somehow, the vast majority of people around me have weathered similarly painful times. The mere fact of their existence, when I’m certain I will shatter into nothingness, is strength enough to soldier on.
Before I learned the benefit of sitting with my feelings, doing work of this nature didn’t appeal to me. Why wallow in sorrow when you could just do something about it? I wondered.
When I felt uncomfortable, I would find a way to occupy my time and distract my heart. I’d burrow my nose in a screen until I was only dimly aware of the world around me; call one friend after another, repeating the same painful story, swimming concentric circles around my pain without ever diving in; grab a pen and scribble a to-do list to feel the rush of purposefulness at the expense of true catharsis.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see that my “coping strategies” were no such thing.
When we distract ourselves from our pain with a flurry of motion, we fool ourselves into thinking we’re being productive. We fall victim to the addictive high of the quick fix. But as any hard worker in any field will tell you, there is no substitute for good, hard work. Work that gives us a sense of our own intrinsic worth and yields desirable results.
Which begs the question: Given the undeniable difficulty of this brand of work, why do it at all? What is the reward for expending such mental and physical effort?
Different folks will offer different answers. As for me, I’ve always believed that our purpose on this earth is to live our richest, most beautiful lives. Anything less seems like a terrible waste of the gift of conscious experience.
I believe that in order to live such lives, we must live our essential truth. Living our essential truth means making the conscious effort to feel the spectrum of our pain, magnificent and minor. It means giving ourselves permission to feel emotions as they are, and rid our lives of the pressures to conform, perform, and self-delude.
When we act in accordance with our deepest feelings, our lives become simpler. Instead of constantly choosing how to act or what to say—spurring waterfalls of anxiety and self-doubt –there is always one choice: the choice that is true for us. The choice that we feel in our hearts.
The next time you are hurting, uncomfortable, or lonely, feel your pain. Feel as much of it as you can bear. Your pain is a necessary step on your journey towards healing. And remember:
You are doing your best.
You are healing at exactly the right pace.
You are doing work.
Your work has meaning.
It can serve a purpose.
It can serve you.
BY CHRIS WITTS
Staley, hong kong
We all have a deep need to be liked, respected, admired and approved of. And in our quest for this recognition, we often behave in a certain way to impress others and to win their appreciation, even telling lies. Rather than risking the rejection of others, we may say ‘yes’ when we really mean ‘no’. We may try to please everyone. Now that doesn’t work. It sets us up for disappointment and resentment because it’s impossible to please everyone you just can’t do so.
Us humans have developed a strong desire to be accepted by others, and we possess a deep fear of rejection by other people. When you concentrate too much on other people’s opinions, you’ll definitely forget who you really are because you end up living a false life, and that’s not what true existence entails. You want to live your life to the full every way that you can. Not bound up by trying to please others.
Remember, they’re not really paying attention to your life anyway. Most people have their lives and their problems and the demons they’re battling with. Typically, they’ve got little or no time to scrutinise your life. Most opinions people give about you might really not be what they had a deep thought about. It could be just an instantaneous comment. They really don’t have much time to think about you. So why should you bother? Why stress yourself out? To live in accordance with an opinion that someone gave without thinking doesn’t make much sense?
There is the popular saying now that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion? And that’s fair enough. We all have a different perspective, opinion and belief, and most times people’s opinions about you is based on their own perspective, not yours. So be yourself, not for others. And stop worrying about what others think of you. It will only cause you distress and keep you awake at night. Putting your focus on trying to please others is like an uphill battle. You’ve got no chance of winning. I think we need to look at our core belief system. That is the way we see ourselves.
Neil Walsh wrote, “So long as you’re worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. It’s only when you require no approval outside yourself, can you own yourself?” You can only control your own action and words. Deep down, I think we fear that others will reject us, and that’s why we worry about what others think. We’re seeking their approval to give us significance and value, but I want to say this morning that’s not necessary. God already loves you more than you can imagine, and he calls you worthy and valuable.
You don’t have to live in fear of what others think about you. Perfect love drives out fear, as the Bible says in 1 John 4:18 and having God as your friend and guide will make all the difference. You only need to please Him and not everyone else. I like what the author and philosopher Oz Guinness once said. “I lived before the audience of one well before others. I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.” And he was talking about God, the maker of our universe.
And when we waste the gift of time worrying about what others think, we are distracted from what our purpose really is. Working for the approval of people is also a drain on your energy and time. Why? Because people change all the time.
What pleases people today won’t please others tomorrow. And once you accept Jesus Christ into your life, you are approved by God, and nothing you do good or bad can change that. In the Old Testament, Proverbs 29:25 says, “If you fear other people, you are walking into a dangerous trap. But if you trust in the eternal, you will be safe” and the message paraphraseputs it probably in a better way. “The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that.”
Don’t let your fear of others become so paralysing that your life becomes a shipwreck. It’s not what God wants for you. When you give more weight to the opinions of others than you do to God’s opinion, you’ll stay on the sidelines when God wants you in the game.
Stanley, Hong Kong
Open your heart and drink in this glorious day. Heather Havrilesky
The perfect moment is this one. Jon Kabat-Zinn
Every day above earth is a good day. Ernest Hemingway
The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Deepak Chopra
Sorry for the late update 🙂 coz I am just busy with my new rotation.
huizhou, Guangdong
The chance to love and be loved exists no matter where you are.
–Oprah
Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.
-Brené Brown
Make way for the unprecedented and watch your reality rearrange yourself.
-Yrsa Daley-Ward
Sanya, Hainan
I am worth loving. There is love all around me.
Happiness is a choice, and today I choose to be happy.
My soul radiates from the inside and warms the souls of others.
Every decision I make is Right for me.
in Hainan, Huangliu, 2025
Beautiful and meaningful affirmations to uplift your day.
I am trying to boost up my energy during my daily busy life.
Let’s do together for 21 days and see how it goes.
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I deserve the best and I accept it now.
All the needs and wants are met before I ask.
The Twins, Wilson trail, Hong Kong (Jan 1st, 2025)
Long time no see, my dear friends!
Since last year, I explored more outdoor activities like hiking, running etc. I do really walk a lot of different trails over Hong Kong. I found it was quite amazing to heal our soul and mental health given the busy and stressed daily life. Birds sing, river flow, trees whisper while mountain is calling. The moment you just stand on the top of mountains and look forwards, everything is so tiny. Relax and feel resilient.
On the first day of 2025, we went to Twins, which quite inspired me in the movie of Four Trails. since it has plenty of stairs haha. But after you go through the stairs, here is the beautiful view you can see. Every effort deserves.
Hope everyone has a peaceful and health 2025, stay calm and enjoy each moment.
See you later.
blue house, wan chai
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your life isn’t changing because you’re holding yourself back but don’t know it?
Like maybe there’s something in your conditioning or a subconscious belief that’s preventing you from doing something that could bring you the change you seek?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I took Nadia Colburn’s five-day mindful writing challengebecause one of the prompts elicited a profound insight about why I’ve struggled to create the change I want most in life.
Part of the prompt was “Don’t go off somewhere else,” and after a brief meditation at the start of the challenge that gave me a deep sense of calm and clarity, the following insight came to me:
Roots and wings—that’s what I’ve always wanted. And I always thought roots meant my home, my family of origin. Life away from them was wings. But I’ve spent my whole adult life feeling like I’ve had one foot out the door because I haven’t allowed myself to have roots and wings at the same time. And that’s what I really want. To allow myself to be fully where I am. To believe it’s safe to be where I am. It’s not wrong to be where I am. I’m not wrong, wherever I am.
This was a big aha moment for me because it gave me further insight into something I’ve been reflecting on lately: that in all my moves—fifteen of them within twenty years—I never allowed myself to really settle in. To commit to things. To become part of a community.
This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my varied chapters or that I regret a single one of them. I did and I don’t. I just never allowed myself to do anything that might make me feel hemmed in.
For a long time, I thought it was insecurity and self-protection—my conditioning from abuse and bullying telling me that no one would truly love me, and that it wasn’t safe to be part of the group. To some extent, it was.
But I know now that I was also trapped by the invisible fence of a limiting belief—that it’s wrong to live far from my family. Both of my siblings still live not just in my home state but in my parents’ home, mere minutes from extended family. And I’ve always felt like the black sheep while desperately wanting to be part of the flock.
So I’ve lived in many places like a traveler, not a resident, to avoid digging my heels in too deep to ever go home, or to visit home whenever I wanted.
That’s all changing now that I have kids because I want them to feel at home. To make real friends. To have commitments and routines. So I’m putting down roots, a second set, and working through the fear that this might mean losing my family.
I have more responsibility and ties than I’ve ever had as an adult, and I always assumed this would mean clipping my wings, yet I feel free. Because the thing I’ve feared the most is also the thing I want the most. And I’m finally overcoming the biggest barriers to experiencing it—the limitations of my own mind.
It’s hard to get past our own internal blocks because they’re often hidden. They’re the stories we’ve told ourselves over and over for years, the lies we tell ourselves so regularly they feel like truth.
But they’re not truth. They’re misinterpretations of past events that have hardened into worldviews. They’re assumptions based on (often painful) experiences that we’ve backed up with so much ‘evidence’ they now seem like facts.
They’re essentially circus mirror glasses, distorting what we see and limiting our options—unless we decide to start the work of taking them off.
It starts with asking ourselves some questions to discover how and why we’re holding ourselves back, including:
What’s the story I’m telling myself about why I can’t do what I want to do? What do I gain from holding onto this narrative? And what might I gain if I let it go?
Which beliefs have I inherited or absorbed from others? Why don’t these beliefs serve my highest good? And what would I do differently if I considered that they’re not actually true?
How might my inner critic be lying to me, attempting to keep me safe? How is this ‘safety’ actually a prison? And what’s the truth that would set me free?
It’s taken me over two decades to get past my internal block to settling in, and only in recent years did I even recognize it was there.
This makes sense, given that I also spent decades cementing the paralyzing beliefs that family should be close but distance = safety.
That’s often the case for a lot of us: Our beliefs were engrained over many years, which means it can take time to unearth and challenge them—and even longer to find the courage to consistently act in spite of them so that we can slowly build up evidence that it’s safe and beneficial to do so.
But it all starts with internal inquiry. It starts with looking within. It starts in silence and stillness and a willingness to question what we think we know.
If you do this, perhaps, like me, you’ll find that sometimes the most important piece of knowledge is the one you’re willing to let go.
If you’re interested in taking the mindful writing challenge I mentioned at the beginning (from Tiny Buddha contributor Nadia Colburn, who’s one of this month’s site sponsors), you can access it for free here.
Each day for five days, you’ll receive a fifteen-minute recording including a short meditation, an evocative poem, and a writing exercise inspired by that piece.
I hope you find the practice as illuminating and empowering as I did!
Your peace garden 