Since my Vipassana trip, I have this surge of inspiration, creativity and feeling of rejuvenation. I feel like I have awoken – catching on to my reactions in life and found a deep place of forgiveness and compassion.

Lately, these signs have been coming to me:
- a successful businessman told me during dinner after finding out my age to “travel”
- many of my fellow Vipassana mates were travelers and vagabonders
- recently met a fellow creative guy who started a movement of young people, Forward Motion, scratching off items on their bucket list

What do you think the universe is telling me?

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So randomly, last night, I accepted my friend, Victoria’s invitation to an open gym for some tumbling. She said…”We’ll be doing some tumbling in foam.” Well, sounds interesting.

Turns out that we would be learning how to backflip and know what it feels like to be a gymnast for a day. You can see for yourself how much fun we had:

Her friend who drove us, Ryan, started Forward Motion, a group of young people out to scratch off items off their bucket list together. He asked me what was on my bucket list. It was the first time I thought about my bucket list in a while because I was training my myself to be grounded and staying in one spot (San Diego and grad school). Few of the items on my bucket list are:
- Travel to Iceland
- Ride a camel
- Learn portugese
- Travel the world giving hugs

This really got me thinking about these signs and to not ignore this fire inside me to get out there and experience the world again. I’m telling yah….great adventures are about to come.

Have you have an ‘awaken’ experience? What was it and what did you do with it? I’d love to hear!

Can you imagine being so focused and meditative that you could allow a major itch on your body just away without scratching it?

I just got back from an incredible journey of 10 days of silent meditation- Vipassana course – in Joshua Tree, CA. It was the longest 10 days of my life -intense, challenging, emotional, painful, peaceful….life-changing. What is Vipassana? It is the original teaching and gift of Buddha to see and feel things the way they are- help eradicate misery and develop more love and compassion. It’s for any one, from any religion, from any background.

This 10 day meditation camp/course consists of:
- Waking up at 4am and meditate throughout the day til 9pm (of course, with breaks and meals in between)
- Working in solitude though you’re surrounded by others
- No talking, no cell phone, no internet, no music, no writing- NO DISTRACTIONS besides your own mind
- You are served fresh, delicious vegetarian meals every day
- You live in a modest environment
- It is a donation based course (you can offer to donate for the next students and/or volunteer)

The concept is that misery is a part of life. But when we react to our emotions, it brings more misery to us and those around us. Simply put: When an event happens, our mind interprets it and emotions come up and surface as sensations in our body. If we are able to notice these sensations as they arise and just observe them, not letting them manifest into a verbal or physical response, then we can hold equanimity = peace.

And what better way to believe in something, than to actually experience it in our own body as the ultimate truth, rather than what we were taught is in a book, a teaching or because someone said so.

What led me here?
Beginning of this summer, I had a conversation with my soul sister, Vaishaili, about wanting to slow down in life and taking this summer to focus on my spiritual path- to be more conscious of my actions before and after. She said to me, “I know the perfect thing for you and it won’t cost you any money.” Who knew that what she was about to suggest to me would send me on a deep diving journey and would become a life-changer for me.

What I gained for Vipassana?
- There’s a lot things I can go without or less of (meat, luxuries, dinner, beauty products)
- How I am responsible for my own life, misery, refuge and not to seek that in others to save me
- How my childhood has impacted my behaviors as an adult, but it doesn’t have to be the master of me
- How having compassion for my exs gave me even more peace
- How important motherhood is to me. I had a lot of images of me being a mother
- How technology, email and modern life is such a distraction
- How without those distractions, I had the biggest surge of pure creativity
- My roomie, now wonderful new friend, Jacqueline, and I are planning to serve & volunteer somewhere in the world

My favorite parts of this journey:
- At 7am, after meditating and a great breakfast, I would take a stroll in the wonderful cool desert.
- Before the evening meditation, getting to see the sun set in the desert. So many brilliant colors in the sky.
- The awesome fresh, healthy vegetarian meals that were served. The healthiest meals of my life.
- Image of future me meditating, wrapping my arms around my belly. I was 8 months pregnant and my baby was smiling contently in the womb.

Best Practical tips for First Timers (esp for the ladies going to Joshua Tree):
- When you’re doing the group meditation for an hour and your body is getting tense (your stomach is growling or your digestive system is making noises)…Don’t fight it. Let your body work itself out and make it’s sounds. Everyone’s stomach is going off. It’s a freakin’ orchestra in the meditation room.

- If you have to share a bathroom with others, don’t be embarrassed about poo-ing. It’s natural. Just be courteous and get this

- Bring sunscreen (esp if you’re at Joshua Tree)

- Bring shampoo and conditioner. This may seem like a no-brainer, but I wanted to be minimal and use my organic face wash for my body and hair too (just like Dr.Brommers soap). Wrong. It dried out my hair, made it oily and I’m sure half of my hair fell out.

- No shoes required- all you need is a pair of flip flops. Be comfortable. You’ll be taking your shoes off all the time anyways.

- Don’t bring make-up. Waking up at 4am, you’ll be miserable enough not to care. No one else does. Plus men and women are separated, so there’s no need to impress

- Bring light colored comfortable clothes. No one cares that you wear your pajama pants to group meditation. In fact, I loved it because it was soo comfortable.

- Though there are gong bells to let you know when meditation starts, you should bring your own alarm clock or borrow from the center.

- On the Day 4 is when you really start Vipassana – meditation where you can’t move at all. Also, the schedule of the day changes a little bit for this day.

- SURRENDER. Don’t fight any sensations or thoughts. Just let go and surrender yourself to the process. You’ll gain a lot from it.

I met some great and interesting fellow speakers such as Chas from HookChasUp, Robinne from Match.com did a bombass presentation on mobile apps and meeting great people!

Here’s an overview of the happenings at the conference and trends in the internet dating space.

PS- I’m always up for fun speaking opportunities *wink wink*

This is one of the rare photos of my family, taken in 1987. (I’m on the left side, my sister, mom & baby brother).

As I sat down in my boyfriend’s grandma chair with an old shoe box and four photo albums in front of me, I was eager. Eager to look through the mixture of black and white photos from the 1940′s, particularly because I was about to unveil French culture spanning across four generations. What I found interesting was that the hairstyles and fashion back in these days of France, were pretty similar to American during those eras. I wondered if there were fads that stretched across the globe.

After seeing all the embarrassing naked baby photos of my boyfriend and his siblings, I kept wondering what it would be like for my kids to look at my photos as a teen. Then I realized that after 2004, all my photos became digital…all posted and shared on MySpace and Facebook.  Most of my recent photos don’t exist anywhere else, besides my hard drive. So how are my children going to see my photos if they’re floating about in cyberspace?  Is Facebook still going to be around in 2025? I realized how precious it is to hold photo prints in your hand. To feel the paper material the photos were printed on. To read the notes written in the back of these imprinted memories.

And because of this, I have decided that at the end of each year, I would print out 100 photos and organize them chronologically in a photo album and label it by year. This way, I have photos of that year’s highlights and I would never lose my memories. My 100 photo prints summing up 2010, came in the mail today from Snapfish, which made me extremely happy. After organizing the photos, I flipped through each page, I reminisced and smiled a lot. Of my loved ones. Of my life. Printed photos are forever and they reminded how lucky I am.

Do you still print out photos? Put together photo albums? Or scrapbooking? How do you preserve your memories?

As I took my first few steps onto the land of Paris, I thought…this reminds me of San Francisco or New York.
Busy. Dirty. Crowded. Smelly….like a city.

Then around the corner, the boyfriend and I discovered all the magistical buildings that have been around for hundreds of years…we discovered the beauty of Paris. The life of Paris is past all the crowded alleys of touris-y restaurants and bars, but in the delicate stone carvings in each corner of Notre Dame.

The beauty was in each blue/green paint stroke of the Vincent Van Gogh paintings we admired at Musee D’Orsay.
We stood in awe at the view in Montemarde, overlooking Paris, along with hundreds of other visitors, who had the same idea that day.
The smell of fresh seafood, purposely poised and organized in the corner street markets.

Foodwise, I had the BEST chocolate croissant at a side street bakery. LIFE IS GOOD.

Feels like we’ve walked all over Paris and have seen a lot..that’s what my calves are telling me. But I’m sure I’ve only seen 5% of what Paris has to offer. And finally, for the lovely New Years countdown, we joined the thousands of people at Champs Ellyses. It was beautiful.

Then walked over to the Eiffel Tower, where it was such a gorgeous site, as it sparkled with light throughout the night.

It was a very memorable entrance into 2011, as I kissed the love in my life and we saw the future in each other’s eyes. Wishing you a fantastic 2011 filled with so much love and for your heart to expand to take it all in.

How did you celebrate New Years?

I’m in Colmar, France, a cute town/city with lots of history. You can tell by the homes in the center village, the German influence. With the heavy snow and Christmas themed markets, it definitely brought in the holiday mood. This marks the end of my first week in France so far, munching my way through the days. Waking up early to flaky moist croissants and the freshest bread.

When I was talking about munching and eating, I wasn’t kidding. Here, I’m eating a light breakfast (comprised of going to the patisserie every morning for fresh bread & croissants). Then a light lunch and 3 course dinner (appetizer, main meal, fromage (cheese) then dessert!) It’s heaven. I could do this everyday of my life. Though, I’m not sure how good it is for my health to be consuming so much buttery food. I have tried all these traditional Alsacon (this french region) food:
- foie gras
- castrated rooster
- oven baked deer
- choucroute (a plate of different pork cuts- ham, pork leg, sauerkraut, sausages, and more)
- seafood feast (oysters, crabs, shrimps)

(this is me sewing up my first chicken butthole…actually, it was a stuffed castrated rooster to be exact. GOOD TIMES)

PS- the fish here is extremely expensive! It blows my mind that some fish is sold at 59 euros per kilograms!!

For Christmas, I spent it in the woods of Orbey, at the bf’s grandma’s place, where we had a feast everyday.
- We built a robo-snowman.
- Did a moonlight hike (wish I brought my camera because it was beautiful)
- Went sledding (which gave the bf many laughs, because I kept sledding into the sides of the roads. No wonder why I’m horrible at car racing – video games).

Everything here seems to be smaller/petite.

The cars are more compact compared to cars in the U.S.
Smaller and lighter portions of dinner.
Packaging is minimal. Sometimes, french people carry the bare bread in their hands.
Plastic bags are barely given out. Everyone carries their own grocery bags.
Even the glasses for water/juice are smaller.

This makes me think of the excessive-ness we consume in America. Our big portions of food. Our huge SUVs and trucks, consuming and burning so much oil. This made me re-evaluate my own consumption and think about what is needed and the rest of surplus- in regards of the ‘extra stuff’ in life and focusing on my spirituality as well.

We’re heading to Paris today and will be spending the next 3 days celebrating the New Years there!

I’ve always been super intrigued by the romantic, sometimes not-so-romantic, story of how parents fell in love. I guess it’s the different times they were in, the different courting style or even the difference in dating from varying cultures.

So I’d love to start a collection of love stories of your parents! For this week’s fun activity, ask your parents (and grandparents too!), HOW DID YOU MEET? HOW DID YOU FALL IN LOVE? Sometimes, it just takes one question to reconnect with your family and open up communication, to show that you care. I know I learned a WHOLE lot about my family, by asking my mom these types of questions. You’ll be surprised of what you learn about yours!

Please share your story below as a comment with this format. Include as much details as possible! I can’t wait to read all of them!!

*First Name of Parents
*Year they met
*Their Love Story:

Here’s my parent’s story:
* Hoa & Trang
* Met in 1978
* My mom immigrated to the U.S. in her early twenties, escaping the Communism and war-torn country of Vietnam. She was living in Utah with her older brother and his family, in a friendly community but besides them, there was not many Vietnamese people living there. But one day, my uncle became friends with a young, handsome, charming man named Hoa. After meeting my mom, my soon-to-be dad, Hoa, knew instantly that he wanted to marry her. He courted my mom with his perfect smile, social personality and his singing. Shortly after, they got married and moved to Florida.

In my part of the world, it’s raining and the winds are gusting. In just 36 hours, I’ll be flying to the another part of the world, where it will be even colder- a snowy winter wonderland. Where? FRANCE. I’m excited to spend Christmas and New Years with my wonderful boyfriend and his family in France.

I am wishing you a wonderful holiday filled with warmth, laughter and most of all…love, in its purest form. But before I take off to Europe, I want to mail a mystery christmas gift to ONE lucky v’star some where in the world. To enter, please answer the question below as a comment. I will pick one winner and you’ll receive an email, asking for your mailing address!

What does it mean to “love yourself”? How do you love yourself?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I’ll be sending you updates from France!

PS- for those 100 v’stars who were chosen to receive a holiday card from me, it’ll pop up surprisingly in your mail in January.

I’m curious of which song symbolizes where you are with love right now?

Moved by the love and passion they had for each other, I just had to share this.
An example of how pure love is: simple, emotional and pure.

BTW, the photos and videos we took were featured! Click here to see!