51 Signs

To look back, all my life I had been searching for "signs" to follow because I was terrible at making decisions. (I was such a fatalist.) Now I know that signs are only spin-off manifestation of our intention or belief. 

Since I had totally relied on "signs", I made my reality ruled by them all these years. Gosh, how much misguided my life had been! I mean, what I learned from Divine Openings was that signs are not wrong, but not ALL. It is very tricky because what you see in your world is created by what you want to believe, thus we tend to believe that signs are proofs of something.

For example, Lola describes in a funny way, something similar to these:
If you bumped into someone attractive twice a day in the strangest places doesn't mean he/she is "the one", or if you keep seeing the same number sequentially in a day and someone attractive (again) showed up in a car with the number plate which had the exact same number wouldn't mean he/she should marry you. Ha ha, sounds somewhat familiar? Or only me?

What we got to do is intending rather than being passive and looking for signs! Of course, before making intentions, we have to listen to what our heart is telling us first. This might be the hardest part because "intelligent" and "wise" thinking could interfere with our true desires.

But I have to confess that I wanted to believe in the white mark appeared on my pointing finger, which is supposed to mean "luck with travel" when deciding to sign up for 5 Day Silent Retreat

50 Signed up for 5 Day Silent Retreat

I finally made up my mind to sign up for 5 Day Silent Retreat in Ojai, CA, January 2013.

Who would've thought that I could afford to travel to US (and to take a course) only after 6 months I last visited?
And to take 5 days off straight from my new work right after the long winter break, and leaving 9-year old daughter behind?
It was crazy enough because the move cost me a lot already, and soon-to-settle divorce would cost me a fortune.
(Actually who would've thought that the stranded divorce case would be moving and settling without trouble?)

After all it's all my mind that believed it must be "impossible" and "selfish".

Again, all it took was to ASK. Hello, didn't that sound familiar? 

It was that simple! 
My boss at work said, "no problem!" to my leave without questioning.  (Conveniently, I was allowed to take paid vacation starting from January.)
And my Mom and a family friend readily agreed to take care of my daughter during my absence. Most of all my daughter said it's OK for me to go alone!

So all these favorable conditions paved the way for my healing trip to California physically.

My next concern was the cost, so I asked my large self, God, the universe for help. 

Believe it or not, one luck after another, the whole trip cost became almost half by good fortune. 

I found the best price air-ticket to begin with, and sold things out of my closet for unexpectedly high price. Fortunately, the currency and the gold (some gold jewelry in my closet turned out to be valuable!) was at the most favorable rate for me.

Moreover, I was so lucky to get 2 illustration jobs from L.A., which I could turn in myself timely. So grateful!!

Of course balance is important, but we should not get sidetracked by money too much, when  pursuing the real valuable things in life.

Like Lola says, it's all "story". It only takes "intention" to make anything happen.

49 New Home

Meanwhile, we moved to a new apartment, which finally feels like home!

The old place we moved out from was a parents' house of our family friend, vacant, yet crammed up with a few sets of furnitures and household goods from their recently deceased relatives.  

When we heard about this property from this friend, who wasn't willing to live there, Mom and I suggested that he should clean up the place to rent out. That's when I came up with a crazy yet brilliant idea. "Wait. What about us?"

We had to move to a bigger place sooner or later anyway, so why not? The place was fully furnished, close to school (just in time for my daughter to enter elementary school) , no security deposit needed, and a real bargain! All it took was weeks of breaking things in pieces, throwing them away, and cleaning up. 

I must have been lucky, but the truth was I didn't feel "happy" deep down. FrugaIity was somewhat fun for the 1st year when I started out new, but  it was wearing out and turning into fear that we might stay this way forever or worse.

Thus I invited "poor" situations more and more, until I finally decided to "be happy" again, which was the beginning of the whole journey in 2012.

On the contrary, the new apartment is of course more expensive, but my consciousness has become "richer", thus invited such situations. Not only the better-paying job, but also cost-saving situations naturally.

Also I threw away a lot of stuff...art books, drawings, references, paintings, documents, albums, letters, clothes.... I cannot believe most of them made a round-trip from Tokyo to L.A., and some more local moves. I got sick of "lots of stuff"!
It feels good to get rid of things, which is really "attachments". It's actually one of the things to do along with detox, as recommended by Dr. Schulze. 

48 Tiny Thyroid Cancer

It took me 4 months in total for the whole process, and I finally found out what was wrong with my thyroid by biopsy.  (Nothing compared to the one for breast cancer, thank God.)

To make a long story short, a small cancer was found on the left side of my thyroid, however it was only 7mm in diameter and not close to any important organ, thus the doctor decided to take a wait-and-see approach. 

Hooray! It was no big deal after all, although it was identified as "cancer". 

"Thyroid cancer is pretty slow-growing, and often found accidentally by PET/CT. In some cases there's no disabling symptoms or no harm when it is as big as 5cm in diameter, so people don't realize them until then, and it's not too late to decide what to do at that point," he explained to me lightheartedly.

The more I visited the hospital the more relaxed I became, and among so many doctors (I saw different one every time) I must have attracted the most relaxed one to diagnose my case on that day. I liked his vibration and the way he described to me. I naturally reacted very cheerfully to the diagnosis.

"Wow, thank you for telling me. It was such a relief to know the cancer was too tiny to worry about for now!" 

As I mentioned before, I am pretty sure that the cancer had gotten shrunk by my "happier" vibration. I didn't feel choked around my throat any longer, and I was communicating with people much smoother, which is a good sign since thyroid is related to communication chakra. This little cancer may be gone by the next check-up which is 6 months from now!