doing hard things (gently)

I moved to tokyo, a year ago

One year ago yesterday, I moved into my first Tokyo apartment in a quiet suburb in the Setagaya area.

🌸🌸🌸 (This is a side note, but I’ve been travelling to Japan and writing about it endlessly since I was 19 (I’m 35 now) and it’s truly insane to me that I actually live here. If only she knew what was coming (she could never, ever have guessed in a million years, this is so beyond what she thought was possible for herself and this is what I’m talking about).

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It was still cold this time last year. The sakura were only just beginning to bloom. It feels poetic and nostalgic, already, the cherry blossom season marking the beginning of my life here in Japan. Back then, I was falling in love. With the scent of the spring air, with the flowers, the return of the sparrows song, with buying vegetables at the grocery store. I couldn’t believe it was real. I couldn’t believe I was allowed to have this. I felt, for the first time in forever, exactly where I was supposed to be.

It scared the shit out of me.

I was in love, but at times I was extremely anxious. I was deeply afraid. I was only just keeping my head above water, fighting against the tide of setting up a life, and a business here on my own. I knew it was going to be hard. I could not have predicted how hard, and in what way. The past year has felt like an eternity and a heartbeat. The past year has been my wildest dream come true and an arrow pointed directly at my most tender spots, wounds and fears.

It has been the most beautiful year I have ever lived.

While I like the idea of choosing to manifest a life abundant with ease, I don’t know if I believe it to be true. Yes, I think that many of us can be addicted to struggle, addicted to the drama, addicted to our bad habits and patterns, knowing we have the power to change but simultaneously revelling in the choice not to.

I agree, it’s important to catch ourselves here, to choose something different.

We can ask ourselves, regularly:

Am I making this harder than it needs to be?

Am I so accustomed to difficulty, the absence of it makes me feel as if I’m about to lose everything?

Are there any choices I am making, to continually find myself in this place?

And yet.

I also believe that sometimes, whether it’s building a new life for yourself, starting a business, choosing a different type of relationship, working on a project or cause you’re passionate about — things can be really, really (really) hard, even when they’re good. This is the nature of beauty, after all.

Perhaps some spiritual or manifestation advice would have you believe that if it isn’t coming with ease, it isn’t meant for you. Even worse, that it’s your fault somehow. I personally feel this advice is dangerous. It is one thing to fight, exhausted, against a current your entire life and believe you deserve nothing more than to feel like shit all the time (of course, this isn’t it) and it is another thing completely, to walk slowly, and mindfully into what shakes you to your core. Toward what you want more than anything in the world.

I’m not sure there is a reality in which this doesn’t feel hard, at least from time to time.

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So just a reminder, if things are hard right now:

It doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.

It means you have to be extra careful to care for yourself in the middle of it all.

Even (and especially) when you don’t have time.

Even (and especially) when you feel like you don’t deserve it.

Learn how to hold your own hand. To speak to yourself firmly, and gently. To celebrate even the tiniest milestone. Learn how to ask for help and how to receive it. Learn how to Rest first, and then, to take the next step.

I shudder to think what my life would look like if I only ever did what felt familiar and easy. There is no pursuit more important, for me right now, and forever, than making space for beauty, sweetness, ease and romance in the middle of it all.

I wish you the same, always.

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(Here’s some sweet jazz music, make yourself a cup of something warm, grab something to read and press play).

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Have a beautiful weekend 🤍

With love,

Emmie xo