May was a precious month.

01 Growth

The flowers are in full bloom.

Earlier this month, I bought a pot of petunias. At first, they looked like this:

Then, under the bright sunshine, they exploded into growth and color:

Do you remember the tiny sprout of the calla lily after its winter dormancy?

Now it has grown this much:

May brought dramatic shifts in temperature. We seemed to move straight from winter into summer, with some days climbing above 30°C (86°F). L even started talking about buying an air conditioner.

Recently, though, the weather has cooled down again.

02 External Forces

Because I had been somewhat scattered in April, I intentionally structured May to be fuller and more focused.

I chose to let external forces help restore my rhythm and productivity. As a result, I had joined three different communities (one of them lasted only a week).

In a Tao Te Ching Career Transition Support Camp, Xiaoyin designed a series of thoughtful and unexpected writing prompts that sparked my desire to express myself. Small points of stimulation ended up creating changes far beyond the original exercises.

There were also beautiful moments of resonance:

One program included calligraphy practice. I didn’t even know that was part of it when I joined. It felt surprisingly meaningful, as though I were reconnecting with my elementary-school self.

While writing, we observed our breathing, thoughts, habits, and inner patterns with unusual subtlety. Even more interesting was the realization that there are people willing to spend time on something as simple as handwriting in order to understand themselves more deeply. And we truly do discover things.

I also joined the WeGlow Awareness Journaling Program. There, Mandy saw through some of the issues in my current state with remarkable clarity, especially the inner critic beneath them, and the places where self-love and self-acceptance were still lacking.

I was genuinely surprised. I thought I had already done this work. I had been approaching these topics from the perspective of someone who had already gone through them, only to find myself suddenly stripped of that certainty.

My ego experienced a noticeable tremor. This wasn’t the first time. In fact, moments like these often become the doorway to my next stage of growth.

Afterward, I could feel a clear shift in my inner state: the old patterns and the eager inner critic quietly retreated, while a steadier and more grounded strength began to emerge.

03 Community as a Place of Practice

This month made something very clear to me:

Community is my place of practice.

Within my own field and familiar circles, I am naturally calm and at ease.

But in the WeGlow community, I unconsciously stepped into the role of a student — a role my old self knows extremely well. The instinct to become a “good student” immediately awakened. With that role came expectations, responsibilities, and standards. Old patterns resurfaced.

I reflected honestly on judgment in my article A Letter to My Inner Critic.

But the roots of self-judgment often run deeper than we imagine. I increasingly feel that these patterns are woven into the philosophies of our parents and the people around us. From early childhood, they become embedded in the deepest layers of our perception.

Removing them completely is difficult. But when the voice of self-criticism appears, when comparison begins to arise, I try to smile and respond:

“Oh, really? Thanks. Bye.”

And then, once again, return my attention to the present version of myself.

I am good. You are good. May we simply appreciate ourselves, become ourselves, and fully be ourselves.

04 The Answer Is Within

This month, I chose participation. I chose to complete assignments and engage with the programs I joined. It was a kind of voluntary passivity, allowing external structures to guide and discipline me. External forces are often necessary. They can help awaken our inner strength.

But they should never become the center. The center must remain firmly anchored within ourselves.

That was one of my biggest lessons this month.

Let myself remain the primary reference point, and choose consciously. Keep what serves me. Release what doesn’t. The practices that leave me feeling calmer, more grounded, more present, and more at ease — I should do more of those. The things that don’t resonate? Let them go.

Pay more attention to my own feelings than to everyone else’s. Sometimes caring for others comes from love and responsibility. But in group settings, it’s important not to unconsciously take on roles that don’t belong to us, or fall into the trap of seeking approval and validation.

Otherwise, we lose what The Courage to Be Disliked calls freedom.

There is no need for extra burdens. No need for unnecessary mental noise.

Strength grows from within, and it does not come from anywhere outside of ourselves.

05 Pride

This month, I clearly saw my pride.

And increasingly, I believe that my true self exists somewhere within it.

I still remember the child I once was: outgoing, energetic, fearless, and full of confidence. Whenever I meet people who are lively, direct, and expressive, I often catch glimpses of who I used to be. But over the years, through moral expectations, social evaluation, and environmental conditioning, much of that healthy life force was gradually suppressed.

I’m wondering whether I can bring it back.

I’ve started to distinguish between two kinds of pride.

The first is pride rooted in comparison. It carries judgment. It reflects my own projections and insecurities. That kind of pride is worth releasing.

The second is pride connected to the true self. That kind deserves to shine. It is simply life expanding according to its nature.

Two years ago, I once wrote: “I’ve been given the role of the great villain.” Now it feels as though I’ve finally thrown that role away.

Even writing this moves me deeply. I think it deserves an article of its own.

06 Expression

I still didn’t post much on social media this month. Most of what I shared were my own articles.

Sometimes it was simply a matter of timing. By the time I thought about posting, it already felt too late in Beijing Time.

This month, across my two WeChat public channels, I published seven pieces in total — five articles and two photo essays. I actually counted them just now and surprised myself. It’s the most productive I’ve ever been. And I love this pace.

Among the articles:

1. Naming Is Dimensional Reduction
2. Other Ways of Looking at “Naming Is Dimensional Reduction”
3. Those “Terrible” Parents: On Intergenerational Relationships
4. Two Dimensions of Self-Love
5. The First Generation of Fully Educated Women Has Only Just Grown Up

I also published five posts on Xiaohongshu (Rednote).

My English practice continues.

The biggest thing I neglected this month was organizing photos and videos.

07 Travel

We visited Antwerp and officially unlocked Belgium. 🔓

To be honest, it didn’t really feel like I had entered a different country. In many ways it felt quite similar to the Netherlands — the same supermarket chains, the same rhythms of daily life.

Once I’ve sorted through the photos and videos, I’ll share more.

It’s a lovely city, and definitely worth visiting again.

08 Life

May included two public holidays. L had two stretches of four or five consecutive days off, without affecting his regular weekends. This kind of schedule would probably be a dream for many overworked office workers back in China.

Things have become busier recently, though.

We barely exercised during the second half of the month. L, on the other hand, has already lost six kilograms, which is fantastic.

We also rearranged some furniture and made the apartment feel much more spacious.

We bought a new refrigerator. And then something unexpectedly wonderful happened:

The delivery team agreed to take away our broken washing machine. This was genuinely exciting. Getting rid of large household items in the Netherlands can be surprisingly difficult. Usually you either pay for municipal pickup or transport them yourself to a recycling center outside the city. Either option can easily cost €80 or more.

The washing machine had been occupying that corner of the apartment for ages. So I’m grateful I kept negotiating with customer service, and grateful to the two delivery workers who were willing to help. Everything worked out perfectly.

Oh, and this was my birthday month. In the lunar calendar, my birthday falls during the beautiful season often called “April in the Human World.”

We had a lovely breakfast at a café in the city center.

After picking up my birthday cake, we were stopped by a photographer on the street for an impromptu photoshoot (we had actually dressed up a little that day). Later, I joined an online community gathering that turned out to be deeply meaningful, and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me.

It was a beautiful day.

(The cake I designed myself — the idea was L’s)

Not every day is clear, conscious, or creative.

Most of the time, we’re occupied by other things.

We’re busy with work.

We reward ourselves after work.

We scroll through our phones.

We watch short videos.

We live by habit.

We live in distraction.

We live with less awareness than we realize.

Rarely do we truly stop, return to the present moment, care for ourselves, and enter into a deeper conversation with our own inner world.

Rarely do we enter the space where awareness becomes creation.

That is why May feels so precious.

And so does this very moment.

Written on June 2–3.

©ChristianaYu, All rights reserved

Below is a passage from Bodo Schäfer’s "The Road to Financial Freedom":

“Many people are willing to help those who are poorer than themselves. But before doing so, they first want to become wealthy. The first person they want to help is themselves. But this doesn’t work. Without sowing, there can be no harvest.

Once, there was a stingy farmer who bought a new piece of land. Before making further investments, he wanted to be sure that his investment would yield returns.

So he sat at the edge of the field, observing it. He said to himself: ‘If this land can bring me a good harvest in autumn, then I will buy some seeds to sow next year. But first, the land must prove that it is worth my investment.’ Naturally, the farmer ended up deeply disappointed.

In agriculture, there is a well-known principle: you must sow first, and only then can you reap. This understanding—sowing before harvesting—enabled humanity to transition from hunting to settled life.”

When I first read this passage, thoughts poured out like a spring. I couldn’t even bring myself to nap during lunch break; I wrote several long paragraphs in one go. I’ve been wanting to share them ever since.

(Some expressions may not be entirely accurate; I won’t revise them for now. There are some faith-related elements, but they do not hinder understanding.)

❤️ Reflections

It’s fascinating—“those who believe are saved / gain wealth / receive love”—this follows the same logic as “justification by faith.” Gradually, I’ve come to realize that faith (or “belief”) is everywhere in life. In fact, we live by faith.

For example, when a healthy you lies down tonight, do you know that you will wake up alive tomorrow? Not necessarily. It’s only based on past experience and knowledge that you assume it’s highly probable—perhaps 99.999999%. That makes it easier for you to have faith. Most activities in life work the same way, including your job.

But what about things you find hard to believe? Faith becomes difficult. For instance: Will you pass an exam? Will an illness improve? Will tithing truly bring blessings as God promises? These things don’t happen daily, aren’t experienced by everyone, and aren’t reproducible like scientific experiments—so they’re harder to verify. The more something has been validated by experience and knowledge—the higher its probability—the easier it is for people to have faith.

But perhaps it shouldn’t be this way.

At its core, everything is impermanent and unknown. We actually have no control over the future. Only God holds certainty.

The earlier examples are extremes; let’s consider something in between. For instance, a person believes they have a certain talent. A friend of mine firmly believe in his comprehension ability—he believes his reading and sharing will always be of high quality. As for me, I deeply believe in my talent for reading aloud (recitation, it’s an art form in China) and drawing—almost blindly so. Because of this faith, I keep doing these things boldly, and I’ve indeed achieved results.

But do I really have such talent? It’s intangible, invisible. If I entered a recitation competition, I might not perform well. So is this faith groundless, even absurd? And yet, it is precisely this faith that might enable great accomplishments.

Conversely, if I don’t believe I have the ability to adapt quickly, or that I can manage finances well—then I truly won’t do well in those areas.

So our lives unfold according to what we believe.What you believe is what you experience.

Therefore, one should always pray for God to open oneself—open, and open further—so that blessings, gifts, grace, and abilities may flow freely. Do not assume you already know. Do not assume you can control or predict. Do not grip tightly, limit, or block the flow. Simply ask for more faith.

**

❤️ Further Reflection

It is precisely because “this land cannot prove right now that it is worth investing in” that faith is needed. Why can’t it prove that there will be a harvest in autumn? Because that lies in "the future".

Because "the future" cannot be brought into the present for you to see, faith is required.

Why can’t we see the future? Because we live within a one-way timeline: past, present, future—yesterday, today, tomorrow—cause and effect. It cannot be reversed.

Only God exists outside this timeline; He directly “sees” our future.

But our reality exists "within TIME". This was established from the beginning—it is a law, just like “the wages of sin is death.” That is why God tells us: you must believe.

This also answers, from one perspective, the question: Why must I believe in order to receive this gift? Why not just give it to me directly? Why must I reach out to accept it?

Because if we do not believe nor accept, we will not live according to faith. Our life would be one without faith—or with only the most basic form of it. If a person has a little faith, they experience a little of the life within faith. To experience a “wonderful and abundant” life, faith is indispensable.

And if even such a life requires faith, what about eternal life? Isn’t that even harder to prove? Harder to show you? Without faith, how could one obtain it? (Proving an autumn harvest is far easier—based on knowledge and experience, its probability is high, and people can more easily generate faith.) Tell me: if someone has entered eternity—having died in the flesh—how could they return to prove it to you? How could they tell you what comes after? How could they say, “I’ve experienced it; it’s truly like this”?

Well—there actually is such a one. Jesus!

How marvelous.

And so God asks us, because of Jesus, to have faith—**the greatest kind, the kind least grounded in worldly experience.

**

❤️ Reflection Again

Faith and anxiety coexist—but they are negatively correlated.

If you believe there’s a 99.99999% chance you’ll wake up tomorrow, you won’t worry at all tonight—you’ll sleep peacefully. (Though someone with sudden illness or recent poor health might feel differently.)

If your child has always been healthy, you won’t worry every day—you believe they will grow well.

But if you lack faith in something, anxiety arises. For example: Will you pass an upcoming exam? Will tomorrow’s presentation to your boss go smoothly?

Yet fundamentally, these situations are no different—they only differ in probability. **None of them is 100% certain. We are all living by faith.

So: more faith, less anxiety.

Then reverse the logic—start by having more faith.

—But on what basis? Should we believe without reason?

Yes. It need not be based on prior knowledge or experience.

In daily life, stronger faith often comes from past experiences—ours or others’—from things that have already happened: “This is something I do every day; today will definitely be fine.” But this foundation doesn’t truly hold, because we have no real control over the future. No need for examples—we don’t even know what will happen next.

Yet the human brain resists this lack of control. Its mechanism is to learn, summarize, predict, and judge—to gain a more accurate sense of control. This thinking mind is the “small self,” the “old self.” What we need is to transcend it and unite with a greater consciousness.

Thus, faith itself can be “without reason.”* It does not belong to worldly logic.***

As humans, when we desire a certain outcome, we inevitably worry. A fully spiritual life is extremely difficult for us; the brain still leans toward prediction, even though its predictive power is limited.

It may take many rounds of practice to become truly courageous—**to believe without a trace of doubt.

💙

The above were only some thoughts at the time (March 10, 2022). Now, after reading more material and gaining new understandings about faith, love, limiting beliefs, and the laws by which the universe operates, these ideas have come to feel quite basic. Some of the expressions may not be entirely accurate.

We do not, in fact, have no control over the future—because, as mentioned above, things unfold according to our faith. Therefore, “none of us can accurately predict the future, yet all of us see our dreams come true” (from the book). You might say: I haven’t seen my dreams come true. But that is because you did not truly believe; instead, you chose what you wanted—perhaps the easier path, or perhaps, for various reasons, the desire to maintain the status quo. Faith may not be easy for a very long time.

Faith is even a principle of “creation,” because we, in a sense, share in God’s creative power. And based on God’s boundless love—since God is love itself—He fulfills us according to our faith. “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” So you begin to understand how important it is to transform one’s thinking, to remove limiting beliefs, to remain joyful and free from anxiety, and why vision matters—why it is important to sense one’s life mission, purpose, calling, or whatever one chooses to call it. Within that faint and intangible sense of faith and blueprint lies your remarkable creative potential.

How to obtain faith, and what comes after believing, is a later topic—we will return to it another time.

• “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”— Matthew 21:22

• “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”— Mark 11:23–24

• “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”— Hebrews 11:1

💙 One final point.

You may have noticed that the rather “extraordinary” thoughts above originated from a book about becoming wealthy**. This is not surprising, because money itself is a form of flowing energy; it is not an exaggeration to say it is a somewhat “transcendent” existence. It is also closely connected to many fundamental questions in life—vision, self-exploration, personal development, and so on. The book also speaks of gratitude, giving, and miracles. The author understands—understands the invisible laws of how things operate.

When reading the earlier parts of the book, one might momentarily think: "Wait, what am I reading? Isn’t this The Courage to Be Disliked? Isn’t the book…?" One cannot help but marvel at how truths resonate across domains. Whether starting from wealth, love, philosophy, psychology, medicine, or law, everything ultimately seems to converge toward the same thing.

Christiana, 2022-2023 ©ChristianaYu, All rights reserved