Everybody Else Is Already Taken - Latest Comments

Re: Perspective

Yukari Peerless — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:21:49 -0000

Summer. Thank you so much for your kind comment. I always love hearing from you and I completely agree with you. It'all in our heads. I do believe I am a strong and fearless woman(I call myself Fearless Peerless haha), but I have insecure moments, just like everybody else. But instead of beating myself up for feeling insecure, I'm ok to talk about it, because I know I'm not the only one.
PS: I believe in serendipity too!

Re: Perspective

Yukari Peerless — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:18:52 -0000

I understand where you are coming from, but I think you misunderstood my point. This wasn't about me being "annoyed all day" on my birthday because people didn't get back to me right away. That is absurd. Summer above knows exactly what I wanted to say; that sometimes we get in this crazy rut and obsess and feel insecure, but as you can see in the TED talk, "Things are not what they are; they are what we think they are". I had a great birthday and felt very loved.

Re: Perspective

Summer Coley — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:53:57 -0000

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUKARI! I love your post. I can totally idenitfy with your anxieties (and I'm not always plugged in). In fact, I was just experiencing this same "why hasn't client A replied yet, is he/she upset with me? Did I drop the ball..." And I happened upon your blog post here. I commend you for accepting vulnerability and sharing your experiences. True confidence isn't the proud "shit act" of being important, in control, and fearless; rather, it's being okay with being human and all the awkwardness and imperfections our human experiences are. I find myself far more drawn and connected to people like you who are transparent and "real" as opposed to folks who act bulletproof; I just can't identify with fearlessness.

I trust that most people (the exception being psychopaths) are aftraid and internalize their experiences with the outside world - even people who aren't "plugged in." Even before everyone had a cell phone, we experienced anxieties such as "why didn't Linda Mae respond to my cordial invitation to tea."

A few years back, I tried Landmark (self exploration thing) and one thing I really got from it was this "we make things mean things - we give them meaning that otherwise isn't there."

In other words, our perceptions greatly shape how we experience everything around us. Knowing this hasn't completely released me from experiencing the anxieties - I still make things mean things - but it helps reign me back in and remind me to let it go. One last thing... Do you beleive in little miracles, serendipity, synchronicity? I do! And I think you happened upon the right TedTalk at the right time for a reason. Just like I found your post when I needed to know that another woman I consider as being very confident, feels the way I do at times. I could be making this circumstance "mean something." Then again, perhaps on the flip side, we can choose to see things sunny side up. BIG LOVE BE WITH YOU, MY FRIEND!

Re: Perspective

MckObama — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:00:34 -0000

Happy Birthday! Please keep in mind that not everyone is attached to their email or social media non-stop all day long. I have friends that practically freak out because they text me and don't get an instant response. Honestly, sometimes my phone is out of power and I'm not obsessed with charging it because I do not check it every few minutes nor is it always sitting right beside me, sometimes I'm sick of being 'plugged-in', sometimes REAL LIFE is more important than someone who is waiting for a response, sometimes I'm gardening (like actually growing food and being connected to the earth). I think social media folks are a little OCD & addicted to being plugged-in 24/7 that they've lost all grip on reality. If you can't imagine going a day without your iPhone or crackberry, I'm sure a therapist can help with that ;-) I can't believe that it's your birthday and all you have to focus on and write about is how annoyed you were today because people didn't get back to you right when you wanted them to. That is sad.

Re: Lessons I learned from Breathe Now

Kate — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:40:54 -0000

Yes, there was really a grass-roots and intimate feeling... I'm so happy I was able to be part of the very first one! Congrats & thank you again to you, Janice, Janni and Angela. I'm already looking forward to next year :)

Re: We Fly 1st – Boeing 787 Dreamliner with ANA

Alyx Gilgunn — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:16:11 -0000

Cool! Yukari, you have the best job ever!

Re: One year…

Scott McDonald — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:16:33 -0000

Thank you for writing this - so moved by the sentiment from Tohoku residents that they fear being forgotten. They won't - ever!

Re: Losing a parent

Tim — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 07:37:00 -0000

Hi
Yukari, I've wanted for a while to post something on your father's
passing and I hope now I can articulate things. Like anyone else who
hears about life-altering events like this I wish there was more that
could be done to comfort or heal you. You're to be commended for the
manner in which you share so much of yourself on the net, I'm not
sure I'd be able to be so forthcoming. I hope you're now able to get
some benefit from those you've helped yourself with what you've
shared. You deserve all the help and support the local community can
give you and any small amount I can contribute I very much want to
do. About 20 years ago I came across an essay that I've hung on to
to re-read or to pass on to others, I hope you'll get some benefit as
well. I couldn't find a copy online so I'm putting the full text
below. After the essay I've posted a poem by William Blake which
expresses all our thoughts as well as anyone has ever put it. My
best wishes for you through a very difficult time, thoughts and
prayers are with you.
====================================

REFUSING TO LOOK AT THE FACE OF DEATH

We avoid talking
about it. We are uncomfortable admitting that it will happen to all
of us. Death is a forbidden subject, paradoxically, in a society
besieged by grisly media images. Inured to violence and gore, North
Americans remain strangely squeamish about the idea of "resting
in peace."
There was a time when we were born at
home and died at home, but urbanization changed us. Hospitals became
the centre for birth, illness and death – rites of passage that
have grown detached from human reality. The meaning of death, in
particular, has been obscured, and with it the understanding of
grief.
“We have been systemically
distancing ourselves from anything connected to death at a personal
level,” clinical social worker Elizabeth Jong says. “Years ago,
the family structure was more intact and when someone died, there
were siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles to share the burden.
“Today, the concept of the
traditional family unit has broken apart, and although we are working
on ways to accommodate this development, we haven’t allowed for
enough social intervention to support mourners. Mourning seems
acceptable at the funeral and for one or two months. But anyone who
is still having difficulty adjusting after a year may be considered
to be suffering from depression… That sets an unfair time limit on
some very powerful feelings.”
Dr. Patricia Minnes, a professor of
psychology at Queen’s University, says that “people have a
tendency to rush in when somebody dies buy them quickly drop off.
However, after a death, it sometimes takes weeks or months before a
bereaved person can overcome the initial shock. That is when support
is most important and is least available.”
There are a growing number of support
groups that address the need for people to discuss their grief. Yet
as Dr. Minnes points out, “when you are bereaved, you often feel
immobilized and, if you have to muster the energy to go and join a
group, that’s very hard. It takes an enormous amount of courage to
reach out, especially in a society that still attaches a stigma to
psychological help.”
Grief carries its own stigma.
Mourners may find that friends and relatives are reluctant to visit
or appear embarrassed by displays of emotion. Already suffering
intense feelings of abandonment, the bereaved are further isolated
because their pain makes others awkward. They are a troubling
reminder of mortality.
Some are given the cold comfort of
“life-goes-on” rhetoric.
“I heard it constantly,” said one
woman whose mother had died. “ ‘You’ll get over it with time.’
What does that mean? Is that supposed to be my goal, to get over
it? There is never going to be a day when I wake up and say, ‘There.
Now I feel better. Now I’ve finished mourning.’ “
In Mourning and Melancholia,
Sigmund Freud placed emphasis on “the work which mourning
performs,” on the obvious human need to let the grieving process
run its full course in order to achieve recovery from loss. Culture
and religion can provide a built-in framework, as Ms. Jong
illustrates: “There are important reasons why the Chinese burn
incense after a funeral, why Jews sit shiva, why Muslims hold
commemorative ceremonies for the dead. Coffins open or closed,
wakes, memorials – these are all rituals that help us to deal with
the enormity of death; they help us to deal with the enormity of
death; they help us face it as a community. Unfortunately, North
Americans are letting go of the customs surrounding death and dying…
Here, when a person dies, there is a tendency to forget about the
whole thing, to leave the bereaved alone and never, never discuss
it.”
In her ground-breaking study On
Death and Dying, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross writes that dying
nowadays is more frightful that ever before – lonely, mechanical,
dehumanized. This stems in part from a desire to push death far into
the background. Moreover, advances in medical science have extended
the average life span so that a number of people are reaching their
20s and 30s without exposure to death. The longer it is avoided, the
greater the impact, and a lack of resources and inadequate
communication leave many ill-prepared.
As Dr. Minnes says: “No matter what
the circumstances, you are never truly ready when someone dies: all
the preparation in the world cannot lessen the shock to the system.
But successful coping and adaptation to loss can happen when there is
some positive past experience to draw upon.”
Joanna Mackenzie is getting valuable
experience of her own. At 22, she is perhaps the youngest
palliative-care-unit volunteer in the country. No one in her
intimate circle of family and friends has died, yet she was drawn to
working with terminally ill patients.
She sees the North American
preoccupation with the physical body as life-limiting.
“When a person is dying,” she
says, “They are forced to call on more than just physical
resources. It is at the point of death when we recognize the value
of spirituality, of the soul, if you will. But dying is generally
viewed as something which is done to us, something aggressive. We
have to learn that it is participatory – death is a time when
people go through incredible transformations.”
As a whole, we are suspicious of
transformations: the unfamiliar is always dangerous, so we turn to
the business of daily life for protective distractions. We deny what
we cannot tolerate, a natural defence mechanism but a risky one as
well, for when we balk at the acceptance of death, the acknowledgment
of grief is rendered impossible.
C.S. Lewis once pondered whether
“death only reveals the vacuity that was always there.” An
increasingly secular society has reason to reflect on this thought.
Perhaps, more than death, we fear the revelation of a shallow
existence, or worse still, the rawness of emotions that are bared by
loss. If so, then the cry from the heart will continue to be
stifled.====================================

On Another's Sorrow

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd.

Can a mother sit and hear
an infant groan an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can he who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief & care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,

And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast;
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear;

And not sit both night & day,
Wiping all our tears away?
O, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all;
He becomes an infant small;
He becomes a man of woe;
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh
And thy maker is not by;
Think not thou canst weep a tear
And thy maker is not near.

O! he gives to us his joy
That our grief he may destroy;
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

Re: Losing a parent

Tim — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:37:22 -0000