Overcoming my fear of personalbility.

Last week, I joined some of you on Miss Mary Lu's channel in a live stream. I answered some questions and listened to your opinions on things to make the Tea Spectral store grow. I was also completely terrified. Finally, the public could see the face behind my brand.

I've shown my face on this blog, with press conferences with Azure Lorica, and have even been on local television and radio on a few occasions. So why was I so scared to go live and meet some of you? It may sound silly now, but the honest answer to this question was a fear of judgement.

Yes, the thing that invites the trolling internet to your door step from under their bridges. I was (for the most part) in a bubble of bliss online with my general content. I steered away from that sort of negativity, and did for quite some time. After the fiasco of my anime convention, Ninja-Con, taking a nose dive a good handful of the internet community, which then went on a witch hunt after me. I didn't want to participate with the drama, and chose to go MIA.

I deleted most of my social media accounts.

Fast forward to about three years later: I decided to finally pursue my dreams of creating a tea company. My blends and photos on the ingredients were going to speak for me, creating the 'face' of the brand. It's been about a year since that launch, in April 2018, and the teas have been received well. Tea Spectral, overall has grown to be such a positive success in the time that it has been running.

As if life decided to pull a trick on me, the people that I met online to do business with were, for the majority, pleasant individuals. In the year that I worked hard doing what I love I had created the internet community opposite to the one I had experienced. Influencers, bloggers, press, and customers: these titles all distilled to a pure truth: that they were looking for exactly what I was. We were all looking for the positive in the mundane. We had desired to bring good into the vast monster that digital communication had become.

Cue Mary Lu: Whom I met for the first time at Azure Lorica's Fan Film Awards. After watching some of her YouTube Positivitea Podcasts I decided she was a great fit to invite as a guest speaker. Anti-bullying has always been the underlying theme of this festival, showing the humanity in superheroes that we looked up to. We wanted to drive this home to the community, and a spoonful of Positivitea was just the right flavor. We talked casually. After knowing Mary for a bit now, I realize the beauty of her, as a person, is that desire to connect to people on a heartfelt level. Though I was unaware, the seed was planted.

A couple of months later, she did not hesitate at the idea of her merchandise handled by Tea Spectral. I gratefully accepted and we got to work. I fought my insecurities the whole way through the process, as the momentum triggered my flashbacks from working at Ninja-con. Working with someone as loving as Mary acted as a healing process, pulling me farther away from my fears and self-doubt. In this space that we created, we both thrived.

The Tea Time Fam Collection sold out in 9 hours of it's launch. Then the second batch sold out in 10 days. We were not expecting the power of this community that we belonged to. All of you responded with in such a resounding supportive strength that blew us away. The feedback was overwhelming, I knew then that something had to be done. I had to, at the very least say, thank you to all of you in the most sincere way that I could. So I asked Mary if I could join her in one of her live streams to say thank you.

That Sunday, I exposed myself to the world: I was the face of Tea Spectral. After this, I knew I could no longer hide. Half way through that stream, I realized that I no longer had to. Why wouldn't I want to say hello to all of you? To listen to you and thank you? To share my thoughts and opinions with you in a constructive manner. At the end of it all, it's the community you chose. In turn, you carry the responsibility to nurture that community as well.

With that being said:

Hello, please call me Stef. I am the Tea Hauntier. This blog used to be called Tea Spectral, but that name has since grown into the brand of my beloved tea company. I look forward to sharing more of my thoughts and opinions with you. Thank you so much for breathing courage into me again. I have found my voice once more.

Cheers!

For those of you who did not catch my live stream with Miss Mary Lu, here is the recorded video:

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2012 Is My Sweet Ride!

Today is one of those 'off' days for me. Lately my life has just been all over the place with so much opportunity and blessings crammed into such a short time. Then I have a day where I'm broke, and nothing eventful seems to be going on. Most of the time these days drive me mad; this falls into the most category... I never seem where to start or what I really should be doing after tidying things up.

Most of the day involved cooking, baking mini fruit pies and scones, and cuddling on the couch. It was a good day for these things since LA is having one of those rare occasional gloomy rainy weekends. The best part of these days are the talks with Eugene about the way things are going. This is when we made a fascinating discovery, we were utterly content.

Yes, this year has been so climatic in its failures and triumphs that I can honestly say that we have lived every bit of this year up until now. We have made our way without money, tasks, etc.; we pushed 2012 to the limit. As we come closer to the end of it dotting the I's and crossing the T's, we've had one hell of a ride. This month alone has turned out absolutely nothing like I would have expected. I've traded a quiet month of NaNoWriMo for so much more.

This my friends is an ugly day; the gem of being human in blog land. I haven't showered yet, I'm coughing, and I'm covered in grease and flour in a sweatshirt. There's a sense of comfort tell you this because I'm living and these days make the awesome days so much more. I've learned that blogging is a modern take on Carpe Diem where you learn to love the little things that fill your 24 hr days as you grow and shape into the person you were made to be. Today is just as much of a day as any other, and it's beautiful that way.

I have 5 remaining blessings for the month. Today while web browsing I came across blog posts intended to stop people from committing suicide through encouraging words. I was contemplating creating one sometime. In the meantime it got me to think of how the last post for the month should end. This has change my last 5 blessings, to things that I feel should matter and be simple truths in everyone's lives.

I've been saving them up, and with good long thought; here they are to share with you:

Trouble: Eugene and I concluded that we love to get into trouble. We've lived such a fulfilling life by never playing it safe. This very principle in life I'm grateful for. Its bliss that I have a partner. The Unseen: Not knowing what the future brings makes me feel like a bad ass! I mean think about it; living is staring life in the face and challenging it to bring what may. Being Human: I have ugly days, I fail, I am not perfect. But you know what? I'm still here, and I adapt and learn from my errors. Change:  Nothing beats looking back at a nostalgic beautiful past than a future. Growing up isn't a period of life, it's a never-ending fact of life.

Thank you for being a part of my journey. Another month of sheer astonishment at how much this blog has grown in such a short amount of time.

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Crossing Fingers: November Update

 Hi everyone,
Hope that everyone's been enjoying their November. As the weather gets cooler it's hard not to contemplate the change that has occurred through the years. The past weeks I've been blogging has been a blessing for me, so if there's one thing that I'm grateful for this year it's that I get to share this bit of my life with all of you. So all that have stumbled across my blog and have stayed, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Well, without further adieu, here are my updates for my Crossing Fingers November challenges:

1.NaNoWriMo:  I'm not in the best of position, but I'm not giving up. Its been a strange experience this time around. I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine that succeeded in NaNoWriMo. We talked about the Ups and Downs in cramming a novel within a month. We both concluded that it truly depends on the novel and the person. I'm beyond grateful that it kicked me in the pants to pick up my novel writing again. However, I've been enjoying filling out the pages with honest quality words. I'll keep writing and doing my best to catch up by simply spending more time with it. The month is still to early in to tell if I'll finish or not; I usually figure it out about five days before the end. I love building my writing community! Please feel free to friend me under the name healingmercy. I'd love to read your novel and give feedback! Nothing better than community support.

2. Meditate Daily: I was inspired to do this challenge because of my first meditation class.So far I've been doing it daily with or without the book. My daily tea breaks in the morning allow me to clear my mind and get my day started the way that I want it to. So much can be learned in each chapter that I take the points that Rosen mentions to heart and apply them to my daily life. So far its creating an efficient schedule and task managing to balance your life to equalize your energy. This has given me more time to breathe and get more physical activity in my day to calm my nerves. So far, this challenge has been a wonderful success!

3. Spend less: My bills are paid for this month! It wasn't as hard of a challenge as I thought it would be. Keeping this challenge in mind I recently went on a mini holiday to the beach where I spent on hardly anything. It felt absolutely amazing! I can't wait to write all about it in a near future post. I've been taking this challenge and eating at home more often as well. It couldn't have come at a better time as I had some unexpected out of town friends visiting and I had enough of a budget to spend the whole day with them as well as pay the bills. It doesn't get better than that, my life feels so much more well rounded now.

I look forward to seeing how the end of the month plays out. *Crossing Fingers*

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Crossing Fingers: Nov/Oct

 October was absolutely phenomenal! I would say that this past month was a time of self understanding and growing in my young adult life. Taking the challenges for myself did wonders to me that I never thought would be so good for me. I wake up these days with a spring in my step to what tasks are in store for me. There's something beautiful about creating simply for the sake of doing it. When I do work as a profession, the love often disconnects from it. So it was refreshing to spark that interest and my creative juices.

If you're not familiar with Crossing Fingers, I pick three goals for the month and I focus on them.

Results for October 2012

 

1. 750 Words October Challenge: As you can tell from the letter I got from buster, I DID IT! It started to come natural after the first week, but I must say there were days of complications, I got headaches or was out late. Somehow I found a way to finish, quite a few times I did my entries on my mobile phone. It was worth it! Every last bit of it! Now I'm ready for this month...

2. Do Art Daily: This was not as successful as I had hoped it would be. Where I did create art this month, most of it was done within a week interval. The great news is that I did do art, which I was hoping I would. I opened a renewed passion for painting and my web designing. So the goal at hand did the trick, even though it wasn't done to its fullest.

3. Show Goodreads Up: Ok, this was a love hate task for me. Where I did catch up on my reading, I didn't get ahead of it. There were plenty of books that I wanted to finish this month, but life got in the way. I would call this a half successful goal...

 It's time to go forth boldly into the month of November! 

November 2012

1.NaNoWriMo: I've been trying to succeed at this challenge for about 4 years now. Always I've been so close. I was either distracted by Finals, Productions, or family issues. Where I can't control the last one; I made sure to clear my season for my theatre company and I'm no longer in school. I want to focus my heart into getting a descent hunk of my novel series done for finally treating and publishing the thing. This will be my biggest goal yet! I've gotten off to a good start today, please feel free to friend me under the name healingmercy.
2. Meditate Daily: After my first meditation class, I feel that it's important for me to continue the feeling of being grounded. This month I'll be reading Diana Rossen's book: Meditations with Tea; and continue with the exercises. A good balance to NaNoWriMo I say.

3. Spend less: What can I say, I love to go out! I love living a full day out in the city which usually pinches my pocket to the bone. I'm used to living check to check, and I think that this needs to give. I saved for my visit to the Tea Festival and absolutely loved it! I want to have many more awesome days like this. I also want to stop whining about paying bills because I have no money from going out so much (guilty as charged!). I have a few more Out & Abouts to finish, but they will soon be growing not so frequent; for this month at least. This is only because I eat out practically everyday and I want to change that. What had me convinced was getting food poisoning TWICE this past week from eating out. Funny thing is I'm a pretty good cook, so this is all about to change. Who knows? I might be sharing some of my scrumptious recipes this month.

There it is, another month of challenges...
*Crossing Fingers*

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My First Meditation Class (w/TEA)

This weekend I finally came around to trying meditation. This is something I've been wanting to try for quite sometime. When I was looking over the program of the Tea Festival and I saw the class, I knew that I had to take the class Meditation with Tea. The thought of anything for the first time with tea is something that I can easily dip my toes into. Think of it like your teacher holding your hand as they lead you to recess when you were younger, scary but comforting...

I was led to an open forum in the Japanese American Museums Resource Center just across from it. The walls were curvy and aided to a soothing water like feel. People were already gathering in a circle and I dived right in with a little courage (it helped me of course that Eugene was with me). The classes started and to my surprise it wasn't structured at all. I enjoyed that the Instructor felt the way the crowd was an slowly took her time getting to the points.

I got to learn breathing techniques and how to ween the mind from distractions and worries. The techniques were simpler than I thought they would be, which was opposite to the way my brain normally functions with it's task and competitive nature. We moved on to meditating on the blessings in our lives, something that everyone was happy to reflect on. We even did a writing exercise where we listed three things: what was on our mind that instant, what we were grateful for, and what people in our life we couldn't live without. She suggested we keep the poems to reflect on the next time that we do our meditations. She finished this exercise by handing us haikus and explaining how to meditate with them and poetry.

As for the tea, we reviewed how to be involved in the process of tea. We started with understanding the importance of meditation as the tea brews and being present with the pot and not to be distracted. Next we went over the idea of savoring the notes of flavor in the tea and using it to hone in on our senses. Her choices were a Keemun and a Green Darjeeling; both I felt were perfect since they are underrated for their complex notes and natural unique flavors.We also lightly discussed food pairings to add into the meditation of the tea process. The one highlight I took from the whole thing was the importance of taking a Sabbath for ones self. This is attained by picking a day out of the week just to relax and unwind. This way your soul and body are rejuvenated and ready for life's busy tasks.

Overall I really loved the whole experience. On a personal level, I adored learning from the wonderful Diana Rosen. She was so positive and enchanting and had a way of grabbing your attention softly but gracefully. As an advocate of body acceptance, I loved that she was bigger woman that didn't care about her image and ran the class with a balance of love and assertiveness. I hope to grow up with as much poise as her through experience and age.

I bought her book and I look forward to reading it. Just from flipping through it I can tell that she has an amazing directory and glossary from her personal tea journey. I look forward to further practices of meditation. I am starting with her breathing exercises every morning which have given me a burst of energy. I have yet to try tea meditation on my own, but I'm looking forward to it. Anyone curious about meditation, don't be scared to try even the simplest for of it. It's wonderfully beneficial.
-Stef

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