Then True Love Comes

Then True Love Comes, was a title that came unexpectedly. Someone that I had just met took my palm and told me "You must trust in someone even though it is risky to trust in this person, then true love comes." 

That shocked me. This message told me that it was not only about finding that true love in someone else who will come, but it was about not trusting my own heart. And this reveals the deepest truth -- that I did not even open up to my own heart to love myself, so how could anyone else truly love me?

(No, he was not trying to hit on me. That was a gay man who took my palm.)

I have been a student of spiritual and personal development for years. The book that most impacted me years ago, when I was fervently searching for answers after my fiance left me, was Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh. From there I was influenced by spiritual & motivational gurus and authors like Deepak Chopra, Paulo Coelho, Abraham Hicks, Bashar, Louise Hays, Pam Grout, Sonia Choquette, T. Harv Eker, Anthony Robbins, Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar to name a few.  

I graduated from Western Michigan University with a major in Production (Communication) and minor in Journalism. Trained in piano and ballet throughout childhood, I loved the performing arts and was a regular on stage.

For the past 20 years, I worked as a producer director of many entertainment and reality shows, from high-profile Wheel of Fortune to Fear Factor, to beauty pageants, talent competitions, reality shows, gameshows, dramas & tv movies in my home country. 

What Happened To Me

Recently, I suffered through a difficult project resulting not only in loss of money for my company but also in loss of self confidence, and found myself at one of the lowest points of my professional life, without monetary support.

It was then that I came clean with how I felt about my life. My career had not given me satisfaction for years. People know me as a Producer all my career. But I had lost my bliss. And I believe in the universal Law of Attraction which was so apparent in bringing me the negative situations that I kept facing.

I didn't only want to spend days and nights as a behind-the-scenes Producer, a stressful job managing big teams and big budgets, and being relevant only to providing services to the industry. I also wanted to touch the world through my personal experiences, beliefs and through my own creative work. This required me to go back to the rooms of past indulgence and search for bliss that has been shelved away  -- creative writing & music.

Now, with my background as a Producer, how was I going to produce my own life the way I successfully styled and branded my shows? And if our life were a movie, then each of us, surely, is the star of our life movie. How do I be the star of my own life, one who experiences True Love?

The Closet Poet

All my teenage life, from the moment I learnt to read English storybooks, I dreamt to be a writer of novels.

So, harbouring these hopes, I decided to minor in Journalism at Western Michigan University, the only minor I found that had a class in poetry/fiction writing. Yeay, I was now on the way to publishing my novel!

Professor Herb Scott was his name, and the first thing he asked us to write was a poem. A poem? I hate poems. I don’t understand what poems try to say. They are all very vague and abstract, although I did like William Blake’s poems that I had to learn during English Literature while in secondary school.

And he made us write poem after poem, class after class. This was absurd! What could I possibly achieve by writing poems?  When was the fiction writing going to start? And worse of all, I had to read them out in front of all those Americans.

I was a really shy person. Would they laugh at my English? I don’t know how to write poetry. It’s not what I signed up for! But fortunately for me, I do love the English language. It’s the only language I can read and write in fluently.

I thank my mother and my aunts for buying and borrowing me English storybooks in my childhood days. And thanks to some very close classmates who embarrassed me with their very good English, I felt challenged to improve and started borrowing storybooks from them. And I read and read.  Yes, that was what we used to do… We’d hold them under the desk during class. I’d hide storybooks inside school textbooks so that I could fool Mom when she thought I was studying in my bedroom.

But then again, what I did know about writing poetry? I didn’t understand most of the poems I had to read in school. Our teacher had to explain each word and the meaning of each line to us.

Now, back to the Professor. He even had the cheek to keep giving me A’s. What?! Exactly my feelings when I saw those A’s.

At last, we had one chance to write a short story.  But this poetry class tortured me for years, even after I graduated and went on to have a career in television, away from poetry.

Now and then, throughout the past 20 years, I would write a sprinkling of words.

I could not figure out what purpose it had in my life.

Now, many people go to university, but never ending up working in the field of their study.

Not for me. I needed to have a meaning to it. It boggled me for years.

I flirted with the idea of publishing poetry, then held back at the thought of who would buy them, also, friends would give me the stupefied look when I mention that. I thought about it, and shove it away into space. Then I thought about it again.

Coming Soon...

"Then True Love Comes" was the name I decided upon for the book. It reflects the perfect and warm end to a movie -- if our life were a movie, how will it end? As a Producer & Director who intends to make feature films, I had an epiphany to present this poetry book as examples and scenes from my life of:

1. how we are the hero and heroine of our movie

2. responding to your calling

3. the adventure that beckons and the roadblocks that you face

4. then finally, overcome defeat and return with the elixir

It will be truly unique in concept. Instead of another "how to" self-help book, each poem is a scene from my life which you can relate to as a scene in the journey of the heroine throughout the movie. Then, be inspired to ask yourself, what kind of ending do I want for the movie of my life?

Get The Closet Poet Out!

Secret Rebel

I am so grateful to God that I had such a long childhood and teenage time, but I'm sure, so did many of you.

I am grateful because looking back at my childhood, I really enjoyed the chance to read so many story books. 

Now all grown up, and in earth terms, "getting old," I hardly finish one book a year, with the distractions of work and managing company and getting over the frustrations of life. 

I was mostly a studious and obedient girl, doing well in school, but at heart, I was a secret rebel. Why a rebel? 

I was put into a school where I sat near to girls who read English and spoke English at home. I spoke Chinese at home and was very bad in English.

But eventually my heart was determined I was going to be good in English too, and so I started borrowing books from my friends, and having my family buy English story books for me. Mom, being a school teacher, started to borrow English books from her school library for me. 

We read the books during class by hiding them in our school textbooks and reading them on our laps. Before sleep, I would do the same thing in my room, when I should be reviewing my school lessons or exams. 

So, the secret rebel grew up with the children in Enid Blyton books and other classic stories like Treasure Island, Tom Brown's Schooldays, in ancient faraway lands of magic and exciting adventures in the rolling countryside. I learned words like 'enchanted,' 'high tea,' 'scones,' 'farm,' all rather exotic and eye-sparkling to me. 

Now I can hardly remember the exact stories, but their memories still fill up a heart longing for magic,  the heart of the secret rebel.