Dopamine, endorphin, serotonin, oxytocin. May you have a great relationship with them :)

Hi there everyone~ Another year is passing by and now looking ahead, I'm pretty sure we all hold nice, wonderful wishes for the year to come. But watch out, we might make the new year resolutions the wrong way--not that it matters, in fact you'll be fine even if those resolutions never come true--but I mean, if you are serious with the result, you might as well consider things other than the behavior itself, because our behaviors are oftentimes not determined by our willpower, but by our systems and our physical and mental health.

This is a very long long long episode, really testing out your patience! But hopefully you guys can enjoy it still. Leave me comments if you guys have further questions! Mua！

Thanks. For your company, for your support, for all your love.

The new year has come, and even though in fact the first days in 2023 scientifically should be no different from the last days of 2022, still, humans just have the instinct(or it's an implanted belief?) that a new year automatically ushers in something new. That is why we usually make new-year resolutions. But according to experience, we will quickly meet some difficulties and the feeling of failure, anxiety, helplessness will creep back. So here in this episode, I've put in three mantras to hopefully help you guys achieve a calmer state of mind and therefore to have a happy and successful year ahead of you. Much love from Niki.

Trips! The best. With covid policies getting lifted, I'm sure the tourism industry will bounce back, and we deserve to have some fun! I'm lucky enough to be taking a trip already and I feel like instead of feeling intense even during trips, the better way to go is to CREATE your trip, not to copy someone else's.

Whereas I am a firm believer of love, it's just so difficult to put it into language and describe it in vivid details like you can with what's on your plate for dinner this evening. I can just throw the word "love", and then trust your sense on this word so that you can understand and hopefully absorb what I am trying to deliver in this episode. See for yourself.

For our entire life we've been striving to get smart, yet we probably have never realized that being smart in too many aspects of our life can secretly steal away our happiness. So now if you have realized this after this episode, congratulations, cuz you now can practice being "stupid", stupidly believing sth. that probably is not true, stupidly looking at the bright side and using a positive narrative to tell the story. Protect your energy. Key to happiness.

We are blessed with the access to a sea of information; yet too little of such information is treated seriously by us and internalized as part of who we are. Next time when you come across a good mantra, a good book, etc., don't just flip through it unconcernedly. Revisit it. Repeat it, until you have fully understood and absorbed the goodness in it.

The art of letting go, emptiness, or sometimes nothingness. If you think about it, there is a Buddhism touch to it, isn’t there? The idea is that, if you hold on to an emotion, or a belief too tightly, you yourself are basically like a full room, or a solid fortress, that does not allow anything to go inside of you, not to mention to change you in a way that might potentially benefit you.

The external world is as exciting and fascinating as it is, so much so that we oftentimes forget to look inside us, where there is a world no less splendid than a high mountain, or a double rainbow after a summer thundershower. One of the most important ways of getting to know ourselves is to analyse our emotions--not those ones on the superficial level, but on the deep, more fundamental level. You'd be surprised how much more you have discovered about yourself. Have fun on this journey! :)

I have changed my life a little bit by changing my mind a little bit. Like, back when I thought that I was a bad driver, I would be scared of driving, and then I manifested the fact that I had poor driving skills. But now when I learn to tell myself another story that driving is just easy and natural, I seem to have gotten rid of the tension that I had built around driving. And now I'm a better driver. Yes, we always have the ability to create our ideal life, just follow the two-step suggestion in this episode!

I'm pretty sure my blood pressure surged when I saw the footage of the low-life moving garbage trying to beat the girls to death in the barbecue restaurant. I’d like to say, I hope these assholes unwell, I hope that they are put into prison as soon as possible for as long as possible, I hope that they get beaten up by other fellow prisoners just for fun, all day, every day.

This episode is nothing serious, just me babbling about things, haha. But hope you can enjoy still, being fully relaxed. Lots of love, mua :D

The inspiration of this episode came from a dear listener, who is trying to start a project but has chickened out due to "a lack of confidence". She then reached out to me and asked me to give her a few tips to build her confidence, without which, she believes, she could not pull off her project. In other words, she thinks that confidence leads to action and success. But no--you always take actions first, and after some small wins, confidence naturally comes along. Just get things done. JUST GET THINGS DONE.