simple shadow work: a practice for psychic decluttering

how I accompany my inner child to look at her fears

growing a business, wellbeingKening ZhuAugust 3, 2023shadow work, letting go, wellbeing tools, inner work

break-ups as rebirth: self-care for heartbreak

a guide for self-care during heartbreak

wellbeingKening ZhuJune 2, 2023wellbeing tools, best of, dark places

daily rituals for the psychic-creative immune system

how to cultivate an embodied sense of the creative self — through a framework of daily body and creative rituals

creative practice, wellbeingKening ZhuOctober 7, 2022creative process, wellbeing, wellbeing tools, best of, favorites

rituals of a life in recovery

wellbeingKening ZhuSeptember 11, 2021dark places, wellbeing tools

dark emotions: a scatterplot

I made this map of dark emotions to see all of the unholdable feelings on one page - roughly organized by how “unbearable” feelings are (the worst feelings on the left bottom corner).

wellbeingKening ZhuSeptember 8, 2021dark places, wellbeing tools

art of wellbeing wheel

one day soon i’ll write a post about how wellbeing — and the process of creation, creativity, making art out of this thing called life — are inexplicably intertwined. the days in which i feel like a ghost of myself are the days in which no art comes out of me. and vice versa — IF i am able to create magic and beauty, THEN it means i am feeling very, very aligned. on center.

Kening ZhuJuly 15, 2021art of wellbeing, wellbeing tools

sanity exercises for the obsessive mind

take a 6 hour train ride away from your foreign country to an even more foreign country. feel acutely the discomfort; the further disorientation and confusion.
buy yourself frivolous flavors of ice cream and eat it while walking an unfamiliar street in aforementioned foreign city.
choose a cafe with a smiley owner with whom you can only exchange three words. sit outside. accept his offer of cacao and cinnamon for your coffee.
return to the original foreign country — only for it to feel like a gentle, familiar place (familiarity is relative, afterall).
message acquaintances you haven’t spoken to in a year - just to remember that there are other people in the world.
do something very out-of-character, like binge watching a TV show in bed - at least 3 episodes.

Kening ZhuJuly 1, 2021wellbeing tools

make a medicine song playlist

here is a good thing to have in your emotional medicinal closet — a personalized playlist of medicine songs. by that i mean: a short curation of songs to listen to when you're feeling especially terrible, and need to self-soothe, ground, or remind yourself that the apocalyptic world in your head — is not the end-all-be-all version of reality. sound — and music — is so healing, and requires no effort to absorb. you just press play.

take a bath

when i don't know what to do or how to deal with life — sometimes i drop everything and take a bath. taking a bath is like the opposite of taking a walk — a walk means movement, air, earth, sun, light. a bath means stillness, settling, soaking and sinking in oneself — a retreat into physical or metaphorical darkness; the 360 degree embrace of water.

wellbeingKening ZhuJune 16, 2021wellbeing tools, soothing room, the body, loving yourself

do simple things everyday

i've returned from two months of sleeping on friends' couches in new york city back to berlin — to an unrecognizably beautiful, green summer, and it feels like becoming a newborn again — like opening my eyes at each new day, and asking myself: what do I want to do with myself? how do I wish to be?

wellbeingKening ZhuJune 9, 2021centering rituals, wellbeing tools, process, rituals

hello darkness, my old friend

I turn thirty this year. looking back at the last ten years, I can see clearly how the process of growing up, growing older, growing wiser, growing deeper into myself and into my own skin — can be distilled down to the practice of embracing my own extremities of darkness. of welcoming it as a friend, rather than trying to push it away as an enemy. because the more you build fortresses against yourself, the greater and more insidious the enemy becomes — it finds cracks and holes to seep through while you sleep. I could never compartmentalize myself or my anxieties the way I wanted to. I could never control it, I could never contain the chaos, never silence my needs, nor suppress my obsessions. instead, my life has always existed between storms, and through storms. and it's taken me a long time, but finally I'm at a place of gradual acceptance, and surrender. now, when the darkness descends upon my mind like a choking fog, I only need to small-smile at myself, and say, ah, yes. hello darkness, my old friend. I wonder how long you'll visit me this time.

notes on the journey, wellbeingKening ZhuMay 25, 2021dark places, wellbeing tools, philosophies

a 30 minute centering ritual

these days while traveling, I've found a renewed appreciation for morning rituals — as a daily means of nourishing and centering myself, no matter what emotional and physical place I'm in. I wanted to log and share a simple 30 min centering ritual that I practice — which never fails to make me feel better: more centered, calm, and soothed. I hope it helps you, too.

Kening ZhuMay 18, 2021morning rituals, wellbeing tools, centering rituals, rituals

write yourself love letters

part of the personal journey of becoming my wise woman self is knowing when — and how — to write to myself. how to write deliberately and passionately for an audience of one.

wellbeingKening ZhuMay 7, 2021wellbeing tools, loving yourself

the journey of life in a diagram

lately, observing my own stormy weather, i realized that life is just this cycle — the above diagram — repeated over and over again. sometimes in the timescale of a day. sometimes over a month, year, or decades. and as long as we don't get stuck, we will grow and evolve in circles. until we die. (and even death is just a journey into a new place, no?)

if the only constant in life is change, chaos, and unpredictability — then the effort of trying to resist is what causes the most suffering. paralysis is the worst. getting stuck causes suffering — whereas movement through each part of the journey is what allows us to evolve, shed layers, grow.

notes on the journey, wellbeingKening ZhuMay 6, 2021wellbeing tools, life journeys

the mood thermometer

time required: 10 seconds

instructions for use: anytime you feel like it — in a given day, week, month, year, life — turn inwards and ask yourself: how do I feel right now, on a scale of 1-10? then, share the thermometer with others.

for advanced users: consider asking yourself these questions. keep an ongoing mental log of your answers