Category Archives: Breathe Now

Lessons I learned from Breathe Now

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DSC01631 300x225 Lessons I learned from Breathe Now

First annual Breathe Now, a conference for women is now over.

We, the four co-founders first met each other on Twitter. We spent over a year planning this conference. This past weekend has been exciting, profound, fun, eye-opening, all at the same time.

Being the first year, the conference crowd was not as big as other major events. But I really liked the grass-roots feeling to it, and many people seemed to enjoy the intimate feeling as well.

There are so many things I want to write about, but I’m going to share some of the lessons and moments from Breathe Now.

1. It’s OK…to plan ahead

I was the moderator for this panel. Lisa, who is a visual practitioner, talked about some of the practical ways to map out the future you want, and Kristy talked about the importance of Wills and Power of Attorney. Barb talked about how everybody’s financial plan can be so different. This was a very practical session and I learned a lot. As a single/separated mother, issues concerning having a will hit pretty close to home.

2. It’s OK…to talk about it

I had an honour to moderate a panel on Mental Health. I adored both of the speakers, Airdrie and Jess. Their stories were both heartbreaking and profound. We had some great discussions after the presentation on having a support system, importance of reaching out, etc. After the session was over, Airdrie mentioned that the stigma on mental health is more prevalent among men and it might be a good idea to open up the discussion to both men and women. I like the idea. Mental health has always been an important cause for me, as I’ve known many people close to me suffer from the illness and it meant a lot for me to be able to have this session on Breathe Now.

3. It’s OK…to own your own beauty

This was another session I was really looking forward to. Panelist were all my friends- Tracey, Véronique and Teresa. It so happened they each filled the age groups 40′s, 30′s and 20′s. Tracey talked how she stopped apologizing for her appearance, Veronique shared her experience as a young model, and Teresa spoke about her journey on finding her own beauty. We agreed it was important to give compliments to others –  and ACCEPTING it when you receive them. I’m sure many of you relate, but us women are incredibly hard on ourselves. We keep finding faults in us.

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I’m sure I’m not the only one who has hard time accepting compliments. This does not apply only to our appearances…For example, I was pleasantly surprised that so many people came up to me to congratulate me on putting up Breathe Now. My first couple of responses were – “Oh, it’s not a big deal… I didn’t do so much….I had all the help from the other three.”

But after this session I’ve reminded myself not to make any excuses for myself and just say “Thank you.”

Of course, I cannot not write about our two amazing keynote speakers- Rona Maynard and Bif Naked. Rona’s talk was warm, witty and full of great insights. She shared the story of her husband not being able to find the passport on their departure day to Amsterdam, their destination for an anniversary trip, and that she ended up leaving without him. (He caught up with her eventually.) I loved her mantra “This is not my problem” – as women often tend to carry other people’s burdens.

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Although Bif’s style is quite different from Rona’s, her talk was very profound as well. She shared her story of childhood, and her journey up until now. She said, in a way, she was happy to get a breast cancer – better her than her mom or her sisters. She has also gone through a heart surgery few weeks ago and she said that definitely made her make “the list”….which was a great reminder for all of us to take care of ourselves. She encouraged us women to be compassionate with each other. It was an honour to meet her.

Big big thank-you for all the speakers, volunteers, and sponsors who made this conference possible. This couldn’t have happened without you.

And of course, big thank-you to my fellow co-founders – Janice, Janni and Angela-they were my rock and sisters.

We have received many positive feedbacks on Breathe Now (Don’t get me wrong, there is ALWAYS room for improvement, though) and I am incredibly humbled. I loved my friend Rita’s comment on her blog - “A big heartfelt thank you to angela, yukari, janni, and janice for the opportunity of fulfilling on my secret dream…and for creating something that we didn’t even know was missing until you started creating it.” Thank you, Rita!

Now I’m onto my next adventure…I know there will never be a dull moment, I might get frustrated or stressed out, but I will always remember to breathe. 

 

 

 

Now is the time to Breathe

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stockfresh 192053 stacked pebbles sizeXS 300x200 Now is the time to Breathe

One of my favourite words is Fellowship. To me, it reminds me that we are not alone. Breathe Now —I am one of the four co-founders of this event— is for fellowship of women. I wanted Breathe Now to be the opportunity for all women to come together and connect and share. Sometimes we forget how powerful sharing can be.

With only a week left to go, the four of us and all the volunteers are working hard to put together what is becoming an amazing event.

Last night, we met around 20 women for the Meet The Founders get-together. It was an intimate gathering, and I felt so honoured to be surrounded by all the amazing women. We all introduced ourselves and honestly, every single person in the room had an interesting thing to say.

Everyone has a story to tell. It is important to share our stories, in order to keep us sane and healthy. We all go through challenging times that test who we are. It’s part of our lives. But I know many women still try to manage it and act as if everything is all right. Where does this need to be perfect come from?

What I have learned from talking to all the people I’ve met and going through a fair share of tough times myself, is this—it is our basic human need to be connected with one another.

Just recently I heard a story from a woman I greatly admire. If you just look at her, she is full of energy and always putting herself out there. She is strong and fierce. You’d think she has it all together. Then few days ago, she revealed on her blog that she was having a hard time with an immediate family member’s passing. She said she was a mess.

Do I think she is weak to reveal her emotional state? No. All I felt for her was admiration for her courage. I felt empathy—I felt, Me too! Me too!

We are all busy. You are building a career, raising children, have a meaningful relationship, taking care of the family… many of us are stressed out and exhausted. It is so easy to forget that the most important thing is to take care of yourself.

Breathe Now is your chance to listen to other amazing women and to share your stories. We have purposefully scheduled a lot of time in-between the sessions so that everyone have plenty of time to talk. Of course, there are fun things to do as well—shopping, massages, fashion show and cocktails. Ultimately, this is a day and a half set aside for us. To be together. To share. To laugh. To joke. To learn about each other.

What is your story?

A Reminder – to Breathe Now

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I have just come back from my second trip to Japan this year. I was there for ANA’s Inspiration of Japan campaign with Neal Schaffer from Windmill Marketing, Cali Lewis and John P from GeekBeat.tv as ANA’s brand ambassadors. I have so much to tell you all about the trip, but first, what did I do?

Yup, I got stressed out. I missed the flight to Victoria from LAX, and ended up staying extra night at my boyfriend’s place. I immediately stressed out about losing a day in Victoria, and felt guilty for not being home on time.

Even after I got home safely, I felt overwhelmed. There are emails to respond to, blog posts to write, photos to upload, kids to take care of, house to clean, errands to run, and friends and boyfriend to love.

Oh yeah, we have a conference to run too. Breathe Now is coming up really quickly on April 14 and 15 in University of Victoria. I’m not going to lie that I was stressed out about that too.

Then I remembered. This is why we are doing Breathe Now. Watch the video for more.

PS: We do have early registration bonus….register today.

Two words that got me thinking…

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I’ve written about coincidence(Well, I believe there is no such thing as coincidence) few posts ago, but it happened again.

I came across something wonderful today. I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this, and unfortunately I am not crafty enough to combine both stories and make it into a neat blog post. I could have written two separate posts, but they both came out pretty much at the same time, like a spark of lightening. So I will write about both in this post, separately.

1) In my last post, I wrote about Breathe Now, and how “It’s Okay” for women to want to have a break, ask for help, etc… and that would be our theme for the conference. This morning, I happened to go read Catherine(@Herbadmother)’s latest blog post. And she happened to link to her older post, titled, “I Am Mother, Hear Me Roar.” – which is a brilliant post, you should go read it now.

There I got to see amazing Tony Porter’s TED Talk titled, “A call to men.”

I loved the talk, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it until today. In the talk, Tony talks about how men are often pressured to be tough, strong, dominating…and how important it is for us to teach boys “Its Okay to not be dominating, It’s Okay to have feelings and emotions, it’s Okay to promote equality…”… Get it? The key words. The mantra was there…It was an “AHA!” moment for me.

I know men suffer from the different kind of pressures from women. Women are often pressured to be feminine, skinny, beautiful, and domestic etc, men are pressured to be strong, powerful and to make more money than women, etc.

Our entire society is based on the expectation from stereotypes.

When we watched the documentary MISSRepresentation at Blissdom, some of the feedbacks from the women were, even though the film was focused on girls and women and their images through media, as mothers of boys (including myself), how important it is for the parents, and the community, to teach boys real values. We are responsible of teaching them that girls are not objects, and they don’t need to look beautiful and skinny. And, we also need to teach boys themselves, that they are OK not to be tough and dominating. It’s OK for boys to cry. It’s OK for boys to be sensitive.

And we at Breathe Now are trying to send the message, like Tony, “It’s Okay to not to meet the expectations!” – it was an pretty awesome realization.

2) Second AHA moment came from Alison(@Nummiesbras)’s post about Blissdom Canada (This is a wonderful post too.) She writes about this one mom at her panel who said “I just write about my kids.” – I was in the room when this happened, and saw Alison, who was on the panel, quickly grab a microphone and said “You do not JUST write about kids.”  I wanted to get up and clap.  So when I read Catherine’s post and saw her touching the same subject there,(“Just a mom”), I knew it was a sign that I had to write about it too.

Women tend to devalue themselves. I have no idea why. Even I do it. “Oh, I just have a small business” “I’m just a blogger” “I’m just a mom”…

We are not “just” anything. You are not “just” a Stay-At-Home Mom. (Man, that’s a hard job. I can’t do it.)

Then I almost laughed out loud when I remembered the song I sang at Karaoke/Costume wrap up party was No Doubt’s “Just a Girl”. That song is my life’s theme song. How funny.

Let’s stop saying “Just”, Okay? We(well, I) need to learn to be proud of what we do!

Hi, My name is Yukari, and I am a business owner, a writer, a mom, and many more other things.

And you?