Lawyers & an ah-ha moment 👩🏻⚖️
Friends,
Have you ever been told, “put your oxygen mask on first before you start helping other people?” It’s a common refrain on flights, but can apply to other parts of our lives as well. My doctors and therapists remind me almost every week, to take care of my physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing before assisting others. And guess what? The reminder finally transformed into… a skill! 🤹🏻 And this skill rose to the surface in the unlikeliest of times: after a conversation with immigration lawyers in Portugal.
Last week, my husband and I spoke with lawyers to get advice on moving to and living in Portugal. They presented us two options, one significantly easier than the other, but our plans had always assumed we’d take the harder option, setting up a company and becoming entrepreneurs. I immediately thought, “Well of course we’d go in as entrepreneurs. Our goal is to create a guesthouse and artist residency that provides people a place to heal, reexamine, and transform their lives.”
DING, DING, DING! Remember to put on your oxygen mask first, Haruka!
Do you see what I was about to do there? Yep, that’s me again, almost convincing myself that I’m here to make other people’s lives better without thinking of how I’m doing or what I really want. With freshly brewed coffees in hand, my husband and I did some deep thinking and critiquing of our dream. Do we really want to become hoteliers? The answer, it turns out, is no. At least not at the beginning. Our real desire is to get out of the system and to build our own, eventually sharing that space with others. I think some of you who have had demanding, soul-sucking day jobs or have worked with difficult managers may understand this feeling. Trying to keep up with the pace of a never-tiring machine (hello, capitalism), forcing a smile and a thank you as more work is put on your plate, partaking in a system that places financial growth for organisations over the people that produce the labour for the organisation.
My reason for being on this planet is to help people, and through conversation with immigration lawyers and my husband, I realised I am already doing this: with my artwork and writing. My mission is to lean further into this world of artmaking and combine it with my learnings and experience with mental health. This is what I want to do in Portugal first. Before I start designing a guesthouse or handpicking berries for my guests’ breakfast baskets.
Imagine a sunshine-filled studio. I’m drawing some characters, swaying to some deep funky 90s house music, and talking from time to time with a bird that’s perched by my window. Maybe I’m working on a comic book about self-compassion. Maybe I’m having a lot of fun. And maybe all of this is okay…
A sloooow breath out,
Haruka
✨ January soul spark: listen to this gorgeous concert by Huun-Huur-Tu, a music group from Tuva, in southern Siberia. The musicians throat sing, being able to produce two or three notes simultaneously.