The first half of 2026 is drawing to a close, and we've stepped into the first month of the second half. Summer has officially arrived. Everything feels like it's in motion, yet somehow, quietly, I can feel that my inner world has grown much steadier than it was a few months ago. The way I give and hold my energy has become more stable, more at ease. That restlessness from the first half of the year has started to settle, replaced by something more grounding.
The world is still moving fast, still full of noise and change, but this June brought me a calm I haven't felt in years. I just want to stay fully in the present, to feel and to be grateful for everything I have.
The extra space has also let me slow down and think: What kind of life do I want to live? What actually matters to me? Can the meaning of things change over time? All these years of chasing certain achievements - was I really chasing them, or was I running from a version of myself I once disliked?
Every part of life is its own kind of practice. We tend to place all our weight on work and accomplishment, and over time it's easy to hang our entire sense of self-worth on that "social label," forgetting the simpler question of who we are as people, what we care about, and what values we're willing to give and contribute to. Rather than being pushed blindly by fear and scarcity toward a future we can't even locate.
The practice I've given myself lately is this: when it's time to rest, rest fully. Enjoy what I'm doing, instead of letting my mind live in the past and the future while my body goes through the motions.
At the end of May, I signed myself up for a handbuild pottery class in June. I spent the whole month immersed in its feel, watching clay take shape in my hands. Learning something new always brings fresh stimulation and ideas. I tried folding elements of my own painting style into three-dimensional work, and it opened up possibilities I hadn't seen before. Creating always holds surprises, and time always moves differently when you're absorbed in something purely creative. I want to hold onto this feeling and carry it into every part of my life.
In June, I also encouraged myself to meet new people and talk more with others about how they see life. Listening to thoughts, worries, and small realizations from people in different places and different stages always stirs something in me. Everyone's struggles are alike, and yet not quite the same. Life looks so different on the surface, but underneath, what we long for is remarkably similar. Talking with different people has also shown me more of the many shapes an ideal life can take.
"Life looks so different on the surface, but underneath, what we long for is remarkably similar."
If you're new here, let me quickly introduce you to A Journey Through Light.
In short, it's an oracle deck I've been making, currently in design and production, and I plan to release it later this year or in early 2027. You can find a quick overview on my Instagram here. But I'll be sharing the slower, behind-the-scenes version with you here.
When I finished the 46 pieces and laid them all out together, something surprised me. Without ever planning it, the work had sorted itself into four distinct territories. Four phases I recognized from my own life. I didn't design this system. I found it, only by looking back.
So this month I wanted to walk you through it a little, the way you'd show a friend around a place you'd lived in for a long time.
It begins with Departure & Drift. The ground shifts. Something you knew how to hold no longer holds, and you find yourself moving without quite knowing toward what.
Then comes Shadow & Mirror. To look inward is already an act of courage. The parts you set aside, the things you kept refusing, they surface here, asking only to be seen.
After that, Integration & Awaken. What once felt like an ending slowly becomes a threshold. The pieces settle, not resolved or tidied away, but held, and you carry what you found into who you are becoming.
And finally Belonging & Continuum. You were always in the place you were looking for. Belonging was never somewhere to arrive. It was the relationship you'd been quietly building with yourself the whole time.
Here is the part I keep coming back to. Growth was never linear, and neither are these four phases. You might stay in one for a long time, move through another in a single breath, or fall back into one you thought you'd already left. None of it is a detour. There is no better or worse, only whether you let yourself stay long enough to find what each phase has to offer.
We're so used to thinking our journey should look the way the world expects. But however you walk it, the rhythm and the scenery can be your own.
A little behind-the-scenes on where things stand: after a solid month of going back and forth on the packaging design, it's finally settled. The plan now is to move into sampling over the summer, and I'm hoping to show you the full deck, the whole thing as it's meant to be, before autumn arrives.
What did I learn last month?
Recap of June
This is where I look back at the four A Soft Reminder posts from the past month, notice what they were quietly pointing to when read together, and let that shape what we might sit with as we go into the next one.
Looking back at June, I noticed something I hadn't seen while I was writing it. Each week was about the same quiet move. There's the thing itself, and then there's the layer the mind lays on top of it. And every week, that second layer arrives disguised as the first.
Week 1 · The window. The same view looks like one thing on an anxious day and something entirely else on a quieter one. Nothing out there moved. Only the one looking. Reality is always being translated by who we are in the moment of seeing it.
Week 2 · The ground. The noisier the world gets, the more it asks of you to stay still. Steadiness doesn't come from controlling what's happening outside, but from returning to the ground underneath, again and again, until the restlessness starts to loosen on its own.
Week 3 · The old shell. Some patterns are so familiar they rush out before you've even reacted. A feeling touches the old place where you once felt unsafe, and you forget you're no longer the person you were then. But the danger is no longer here. You can step out and look around anytime.
Week 4 · The doubting voice. It only shows up after a good thing has finally been allowed. The ease starts to feel like avoidance, the new energy like distraction. But the order gives it away. The feeling came first. The doubt was laid on top of something that was already real.
The line I keep coming back to, the one that holds the whole month for me:
"What's real arrives first. The doubt always comes second."
Looking back at June, what I noticed is how easily we mistake the second layer for the first. The interpretation feels like truth, like caution, like wisdom worth taking seriously, which is exactly why it's so hard to catch. And even once we can see this clearly, that doesn't mean we step out of it right away. The anxious self, the old shell, the doubting voice, they return in new shapes, each one insisting it's just being responsible. What I'm hoping to carry into July is this kind of awareness, used gently. Not to argue any of it down. Just to notice which thing came first.
A note from my own life. June was quieter than the months before it, the first real calm I'd felt in years. Part of that came from a camping trip I took this month. No signal at the campsite, no notifications, no outside noise. Just yourself, the real connection with the friends beside you, and nature. We've grown so used to being flooded with information that it's easy to forget how to steady ourselves. When I came back down to where the signal returned, I reached for my phone almost out of habit and started scrolling, and that anxious feeling came rushing back into my body, magnified. I was grateful for the contrast. It reminded me that the overload, the FOMO, all of it is something that gets manufactured. You are actually safe. Don't forget that.
The other place this showed up was my own relationship. I noticed this month that I still sometimes respond to what's right in front of me with an old wound's reaction. That reaction is only ever trying to protect me. But it's the same lesson as the cards keep pointing to. We're safe in this moment. We've just forgotten that what's here now is no longer what was here then, and we don't have to keep holding onto a belief that belonged to the past.
These were June's versions of the same quiet move. The pattern arriving first, the present getting translated into something it isn't, and the slow practice of noticing the order before believing the story.
Did any of June's reminders find you? In what part of your life did you meet a similar version of this? I'd love to hear if you feel like writing back.
Once a month, I'll pull a card from A Journey Through Light and send it your way. The idea isn't to read it as a forecast. It's to use the image and the question as a soft prompt. Something to sit with, journal through, or just let stay open at the back of your mind for the week.
This card finds its way to you.
Before reading anything I write below, take a moment with the image itself.
Notice the colors first. The deep blue, the dark winding lines, the small lights gathering at the center, the water falling toward the ground. Don't reach for meaning yet. Just notice what the image stirs in your body. Maybe it tightens something, maybe it softens something, maybe nothing happens at all. All of those are honest responses.
Then, when you're ready, sit with the question:
Looking back at the choices you've made, what pattern do you see taking shape?
You can carry this into a journal entry. You can hold it during a quiet walk. You can read it once and let it work on you without trying to answer it. There's no correct way to use it.
See you next month. ✨
Yian
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Your journey milestone!
A little something from this month.
At the height of the season, something quiet begins to lean the other way.
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✨Each month, a new badge is designed to carry the feeling of that month. Mail Club subscribers receive it as a physical sticker, sent with the monthly letter. One small piece at a time, your collection grows alongside the journey. （More info about the Mail Club will be announced on my Instagram! Stay tuned.)
A small note on what's ahead.
The mail club I mentioned is still on its way, I'm holding it until the online shop is properly set up first. I'd rather not rush something into being before it's ready to hold anyone who steps into it. The shop is in the works now, and there will be prints available there soon. More details will come through July, a little at a time. Thank you for your patience, and for being here while it all takes shape.
(By the way, my original paintings are available if any of them have caught your eye. DM or email me; I'd love to talk.)
That's it for this month. Thank you for being here.
