Personal Excellence » Series

My Journey with Emotional Eating, Part 1: Food as a Symbol of Love

Celes — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:45:44 +0000

This is part-1 of a 6-part series on emotional eating, the perversion of food in our society today, and how to overcome it.

How would you describe your relationship with food?

I would describe mine as a highly unhealthy one. For a very long time up until recently, I had the worst possible relationship one could ever have with food.

My Journey with Emotional Eating

For the longest time, I was very, very heavy emotional eater. I would eat based on my emotions (be it happy, sad, or boredom), not physical hunger. While not a definite consequence, it resulted in my tendency to overeat compulsively, also known as bingeing.

My emotional eating issues formed when I was a kid, as a result of societal conditioning, media conditioning, and the way food was used as a proxy for love in my family. I grew up, heavily tangled in a series of warped beliefs surrounding myself, food, eating, and last but not least, love.

In my teenage years, up till very recently, I would constantly eat out of self-hate, low self-worth, (misguided) self-love, and self-enforced pressure. I was engulfed in a deep, painful struggle with food and eating, to say the least. The past 10 years of my life has been one where I descended in a long, downward spiral of darkness and misery due to my emotional eating condition.

In the later years of the struggle, as I dipped into the darkest pits of emotional eating imaginable, I bore a quiet hope that I would one day be free from this entanglement with food. That I could just get food and eating out of my mind, and rebuild my diet and health on a clean slate. That I would have a completely healthy relationship with food, where I would only eat as and when I needed to.

Today, I’m glad the struggle is finally over. I’m finally at peace with food. No more eating outside of my caloric needs. No more eating when I’m not hungry. No more eating based on emotions. No more eating to feed my emotions. No more random triggers cuing me to eat when I shouldn’t be eating. No more madness surrounding eating.

This new 6-part series on emotional eating shares (1) my struggle with food and eating (2) how I worked through my emotional eating issues, one by one and (3) how you can gain salvation from it, as long as you set the intention to do so.

If you are an emotional eater, I want to let you know that no matter how bad things may seem, you *can* break out of this seemingly unresolvable mess. It *is* possible for you to bid goodbye to any twisted relationship you have with food today *and* attain a completely healthy relationship with it, if you want to. But you have to first acknowledge you *do* have an emotional eating issue, because until you do, you will keep going back-and-forth in a mental battle with food.

If you are not an emotional eater but you know someone who *might* be, please share this guide with him/her, because it may well be the missing link he/she needs to put an end to his/her problem.

This is my story with food, eating, and at the end of it all, myself.

Growing Up – Food as a Symbol of Love

The Beginnings

For as long as I knew, I would eat to fill myself emotionally, rather than driven by physical need.

I believe it all started when I was a kid.

My parents doted on me (and my brother) immensely. They probably loved us more than they ever let on.

However, they never expressed that with words. With Asian families, love is rarely communicated verbally, but via actions, symbols, and mediums. In my series on improving your relationship with parents, I shared how verbal communication was a rarity in my family, partly due to language barriers, partly because it wasn’t the language of love.

In my family, it so happened food was that medium in which love was conveyed.

My parents would ensure my brother and I were well-fed, above all else. Eating was considered a joy. The more we ate, the better. While my parents extolled on thriftiness, they never held back when it came to spending on food. They, especially my dad, loved to buy/prepare/cook food for the family, because it made them feel they were fulfilling their duties as parents.

Scarcity of Food

Thinking back, their valuation of food was probably due to its scarcity during their time. My parents were born in the 1950s. It was the post war times, when the (Singapore) society was not as affluent as it is today. They often spoke of tough times they had growing up.

For example, my mom grew up in a household with 7 children. There were many mouths to feed and not enough food to go around. There would be times when she would go without food, because the needs of the males (her brothers) took precedence over the females. To be fed was a joy; To be overfed was a luxury.

My parents also recognized that while we were living in a first world country (Singapore), there were hundred millions of people around the world stricken with poverty and famine. Hunger and starvation were real issues plaguing a large portion of the word population. Born in the wrong time, wrong place, it could well be us going without food or water.

A Family Culture of Food; Food as a Symbol of Love

Hence, raising me (and my brother), my parents’ main concern was always food. They would express their love by checking we were fed; ensuring our breakfast/lunch/dinner were taken care of; cooking for us; buying food; stocking up the household with food.

That, was their language of love.

Whenever they see me, they would ask: “Have you eaten? Are you hungry? Do you want to eat anything? Do you need me to buy food? Do you need me to cook anything? What do you want to eat?”

When it came to cooking, my parents, especially my mom, would prepare gratuitous amounts of food, much more than what was needed. For example, when cooking vermicelli, my mom had a habit of cooking a huge wok which was enough to feed 20-30 people, even though it was just the 4 of us eating. It was either we finish that or have the food go to waste. Usually we’d do the former.

During meal times, my dad would always check if I was eating fine. He would say, “Eat more.” (regardless of how much I was eating). He would pile food on my plate, and refill when I was done.

If I was to ever reject their offer to buy food/cook, or not eat the food they prepared, it would be as if I rejected their love. They never said that, but I would feel that way. Their face would grimace into a permanent frown, which would remain the whole day/night until I finally ate something. They would also remind me once every 10-15 minutes to eat until I ate. And when I did that, they would finally ease up, as if tension had left their body.

At night, my mom would ask us what we wanted to eat the next day, and occupy herself with breakfast, lunch and dinner plans for the family. It was the same thing the next day, every day.

During weekends mornings, my parents would go to the local market and buy a large assortment of food for breakfast. From carrot cake, to peanut pancakes, to rice cakes, to Chinese noodles, to fried dough sticks, to steamed buns, to roti prata (all popular local food), to McDonald’s, we could pick what we wanted and eat to our heart’s content, while enjoying quiet family time in the early mornings. These were the happy memories.

On the weekend afternoons, my parents would bring us out to IMM (a mega mart) to stock up on food supplies. My parents would ask me to pick out any food I wanted in the aisles. I remembered being very enamored by the variety of food, always wanting to grab the flavors I had not tried before. There would also be this donut kiosk with mini-donuts fried on the spot. I always loved to see the “making of” process as my parents ordered some for us.

Occasionally, we would have KFC, Pizza Hut, local Chinese cuisine and more, as special treats. Sometimes, we would eat out as a routine family outing, which was always something to look forward to.

My parents would also keep a look out for what I liked to eat, and buy more of that. For example, growing up, they knew I liked steamed buns with red bean filling, chocolate, donuts, and curry puffs. (I don’t like any of them now. Now that I’m on a healthier diet, I find these food quite disgusting.) They would go out of the way to get my favorite food. I would then eat them in happiness and gratitude.

Then after I became vegetarian, my dad would buy vegetarian spring rolls and dumplings from the supermart and cook them for dinner, so I could have more food choices for dinner (since the rest of the family are not vegetarians).

Throughout the week, my parents would stock the household with every food imaginable from biscuits, cookies, pastries, confectionery, bread, candy, chips, chocolate, ice cream, to instant noodles, because they didn’t want me nor my brother to go hungry. It was like every child’s dream house, like the one in Hansel and Gretel.

My parents would buy every food in bulk, because they had a habit of stocking up. If ever we ran out on 1 item, my parents would immediately get more the next day or the day itself. Hence, there would always be something to eat at home, regardless of the time of the day.

The above was what I was exposed to growing up, for every day in my life. I would eat every day, as much as I wanted, as freely as I desired.

As much as my parents had the purest, absolute best intentions from their heart, these childhood activities, along with societal and media conditioning, would embed me with some highly twisted beliefs surrounding food and eating.

I would grow up with these distorted beliefs, which would layer on one another every time I undergo an experienced that affirmed them. This created a huge web of twisted, erroneous beliefs surrounding food and eating in my mind. These would later lead me to experience a large amount of pain and suffering in my early adulthood, where food and eating were concerned.

Continue on to Part 2: Deep Entanglement, where I share my deep entanglement with food as a result of my conditioning since young.

This is part-1 of a 6-part series on emotional eating, the perversion of food in our society today, and how to overcome it.

Ask Celes – Is there anything you want to ask? Fire away!

Celes — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:44:29 +0000

As some of you may vividly recall, last month was a month of intense character development. Through Be a Better Me in 30 Days Challenge, many of us addressed deep-seated issues, achieved new insights, and came to new breakthroughs.

I thought part of what made the experience so amazing was the opportunity to engage on a level we normally don’t at PE. This is why I love the challenges so much – be it 30DLBL, 21DHL, BIB, MDC or 30BBM. Each challenge has provided me with the opportunity to know you better. The connection with all of you is what drives me to keep writing and to keep sharing at the blog, on top of my passion to grow and help all of you grow.

In line with that, I thought I’d do something fun with you guys for the upcoming week.
For those who have been reading the blog for a while, you might know of the Ask Celes section. It was an aunt agony-esque section I used to have on PE, where I would address reader questions via the blog posts.

While it was a great way for me to connect with all of you, it was short lived though, because (a) I was getting way too many questions than I could afford to address. I didn’t want people to raise their hopes up and to waste their time sending questions if they weren’t going to be addressed (b) I already had an extensive list of topics which I wanted to blog about, and the section was diverting my attention.

I’m not planning to reinstate the section, because I did that before and the same situation emerged.

Rather, I’m going to dedicate the next week as “Ask Celes” week. During this week, I’m going to dedicate the blog posts to answering reader questions.

So if you’ve always had a question / questions you wanted to ask me, or if you have some burning issue / question on your mind that you want to get perspective on (be it on relationships, people skills, career, health/fitness, cultivating habits, emotional mastery, productivity, goal achievement, etc), now is the perfect opportunity!
Here are the guidelines:

Length of question - You can either post the question directly or provide some background before asking your question. Either way, keep each submission short – 3-4 sentences ideally. The shorter, the easier for me to answer. If I get a submission in the form of some life essay, there is very low likelihood I’ll be attending to that.
No limit to # of questions - Feel free to ask as many questions as you want. Send them as individual submissions please – i.e. 1 form submission for 1 question.
Submission form - Please use the “Ask Celes” submission form below (within the blog post) for your question, and not the comments area of this blog post. The submissions will be filed to a special folder in my email which will make it easier for me to address them. If you’ve any comments/questions about the “Ask Celes” segment itself, air them via the comments area.
Personal growth – Your questions should be linked to personal growth in some way for me to address them. Generally most questions satisfy this criteria, since everything in life can be linked to growth.
Personal questions – You are free to ask me any personal questions about me or my life, though I cannot guarantee I’ll answer them!
Anything goes – In case of uncertainty, just type in your question and see where it takes you! No venture, no gain, right? After all, what do you have to lose? Nothing! At most it just doesn’t get addressed.

Here’s what to expect for the week:

1 blog post for every question - I’ll be addressing each question with 1 post. If there are similar questions, I may clump them and answer them together.
Posting frequency - I may post anywhere from 1 post a day to several posts a day, depending on volume of questions. So there’ll be plenty to read in the next few days! Get on the newsletter to ensure you receive all the replies.
Length of reply - To address as many questions as possible, I’ll not be replying with the depth I normally do for my blog posts. Since the material at Personal Excellence is already quite extensive, I foresee myself posting redirects to existing blog posts as part of my replies, where relevant. As a broad guideline, my replies will probably range from 100 to 750 words, so please don’t expect a lengthy in-depth analysis and A-Z coverage on the topic. Ultimately I’ll write as much/little as necessary to express my answer.
Selection criteria - For practical reasons, I don’t be able to answer all the questions. Rather, I’ll pick the ones which I feel will be most relevant to the readers/PE. In the event your letter is picked, you’ll *not* be notified – So check by Personal Excellence regularly! Subscribe to the newsletter so you won’t miss any posts.
Personal growth - Since Personal Excellence is about growth and personal excellence, I’ll be tackling each question from that angle.
Duration – My plan is to do this for 1 week, though I may extend / shorten it depending on the response. If we get an incoming stream of quality questions, I may continue for a few more weeks. Depending on the outcome of this project, I may do it periodically in the future.

Ready? Fire away below! I’ll be writing the replies right away as I receive them.

Update Oct 02 ’11: The section has now concluded. Read the past Q&As here:

Image © eleaf

How I Found Peace in My Relationship with My Parents, Part 1: A Child’s Wish

Celes — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 08:37:16 +0000

This is part-1 of a series on parents and understanding our relationship with them.

Forenote

(Jul 12, ’11) – Some of you may have noticed that I’ve never written about my parents or my relationship with them. It’s not by intention; just that there’s never been a reason to write about it.

That is, until recently, as I start gaining resolution in new areas of my life. Today’s post marks the first post where I share in detail about this as-of-yet unknown side of my life.

I foresee this to be the first in many posts to come where I share more of the inner sides of my life. With PE, I want to create a common, safe space where every single one of us is free to openly discuss about our vulnerabilities, our deepest desires, our fears, and our passions, without judgment or discernment by anyone. I want all of us not to be afraid to say what we’re feeling on the inside.

Where others may see the sharing of one’s emotions and desires as being weak and vulnerable, I see this as a strength, because it is from our emotions that we draw our greatest power in life. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. To show our emotions, to be vulnerable, to open ourselves fully, without holding back, is the most beautiful thing we can ever do. I think it is by bearing yourself that you progress in your growth and become a stronger person. The more you open yourself up, the more you’ll grow.

I look forward to connecting with more of you in this journey of life ahead. Here’s to an extremely exciting journey ahead.

**Update regarding article commenting: Since it’s been fun having the reader exchange of comments in recent Holland series, I’ve decided to reopen comments (but only for 30 days for each article). This means you’re free to post any comments you want for new articles, as long as it’s within 30 days since the article is published. Comments will be closed after 30 days. So comment away!

How I Found Peace in My Relationship with My Parents

Have you ever wished for a certain kind of relationship with your parents? Say, a relationship where they are strong mentors to you? A relationship where they are like your friends, on top of just being parents? A relationship that is deeper and closer than what you have today?

A Child’s Wish – A Deep Wish

One of my deepest wishes for my parents for a long time was for them to be my best friends. That beyond being parental figures to me, I could connect openly and emotionally with them, share all my deepest thoughts, fears and life passions, have meaningful discussions, and make decisions about my life together.

I think it took root from when I was growing up. Watching dramas and TV shows, Chinese and American ones alike, and witnessing the bonds the children had with their parents/family. Those really left me with a deep impression.

I remember watching Chinese drama serials, and thinking it was so heartwarming how the families would have dinners together at the dinner table every day, update each other on what was going on in their lives, discuss things on their mind with one another, and laugh and bond over their meals.

I remember watching Buffy (the Vampire Slayer), one of my favorite shows when I was younger, and thinking how nice it was that Buffy and her mom (Joyce) could talk the way they did. For example, Buffy’s mom (who was divorced) could talk to Buffy about her (Joyce’s) romantic dates openly. Buffy could share her secrets with her mom, as well as let her in on her circle of friends. They would have conversations – actual conversations about each other’s life. On top of being a mother/daughter to each other, they were close friends too.

I remember watching Charmed, and thinking it was so sweet the Halliwell sisters never failed to support each other, physically and emotionally. Each of them could rely on the others to be there when needed. They could discuss about their relationship woes, life dilemmas, work problems, etc with each other. Not only were they sisters, they were also best friends too.

I remember watching participants on reality shows like American Idol, Singapore Idol, The Bachelor, The Apprentice and the like, and feeling in awe whenever they cut to scenes of participants with their family. You could see the participants and their parents talk openly with one another, hug each other and express signs of care and concern for one another.

Disparity between Vision and Reality

Yet for some reason, my relationship with my parents for the past 15 years of my life was not that all.

In fact, it was the direct opposite. Looking back, I would classify my relationship with my parents as more dysfunctional than anything, and pretty much irreparable.

While normal families would have conversations, we wouldn’t do that. We would talk, and no sooner start snapping, yelling or screaming at each other – sometimes even with expletives. Many times my mom, who has the more abrasive personality between my dad, would snipe at me with some sarcastic comment, while I’d respond by rolling my eyes. It seemed like there was some serious generation gap; some deep chasm; some pervasive gap between us that was impossible to bridge with words.

While normal families would talk to one another at least once a day, I could go for months without ever talking to my parents, because there was nothing, in my opinion, to be communicated.

While normal families would have meals together at the dining table every evening, we wouldn’t do that. We would eat at different times, and where we see fit – usually the bedroom for me, the living room for my dad, the dining room for my mom, and for my brother not at all, as he would work late and buy his own dinner.

While normal families would talk about what’s going on in each other’s lives, we wouldn’t do that. Our conversations were limited to relaying functional needs, such as what to buy/eat for dinner, help with running errands, and the like. These would usually elicit mono-syllabic replies such as “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe”, which would be where the communication ends.

We knew empirical facts about each other – like our birthdays, general life history, and so on, but in terms of our inner most thoughts, motivations in life, deepest desires, worries and concerns, greatest passions? No. My parents had no idea what was going on in my life, and neither would I know what was going on in their lives too.

While normal families would go out together on outings, at times even have vacations, we wouldn’t do that. We stopped going on family outings ever since I became 10 years old. The only time when we would go out together would be during Chinese New Year, because we were bounded by tradition to do so.

It would seem that there was a huge mismatch between my ideal vision for my parents, and the reality.

Sadness and an Unfulfilled Wish

It was actually quite sad for me for a while. I never talked about it with anyone, but deep down I always wished I had a more meaningful relationship than whatever I was having with my parents – if it could even be considered a relationship to begin with.

Like falling leaves that would become embedded in the bottom of forest undergrowth in the long-run, these unspoken feelings remained deep at the bottom of my heart, never articulated to anyone.

Our relationship felt purely functional – My dad was my dad, my mom was my mom, and both of them were my parents because they gave birth to me. That was it. Besides the obvious biological link, they have 110% fulfilled their base responsibilities as parents – They raised me, they kept me well fed and clothed, they put me through school, they funded for my expenses before I started earning money, and they inculcated good moral values in as a child. This I could never have asked for more in this regard.

But the emotional aspect of the relationship was missing. Deep down, I yearned for a emotional connection, one that transcended normal parent-child roles, and one that involved open communication, one where they were my best friends in the world whom I could share anything and everything with.

I wished I could tell them about my passions in life, and how I loved growing and helping others to grow.

I wished I could tell them how much I love them, and how they were the best parents I could ever have in this world.

I wished I could tell them all the big goals and dreams I had/I have, many of which involved being the best I could be, so that they would know I had applied every single thing they taught me.

I wished we could hug each other openly and freely, the way families who love and care for each other would.

I wished we could have a proper conversation, one that wouldn’t end with someone screaming or shouting.

I wished we could talk openly about everything under the sun, from me to them and from them to me, without feeling like we needed to hold back or hide anything from each other.

I wished I could let them know how well I am doing in my goals – how well I did in my studies and life (when I was studying), the awards I had won, how I was being selected to work in one of the best companies in the world (when I was in university), how I’m in the dream career of my life today, how prominent my work has become (online), so they would know I’m the best daughter they could ever have.

I wished I could tell them how they have done the best job they can ever do in raising me, and how I would never want to have any other parents but them.

For whenever I see my parents, I would feel there was so much I wanted to tell them, but all that would be stuck in my throat, unable to be expressed into words. And any attempts to express them would result in frustration with each other, unhappy arguments, and violent outburst of anger from one to another.

My wish as a child remained unfulfilled through my childhood years, past my teenage years, and into adulthood. In fact, if it was even possible, the chasm between my vision for my relationship with my parents and the reality would widen bigger and bigger as I grew older.

Read on in Part-2: A Pervasive, Widening Gap

This is part-1 of a series on parents and understanding our relationship with them.

Insights on Holland – View from an Outsider’s Perspective (Series)

Celes — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:27:09 +0000

This is part 1 of a 7-part travel series on Holland, including how to travel to Holland, the Dutch culture, dutch lifestyle, Dutch environment and essential things to know about the country.

At Schiphol Airport, which is also Netherlands’ main international airport (at Amsterdam)

Welcome to Amsterdam, capital of Holland! One of the first things you see when you exit Schiphol airport (in Holland, Amsterdam)

Hi everyone! So I’m here in Holland now (Amsterdam, to be exact), and it’s been over a week. Very eventful week too – it feels as if I’ve been here for a long time, because I’ve been exposed to so many new experiences every day.

My 1st week in Holland

For the past week I’ve been immersing myself in as many new experiences as possible – including moving in/out of 3 different accommodations in 3 different cities! Part of the reason is because I wanted to cover quick breadth within my first week, and I’m glad to say this has been achieved.

I was in a seaside hotel in touristy town of Noordwijk in Days 1-3 (where my speaking engagement was held); after which I moved in with a friend in the homely Hoofddorp from Days 3-5; and finally moving into the busy town of Amsterdam from Day 6, where I’m at now (Day 10). I might move to another spot in Amsterdam (Central), and possibly Den Hague, before I set off to Germany next month.

This week I opted to wind down and catch up things, such as emails and updating the blog. And I’ve been feeling under the weather because of the erratic weather in the past week (which I’ve been told by the Dutch residents that it’s abnormal, even by their standards). I’ve also been caught in the rain several times, unfortunately. So having bad throat, cough, fever and a bout of flu right now. Hopefully it gets better this week so I can continue my travel plans.

View from outside my current residence in Holland, Amsterdam South

A take of how life is like in Holland

I thought I’d write a post to share some of the insights and observations I’ve of Holland after 2 weeks. It’s by no means exhaustive and neither is it meant to be, but I suppose it’s a good start for those who are thinking of visiting Holland (or planning to one day), or those who just have an interest to read about life in a different country! I definitely know I could have benefited from such an article before I came here. So hopefully writing this will help cut down your learning curve and facilitate your travel plans.
Also I’ll be using this as a starting point to jot down my thoughts on Holland. Like other posts in PE, I’ll add on over time as I come across new things, so be sure to bookmark this for future use.

Of course, this article is based on my subjective experience in this country. I’m sure it’s going to be different for everyone else. So don’t take this as the biblical truth, but as a reference point – a guide. Readers from Holland or those who have come into contact with the dutch culture before, feel free to share your take! I’ll be opening up blog comments in this series, so feel free to post your comment below.

Bear in mind that Holland is a large country, and within Holland there are many different towns/cities, each with its own individual set of culture. (Much the same as in China, India, Russia, America, etc). What I share here is a generalization, with a slant towards culture in Amsterdam, as this is where I’m staying for the main part of my Holland trip. There will always differences across individuals and groups, so take this as a directional guide.

I’ll start off with an overall review, then I’ll break it down by section.

Overall Thoughts

I love Holland ♥. The trip has been a great joy so far. If you’re on my Facebook page, you would have seen pictures of my trip which I’ve been uploading religiously every day, along with my early thoughts of the place. Overall, the country is great fun, the people are great and I can easily see myself living here for a good part of my life.

Me along a quiet street in Hoofddorp (a homely town in Holland)

I think the most fun part about the trip so far is the immersive aspect. Rather than visit the place like a tourist, stay at hostels/inns and visit tourist attractions, I’ve instead opted for a cultural immersion – staying with dutch residents/citizens at their homes, connecting with their friends, and participating in their day-to-day activities where possible. I’m grateful to those who have kindly and very graciously opened up their homes to me – I’ll never forget your kind hospitality. ♥

In the past week, I’ve vicariously experienced the life of a single dutch mom (with a 3-year old kid) who has been living in Holland for the past 8 years and have well integrated with the society, an expat who is now a dutch resident, dutch citizens who are also business owners, dutch working as corporate employees in an MNC, among others. It has been exciting to witness (in some cases hear about) life in Holland from their perspective.

Unlike Singapore, people in Holland drive on the right side of the road, with the left-hand drive configuration (i.e. steering wheel is on the left side of the car).

That’s not to say that I don’t love my home country (Singapore) or the other places I’ve been to. For what it’s worth, I absolutely love Singapore, and I also enjoy a lot of the countries which I’ve been to, such as Taipei, Hong Kong, Thailand, Jakarta and Sydney. I can see myself living in all those places for a good period (maybe not Thailand/Jakarta, because of the hot/humid weather, safety reasons and the language barrier).

In the end, every place has its own pros and cons, and it’s more a matter of picking the country that aligns with your individual needs in life.

Traveling without Expectations

Some people have asked me if Holland met my expectations. My reply is the question is irrelevant because I didn’t come with any expectations. I came with an open curiosity and eagerness to discover the country for what it represents and embrace what it has to offer (all of which I love so far!).

From the Schiphol Airport, heading to Noordwijk (a town in Holland) as my first stop, as I was invited for a speaking engagement there

I think that’s what make traveling truly fun – to visit without preconceived notions, and to soak in everything in an unbiased manner. It’s the same with everything else in life – be it entering a new job, making new friends, getting into a relationship, and so on.

To be honest, I’m actually very thankful to be invited for the speaking engagement here – else, I doubt I’d have gotten the chance to experience this wonderful country, since Holland was not exactly tops on my to-visit list. As I mentioned in my Europe trip announcement, I was originally planning to go to New York for 3-6 months, and changed my travel plans after I got the invitation to speak at de Baak in Holland. So thank you to Harry and Wouter!

Holland 101: Some Basic Background

For the benefit of others who know nothing about Holland nor Europe, Netherlands is a country in the western Europe (see pink area on the right). Holland is the western region of Netherlands (highlighted in orange). Even though Holland technically covers the orange area, it’s often used to refer to the entire Netherlands. In this series, both terms are used interchangeably.

Map of Holland and its location in Europe

Netherlands is made up of many cities and towns. The top 10 cities, in descending order of population, are: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Almere, Groningen, Breda and Nijmegen. Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of Netherlands. (where I’m at now)

Population Density

According to Wiki, The Netherlands is the 25th most densely populated country in the world, and the most densely populated country in Europe with a population over 16 million.

At Amsterdam Central Station, on a regular weekday. Amsterdam is also the most populous city in Netherlands.

In comparison, there are the quiet towns like Hoofddorp, which have a high land area to people ratio

This is just an average though – there are towns in Holland that are very, very spacious (for example, Noordwijk, Hoofddorp), and cities which are highly populated (Amsterdam). Even in the most populated area like Amsterdam, it still doesn’t compare to Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Jakarta, which are some of the most populated areas in the world. Hence, it feels incredibly spacious here.

Time Zone: Central European Time

Holland is in Central European Time, or GMT +1 (includes Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna) – that’s 7 hours behind Singapore (GMT +8). At the moment there’s daylight savings , so it’s 6 hours behind. DST ends on Oct 30 ’11, after which the clock will go back by an hour.

Flat Land

Majority of land in Holland is flat – even lower than sea level. Hence, the government has erected a series of flood control measures, such as dikes, dams and floodgates to prevent the country from getting flooded during rain and monsoon seasons.

Example of a dike in Holland (took this shot while I was traveling from Noordwijk to Hoofddorp, another town). The dike is used as a water catchment area (during rain, for example), after which the water is drained out of the land – probably into the sea.

Because of the flat land, it’s easy for people to cycle too. Hence, cycling is a primary mode of transport in Holland. Almost everyone here has a bicycle – in fact, it’s said that there are more bicycles here than people! More on that later in the series!

Continue on to part-2 – Traveling to Holland: Visa Preparation and Climate

This is part 1 of a 7-part travel series on Holland, including how to travel to Holland, the Dutch culture, dutch lifestyle, Dutch environment and essential things to know about the country.

Successful Businesses Interview Series

Celes — Wed, 04 May 2011 23:05:17 +0000

This is the overview page for the Successful Businessess Interview Series.

This month, I’m launching a Successful Businesses Interview Series. In this series, I’ll be featuring 8 prominent and successful businesses that are making a difference in the lives of others. Many of them are famous local brands that the Singapore readers would instantly recognize; some are international brands, such as Groupon and CD Baby.

All these businesses have one thing in common – they have identified a very relevant need among their target audience and have subsequently met that need via delivering a superior, high value product / service. Most of them are also operating at a high scale too. All of them have picked up great business learnings which will undoubtedly be useful as you pursue your own passion projects and turn them into profitable ventures / businesses.

All the brands I’m covering as in the series have been carefully handpicked by me, as I only want to showcase the finest and the best at PE. These are businesses with messages that resonate with me. Through the interviews, I hope you can distill the important learnings, reflect them to your situation, and apply them accordingly as you pursue your personal projects and businesses in life.

There are 8 interviews in total, and all of them will be published one after another. The first one is up this week, featuring the highly popular Salad Stop! – with 7 outlets in Singapore, it’s quickly expanding faster than any food outlets here.

The other 7 interviews include features with Groupon (deal of the day service that’s taking the world by storm), Udders Ice Cream (popular ice cream chain in Singapore), Brown Ice (amazing vegan ice cream brand in Singapore), Delcie’s Desserts (gastronomic vegan cakes and desserts), CD Baby (international music distributor online), Citrosox (largest trendy legwear store in Singapore) and Dann’s Daily (a new but fast growing pescetarian cafe).

Stay tuned!

Update Jun 14, ’11 – All interviews are now up! Enjoy!

Million Dollar Tip Series

Celes — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:14:43 +0000

This is overview page for the Million Dollar Tip Series. If you have financial goals in life, you’ll find this series a perfect resource to achieve them.

Starting from this week, I’ll be launching an all new Million Dollar Tip Series.
The Million Dollar Tip Series is meant as a bonus resource for any of you who is interested in earning more money in life. Every few days, I’m going to post a tip that will help us in our goals toward financial abundance. These tips are based on all my personal experiences with wealth generation in my life so far. Not only that, since I’m also been actively pursuing my financial goals, I’ve been picking up many learnings in the process. I’ve no doubt these will be useful to others who have the same goals too.

As with all content on PE, the tips will be based on timeless principles and behaviors on wealth generation. These are not tips on specific wealth generation devices such as trading, internet marketing, investment, real estate, and what not. These devices are merely some ways/channels people use to earn money – there are many different mediums to earn money in life. What I’ll be sharing will be the higher-level messages that will be consistent no matter who we are or what we do.

Since wealth generation and achieving financial abundance is an ongoing life goal, the tips series will go on infinitely, until I feel that we’ve captured the key tips on the topic. I’ll start off by sharing my key learnings on earning money first, after which I’ll share new learnings as I go along the journey.

Here are all the tips to date:

To ensure you get future updates in the series, sign up for the free newsletter! Signing up also gets not one, but two subscribers-exclusive ebooks (101 Things To Do Before You Die and Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time), as special welcome gifts. You’ll also get immediate updates via email whenever new articles are added to the blog.

The Fasting Series

Celes — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:13:15 +0000

This is overview to the most complete fasting series you’ll ever find online.

As the fasting series has quickly expanded into a huge colossal of articles, I’ve created this as a content page to line up all the fasting articles. Select the topic of your interest and begin from there:

Fasting 101: My Fasting Experiment (The Whats, Whys and Hows)
Fasting Q&As:
- My Interview with Loren Lockman
- Fasting FAQs by me (Video)
My 21-Day Fasting Logs
- Day 0: Preparation
- Day 1
- Day 2
- Day 3
- Day 4
- Day 5
- Day 6
- Day 7
- Day 8
- Day 9
- Day 10
- Days 11-13
- Day 14
- Day 15
- Days 16-17
- Days 18-19
- Days 20-21
My Post-Fast Logs
- Post Fast: Day 1
- Post Fast: Day 4
- Post Fast: Day 7 (+My Overall Fasting Review)
- Post Fast: 1 Month (+ My Conclusion on my 21-day fast)
Fasting Guide: 12 Tips To Achieve Fasting Success

Important Update (Aug 29 ’11): Note that I’m not a fasting expert and everything I share here is based on my personal research and experience on fasting. If you’re interested in trying fasting yourself, please read the extensive resources I’ve already provided via this fasting series and proceed at your own risk.

Please do not approach me for fasting advice as I’m not in the position to offer any of that. Thanks and all the best to your fasting journey!

Personal Excellence » Series

My Journey with Emotional Eating, Part 1: Food as a Symbol of Love

My Journey with Emotional Eating

The Beginnings

Scarcity of Food

A Family Culture of Food; Food as a Symbol of Love

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How I Found Peace in My Relationship with My Parents

A Child’s Wish – A Deep Wish

Disparity between Vision and Reality

Sadness and an Unfulfilled Wish

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