Creating a personalised life
featuring my Friday 'Bliss List'
The weather in London has been incredible lately. We’ve had a string of beautiful sunny days - perfect for long walks by the River Thames (or to my local Sainbury’s).
A few days ago, my husband and I were walking bag from getting groceries. As we were walking we saw a series of dog walkers with their respective dogs (supeeeer cute and adorable if I do say so myself - and this is coming from someone who used to be terrified of cats & dogs!). As we observed all these cute dogs, my husband told me that his friend owns a German Shepherd, and so they require hours of time outside, walking and running, and another friend of ours owns a Pomeranian, and so they get tired easily and don’t require as walking. Every dog is different, from what they eat, to the type of exercise that they need, granted that they are all still ‘dogs’ but they all need different treatments to function at their best.
I came home, put away the groceries, and then had an ‘aha’ moment. If different breeds of dogs require different hours of walking/exercise, why are we as humans just trying to follow what ‘brands’ or what the people around us are doing? Whether it be skincare, or the type of exercise for your body, or makeup, hair, clothes, why are we all just following one type of ideal? Is it capitalism? Wanting to belong in a society? Consumerism? or are we all too busy (and too numb) to listen to our magical power aka our intuition to figure our the ideal ritual for us to function at our best.
I am no genius, but I think it’s a mixture of everything. I realised this since I moved to London and have been working here for close to two years now. You don’t realise how much your surrounding actually affects the choice that you make until you move yourself to a new environment. Which was what happened to me. But in the era of globalisation, a Malaysian girl living in Kuala Lumpur, could also easily be influenced to dress up like a Swedish girl from Stockholm, despite having nothing in common other than both of them being humans and are both women. Isn’t that crazy? It’s like you’re a cutesy Pomeranian dog, but you aspire to be a German Shepherd, and so you train like crazy , but the reality is you will never be a German Shepherd, but marketing made you believe that you can, so you’re left exhausted, broke and feeling empty?
So I suppose the question is ‘How do we start listening to our intuition more’
The answer is well - I don’t know. But after around 3 decade ++ of living, I’ll share some of my ‘bliss list’ or things I wish I knew at 20 instead of 30, type of thing.
Pay attention to your ‘gut feel’. You know the ‘butterflies’ that you get when you’re with your fav person, or the ‘stomach ache’ you get after crashing a job interview. That’s a door to your intuition. For example, I started incorporating really intense workouts these past few months, and I recently got very ill and was not able to workout for two weeks. I was then quite busy with and was not able to go to my regular workout classes, so I started going for long walks, incorporating more yoga - shout out to Love Supreme Projects on Golborne Road, and I’ve never felt more energised in 2025.
Here’s the thing, when I started my ‘intense’ workout regime last year, I was feeling quite off. I was always tired, and my body felt inflamed and sort of bloated? But I ignored those signs. I was also eating more dairy at this point - regular cheeses, and creamier meals at home - I really had a moment where I was quite influenced by my surroundings and not really listening to my body.
When I got ill, I decided to treat myself and went for a lymphatic drainage massage by a Japanese therapist. As a 5’3 asian woman, I 100000% trust asian beauty therapists more, why? Because we’re genetically more similar. So what works for them, may most probably work for me too. My therapist told my that my legs were extremely swollen and that the workouts that I was doing can be quite intense for my body time…. and then it hit me, I was right all along. My body was trying to tell me something but I chose to ignore it…There is no one size fits all - despite what capitalism is trying to sell to you
I wish I learnt this at a younger age, particularly when I was a university student in London when I would view anything the English people do or say will always be ‘right’ . If a £200 Augustinus Bader cream ‘cured’ Alexa Chung from her acne, it would cure mine too….. but even when we have completely different skin types! eek. In the realm of skincare, I will almost always swear by Asian skincare, because of their lighter formulations. Genetically, we asians have thinner skin, and as Southeast Asians, because of our climate tend to have slightly bigger pores as to help us release more heat from our body. Of course this is a generalisation, but I find most European skincare have stronger actives in their skincare products and thicker product formulations - which makes a lot of sense as their skin is generally a lot thicker, and so they need strong products to for it to be effective.
I’ll show you what’s in my skincare refill. While my skin is going through some weird change in weather situation, these are my current go-to.
3. If you’re not sure what suits you, keep on trying different things until you find something that’s right for you. This was me with my hair stylist and maybe even my job! But talking about my haircut is way more fun so lets do that. I am very happy to announce that after 2 years, 4 different hair salons, 3 horrible haircuts, several ££££££ later, I finally found my fav hair salon and stylist in London. I’ve been twice and can confirm that they are amazing. I go to Tomoyuki & Co on Great Titchfield street, and my hairdresser is Sachie. She specialises in cutting layers, which is exactly what I was looking for. My hair has been great these past few months thanks to them.
In terms of styling, I have been using the Dyson airwrap for thick hair since January, and I’m fan. I also generally L.O.V.E. Davines, and use their heat protectant regularly (picture below).
When you feel like stuck - try something new
I think it’s super normal to feel like you’re stuck. We wake up, go to work, squeeze in a workout if we’re lucky, come back home, make dinner, clean, shower, sleep and repeat the whole thing all over again. And when it all feels soul-less and bleak, this is when I can feel it in my bones that I should try something new. I like to start small for e.g. I now have been trying to start my mornings with a warm breakfast as according to my acupuncturist , starting your day with ‘cold' food is bad for your digestion especially when you’re on your period. I am taking a break from my yoghurt bowls for now, and having a warm omelette for breakfast instead. So far I feel good, less sluggish but I could also just be imagining things.
To spice up my weekends, I signed myself up to a few craft workshops. Classes that I’ve always been curious about but never got the chance to try. Last weekend I went to Make Town and tried out weaving! I purchased a beautiful dress in Sicily that was hand woven, and got really curious. I landed in London and immediately booked myself into this workshop. It was so new to me, and as someone with zero creative training, I find this workshop super fun as you can explore your creativity with zero judgement.https://make.town/
Before I sign off, I also just wanted to share some of the things I noticed when I started slowing down instead of rushing to go to work every morning. Because honestly , deadlines are temporary, inner peace is forever!
Okay it’s now 11:30 pm and I need to use my beloved Dyson to blow dry my hair.
Till next week. I’m planning of also doing a round up of some of my fav shops, cafes, restaurants around London, just so that I have somewhere I can refer to when I have friends visiting!
With love and light,
Quya