We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chikae O.H. a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Chikae, thank you for joining us today and sharing your experiences and acquired wisdom with us. Burnout is a huge topic these days and so we’d love to kick things off by discussing your thoughts on overcoming or avoiding burnout
I have burnt out many times throughout my life, with there being 2 core examples in the last few years that took its toll and made me reassess many things in my life. I knew I needed a perspective shift. To re-align, recalibrate and turn inwards instead of seeking the answers outside of myself. I created a philosophy, a made-up word “Hikarui” which is my brand to this day, in 2016 as a way of starting a new way of living that was more in alignment with the things I wanted to embody, in both my business and personal lives. In essence, it means “Lightweight Living” You can find out more about the meaning of this here (https://www.hikarui.com/journal/hikarui-a-new-lifestyle-concept-i-live-by).
I have always been different, a black sheep, an out-of-the-box thinker, a polymath, a truth-seeker and had lower energy than almost everyone around me. Over the years I have done lots of work on myself, with learning and self-development being one of the things I love spending time on the most. The more I went inwards and sat with discomfort but also listened to my body, the more I understood my unique rhythms and how I could work with them, not against them and that while I may not have as much energy as the next person, I was able to accomplish much more in less time because I was putting self-care and my own needs before anything, and doing what I loved. That classic example of putting on your own mask first before helping anyone else on aeroplanes.
The more I honoured all of this and the other things that came to light, the more things I manifested, and effortless things became. Luckily I have always been someone who can manifest easily and I never understood why, and when asked how, I could never give an answer because it always “just happened”, but upon reflection, the throughline was that 1. I was doing the thing I loved the most, that truly lit me up 2. I was listening to my own timings 3. not forcing anything/trusting in the process and letting things unfold organically 4. I let go of expectations, outcomes and the things and people that drained my energy, including work and most importantly, I was allowing for rest and time off, working on whatever it was that I wanted to manifest.
So over time, I learnt how to schedule my self-care and joyful activities first, then work came second, and as a result, I got more work done in a shorter amount of time, because I was also setting a boundary with myself and with others. I was also only working with people who were in alignment with me and my values and having the confidence to say no to those that weren’t.
The second part of all of this is I trained to become a Human Design reader and this was pivotal to understanding why/how I burn out and how to use my energy in the best way for me. I’ve done all the tests (enneagram, meyrs briggs etc and astrology and then some but I hated the questionnaire format because it was too black and white an not nuanced enough), but this was the first time it was put into terms that allowed me to understand all my gifts and vulnerabilities and to start owning and accepting all of it and how to use them for me rather than against me. I highly recommend you look up your chart on any Human Design online chart generator (my fave is Jenna Zoe’s app or website – I trained with her).
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
This is a hard one to answer as I am totally unconventional and do so many things. Honestly, I do whatever my heart desires at the time and allow for the shifts of seasons, moods, time of life to give me insight on what I’m meant to be doing at any given moment. I live for the process. One day I might be a painter, the next day a photographer, the next an embroiderer, a human design reader, a web designer… the list goes on. I ultimately love learning and sharing and bringing like-minded people together to create shared experiences and impart my wisdom to others.
So along-side all of the other goings on that I can never pinpoint at any given time, I wanted a place to house all of my findings and discoveries that I’ve made in life to share with others to help people find more alignment, and this is what I’m about to launch at Hikarui.com. I’ve called it the Little Black Book (naughty connotations – I know, but love that), as it really is my contact book/toolkit of curated resources and people who have helped me/helping me to overcome blocks, change my mindset, and perspective or infuse more beauty and intention into my life whilst tapping back more into my own intuition and self that I think we have all strayed far away from through external conditioning.
So in May 2024, I’m finally launching this passion project of collected wisdom and curated resources to help people live more beautifully, intentionally and intuitively.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
- Not so much a quality but coaching has been integral. And the earlier the investment the better, but I would also say that timing is everything – so listen to your inner voice and only do something when it feels right for you, don’t let anyone force you into anything. I can shout from the rooftops about how much so many things have helped me but I’m always really mindful of just being like “This really helped me, let me know when you’re ready for it then I can give you more details”, or “this helped me – I’ll just leave this here for when you’re ready”. This is so important to trust in your own timing and intuition, otherwise, the investment can be made and time devoted to it, but if you aren’t ready to receive that information or learning or growth, then it can hinder that growth in the long run.
This is also to say that I have revisited the learnings and coaching wisdom and steps throughout my life. Much like watching a movie at different ages throughout your life, you notice or receive different messages or resonate with different parts because you are in a different stage of your life.
- Human Design as I mentioned before was hugely impactful in coming back home to myself but more importantly – in the undoing of beliefs/fears/mindsets that weren’t my own, and then seeing myself for my gifts. I’m still learning about and integratingthese teachings daily and don’t think I’ll ever understand everything fully, but that’s ok as that’s not necessarily the point. Process > the goal. My advice for this and with anything really, is just do the 0.01% every day, whatever that might be that you want to change or implement or even work on. Before you take the first step, just look at your feet. Human Design taught me that everyone makes decisions differently (called your Authority) and once you know how – you realise that our mind is not a decision-making machine, it’s simply for processing, learning and absorbing. It’s actually our intuition that we make decisions fromthat sadly most of us have lost touch with and therefore don’t know what to listen for in the queues within our body. If you go back to cavemen times or even look at animals, they would have reacted to external threats or made decisions based on intuition, a feeling. I find this fascinating.
- A follow-on from this has to be compassion. I’ve cultivated this more and more throughout my life, and human design has helped me with this. To truly remember that there are 8 billion people on the planet and yet we’re all trying to live the same way or fit into a mould – I never resonated with that, I always wanted to question the norms, conventions and formulas and rules because I knew that surely just because one thing works for one person, it doesn’t for another, but as a child, I didn’t know what that meant or how to articulate or live that. Through my own growth and undoing of limiting beliefs and studying Human Design in particular, it’s helped me develop a better understanding of othersand realise – wow just because this thing comes naturally to me, it doesn’t for that person, or vice versa. Or for example, I have lower energy and cannot work more than 2-3 hours of output a day, the rest of the day I spend learning, resting, doing things that are joyful and playful, and I finally acceptedthis part of myself and realized this is why I burnt out so many times in my life. Whereas many of my friends have incredible amounts of energy and are built that way and actually rest looks completely different to them. For me it’s having naps, to a friend of mine, hers is actually gardening, horse-riding, exercising, basically being active. As you start to see this in others, the more compassionate you become and you stop judging others because you truly start to celebrate everyone’s differences and embrace them and your own.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
Both of my parents financially supported and invested in me from a young age as well as taking me out of school to experience life because the school doesn’t always teach you valuable life things, so my dad pulled me out of school in Japan for example, to go watch the World Series in St Louis in the US to watch the Boston Red Sox come out of a slump of many years (can’t remember exactly), and my dad saw the opportunity to witness his team make history by getting to the finals of the World Series, and sure enough, they did and it was one of the biggest moments in Baseball. That game and storyline even became a film with Drew Barrymore – this is what my parents always wanted. We always travelled the world and this informed and reaffirmed my love of freedom, travel, culture, experience, experimentation and food. The experience of life. And for this, I’m forever grateful.
My mom in particular always told me to not rush anything and the value of quality over quantity and experimentation. She told me to do what I truly loved. I feel so lucky to have had her support. She knew from a young age that I was incredibly creative, free-spirited and stubborn with a high IQ (which is also why I think I always felt like an outsider as I constantly felt like I had to slow down or keep myself small so as not to showcase my talents or ability to learn things really quickly). My kindergarten teacher once told her to when I was about 4/5 years old to not force me to do anything didn’t want to do, to allow me to beat to the drum of my own heart otherwise there would be consequences haha. So, she let me try everything.
I was really miserable at University and so once I graduated my mom said to try everything and do lots of little courses and workshops, study as much as I could and gain many skills. That’s why I jokingly said at the beginning that my “Description” is “whatever I feel like that day/polymath/jack-of-all-trades” because she allowed me to be a polymath and supported me on that journey. For this, I will be forever grateful and it motivates me to help others find a way to do what they love without compromise and offer up a safe space to do so. So this is what the LBB is hopefully the start of, and my brand Hikarui generally.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hikarui.com
- Instagram: @hikarui_
- Other: Pinterest: @hikarui_
Image Credits
My portrait is taken by Sundari Ferris (https://sundariferris.co.uk/). All other photos are mine.
