Seeing My Own Work More Clearly

I recently had the chance to sit down with Meilin Ehlke for her podcast, Moving to Oneness. I went into the conversation thinking we’d talk about Japan, yoyu, and my book in the way I usually do, in a grounded, practical way rooted in lived experience.

What I didn’t expect was how much the conversation would help me see my own work more clearly.

Sometimes it takes another person, especially someone who is really paying attention, to reflect something back to you that you’ve been living inside of without naming.

This conversation did that.

A note before you continue…

If you have time to listen, here are a few things from the full interview.

• I share the origin moment of the book, the first time I really noticed yoyu in action, watching a grocery store cashier move from not having yoyu to having it right in front of me.

• We talk about one of my favorite practices for restoring yoyu, where I consciously ask for help from nature and let energy come through bit by bit rather than forcing a mindset shift.

• You’ll hear the pacing, pauses, and warmth of a live conversation, things that don’t always translate fully onto the page.

You can listen to the full interview on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on Meilin’s site.

And if today is a reading kind of day, skip over the video. What follows is a written companion to the conversation. It’s not a transcript, but a distillation of what stayed with me afterward.

Yoyu as something we notice, not something we chase

One of the things Meilin reflected back to me, without using these exact words, is that yoyu isn’t something I teach as a concept. It’s something I live inside of, notice, adjust for, and return to.

That felt important.

When you live in Japan long enough, words like yoyu stop being interesting linguistically and start becoming practical. You don’t announce that you’re low on yoyu. You don’t explain it. You simply know when you have it and when you don’t.

And when you don’t have it, you adjust.

Listening to Meilin talk about how she experienced the book helped me see that this might be the quiet work the book is actually doing: helping people notice where their reserves are leaking, where they still exist, and how they might protect them—without drama.

Yoyu isn’t about optimization.
It’s about orientation.

Place, presence, and carrying something forward

We also talked about where I live now, deep in the mountains of Hiroshima Prefecture, and how different that feels from Tokyo.

What Meilin noticed, and what I hadn’t fully articulated before, is how much place matters to the way I write and the way I think about yoyu.

Living closer to land, seasons, and slowness has changed my sense of urgency. It hasn’t erased it, but it has softened it. It’s easier to see that life moves in cycles. That energy returns if you let it. That not everything needs to be pushed forward by force.

This matters because yoyu isn’t static. It comes and goes. And when you understand that, you stop treating low yoyu as a personal failure and start seeing it as information.

That shift alone can be life-changing.

Being the one who carries the word

One of the moments in the conversation that stayed with me most was when Meilin spoke about my role, not as an expert or teacher, but as someone carrying a word and a way of seeing into another language and culture.

I’ve never felt particularly attached to being “the one” who introduces yoyu. I encountered it. I needed it. I lived with it. And eventually, I wrote from inside that experience.

But having someone else name that role helped me understand something new:
sometimes our work isn’t about invention at all.
It’s about stewardship.

We notice something.
We live with it long enough for it to change us.
And then, if we’re willing, we share it in a way that lets others recognize themselves.

That’s what this book did because that’s what yoyu did for me first.

Why this conversation mattered to me

I’m grateful for this conversation not because it promoted the book, but because it slowed me down long enough to see it differently.

It reminded me that yoyu isn’t a destination.
It’s a relationship.

With time.
With energy.
With place.
With language.
With ourselves.

And sometimes, the most generous thing we can do is let someone else show us what we’ve been holding all along.

If you’d like to watch or listen, the full conversation with Meilin Ehlke is embedded above.

And if reading was enough for today, I’m glad you’re here too.

If you’re new here and wondering what yoyu means, you can read a simple explanation here.

Or, you can pick up a copy of my book, Finding Yoyu, here, in whatever format you like.