Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment - Week 8 - Mystery
Week 8 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment
Hey Dreamer,
I am very excited about today! It is an important day for me in ways I am still trying to make sense of. Not only is it the end of Week 8 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment, it also coincides with the end of Arc I of Kiki Dreams Big.
When I began Kiki Dreams Big, I did so with a personal meaning attached that this would be something I hold onto forever as my personal map. It would encompass my being, and part of how I show up in the world is by giving structure to my time. I wanted to use 6-months as a marker of progress. Our lives are measured in years - it is our universal language of time. I like looking at my year in two halves - because my whole life has felt like I’ve been running in 6-month increments. That comes from having a summer birthday.
Tarot has been close to my heart over the past 6 months because I love the mysticism of it. I love that anybody can look at the stories the cards tell and pick up different meanings. I used the Major Arcana as inspiration for giving my Arc meaning and a central focus. These past 6 months have been quietly referred to as Arc I - The Magician. Tomorrow, I begin Arc II - The High Priestess.
What actually encompasses the arc’s meaning? Well, here’s the funny thing. When I started, I didn’t really fully know. I had a knowing that I liked this idea. Let me take you back to my original desire for creating Kiki Dreams Big - it is on the homepage of my website:
Welcome to Kiki Dreams Big! This is where I share my personal journey towards discovering and living my dream life. I share my passions, explore self-discovery, and document my progress along the way. I hope you’ll join me as I work towards creating a life full of purpose, intention, and happiness.
I entered Arc I - The Magician with a goal of discovering and living my dream life by sharing my passions, my story, self-discovery, and documenting that journey. I have certainly achieved that internally. But how I did it - that’s the tricky story. How I did it is something I am still pulling together. I created Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment to condense it into 90 days. Now, as I enter the final 30 days of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment, I am getting closer to articulating this process because it is my dream to share this with the world.
All the while, this magician symbolism has been sitting in my mind, quietly working away in the background. The Magician tarot card represents self-empowerment and skill - exactly what I needed to embody for Arc I. I have always connected with the imagery of magic and symbolism, so I have felt like I am The Magician the whole way through this experience. That is why my birthday poem was called, Becoming The Magician.
All of this week, I have been looking at my theme of Mystery through the lens of ending my story with this Arc I - quite fitting, you might say. I feel like I have finally resolved the mystery here and come into my power. That is exactly the right energy to embody while preparing to enter Arc II - The High Priestess (which is the tarot card behind my week of Mystery).
Here are my content pieces for Week 8 - Mystery:
Mon · 24th Nov:
Podcast Episode on Spotify - Episode 8 - Mystery - This week’s topic of Mystery was tricky to tell stories about because you only know the full story at the end
Tue · 25th Nov:
Newsletter on LinkedIn - The Mystery of Mystery · November 25th, 2025 - There is a fear associated with Mystery, but the possibilities it offers are huge! I have found that allowing the Mystery to unfold and staying aligned to your story within it are the important things to focus on.
Live on TikTok - KBDE #8 - Mystery - A personal and interactive discussion of the topic of Mystery
Video on YouTube - Kiki's Big Dream Experiment - TikTok Live - Episode 8 - Mystery - A recording of my TikTok Live on the theme of Mystery
Wed · 26th Nov:
Board on Pinterest - KBDE - Week 8 - Mystery - A collection of pins linked to my content for Week 8
Stream on Twitch - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 8.1 - Part 1 of Week 8’s Borderlands 4 stream
Stream on Twitch - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 8.2 - Part 2 of Week 8’s Borderlands 4 stream
Stream on Twitch - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 8.3 - Part 3 of Week 8’s Borderlands 4 stream
Video on YouTube - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 8.1 - A recording of part 1 of my Twitch livestream of Borderlands 4
Video on YouTube - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 8.2 - A recording of part 2 of my Twitch livestream of Borderlands 4
Video on YouTube - KBDE 💥 Borderlands 4 - Part 8.3 - A recording of part 3 of my Twitch livestream of Borderlands 4
Fri · 28th Nov:
Post on Substack - The Mystery of Me - The biggest mystery of all that we can face is the question - “who am I?” - if you know the answer to this question, I love that for you! I have been asking this question of myself for 33 years. I finally have an answer.
Post on Instagram - The Mystery of Me - An existential question about how I can be myself
Sun · 30th Nov:
Blog on my Website - Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment - Week 8 - Mystery - My wrap-up post for the week
I am moving into the final third of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment. It’s going to be a busy time, but I have no doubt it will be amazing! Stay tuned for the fun.
Reflection on Week 8
Comfort
We each know how comfortable and uncomfortable we feel in certain scenarios, so we move towards or away from them. That is the benefit of knowing. You can make intentional choices to move towards comfort or discomfort. Why would you ever choose to be uncomfortable? There are many excellent reasons!
As children, everything is uncomfortable - but we don’t know any better. As we grow up, we start to see that some things are comfortable, so we latch onto those. They give us safety and security. Our favourite toys, our favourite people, our favourite TV shows. Then we are forced to do uncomfortable things like go to school, do exams, play sports we don’t want to play, go to parties we don’t want to go to, and get jobs we don’t want to get. The unfortunate truth of the world is that - yes, we sometimes have to do things we don’t want to do. That is what life is like.
Sometimes it is important to make the uncomfortable choice because we know that the minor discomfort now will be better in the long run. Rip off the bandage!
Our level of comfort and relationship with discomfort are important aspects of life that we should respect and cultivate. Even within uncomfortable situations, we can do things to give our bodies comfort. Focused breathing, affirmations, and other calming practices can provide comfort in highly uncomfortable situations - if leaving the situation is not possible or wise. These skills are important grounding practices to hold onto when entering new or uncomfortable spaces.
Entering uncomfortable situations is how we do new things. Doing new things is how we explore the world. Exploring the world in different ways is how we live.
You see the progression here?
This is something I’ve come to recognise throughout Kiki Dreams Big, and managing my comfort level is a skill that I have been able to cultivate over these past 6 months. I remember very distinctly pushing myself towards discomfort to film my first TikTok video in June - and boy, look how far I’ve come now!
The Soul
Every person is unique. We are all born at different times. We all have different lived experiences. Even those who go to the same school, and have the same hobbies, and get the same jobs - each one is unique because those aspects of their lives are but a fraction of the lived experience.
I believe that our souls are each on their own journeys. I am a firm believer that there is more beyond life and death. If I’m wrong - well, I won’t know any different, will I?
We are all trying to figure it out. To live under the illusion that other people have it figured out and that you don’t is doing yourself a tremendous disservice. Take a step back, and look upon your life with gratitude. What are some things you are grateful for? I guarantee that there are people out there who would look at your life and say that you have everything figured out.
I was told I had everything figured out. Then why didn’t I feel like I did? I believe it came down to my soul telling me that it yearned for more. I had things figured out on paper when it came to education, job, relationships, and all the other material things we get judged and valued for. But the substance underneath that didn’t feel fulfilling. This was a mystery I carried with me for my entire life.
“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life” - that is certainly true, but the sad truth that comes with it is that we are not allowed to do what we love. We are meant to get educated and work for 40-50-60 years to keep the economy moving and make the rich richer. Who on Earth decides that that is what they would love to do? Not me.
We are meant to use our life force - our creative energy - to fulfil our soul’s purpose. That looks different for every single person. This is the difficulty with being human. There is no instruction manual.
I created Kiki Dreams Big to create my own manual, and my purpose is to share this with others so they do not have to struggle on their own. Humans are social creatures after all. We crave connection, love, and community.
A Story Told Out of Order
Life is one big story told out of order. Time is an illusion, in that it suggests that our lives are linear. They are not!
If life were linear, we would have to deal with trauma as it came up, we would have to be impulsive and do everything RIGHT NOW. But no - we have agency over our time. We have agency over our choices. We have agency over our behaviour.
Look at life through a different lens, and realise that the past and future exist within you. All of your past experiences are stored in your brain and body somewhere. The small ones are like blemishes and smudges on a CD, but the big ones are gouged scratch marks and scars. They are not permanent. They are a marker for you to deal with later. Leaving them too long, and they become ingrained in your subconscious, which makes them harder to access - harder, but not impossible. We tend to experience them when emotions are high.
But each experience that reveals those wounds is another piece of the story. It is a piece of the story you can use to create the ending you want. We all have different wounds and scars. Some of us have some so deep we never even knew we got hurt. Others have such shallow hurts that they can tend with easily and can move on from. I used to feel like the latter, but certain life experiences have pulled me away from those illusions and shown me that I am the former.
Treating life like a mystery can be very healing. Knowing that the answer is potentially ahead of you rather than behind you allows you to be kind to your past. It is unreasonable to expect your past self to know how to deal with stuff when they didn’t have all the information you have now. It is both freeing and saddening.
Keep moving forward, and eventually you will find the pieces of the story that give you peace. It is especially healing when you find those pieces within you and your power.
Takeaways from Week 8
My takeaways for Week 8 are as follows:
Mystery is a story told out of order: The biggest lesson I learned this week, and the biggest lesson I am taking from Arc I of Kiki Dreams Big, is this one. I learned this lesson through reading tarot, but I could see it within my life experience too, when I looked at life through that lens.
Mystery offers connection through storytelling: We share our experiences of being human and connect with others by sharing our stories. We connect over shared mystery - whether it is asking someone questions about their story, you answering questions about yours, or both of you building another story.
We don’t always get the resolutions we want: Some mysteries have unsatisfying endings. That is not a disappointment. That is just truth. They have unsatisfying endings because we went searching for a big and convoluted story to explain all of the strange things that were happening, and our expectations were too high. Sitting with those unsatisfying resolutions can reveal a lot about yourself and how you think.
Let the mystery unfold at its own pace: You can do your best to gather information, but it is also important to allow a higher power to fill in the gaps for you. It has a funny way of doing that. The universe, God, karma - whatever word you give it, it will give you nudges along the way to get to the ending that is right for you. We all know that time is the greatest healer, it is also the greatest storyteller.
Who you are is who you say you are: It is incredibly human to ask “who am I?”, but to answer that question, you just need to live. Your answer will reveal itself over time. Your belief system makes up who you are because that is what you give power to in your world. The more you say about yourself, the more you start to believe. Try out new words, but be careful not to disparage yourself.
Introducing Week 9 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment
Dream for Week 9:
My dream last week came true very intensely. Be careful what you wish for, as they say! For Week 9 of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment, I dream of living into my power and my story. I have felt an overwhelming growth this week that is opening new doors for me, and I want the courage to face my future by being the best version of myself. My dream connects with the energy of The High Priestess because she will oversee Arc II. I want to live in my power every day and begin the final arc of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment with a powerful burst of energy.
Theme for Week 9:
While focusing on the takeaways from Week 8, and my dream for Week 9, I shuffled my tarot deck. Once I felt ready, I stopped and drew…
21 The World
Wholeness, Completion
The World is the final card in the journey of the Major Arcana.
It signifies completion, harmony, and contentment. It’s rare to experience this energy, as we are usually consumed by wanting, needing, and achieving.
So when this card appears, contemplate for a moment the idea of “being whole”.
Focus on the image on the card…close your eyes and envision this radiating energy inside you.
What does it feel like?
Where is it located?
What blocks you from feeling a sense of “wholeness” each and every day of your life?
What a card to draw for Week 9! There are certain cards I hoped would appear during Kiki’s Dream Experiment - this was one of them. I hoped it would appear because it is the final card in the Major Arcana, so it felt right that it should appear somewhere in the story. I am especially thankful that it appeared at this time, at the close of Arc I of Kiki’s Big Dream Experiment, because it means I can truly focus on what it means to be whole after this experience.
There is a certain power in thinking about the ending before reaching the ending. It helps me to temper my expectations by not living in a world of absolutes. I am thankful I have this theme of Completion to explore in Week 9.
Keep dreaming,
Kiki <3
