EP 108: My Life Began in the Darkness of an Incubator [Memoir Excerpts]

Sep 24

In the latest episode, I've opened the pages of my life to you, sharing the raw and real experiences that have shaped me. From the laughter and pride of my daughter embracing her Asian heritage to the silent struggles of co-parenting, I've laid bare the complexities of my world.

Join me as I take a deep dive into my upbringing as an Asian American. It's amazing how our childhood expectations shape us, isn't it? I always felt the need to excel — but at what cost? This reflection helped me understand the pressures we carry and the importance of self-compassion.

Heart-to-heart interactions can be transformative. I shared a rare moment of vulnerability with my dad, where we exchanged words of love and support. It was a reminder of the power of connection and the solace that can be found in reaching out. Every story has its struggles, but also its strengths.

A Heartfelt Journey: Embracing Life’s Complexities Together

🌟 Here's a glimpse of what this episode explores:

The weight of expectations from my Asian American upbringing and how it's sculpted my drive for excellence.
The beauty of cultural identity and the joy of seeing my daughter flourish in her own skin.
The delicate dance of relationships, both as a partner and a mother, amidst the trials of life.
The catharsis of releasing the burden of fixing others' emotions and embracing my own healing journey.

But it's not just my stories I'm eager to share. I've had the privilege of facilitating conversations with inspiring guests and authors, diving into topics that resonate with us all.

In a particularly moving segment, I recount the emotional whirlwind of supporting my boyfriend Steven through the loss of his father. It's a tale of love, duty, and the shared human experience of grief and resilience.

As we navigate these stories together, I invite you to join the conversation. Your reviews and feedback are not just appreciated — they're a lifeline that keeps our community thriving. And as a token of my gratitude, I'm offering a chance to win a coaching session with me. Your voice matters, and I'm here to listen.

💌 Stay connected by subscribing to our newsletter, and let's continue this journey of growth and discovery. Your support means the world to me, and I promise to keep sharing the stories that unite and uplift us.

Thank you for being a part of our podcast family. Here's to the lessons we learn, the curiosity we ignite, and the personal growth we achieve together.

P.S. Don't forget to tune in for more heartfelt narratives and the chance to deepen our connection. Your presence is the heartbeat of our community.

Episode Highlights

Judy’s internal programming (00:01:16)

Judy discusses her mindset and internal programming around maximizing value.

Upcoming podcast guest and book review (00:02:24)

Judy talks about an upcoming podcast guest, book review, and facilitating a conversation.

Empowering her daughter (00:03:35)

Judy discusses her daughter's pride in her Asian heritage and her parenting approach.

Reflecting on parenthood and divorce (00:04:51)

Judy reflects on her daughter's growth, her role as a parent, and navigating challenges post-divorce.

Realizing emotional boundaries in a relationship (00:09:11)

Judy discusses her evolving understanding of emotional responsibility in her relationship.

Compassion for her parents' journey (00:11:30)

Judy reflects on understanding her parents' journey with compassion and grace.

Receiving support and self-sabotage (00:13:48)

Judy talks about receiving support and the challenge of self-sabotage in relationships.

Childhood memories and family dynamics (00:16:06)

Judy reflects on childhood memories, family dynamics, and evolving consciousness.

Family gatherings and expressing love (00:19:19)

Judy discusses family dynamics, expressing love, and her evolving relationships with family members.

Steven's father's passing (00:21:18)

Judy recalls the sudden heart attack and passing of Steven's father, and her role in supporting the grieving family.

Becoming part of Steven's family (00:22:16)

Judy reflects on her evolving relationship with Steven's family and her responsibilities in caring for them during a difficult time.

Cultural differences (00:23:25)

Judy discusses her observations of cultural differences within Steven's Chinese-American family and her internal struggles.

Emotional conversation with her father (00:24:24)

Judy opens up to her father about the challenges she faces in supporting Steven's family and her feelings of obligation.

Personal reflection and gratitude (00:25:21)

Judy reflects on her emotional response to her father and expresses gratitude for the support she has received from listeners.

Closing remarks and call for support (00:26:25)

Judy expresses gratitude for the support and invites listeners to leave a review to help others find the podcast.

Links Mentioned:

Where I Belong book

Warwick’s Event in La Jolla, San Diego for Yellow Chair Collective
Judy Tsuei LinkedIn
Judy Tsuei Instagram

There may be affiliate links included in this blog post.

Transcript:

Judy Tsuei (00:00:02) - Welcome to the F*ck Saving Face podcast, where we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans and voices of color by breaking through taboo topics. Life may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful. Make your story beautiful today. Hey there! I'm just popping in really quick to remind you that if you leave a review for this podcast between now and January 31st, 2024, then you will be entered to win a free 45 minute coaching session with me and we can talk about your business. We can talk about your mindset. We can talk about content marketing however you want it to flow. We can even talk about intuition and, you know, navigating where you are in life and where you'd like to go throughout this year. So again, for anybody who leaves a review for the Fuck Saving Face podcast between now and January 31st, then you will be entered to win a complimentary coaching session with me. I am going to be totally honest with you, as an Asian American who was taught from a very young age that I should make the most of everything that I do and get the most value out of every moment.

Judy Tsuei (00:01:16) - I have a great podcast editor. And the way that we've structured our relationship, it doesn't really matter how long each of the episodes are. We've just like, agreed upon. You know that I do an episode every other week. So there's a part of me that's like, well, I better make every episode super worth it and make sure that I maximize. So it's not just like a 15 minute episode, but it's like a 30 minute episode. So I get the most value. And that, my friends, is how deep your internal programming can go from a very young age of what you learn. And I'm so excited because in a couple of weeks, it's right now at the end of December. So towards the end of January, I'm going to be going to facilitate a conversation with a few podcast guests. So as a writer, I was super excited that someone from a major publishing house reached out to me via Instagram to ask if I would review a book. So they mailed me the book and then asked, you know, like, basically they just wanted me to review the book, but I was like, hey, I have a podcast, I can interview the guests.

Judy Tsuei (00:02:24) - So I had an opportunity to interview the guests, which cofounded this organization, that a very early podcast guest is a part of, and this very early podcast guest, Sharon Kwan, published a couple of articles that went viral on the Huffington Post all about, you know what? Asian Americans wish they could say, what they want you to know. And these two therapists published this book called where I belong. And in the future episode, when I feature their interview, I will offer a copy of their book to you. For anybody who goes and leaves a review between now and the time that their episode debuts towards the end of January, because they're coming to La Jolla in San Diego, and I'm going to go. And they asked me to facilitate their conversation because they said, out of all the different podcast interviews that they have been on, that I am one of the top interviewers, which I found very flattering. And, you know, I'm super grateful for that feedback. And they want me to be there at the oldest family owned and operated bookstore in all of the country to facilitate their conversation.

Judy Tsuei (00:03:35) - So that night, I actually have my daughter, and originally I thought, oh, okay, well, I had my daughter, you know, it's like an event that starts at around 7:00. So, you know, I wanted to get into bed at a certain time, and the universe has arranged it so that a friend of mine is going to potentially come into town. She will also potentially bring a friend of hers who works in child care. And so I thought about it for a second. I'm like, wait a minute, I could bring my daughter to this event. You know, she wouldn't get home any later than some of the nights that she stays up a little bit later and she could see her mom facilitating this event, which I hadn't even thought of. I did not even think that it would be something that she'd be interested in, or that something that I could take her to, but it's absolutely something she'd be interested in because she, unlike me, has so much more pride about being part Asian than I ever did being fully Asian, because I have encouraged her to understand that from a very early age that, you know, she is made up of these different ethnicities, these different cultures, and that's a gift as opposed to something to be ashamed of.

Judy Tsuei (00:04:51) - And so she's spoken up for herself at a very early age in different circumstances, which I'm beyond proud of. And even just the other day, I, you know, one of her close friends who's a little bit younger, who's also half Asian, half white, they were all playing. It was the holidays. You know, the kids are getting like overloaded potentially with sugar and stimulation and all these other things. And I told my daughter before we got there, if it gets to be too much, then just come talk to me and just say, mom, I'm ready to go home because I know that that's how I am. I get overloaded and overstimulated with huge crowds. I was just watching the Crown and there was a scene where, you know, it's her coronation, it's her like 50th Jubilee. And I'm watching this probably computer created crowd, but it was just completely overwhelming. Like, I would never want to be in that situation. And so that's just not my jam. And while my daughter has traits that are completely her own, she's much more extroverted than I am.

Judy Tsuei (00:05:58) - She does have certain traits that are similar to mine, where she is a little bit introverted and ready to just call it when it's done. So, you know, the kids were playing and she just comes downstairs and she looks at me. She's like, mom, can we go home? I'm like, sure, totally. No questions. Started to get her jacket and stuff, and then she ended up having a conversation with her friend who is basically like her younger sister. And, you know, this younger child was saying like, oh, you know, like just basically complaining about my. And so my daughter asked her like, what was it like? What happened? What? What do you think happened that caused that feeling? And the younger child just walked away. So my daughter just comes to me and we get in the car, we drive home and I look at her and I in the while we're in the car, getting ready to go home. We're driving. It's only a few minutes away, and I just said, I'm.

Judy Tsuei (00:06:53) - I'm really proud of you, babe, I watched you. I watched your interaction with this other child. And, you know, you asked, what did I do? How or why do you feel like that? And while the younger child couldn't answer or didn't answer, I'm proud of you that you asked so that you could take responsibility so that you could understand what the situation was. And she was like, really, mom? I'm like, yeah, I'm super proud of you for doing that. That's not the easy thing to do. In fact, it's a lot. It's like not what most adults do. And I was just so grateful to see that and to be there for her and to understand that her feelings were hurt, which it definitely expressed to me. But just to see her growing up. And it has occurred to me that in this evolution of her growing up, you know, she's almost nine years old and we have been divorced since she was four or separated since she was four, maybe even a little bit earlier.

Judy Tsuei (00:07:59) - And there's she's my only one. There's only so much time that I'm going to get with her in this childhood. And because I don't have another child like this is the one go that I have at raising this child. So I've been thinking about it recently, like, okay, well, do I want it to be overshadowed by the incidences that I have to manage with her father, or do I want to create this experience because this is the only experience that I'm going to get of her being at this age, of me being her mother of all of these things. And I'd rather focus on those things. I'd rather focus on that experience than any of the other challenges that I have to deal with. And as we enter into the end of the year, by the time this episode airs, I would say that some of the things that I'm really learning or that when people are unkind to you, they're potentially mean or cruel, or they say things and you don't understand where it's coming from, that it's more demonstrative of how much they are hurting inside than about anything about you.

Judy Tsuei (00:09:11) - And taking the long view. There's like this phrase in Mandarin that my mom used to say to me of chancla. So like, think it open, you know, just take the long view and see how it'll all evolve and unfold. And so I'm learning that I've also been waking up at like one in the morning, two in the morning, three in the morning and having these big thoughts when I'm waking up. I don't know if it's like my dream state that I'm coming to or whatnot, but just starting to realize that, oh my gosh, I'm in a relationship with someone where for the first time in my life, I feel like it is not my job to take care of someone else's emotions, that this person can have feelings about me or my actions, or him and his actions or our interactions together or whatever it is, but that it's not my job to have to fix it and make it right. And that has been so much of all of my life, is managing other people's emotions.

Judy Tsuei (00:10:20) - I did it when I was young with my parents. I did it in any work situation that I was in, in any friendship situation that I was in. And recently it finally occurred to me like, oh my gosh, I am 45 years old now and this is the first time in my life where I'm realizing someone else has the capacity to handle their own feelings, and that we can talk about it, we can work through it, and it doesn't have to be my responsibility to make it better. And that was such a huge awareness, which is potentially surprising for someone in their mid-forties. But I think that if you are a child of immigrants who's had to help navigate your parents path, to help them adjust to a country where English is not their first language, to help your younger siblings, that this is not an unusual situation or circumstance to be in, and that it takes awareness and wherewithal to even get to that point, to say, oh my gosh, that's not my job. I don't have to do that because someone else has the capacity and the emotional bandwidth to handle it.

Judy Tsuei (00:11:30) - And. That is not to say that my parents lacked the desire to have that emotional capacity, but they didn't have the resources to help themselves get there. So a lot of what I feel like I'm evolving into is understanding my parents journey with so much more compassion and grace, to understand that my acceptance of them makes me more whole, and to not excuse the things that happen, because a lot of it was traumatic. In fact, my therapist would say, like, I downplay a lot of things that happen in my life or, you know, I just make light of them. My best friend would just would say the same thing. She's like, yeah, you've mentioned things to me before where I look at you and I'm like, wait, what? Just because the gravity of what I went through would be so much deeper than the way that I present the situation. So the other person on the receiving end is like, okay, well, I guess it's not that big of a deal, even though their intellectual mind is saying like, that sounds like a big deal.

Judy Tsuei (00:12:29) - So I've learned from my therapist that that is a trait of survivors of trauma, which I always don't love. When she says she's like, well, I mean, like, let's call a spade a spade. That's what it is, is that I will downplay things. And so it's taken me a while to also realize that some of the things that I've gone through over the last four years, you know, with the divorce and with all of those things have been fairly traumatic. And I've just continued to muscle on, and I love my life now. I'm so grateful for the way that it is now. But it's it's the holding, all of the emotions, the contrasting emotions, you know, all at once. That kind of, I think is basically what I say every time when I say that life may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful and you can make your story beautiful today. So the reframing and the rewriting, all of that is so important. And today I'm going to read an article or a chapter of my book, and I am so, so grateful that someone found me on LinkedIn and has been such an advocate of my story and the journey, and sees the purpose that I have quietly wanted to bring out into the world.

Judy Tsuei (00:13:48) - And he's seen it and spoken it, and it's just remarkable to have someone like that in my corner. But it's taken a little bit to just even believe, like, why is this person wanting to help me? What is this person getting out of it? And genuinely the last call that we had because we have a weekly accountability call on Wednesdays, he basically said, like, I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for this relationship. And honestly, to me, like, basically what I've been doing is just sharing my story and he feels so grateful to be involved with it. So I've talked about it with my therapist and I'm she's like, you know, when we first worked together, you would never have let this in. You would never have let in this support. And that is something that I'm so grateful for for this past year is the unbelievable amount of support. And I know that I've also given out support, but the ability to receive it is unbelievable. And it's one line that I shared in my newsletter recently of the fact that it can be so and even more scary to receive the kind of love that you've always wanted and you've always dreamed of, more so than pushing it away.

Judy Tsuei (00:15:02) - So I saw a post, I reposted it, and a lot of people commented on it and said, yep, that's totally me. That's like, I can't believe how much this hit home and how we self-sabotage a lot of the time, because that gives us this illusion of control that if we know how it's going to turn out, then, you know, like makes us feel better, that we can control that. But it's all an illusion. And that feeling good and feeling loved and feeling appreciated, I can tell you from firsthand experience, is so much more remarkable than the self-sabotage, but it takes a monumental amount of practice to get there. So for today's episode, I'm going to read to you a chapter that was about how I was born premature, and I was put in an incubator when I was born. And the title of a chapter, which is still a working draft is called It Began in the darkness. It was dark in there, the not so Easy Bake Oven, where I spent the beginnings of my life.

Judy Tsuei (00:16:06) - £5 eight ounces. Born one month early, training without touch in the incubator starting at 6:15 a.m., Sunset Boulevard. I'm much older than my siblings, so I remember when they were born. I remember their great eyes how my grandmother, my mother, said they could not yet see clearly. They only knew shapes. Smell, touch. I watched as my youngest brother's eyes became solid, began to see the environment he was born into. This screaming so loudly that it was as though we all went deaf. The tyrannical nature of my father beating into us when his rage went beyond what his yelling could accomplish. The hysterical nature of my mother when she went into her bipolar fits and spurts of completely unsanctioned and unacceptable behavior, to demanding that we love her, that we pay her respect, that we don't talk back. But what was there really to say anyway? My youngest brother's. His eyes speak more than his words will ever reveal. In the old house on Toland Way, in the ghetto of Eagle Rock, before it became hipster, I remember the way the sun would shine through the sliding glass door that separated the room where my sister and I slept on our bunk bed from the same room where my mother and father shared their bed.

Judy Tsuei (00:17:25) - I liked it, perhaps because mesmerized by it, or maybe this is what happens when we pursue this path of greater consciousness and evolving. Maybe we rewrite the memories. Maybe we shine the spotlight elsewhere, saying, look over there, look over here, the main characters. The action is happening over here, even though part of you, of me still wants to look in the other corner, because we know that even if it is quiet or subtle, it is substantial. What's happening in the shadows of light? Before I started second grade, we moved. We moved into a house on the corner of a block in West Los Angeles, and I remember my father saying, I'll put in a skylight. How about that? He also said, I'll put in a second story, but that never happened. Not for all my wishing, wanting, asking and asking again. That happened throughout elementary school, into junior high school. Instead, there was one fish pond in the backyard. Then a second because it became a business investment when they bought the aquarium store.

Judy Tsuei (00:18:25) - And then there was that time that I fell into the original one, playing Marco Polo with my siblings blindfolded so I couldn't see anything. I gasped as I felt myself trip into the murky water. I ripped off the mask where I was met with fish funk and green algae. Why is it always you? My mother joked to seeing me walk into the back door sopping wet. We always worry that it's going to be one of your younger siblings getting into trouble, but it's always you. You're the one who falls through the open gap in the floor. You're the one who falls off the shower curtain rod and breaks a panel off the glass pane. Because you're playing monkey, it's always you, and you're the oldest. Why don't you fix these things? Then I want to say to them, why don't you make it so? There's no floor to fall into, so that there's nothing that breaks when I put any pressure onto it. But I say nothing. I just absorb what they have to say. Now there is a skylight hanging over the dining room of my parents house.

Judy Tsuei (00:19:19) - My mother has even put crystals intertwining beneath it on fish wire, the spare that she can find of my father's because he can't go fishing as frequently as he would like. This born again Christian woman who looked at my deities that I was packing up in San Diego before moving to Hawaii and said, oh no, I'm not taking those home with me. You can give those to your friends. Just 15 minutes earlier, I was marveling that she had said, even though, you know, I'm religious now, I believe in love more than anything else. It's all about love. My eyes grew wider, shocked at what she was saying. My yogic philosophies were flowing from her mouth that had never uttered the words I love you to any of my siblings were to me. Not in English, not in Mandarin. Now here she was putting into practice the complete opposite of compassion and acceptance. By rejecting me wholly, her words fractured me even more because I thought she had almost grown up into the woman I had always hoped she would be.

Judy Tsuei (00:20:20) - She has crystals beneath the skylight. She was hoping they would cast rainbows everywhere. My parents, my grandmother, my aunts, uncles, cousins. We all said, have you eaten yet? And whether you had or hadn't, you were offered more. This is how my grandmother showed us her love. This is where my broken family would attempt to become whole again with weekly Sunday dinners, just like the Americans do. And we were expected, asked, and then passively aggressively reminded to show up. We all hope this light over the dining table would shine over the one place our family continued to congregate around the table, I started to say, I love you first to my father. It happened when I was a freshman in college. My boyfriend at the time, my first love, got a phone call in the middle of the night while he was in bed with me and my apartment on Dwight Avenue in Berkeley. I answered, and it was his mother. She had called his apartment and his roommate said he wasn't there, then told him where he actually was.

Judy Tsuei (00:21:18) - Groggily, we answered, Steven's dad has had a heart attack, his mother said. I handed the phone over to him. What? He said, fumbling for his glasses. What? And the next thing we knew, we were in his blue Volvo station wagon, driving to Marin as quickly as we could. It was too late. His father had passed. He had passed in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Everything was uncertain. Stephen's three younger sisters, their four kids and his family. Just like four kids in the one I belong to. Both of us were the eldest, and his mother and father fought like my mother and father. We knew each other before we knew each other, living out the templates that our parents had already set for us. In the weeks that ensued, his mother spoke frankly to me, woman to woman. All of his relatives welcomed me in like I would soon become part of Steven's family, even in the eulogy that his father's coworker gave. He said how Steven's dad was so happy we were together.

Judy Tsuei (00:22:16) - Steven's father was always the advocate of our relationship, battling against his wife. Even there, she would not acknowledge me as his quote unquote girlfriend, even after we'd been dating a year until finally her husband beat her to the punch at a party picnic. And from that point forward, she had to call me his girlfriend. At the family gatherings, everyone welcomed me in as though I would be their daughter in law or relative in law soon. So they treated me familiarly to the point that they asked if I could care for the family through this grieving time. I was 18 and asked to make dinner for the family, to run errands, to do everything I could in order to allow them to hurt. It was one of the rainiest seasons Northern California had experienced, and we all gathered forces to put sandbags in the backyard to prevent a mudslide from forming. We were all soaked, and everyone retreated to their respective bathrooms in the gigantic house in order to shower. Steven's grandmother stopped me. Can you make dinner for them as they're cleaning up? Of course, I responded, both out of compassion for this grieving family of five now rather than six, but also out of duty obligation.

Judy Tsuei (00:23:25) - They were also Chinese-American, one generation before mine, and I could not wrap my head around how's grandparents spoke perfect English without any accents. I was taught to be, quote unquote, the good girl and the dutiful daughter. So I stood there in their big stainless steel kitchen and cooked, shivering. I did everything I could to soothe the pain the family was feeling. I gave my boyfriend blowjobs in the room where we slept on the carpeted floor, guilt and emptiness circulating behind closed doors. Finally, everyone was ready, retreating in front of televisions or staying in their rooms, Steven's mother came down in a coma like state, started to help me in the kitchen. I finished making dinner with her and served it on the table. I went and gathered everyone. They didn't much respond. I'm going to take a shower, I said to his mother, who was only half listening. There I started to feel emotions well up that I did not know how to process. I got out, told myself off. Then I stayed in that same room where I pleasured my boyfriend and call my father.

Judy Tsuei (00:24:24) - He always answered if he could. I was their first daughter in college, so being separate was new for them. I opened my mouth and started to hiccup tears. What's wrong? He asked, knowing that I've always been daddy's little girl. I filled him in about the unexpected heart attack Steven's father had, which must have struck him closer than he would have liked, given how much heart disease runs rampant in my father's family. Two of his sisters have had surgery. Another one is on medication, and he was likely afraid he was following close behind. I told him how hard it was that I was doing everything I could for the family, and I felt that it was too much to handle, especially since a deeper part of me knew that I would never marry Steven, so this was more obligation than I wanted to commit to. I love you, my father said to me as we were about to hang up the phone the first time ever in English or in Mandarin, I didn't know what to say, what would have been rude.

Judy Tsuei (00:25:21) - And so now it is my turn to be in shock. I love you too, I responded. That's what American kids would have said, right? I walked out of the room, turn off the light, move back to the darkness of the suffocating box Steven's parents house had become. Through this time, it felt like a little light had come on, no matter how dim the wattage. So that was another chapter in my book, and I am so grateful to you who have sent me messages to say, keep going, that this is what you want, that when you listen to it, you don't want the chapters to end. And that means so much to me. So if that is still how you feel and you want it to keep going, I would appreciate all the cheering on that you want to give at Judy, at Wild Hearted Words. Com and if there's anything else that you want to see or hear, please let me know. And if you would like to, you're going to hear me ask for you at the end of this episode to add a review so more people can find this podcast so that I know I'm creating something of value and that it's worthwhile.

Judy Tsuei (00:26:25) - And from the emails that I've gotten, I know that it is. And, you know, putting your heart out there is a big thing. So thank you for listening and I'm grateful for your support. Mahalo. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to support me and this show, please go to iTunes and leave your review. It means so much to me and it'll help others find this podcast. I'll catch you in the next episode, and if you'd like to stay in touch between now and then, please visit Wild Hearts Edwards Comm and sign up for my weekly newsletter. I've had people share with me that it's the best thing to arrive in their inbox all week. Aloha.

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