EP 110: Breaking Through Taboos: Battling Demons {Memoir}

Sep 24

As the host of my own podcast, I've had the unique opportunity to share my life's narrative with a wonderful audience.

Today, I want to bring you into my world through the written word, offering you a deeper dive into the experiences that have shaped me. Writing my memoir has been a cathartic process, and I'm eager to share with you the insights and lessons I've gleaned along the way.

Battling Demons: My Struggle with an Eating Disorder

My journey has been marked by a battle with an eating disorder, a struggle that has taught me much about resilience and the human spirit. This disorder, intertwined with my upbringing, has been a significant part of my life's tapestry. It's a battle that many face in silence, and by sharing my story, I hope to shed light on the importance of addressing mental health openly and with compassion.

The Complex Tapestry of Family

Family relationships are intricate and often fraught with unspoken emotions. My relationship with my father, in particular, has been a central theme in my life. He expressed love not through words but through acts of service—ironing clothes, working tirelessly—a silent testament to his dedication. His simple attire, a cap, button-down shirt, and jeans, became a symbol of his relentless work ethic, even at the ripe age of 78.

The Space In Between: Living with Self-Doubt

In my memoir, I delve into a piece titled "Living in the Space In Between," which explores the mental landscape of someone grappling with feelings of unworthiness. This space between accomplishment and self-doubt is a challenging terrain to navigate, but it's also where growth and self-discovery occur. It's a reminder that our worth is not tied to our achievements but is inherent in our being.

Fa Zhan: Confronting Childhood Trauma

One of the more harrowing chapters I share is "Fa Zhan," which means punishment in Mandarin. Here, I recount the emotional and physical abuse endured at the hands of my parents. The chapter is a raw portrayal of the trauma that many children experience, and it's a story I tell with the hope of healing and helping others who have faced similar adversities.

Understanding Generational Sacrifices

As I've worked on my memoir, I've gained a deeper understanding of my parents' generation—a generation not accustomed to sharing personal histories. This lack of sharing impacted our family's grasp of our heritage. A poignant story that stands out is my father's traumatic accident in Taiwan, a life-altering event that led to his decision to move our family to the United States. This move, made for the sake of our education and well-being, was a sacrifice that I've only come to fully appreciate with time and reflection.

Engaging with My Audience

I invite you, my readers, to engage with my work, to share your thoughts and feedback. Your perspectives enrich the conversation and contribute to a community of understanding and support. I'm excited to invite you to upcoming events and conversations, and as a token of my appreciation, I'm offering a coaching session and a signed copy of my book to those who leave a review.

A Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery

Throughout my podcast episodes and now in this blog post, I've shared my personal struggles and the impact of my upbringing on my mental and emotional well-being. These stories from my memoir offer a powerful insight into my journey of healing and self-discovery.

Closing Thoughts: Mindfulness and Gratitude

As we conclude, I extend my warmest wishes to you all. I encourage you to practice mindfulness and self-compassion in your daily lives. Stay connected through my newsletter, and know that I am profoundly grateful for your support. Together, let's continue to explore the depths of our stories and the strength that comes from sharing them.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Your presence and engagement mean the world to me, and I look forward to our continued connection.

Episode Highlights

Living in the Space In Between (00:02:12)

Judy shares personal experiences and reflections on her journey with her eating disorder and upbringing.

Fa Zhan (00:12:47)

Judy describes experiences of punishment and emotional abuse from her mother, including the impact on her relationship with food.

Dad (00:17:59)

Judy reflects on her father's work ethic, his attire, and a memory of asking him about the weather.

Ironing shirts and family love (00:20:02)

Judy shares her father's love language through ironing and family affection.

Discovering compassion for parents (00:20:55)

Judy reflects on her parents' experiences, challenges, and generational differences.

Family history and ancestral stories (00:21:51)

Judy discusses the loss of family history, migration from China to Taiwan, and the impact on her family.

Tragic accident and life-changing decision (00:22:49)

Judy reveals her father's life-altering accident, its impact on his education, and the decision to move to the United States.

Parenting and love for children (00:24:30)

Judy reflects on her father's love and sacrifice for his children's future.

Podcast updates and upcoming event (00:25:33)

Judy shares updates about the podcast, a live event, and encourages audience engagement.

New year's wishes and self-compassion (00:27:45)

Judy extends new year's wishes and encourages self-compassion and mindfulness.

Closing remarks and podcast support (00:28:51)

Judy encourages audience support through reviews and newsletter sign-ups while expressing gratitude.

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.

Judy Tsuei (00:00:02) - Happy New Year everyone! Okay to start this episode, I just want to preface by saying the audio is going to sound a little bit different. I am currently out of town. I took my daughter to Palm Springs to celebrate the new year. She wanted to see snow this winter season. And for those of you who don't know, you can take the tram up to the top of the mountain where it's 32 degrees cooler at the top, and we were able to see snow and play and hike around. It was so much fun. So we're still out of town, and I'm actually sitting in the bed of my Airbnb with the mic that I normally use beside me. However, I didn't bring the adapter that goes to my MacBook. So you are going to hear, you know, this raw audio today and it's going to be a bit different.

Judy Tsuei (00:01:01) - And as I shared in previous recent episodes, I am all about embracing imperfection now, just being really authentic, real, open, honest, which has always been my M.O. so when authenticity became a thing in marketing, I always thought, well, that's what I've always done. It's how I've always lived my life. And because the mindfulness episodes have now shifted to memoir excerpts, and the feedback that I have been getting has been remarkable from people who I did not think were my quote unquote target audience. I always think I'm speaking to women. I think I'm speaking to women of color and specifically to Asian American women. And yet the people have been responding to me run the gamut of ages, ethnic backgrounds, biographical information, and it's been so rewarding and affirming to hear that, to hear that what I'm sharing is helping them process through whatever it is, even if they didn't share the same exact experience. They know the sentiment and the emotion that I am talking about. So today, I'm going to share with you several different excerpts that have been chapters and works in progress.

Judy Tsuei (00:02:12) - They are going to run the gamut of everything from my personal journey with my eating disorder to my upbringing, to my father. And the reason that I'm sharing all of this is because I'm actively working on my book. I'm so, so grateful to now have someone in my life who found me on LinkedIn and has been such a champion and advocate of me getting this book out there. However it's going to get out there. So he's become my accountability partner, and there are plenty of times that I'll be completely honest with you where I, you know, want to send him an email and say like, oh, I was just too busy. I couldn't get to it, I couldn't do it. But because of the weekly calls that we have, I force myself to open up chapters to look at my work. And I'm also so grateful to have a partner who understands that this is what I'm working on now. He often tells me that he used to be a very avid reader, kind of took a break when he became a parent, and is now getting back into it.

Judy Tsuei (00:03:19) - But sometimes I will be at his house, I'll have my laptop open, he'll be putting his kids down to bed, and I will be working on a chapter or reviewing a chapter, getting ready to email a chapter to my accountability partner, and I'll get kind of quiet. He'll come in and he'll check on me, and then he'll just ask, are you having a bit of a, you know, emotional moment or a harder time, or you're going back in through memories that maybe are a little bit tough and we don't need to process it. We don't need to talk about it. But he just honors and respects that. That's part of what it is that I'm going through. So even though he's not a writer, he's giving me the space to do that. And that coupled with just the other people that I have in my life, the support system that I have with my therapist, with NLP, with just everything, it's been extremely fulfilling to take these steps towards what I would say is the biggest dream I've ever had, which is to write this specific book that even when I was very young, I knew was why I was going through all of the things that I was going through with my family and my upbringing, so that one day I could be of service and help someone else.

Judy Tsuei (00:04:37) - So this first one is called living in the Space in Between. And for anybody who knows me, you would know that I have been preoccupied with death for so long. I thought it was me having that memento mori kind of idea of making the most out of every moment, because you're not really sure when the next moment is going to unfold. Talking to my therapist, it. Has also been revealed to me that it is kind of the ultimate sense of trying to control things that, you know, that's the one thing that's completely unknown. So how can I prepare for that? How can I make sure that I'm just doing everything that I have in my power to navigate that? So there are all these other elements about it. And I came across this piece that I had written, which more talks about the mindset and the mentality behind it. So it's called living in the space in between. There's a space of in-between. Where I've lived, it exists in the middle of you better do everything right and you better never feel good about it.

Judy Tsuei (00:05:42) - Never, ever feel good about who you are, what you've done, what you've accomplished. And you better accomplish everything. You better do everything. You better make us right by making you right. By making everyone look good. Save face. The pattern my parents created and then which I sought out in every relationship, friendship, work, dynamic, any sort of more than just me interaction was give take give take give take take take take. It was give false hope. Take your trust. Give you a compliment. Bash you down. Give you what you want. You give me what I need. You better fucking give me what I need. Trust has no place in the space in between. Because every good thing that comes is actually a setup for a bigger smack in your face, punch in your heart failure later on. It's funny, of all the places my parents hit, the face was never one of them. Save face what most people call home, I call purgatory in perpetuity. It is struggle, struggle, struggle to kick my way to the surface of water to save myself from drowning.

Judy Tsuei (00:06:58) - And then once I peep my mouth and face to the breaking open, the sky comes crashing down. Now I about a millimeter of space between these two oppressive forces to take a quick sip of air before I go down again. In the swim class I took when I was in my mid-twenties, I always wanted to learn how to do the butterfly. With its majestic expanse of arms and kick of power. I met a friend in the same lane as me, Misty, because we are about the same pace. Turns out the best stroke I can do. Breaststroke. The stroke. My father was best at two. I watched him in pools, take one big breath and swim all the way to the other side, graceful with ease. He did not look so hard then, but softer, like water. A man in an element he was comfortable with. Not like he looked when he was in family time. Not like he looked when he was in wife time. Not like he looked when he was in father time.

Judy Tsuei (00:07:57) - Not like he looked when he was in money time. Not like he looked in a fair time. I don't know what he looked like in porn time. Not like he looked when he was trying to be, man. But was still a boy who still lived with his mother, a woman, Papaw, who lived with such ferocity it beat him down. And that same love stood in between his hand and his impending beatdown of me. Megan, she, she said, crooked with age, bony arms pushing his arms away. Magashi. It doesn't matter. How does this show hides the heart? So she's just a kid. Let her go. What must it have been like to have your bully tell you to stop bullying your daughter? I cowered behind her. I was probably almost her size as I grew in age and she shrank with time. Make me invisible. Please. Please let this work. Let grandma help. Misty was bigger round one time she said. I don't know why you're self-conscious about your body.

Judy Tsuei (00:08:57) - You kind of have the perfect body that a lot of people want. What? I don't remember if Misty said she could float really easily in the water, but I do remember I did buoyant. Bring me to the top. Let me breathe. Even when I tried to surrender everything to sink, something kept bringing me back up. You know those scenes in the movies where someone is trapped in a flipped over boat and water is rising and the deck has become the ceiling where they're kicking to keep their faces in the inch gap of oxygen before they're out of options. That's what it has felt like in my life for a very long time. I heard a story recently from someone close of his real life story when he was young, in a pool with a pool cover, where he also held his breath and swam towards the other end because he knew he could. But when he tried to push the lid of the foam cover to breathe, it was stuck to the surface of the water like honey dripping. He couldn't push it up enough to grab breath, so he realized he had to swim all the way back, bursting lungs in rib cage.

Judy Tsuei (00:09:54) - I imagine that when he told it to me, even recalling it now causes my palms to sweat for the terror it evokes because. That is how life feels sometimes. My client said to me. You know what I see when I look at you? You're so open. You're so inviting. You put all of yourself out there, and yet there is this part of you that you won't let anyone touch. You keep that very protected. Like I've been screwed too many times by life, and no one is coming anywhere near this like you've tried and it's been shown to you. That doesn't work, so you won't let anyone near. But everyone thinks they're close. It was my conversation with her that led me to give a name to the hell of in between the. You better get straight A's. I get straight A's. What, you think that special Cindy practices piano three hours a day where your elders. You better respect us. What do you think we should do? How are we going to get out of debt? Do you think that we should send Janette on this trip to school? What is this application form? Say, can you write this up for us? He shouts, she shouts, she shouts, he shouts.

Judy Tsuei (00:10:54) - How can I deal with your mother? She cries, she cries, she cries. How can I handle your father? Who the hell do you think you are? To tell us what to do and give us advice? Why do you even care about what you wear to school? No one's looking at you. No one cares about you. Someone please look at me. Someone please see me. You are so ugly. Home. Don't you dare talk back to us. You're worthless. No one wants to hear from you. No one wants to see you. Be quiet. Silence! School. Raise your hand in class. Speak up. Why won't you say anything? You have important things to say. Finish everything on your plate. Don't leave one fleck of rice. The lightning God will come strike you down. Your husband will have as many pockmarks as pieces of rice in your bowl. Eat everything. You've gained weight. You've gotten fat. What are you doing? When those voices stopped, I didn't know what to do 17 years before I left the house.

Judy Tsuei (00:11:46) - So I identified with my perpetrators. I brought everything they taught me inside with every bite I took. And because my body did not want to digest their lies, I threw it up again, again, again. But I'm a bully too. I know what it's like to be mean. I know what it's like to be vicious. It's in my blood. And so I found myself in this space in between living and dying. By binging and purging for days, weeks, months, years, more than a decade. Heartbeats irregular. The blood of my womanhood gone missing. Swollen body insides pushing out outsides growing larger. I discovered the familiarity of existing through punishment. There is no faith in the in-between. There is only feeling unworthy of every good thing that you can see happening around you. For everyone else, there is no winning in the in-between. There's only pushing out breath until you cannot breathe. I had a life of in-between until I got on a plane to find my own way of breaking through. So that was one chapter.

Judy Tsuei (00:12:47) - I'm going to read this one called Fosun, which means punishment in Mandarin. Kneel! Facing my mother yelled at me as she pointed. She pointed at me in such a way that even her diminutive size looked enormous. You will be. You will be. You will be punished in ways that create a long lasting terror, all internalized, even when the outside voices stop kneeling on knees on linoleum floors. The minute my backside started to sag toward my heels because my low back, my shins were hurting, then I would get another 15 minutes. My mother in the kitchen, my back turned towards her, my front facing the peeling paint of the yellowing cabinet. She is peeling vegetables. She is yelling at me in Mandarin and vocabulary I can't understand. But I know it's bad. I know it's bad. I know everything in our family is bad. I know that I am bad and we'll put it all away somewhere. Sydney! She shouts. I don't know why I had you bad daughter, bad seeds, selfish girls, stupid girl words that I translated in my own way so that they became the sound of the bags of chips.

Judy Tsuei (00:13:52) - I would open up that puff of air that would escape before I would devour everything. Two word terms. When that rotten egg that became the force with which I plunged my spoon into the butter pecan ice cream, which wasn't even my favorite flavor. Rocky road I loved Rocky Road, but even in binges I feel like I couldn't deserve it. And besides, the hard chunks of almond bits hurt when they came back up a second time. This donkey, you disgusting, vile thing. You are a thing. You're not even my daughter. I don't know how you could have come from me, you pathetic, revolting, abhorrent excuse of a human being. Sometimes before the hitting, there was the taking of finger to the third eye, pushing against me. Not hard enough to push me down, but hard enough that my head would whip back like slow whiplash. Humiliating. I'm going to tell your father, wait until he gets home, and then one look from him, one sideways glance and my throat began to well until it closed with words I could not say in English or in Mandarin.

Judy Tsuei (00:14:48) - Tears would begin streaming, and they ran down almost harder than when he had a weapon in his hand. The thin bamboo handle of the auburn colored duster with its innocent feathers. The way my parents held it, gripped. Being the feather so that it looked like a plume was bursting in between their knuckles. I did not know that it was actually used to clean the dust mites from the corners of things. I thought it was a default go to grab something to beat my children when the rolling pin or the leather belt wasn't within a quick enough reach for my father's temper, or my mother's teetering hormones and feelings of trapped despair. Yes, the rolling pin. At least it wasn't the super big kind with thinner handles on each end. They used it to flatten the dough for dumplings. It was more makeshift, with a rougher carving around the entire middle, as though it were a second hand rolling pin. It was probably an inch around meteor in the middle when we were being bad, when we were being rowdy, when we didn't help, when we couldn't get out of the way from all the things they could not say to each other, no matter how much they yelled or shouted, so that their noise was the only soundtrack I heard so that I did not know silence even existed when I was ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, sometimes 28, 29, occasionally 30 since July, daddy would say sternly.

Judy Tsuei (00:16:09) - He was so tanned from working outdoors all day on construction sites with his Mexican laborers, he did not flinch. He did not have any sort of hesitation. I kept my arm down by my side. His words commanded my body in a way stronger than my own will. But I pray that this moment would evaporate. Please let this go away. I promise I'll be good. I promise I'll try harder, I promise, I promise, I promise. 12 years old, but so sensually. Daddy would repeat his voice a different octave, a deeper range than a crescendo. My arm began to move. I did not want it to, but I knew that if I did not make a movement toward him now, then he would hit harder. He would hit more. He would get almost as explosive as the sound of that hammer gun that I watched him use to seal carpets into floors. We had to ask for our punishment. We could not look away. We can never turn our faces or turn our backs.

Judy Tsuei (00:17:02) - We had to stand there and take it. If we ever made a move like those American kids I occasionally saw do on TV, it would have been the end of our existence. I could not fathom how those boys and girls did that, how they talk back, how they slammed the doors in their parents faces, how they got such pathetic scores on their SATs. If I ever performed that way, ever played that game, well, I could not even wonder because that was so far outside the realm of any reality I could ever inhabit. Quite faster. My father yelled, impatient at how long it was taking to reach out my hand. This time it was only the right one. Sometimes when I was super bad, it was the left one two palm open. This is the only way that we can ever receive anything in our lives. Gifts. This is how I received my punishment. This is how I offered my childhood. He hit it once, thick, meaty side onto my palm. I wanted to pull away, made a small gesture of bringing my hand back to me because it hurt.

Judy Tsuei (00:17:59) - But if I moved it too far, he would hit harder. He would hit more. So I kept my palm open. It made us sound like clapping, like slapping and a thousand needles shot through those not yet big enough hands to hold anything but hurt, hidden behind a hope that my parents knew what they were doing when they hit like that. Hit stupid daughter again. Oldest bad example hit selfish child again, disobedient again and again. I kept making mistakes. This last one is about dad. My father wears this cap that says kiss my bass with a picture of the aforementioned fish, and I know that he doesn't fully grasp its meaning. My father has always worn a cap, a button down shirt, and a pair of jeans for as long as I can remember. It's his work attire, what he wears out onto construction sites where he gets down into the dirt with his own two hands, working in the ways that only he knows how. He is now 68 and actually today he is 78.

Judy Tsuei (00:19:03) - So I actually wrote this ten years ago. He's now 68 and still he labors. And as an edit, he actually is 78 and still he labors. I remember he once told me that he wouldn't want to retire that often when people do and they have only idle time, they pass on quickly. So he just wants to keep working. But it's for more reasons than that. Today, when I went into what used to be called the big room of our home, the room where my father now spends his evenings, I noticed pair upon pair of blue jeans hung on a rack, 1 or 2 of which still had the tags on. My father has never purchased clothes for himself, so I'm sure the tags were from pairs of jeans my mother bought him when there was a good deal. Because what else do you get? A man who likes what he knows? When I was in junior high, one of the first questions I asked my father in the morning is, what's the weather like today? He would have read the paper by then and would tell me the forecast for the day, so I would know how to plan my outfit accordingly.

Judy Tsuei (00:20:02) - After choosing what to wear based on his report, there were times when I would need a shirt or skirt or pair of pants ironed. I loathe the task, but my father loved it, likely because it reminded him of his time in the military when everything was precise and methodical. But it's also because the way my father shows love is by being of service. He doesn't know with the buns and the buds he makes for friends and family and special occasions. He did it then by working from daybreak to the hours past our bedtime. His actions were how he could avoid showing the thing that was most hard for him to share affection for the people he cared for beyond what he could handle. My father carries a photo of my siblings and myself and his wallet, something we didn't realize for many years. He boasts about us, and while we joke that he is just as proud, if not more, of the German Shepherd mutt that is now our family pet, we know that he loves us in ways he's only recently learned to speak and interviewing my parents.

Judy Tsuei (00:20:55) - I was right that I discover more compassion for them. I was even right that my parents would fill in each other's sentences, bridge the gaps, and help further one another story along. The things I learned were surprising, explanatory, and occasionally filled with challenging emotions. At times it felt like we'd reached an impasse, as though there was this unwillingness to share. No, my mother clarified, you have to understand that the generation before us didn't share anything at all. That's not how they did things. That's also why we were the way that we were. Our parents didn't speak about anything, so we sometimes just don't have the answers. How much history has been lost in the not telling through the generations? When we had to do family tree projects in elementary school, I would envy those classmates of mine who could trace their lineage back to pioneer days. I couldn't do that. We didn't know a lot, especially what was lost when my father's father and my mother's father put their families in transit from China to Taiwan to escape the rise of the Communist Party.

Judy Tsuei (00:21:51) - There's a book called 1949, My Mother Told Me. It tells a story after story of families who had to flee China to Taiwan with Chiang Kai shek, and the coming down where there was heartbreak and killing and families torn apart. My story is like those in the book, but there are so many of them. I used to wish someone would miraculously appear on my doorstep. A host of one of those shows that does all the digging for you to find out. Stories of your ancestors worth sharing, but then I'd wonder how they would find anything about the Two-Way family, where one would have to go back into the dearth of Chinese history with all its people and warring and quiet secrets. Now I'm finding it out for myself, like discovering how my father was hit by a car when he was young, and it is this tragic accident that changed his life and firmed his decision to leave the country he grew up in, so that he could have me and my siblings in the United States. It was so hot in the summers in Taiwan, my father recalled.

Judy Tsuei (00:22:49) - We were so poor and we had to make sure to do chores before and after school. One of the things I had to do was catch snails to feed our ducks. We'd fill up buckets of them, and then we'd have to take the snail out of the shell in order to feed the animals. Because it was hot. We try to find any shade we could to do this task. One day my neighbor, friend and I ducked behind a truck, a military jeep, and used it to help cool things just a little bit as we were working on the snails. Yeah, before I knew it was happening, the car we were hiding behind started without a sound and backed up on top of me. The person sitting in the passenger seat realized what happened and started shouting, so the driver immediately put the car and drive. I was young, so I had the quick reflex to roll out from under the wheel. Otherwise he would have driven right on top of me and killed me for sure. But where we were, we happened to be right on the edge of a wall that dropped 8 to 10ft.

Judy Tsuei (00:23:40) - So after I rolled out from under the car, I couldn't stop myself from going over the wall. My father woke up in the hospital remembering how his jaw was totally dislocated to the side. He was there for a week, and even though he healed physically, no one at the time knew to check for brain injuries. I was never the same after that, he told me, my mother sitting beside him. I used to be in the top three students in my class. The teacher would always put homework on the back blackboard with red circles around words that were especially well written. Most people had 2 to 3 characters circled, and for me it was always the whole page. I always had my work on the blackboard. My calligraphy was strong. After the accident, I became one of the worst students in the class. No matter how hard I tried. I was beaten regularly so badly by my teachers and your grandma. He was beaten so badly that he had such hatred for the school system. He vowed never to raise his children in Taiwan.

Judy Tsuei (00:24:30) - He needed to get to the US, if only for that reason. So because of that, the four of his children were born in California. If we didn't leave Taiwan, my father said, you would have been raised in that system. I just couldn't have that. I couldn't stomach my children being subjected to that kind of treatment. So even though my father may not have always been the best at parenting, I had no idea how much he loved us even before we were born. So that's this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. It means the world to me. Everybody who has tuned into this show has told me what a difference it's made in their lives. If you like these episodes where they are excerpts of works in progress and chapters of my upcoming book, please do email me and let me know. It helps me to continue writing and sharing this and being open and honest and transparent so you know that you're not alone in your own journey to become who you want to be, to heal the past, to welcome the present and the future.

Judy Tsuei (00:25:33) - You can email me Judy at Wild Heart edwards.com, and I can add you to my weekly newsletter, where you get snippets like this in written form. And it would also mean so much to me if you would review this podcast, share your thoughts on iTunes so more people can find the show. You know, I've been doing this for three seasons. I guess technically you could almost count it for. I've just kind of kept it going and didn't stop to break it into a new season. And I would love for it to grow and just to continue to make an impact in terms of being open and honest and authentic content that is different from what you might find elsewhere. I'm also going to be moderating a conversation in La Jolla at Warwick's. If you would like to tune in, you can go to the Yellow Chair Collective. I'm going to be monitoring a conversation with two podcast guests who are coming on. We've actually already recorded the episode. After the episode, they asked if I would facilitate their book tour, essentially, that they're going to be doing a live event in La Jolla.

Judy Tsuei (00:26:39) - So if you'd like to come, I'm going to bring my daughter. And at first I was going to have her be with my one of my closest friends who's basically like her auntie. But then I realized that maybe, you know, she's almost nine. She might really like to see this, to understand more about mental health when it comes to Asian Americans, and to see her mom in action. Besides being behind a computer screen most of the time. So if you leave a review between now and January 31st, you will be entered to win a coaching session with me, as well as a signed copy of the book from the two authors, Where We Belong. That's the book that I will be helping to facilitate the conversation of. And yeah, like you can get a coaching session for either your business, your brand, content marketing or NLP neuro linguistic programming to move through any mindset shifts. So if you are interested in doing that, all you have to do is leave a review and then you are entered to win between now and January 31st.

Judy Tsuei (00:27:45) - I hope that the start of your year has been filled with light and love. Whether it was expected or unexpected, how you wanted to celebrate it, how you wanted to bring in the new year, and just know that every moment is a new beginning. So if you tend to be one of those people who are hard on yourself, as I used to be and just, you know, having all of those circuitous thoughts, these looping thoughts, then just to take a deep breath, you can go back to any of the previous episodes that I recorded that have mindfulness in the brackets, and find a practice that can help you take a deep breath, come back to yourself, return to that sense of home, that sense of belonging, of knowing that you are more than this physical body. You are more than the experiences that you've had in your life. You are light incarnate in this existence. And so I wish you all of the light and love until the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.

Judy Tsuei (00:28:51) - 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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Keywords: podcast host, personal experiences, memoir, book, eating disorder, upbringing, relationship with father, support system, accountability partner, preoccupation with death, control, mindset, unworthiness, accomplishment, self-doubt, Fosun, punishment, emotional abuse, physical abuse, father, work ethic, retirement, family history, trauma, emotional well-being, healing, self-discovery, relationship with parents, generation gap, heritage, Taiwan, United States, education, compassion, understanding, feedback, events, mindfulness, self-compassion, newsletter, gratitude