EPISODE 82: [MINDFULNESS] MOVE AWAY FROM “ACHIEVEMENT-ORIENTED” THINKING

Sep 24

Takeaways

From the latest book I’ve been reading, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think, by Brianna Wiest:

“When you choose to value other people’s acceptance over your own, you accept a fate of battling your instincts to assimilate to the needs of other people’s egos. In the meantime, a world and lifetime of listening, leaning, allowing, following, perceiving the feeling and experiencing constantly eludes you. Sadness will not kill you. Depression won’t either. But, fighting it will. Ignoring it will. Trying to escape it, rather than confront it will. Denying it will. Suffocating it will. Allowing it no place to go other than your deep subconscious to embed and control you will.”

And, even more poignantly:

“It will rob you of every bit of life you do have — you either let yourself feel everything or numb yourself into feeling nothing. You cannot select emotions. You’re either in accord with their flow or in resistance to their nature. In the end, the choice is yours.”

I’ve been robbing myself of so much of my life thanks to achievement-oriented thinking that after catching COVID, I had to slow down and revamp the way I showed up, especially when I had to miss so many events during the two weeks of recovery.

In the end, it was good for me… and I hope this podcast episode helps you move away from achievements to simply “being,” too.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the fuck saving face podcast we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans by breaking through taboo topics like may not always be pretty but it is indeed let's make your story beautiful welcome to June today we're doing a mindfulness episode and for a lot of you who are parents your children are probably getting out of school getting ready to start their summer breaks if you're like me then you probably enroll your child in many many different camps my daughter and I actually just recently got back from Arizona we went to Tucson and I'm so grateful that we dead thankfully it wasn't too crazy hot we are actually able to visit with a couple of our friends who drove down from Phoenix I want to get away from the June gloom here in San Diego and we were able to go to the incredible bias here to which if you haven't been it's now run by the university of Arizona super fascinating I don't know if you remember about two decades or so ago eight scientists who chose to enter into this bio sphere for two years you know not being around friends and family being only around the other scientists to see if they could replicate life on earth in this dump and it was huge they actually created a whole entire ocean they created a whole entire rainforest but what I learned while I was there is that unfortunately they also weren't producing enough oxygen so they the scientific you know board or whoever was running it at the time decided that they should pump oxygen in there so that the scientists could survive essentially but they didn't tell anybody about that and because this was such a focused kind of story in the media having the oxygen pumped in there basically you know ruin a lot of the scientific results because the whole point of this is to see if we could create life as we know it somewhere else potentially another planet if everything were to go to shit %HESITATION and you know now it's a research facility which I think is fascinating and I have a great connection to the ocean although that did chefs when I ended up getting pregnant with my daughter she's a Capricorn so I don't know if it was something about that you know earth sign within me that kind of shift because prior to that the ocean was everything to me but I still have a deep connection and I remember when we were watching a nature show recently that they talked about how the coral is dying off and it immediately because my daughter to cry and at the time she was probably about six so you know having this visceral reaction to seeing what we're doing to the planet I have a deep deep I respect and love for the planet that were on and it truly does hurt my heart to you know see what it is that we're doing to the people on it to the ecosystems that are on it and I'm one of those people I don't know if you're also this and I also don't know if this is from my Asian upbringing but I wash all the ziploc bags reuse everything I try to be as non wasteful as I possibly can partially to just preserve this planet to help future generations but also just to be cognizant that there so much that you know we potentially don't need it having moved around so much internationally restocking a house and then kind of just selling everything living in a van %HESITATION I feel like the minimalist away is definitely the way that I have been living but one of the things that I wanted to talk about as well we were in Arizona so I took my daughter to this very touristy you know I have to be super fun there was kind of this Ferris wheel old school western theme steak house and the whole shebang we watched like this gun shoot out show with the stump and but while we were there you know is designed in a very kind of gold rush era towns and there was this Chinese laundry there and there were Asian statues in a bronze tiger and just the signs like Lee come you know whatever they thought was Chinese names I guess you could say so I had a feeling about it and I said to my daughter you know like I know that this is historically accurate that Chinese people came and played these roles but in a way to me it feels a little bit racist and so we kept walking and my daughter looked at me and said mom do Asian people sometimes not get treated very well and I was like yes and she was like do you know we get treated not as well as like black people Mike sometimes and I didn't want to dive into even more of because we've been seen as Y. edgy sent or the model minority myth that there have been certain quote unquote privileges or you know despite how detrimental it's been from for our psyches and for so many different socio economic reasons %HESITATION the African American experience in America especially is much more challenging to me in my opinion and so I don't know if this conversation was sparked because %HESITATION the friends who came to visit us is my friend Lisa who is a white woman and her adopted son jock who's a black boy we actually met them in Taiwan should raised him in Taiwan the entire time and then they only recently came back to the states less than a year ago police and I were talking about how she's always reading articles about how to raise a black sign that you know she's thinking about potentially moving internationally again %HESITATION to countries that are much more open open minded %HESITATION much more fair much more normal quote unquote and if there can be a normal so you know when we were walking up to the hotel and my daughter was realizing that she was going to get to see her friend Jack cushion seen since we moved back so it's been a few years she was like oh I'm half Asian I'm like yeah and she's like and Jack is black I'm like yep that's true and so is the first time that she'd identified that they had you know color in their skin but after this experience at the western theme town you know I looked at her and I said this is why it's important for us to speak up and could because she said well that's not fair mom that we get it we get treated differently because the only thing that's different is the color in our skin everything else you know is the same and I said yes like biologically we are ninety nine point nine something percent the same all of us and we are all human but it is important to speak up and what a delicate balance to want to have her have faith in humanity and the potential for the future and the goodness that exists while also not pretending like she will potentially not experience micro aggressions outward aggression you know and justice %HESITATION all of the things that come with being human and being human of a certain skin color or or wherever we are or however it is one of the things I loved about to son also is that we did not feel like an anomaly you know well I don't think that we saw that many Asian people there I definitely didn't feel like I stood out and everyone was just so friendly and smiling and engaging and you know it it just felt to me like so much more of an accessible experience and then I often experience here in north county San Diego where I live by the coast and you know it's pretty homogenous here a lot of this is to say that over the last few weeks I also cook covered a couple of weeks ago and so you know I healed from that and my daughter caught it as well and she also killed from that and it was such an interesting opportunity to take some time to reflect to you know be disappointed that I was supposed to go to be con and I couldn't go and it just really shifted a lot of things a whole entire kind of like week week and a half I missed out on a lot of substantial experiences both personally and professionally and I feel like that whole or deal yeah I guess you could call it %HESITATION and thankfully I was very blessed that plenty of people stopped by with supplements medicine Chinese medicine and food it was just really remarkable but it got me to feel very disappointed that I felt like I had worked so hard in my business especially moving into web three in crypto that I couldn't go to this conference that I depend a lot of expectations on you know hopefully generating new business learning what's happening in the industry being in this exciting dynamic time and space and it forced me to really look at my achievement oriented mentality I actually reached out to a colleague and had a very honest conversation because she's also a woman of color she's south Asian and so it helps to have someone who understood the nuances of the pressures that were put upon us growing up for achievement for connecting our value and our worth to outward demonstrations of success and I just was so sad about it so just disappointed it wanted to kind of give up and surrender just felt like I had worked so hard and then you know this curveball came in so during that time I really worked on decoupling my mindset from achievement to being and you know I used to teach yoga a lot and I would always emphasize how important it was to be rather than to do and I aim to emphasize with my daughter as much as possible that her being ness she is worthy as she is there is no thing that she needs to do to perform so that I love her more and there's nothing that she needs to worry about doing it that I would love her last and it's me learning how to parent differently than the way that I was parented because my upbringing was very conditional it was very much based on you get this grade and then you might get some validation and even then it wasn't guaranteed so I just didn't understand why I was punishing myself and pushing myself so hard because inevitably I would always move the goal posts so that I would never actually take a moment to appreciate enjoy any sort of accomplishment so even writing my book getting not published having a distributed by Simon and Schuster having it on audible that's all of these things just kind of just flew by because I moved the goal post I was like okay well that's great that's what I'm going to use to pitch my memoir and the manuscript that I want to get out there and get published and even though intellectually I have understood for a very long time that if I continue to do this I will perpetuate dissatisfaction %HESITATION you know I won't be content it's been a hard kind of muscle to train differently in my mind even in my body and my spirit my soul to show up in a different way where achievement does not equal me and again as I mentioned before I live in north county San Diego and I happen to be in a space where I am around potentially you know the wealthiest upper class socio economic class in the world in comparison and so seeing these material possessions or comparing my insides based on the outside perception despite how many times I've heard reality is different that I hear the back story and you know we wouldn't want to trade what it is that I have in the problems that I have for what I've heard our other people's problems we all are living with our own baggage in our own heroes or heroines journey so we all have the our own path to traverse but it still has been hard and so I am now about to turn forty four this summer and it's time for me to show up differently especially because I recently heard my daughter beating herself up in the bathroom because she didn't get out of the shower in the time that she promised me and herself that she would and just the level and the depths to which she was being very critical on herself just really broke my heart because I was trying to reflect like do I speak like that externally to her I know internally and people always tell me I'm so hard on myself but I was hoping that I could break that pattern in that cycle and that that wouldn't get passed down to her seeing this outward demonstration in front of me this acting out of this harsh critical voice just really took me aback and made me realize how much more work I still need to do because as we parents know children are picking up so much whether we're being explicit or implicit about what it is that we're saying and doing and believe so today's mindfulness practice is aiming to help you if you find yourself also similarly challenged in being achievement oriented to just take a moment step back find your worth and your value and your self love and self respect from a place that has nothing to do with performance metrics it has nothing to do with the amount of money that you have in your checking account with the possessions that you have with the car that you drive or any of those tangible materialistic things it's a very much an intangible reflection of core values and finding that peace within yourself so when you're ready I encourage you to find a comfortable place to be and if you want to be and stillness then finding a seat or even lying down if you're listening to this and you're moving and you just want to breed with me and prayed with me perhaps you're driving or you're walking you're doing something else and just take a moment to arrive within yourself so observe how it feels to be within your body and within your body doing a quick check in where you are in your life for me during that time when I was %HESITATION parading from co then and just having all these thoughts of all of these professional personal experiences I was not going to be able to participate in the grief and sadness the disappointment words very heavy to carry so perhaps there's something in your life right now where you're musing on it where you're perseveration maybe it's a thought it could be a habitual thought it could be this feeling that you are so far from where you want to be and the pain that that causes in you now so when it feels in your heart space in your stomach and your head stays just overwhelming take a deep breath and take a deep breath out let it all go bringing another breath then a cleansing breath in a releasing exhale and one more time depressed and fill yourself with spaciousness an excel at every preconceived notion expectation desire want just release it all medical so my plan this is a practice and it is a practice to learn how to move away from judging yourself based on achievements and goals to being able to simply wrap your arms around who you are right now and believing that you right here right now are you not but the simple practice have you breathing in and out means that you are worthy you are taking brass and you can take up space you don't need to prove your worth loving by doing giving connecting sharing surrendering serving instead being with your cell and knowing that right here right now as you exist right now you are and not this awareness and this truth may be hard at first to hold it makes you feel uncomfortable and may even feel ill fitting like it's not real it's not right it doesn't belong I just tried on doesn't mean anything if you choose to subscribe to this belief or not you can let it go but just see how it feels to step into the police you are not chest as you are right here right now continue to pres continue to take steep fall press filling out from the crown of your head to your toes and as you exhale X. health from the soles of your feet through the crown of your head and feel the cyclical motion and energy being your past does not dictate your future and however your story began is not the way that it needs to end the best stories in the world are filled with adventures and awareness and your on your adventure continue to breed you are a remarkable person for being human for showing up in this existence for being vulnerable aiming to be authentic for a living and finding your own way despite or because of the influences around you continue breathing in and breathing out today's practice will be a little bit different because I'm going to encourage you to reflect upon your core values this is an exercise that I did when I was feeling pretty devastated about realizing how deeply I was connected to achievement oriented thinking and performance and being in that way to really take a step back and acknowledge and honor the things that are truly important to me these things are showing up as the bus nurturing spirit and I can be for my daughter to experience that love and connection authenticity it is important to me that speaking up for those who do not yet feel strong enough to use their own voices to speak for what's right to speak for what under represented those are core values of mine connection community so there's things that are important to me that if I live true to them I will feel more content regardless of what happens externally regardless of whether it means that I find a different type of work or however much I'm compensated but if I do the right thing by what is right to me I will feel aligned to my truth and aligned to my purpose and my penis and then it doesn't have to be attached to any sort of outcome that right now I may be doing the work to simply plant proceeds and that in this lifetime I may see the fruits of that labor I may see the trees grow where the flowers bloom or I may not and it may be for future generation but being able to plant the seeds that are important to me to be in the wonder and the curiosity to be in the moment these are elements that move us away from performance based achievement oriented thinking and mindset to find our center our truth and our ground and so as we come to a close of this practice today I might need to take a few moments to reflect upon what is most important to you where do your core values hi your regardless of what you were taught what you believe society expects or what you think is right and just and good what do you feel resonates as your truth and when you're ready you can press pause if you need more time where you can take a deep breath in with me in a deep breath out and then you can gently float your eyes open if they were close coming back into this room back into this moment and I invite you to grab a piece of paper grab a pen and journal about anything that's come up writing down letting yourself just flow with the thoughts and the words without judgment just allowing yourself to process through what you just experienced what you'd like to invite more of into your life to really ground within you as your truth and what you'd like to release I hope that this was a helpful practice and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode I can you can do so in crypto if you'd like to send your dollars A. K. fiat currency to me via the cash app which uses a super fast lightning network I can convert it into a big one you can find me on the cash app by typing in a dollar sign Judy it's way T. S. U. but if you actually like to send me a direct crypto currencies email me at hello at fox saving face dot com and we can exchange crypto wallet addresses more ways you can support the podcasts are sharing this with your friends family anybody you think Clinton join this and remember to go get your copy of the little book of Tibetan rites and rituals of burns and noble Amazon audible or whatever you like to get your books make your story beautiful today