Sometimes I ask people what do they want, and they say, I want to be happy.
But what does this really mean?
Does this mean you want to be happy all the time?
I mean, if you’re happy all the time, then how do you actually know that you’re happy?
And do you actually want to be happy all the time?
Like do you want to be happy when someone you love passes away?
Or do you want to be happy when someone insults you?
If your answer is no, and if your goal is still to be happy, what is the amount of happiness are you striving for?
So many times, we want to strive for happiness but we don’t actually define what that really means for us.
And when something happens and we’re not happy, we think that something has gone wrong.
Because if your goal is to feel good and be happy, what you’re innately believing is that anything else is a problem.
When someone pisses you off it’s a problem.
When you are in pain, it’s a problem.
When you want to pursue your goal, and you’re freaking out, it’s a problem.
When it happens, you want to try to fix it, but you don’t know how…
so this is what ends up happening:
You end up overeating.
You end up scrolling through social media.
You end up binge watching Netflix.
You end up online shopping.
You end up blaming others and taking it out on other people.
There is nothing wrong with these actions unless after you do them, you feel very guilty.
You feel guilty you ate half a tub of ice cream.
You feel guilty wasting time on social media or watching videos.
You feel guilty spending money on something meaningless.
You feel guilty taking your anger out on someone.
If you feel guilty after doing any of these, that means somehow you’re using these activities as a mask to make yourself feel better temporarily.
Here’s the truth, we aren’t taught how to deal with these negative emotions, that’s why we don’t want to face them, because we don’t know how. We feel we have no control over them.
When someone does something, or when something happens, we feel trapped, we feel powerless.
But what if we do have control over our emotions?
And what if our goal is not to be happy.
What if our goal is to be human and feel all the human emotions.
Because 50% of things in life sucks ass, 50% are wonderful.
And we’re meant to feel 50% negative emotions and 50% positive emotions.
And when we learn how to deal with the negative emotions, then we’ll be more willing to face them, and stop ourselves from doing all those things that make us feel guilty.
We feel guilty for procrastinating, and not taking care of our bodies. We feel guilty for not going after our dreams.
We keep rejecting, blaming, procrastinating, so we don’t get to be who we really want to be.
Let’s learn how to face these negative emotions, so we are prepared for them.
Because if you want more in life, if you believe you’re meant for more, it’s required that you do the things that feel uncomfortable.
You will face things that are hard.
You’ll come across embarrassing situations, humiliating situations.
You will be put into situations that are scary as heck!
And yet, once you’re willing to go through them, you’ll see how worthy they are. Because you can see the expanded version of yourself.
Let’s learn to face the negative 50% of life.
So you can be the best version of yourself!
If you’re interested to find out what this means for you, I’m offering a free 60-min Jump Start Conversation.
We can go through what is happening right now and how we can proceed to bring you toward where you want!
The truth is, posting about myself has been very triggering for me.
I’d been taught not to air out dirty laundry, whatever happens behind closed doors stay behind closed doors.
I’d been told to put myself together well before leaving the house, to show that I am capable.
I’d been told however good my result is, it’s nothing to brag about, because there are other people who’re better than me.
I’d been told whatever struggle I’m going through is nothing compare to other people’s.
Other people always have it better than me, or worse than me.
Which translates to, other people’s lives are worthier than mine.
Have you ever experienced that? Like you’re trying to share your win, the other person said, “Oh I know another person who’s doing the same thing! And let me tell you how much better the other person is at it!”
You tried to share your struggle, and the other person try to one-up you, “You think it’s bad? Let me tell you how bad mine is.”
Or you try to share something caused you have a darker deeper emotion, and because they don’t know how to handle it, they try to do things to make you feel better immediately.
I’d experienced all of it, AND I’d done all those things to other people too.
Now that I’ve learned so much about myself (and still learning), and understanding this whole idea of being seen. I see how detrimental all those things can be to our growth.
When we keep getting shot down, we stop sharing our stories.
I always thought that I was a very private person, or that there’s really nothing interesting about myself, so I never shared much about myself.
But the truth is, it’s because I was scared to share, because when other people dismiss my story, my identity gets dismissed. That’s too painful! So I don’t end up sharing.
And when I don’t share, no one really knows anything about me, and I end up believing that no one understands, no one is going to listen to me anyways.
So it’s like being in a cyclical toxic chain of thoughts working against ME!
I don’t share because no one would listen, but it’s all because I was too scared to get hurt, which leads my my brain to believe that no one really understands, and it goes around and around.
But it all comes down to this: Do I believe that I’m worthy? Do I believe my story is worth sharing?
How I see myself, is what I believe about myself.
If I don’t see myself as worthy, I’ll always put myself down, not using my voice, not sharing my story.
If I don’t see myself as worthy, I’ll always depend on other people’s reactions to gauge whether or not I speak up.
AND If I don’t see myself as worthy, I’ll always hold myself back from doing bigger things, I settle!! Because I believe I am not worth expanding, and becoming bigger!
That’s why many people hold themselves back from going after their dreams!
They are scared of what other people will say about them, laugh at them, make fun of them.
But really, they’re scared of disappointing themselves, they’d been using their own results to determine their worth.
This is where self-love comes in.
Learn to love yourself so much, that you don’t give two sh*ts about what other people say about you!
Learn to love yourself so much that you can share your stories with others!
Learn to love yourself so much that, even when you think your story is boring, it’s extraordinary to you!
Because when you see yourself as extraordinary, and you see the experiences you have are extraordinary, THEN you’ll be more willing go after more extraordinary things!
My stories, I had believed for the longest time, were too plain and not worthy to be shared!
But it’s not true! My stories are worthy of being told!
I’m worthy to use my voice.
I am worthy to have an extraordinary life, and so do you! (And I’m still learning all these as I go!)
And what does extraordinary mean?
It means how you want it to mean. It just means, you take control over your own life, YOU define it for yourself.
You are worthy to tell your stories.
You are worthy.
I remember the first time I felt really alone, was when I was about 6 years old.
I just switched school, it was the first day.
My dad went to school with me. The entrance of this school was at the bottom of a set of steep stone stairs.
I remembered we walked down these stairs, and right when we were about to reach the entrance, my dad let go of my hand, urged me to go ahead, and then he turned around to walk away.
At that moment, I got so scared! My dad was leaving me!
I started crying.
I remembered looking at my dad, he turned halfway back to look at me, with a helpless smile on his face.
At the same time, another girl was going to school with her dad. He started talking to me and whisked me into the school.
Since then, I felt like I had to keep doing things on my own. I came to believe that I have to face every change on my own.
I grew to become very independent, yet I felt very isolated.
I believed I had to figure things out on my own.
I didn’t know how to ask for help.
I didn’t know how to trust people.
I would turn other people down first before they turn me down.
I built a very high wall that not many people could reach through.
I didn’t believe that anyone cared, so I stopped caring.
I remember while I was doing my leadership program, we had to do a project at the end.
And I chose to do a 8 hour virtual live event.
My buddy, the lovely Silky Zhou, my phenomenal friend Anna Ouroumian, and my group stood beside me. Supported me throughout.
At that moment, I realized what it meant to have someone to walk with me.
And then looking back, I saw that many many people were actually walking with me.
Like the dad who whisked me into the school.
Like my wonderful friends who stood by me when I was fighting with my mom.
Like my husband who devoted his time and energy into the family so I could attend to what I needed.
But because I was so focused on the belief that “I was alone”, I didn’t see.
This is not to invalidate my experience of being alone.
I believe that, it IS because I acknowledged that I had to do everything on my own, and that I felt hopeless, helpless.. only after that, then I could expand my vision further.
Now, I’m slowly building up my community.
I search for the support I need, being ok to ask for help.
Still many times, I have the thoughts, “I don’t belong”, or “People don’t care.”
And being ok with those thoughts.
Because for someone who’s always been independent, it has been programmed as a default mode.
Now, I’m learning that, asking for help doesn’t mean I’m weak. And other people do care about me.
It’s great to have someone there to talk to you, and support you.
I know how hard it can be to find people in your life who can give you the time you desire.
I want you to know you matter. So if you’d like to have someone to talk to and hear what you have to say, I’m offering free 30-min coaching sessions.
There are no strings attached to them, it’s time I’m giving back to support you on your journey.
Reaching out takes a lot of courage, and I was you to know that, just by you thinking about it, is the first step.
You’re not alone, and there are people who care about you. Let’s talk!
That was a sentence that had been subconsciously running in my brain since I was young, and I only got to speak it out loud during yesterday’s coaching session.
I could feel it in my body. But I never allowed it out of my mouth.
Since I was young, I had always been told what to do and how to do things.
And “fun” was always something that only came at the end, very sparse, or never at all.
So whenever I was told to do something, or that I had do it a certain way, my rebel brain would take over!
It would usually say "F-off!" Or, "If you want it done this way, then why don’t you do it?"
And then, I would drop the task (if I could).
This was really important for me to realize, because I learned two things from it.
First, I now see why it is that whenever I go on an extended challenge (like a 10-day or 30-day challenge), I would stop around day 5 or 6, and I’d drop it altogether.
Because, even though it was something I want to do to begin with, when it’s time for me to do the thing, my brain still sees it as “being told what to do”.
Then it’ll say, “I don’t get to do what I want!”, which triggers my rebel brain to tell my logical voice to "F-off" and I’ll drop the task.
What? Mic drop!
So my coach and I explored, what does “I don’t get to do what I want“ means.
I realize that, because my days are split between full time work, care for our son, tend to my business, give my husband love and attention, etc, my brain tells me, I don’t have enough time!
And when I don’t have enough time, I believe I need to devote whatever time I have to my business.
So I schedule a lot of work, and no time for fun things.
ALSO, whenever I decide to have fun, I’d play Final Fantasy XIV, and once I start, I can’t stop!
So my brain is constantly rebelling! “I don’t get to do what I want.” Yet, I don’t trust myself to stop.
Which is a constant battle between procrastinate doing what I really want (work on my business), and feeling guilty for not doing it.
Now that I’m aware, my coach asked me one more question:
What if you have all the time to do what you want?
What a question!
If I have all the time to do what I want, then I stop being resentful that I don’t get to do what I want.
It makes me want to work when it’s time for me to work, and it makes me want to play when it’s time for me to play.
I’ll have less mind drama, I’ll trust myself more, and I’ll be more focused, and excited about life.
According to my coach, implementing this means I start to build the trust between my Present Self and my Future Self, meaning that, my Present Self will plan for my goals, and my Future Self will respect and follow through. So there is a mutual trust between the two.
This conversation came about because for the month of November, I want to post 1 blog post a day for 30 days. Today is Day 2, and I want to complete this 30-day challenge.
I want to practice sharing what’s on my mind, and I want to build this trust in myself, so I know whatever I say I’ll do, I’ll do it.
First, I can’t believe how fast time is zooming by, I’d gone to Paris and back!
On Oct 21, 2022, I got a chance to speak LIVE on stage in Paris! My topic was 5 Radical Ways Self-Love Can Change Your Life.
It ended up being a “beautiful disaster”! 🤣🤣 because I blanked out in the middle of the speech! 🤦🏻♀️
It was a rollercoaster ride for sure! At one point, I was thinking, “Can I just get off stage to take a look at my notes? Dammit! My phone is recording and my notes are in it!!!”
I really blanked out, my brain could not think of anything. I didn’t really panic either, I just pretty much laughed at myself, and admitted that I forgot.
I was grateful for the lady who kept telling me to move onto the next point, so I settled on talking about jealousy! Which helped me get through the rest of my speech.
When I got off stage, I was glad I overcame my experience. And then disappointment and <more> jealousy set in.
Which is what I'd like to share with you.
Before I go on, I wanted to tell you this, if it wasn’t because of my self-love work, I would have NEVER even dared to step up on the stage.
Because first, I didn’t believe I have what it takes. I was constantly told (by my mom) that I wasn’t good at articulating my ideas.
Second, I didn’t believe that I have a message to share. I always believed that no one really cares about what I have to say.
So it was through loving myself that I was able to start believing in myself, and believe that I am worthy to get up on stage to share my message.
Ok, so back to my points.
This speaking experience propelled me to love myself to another level, especially around jealousy and disappointment.
I had (and still have) a hate-hate relationship with jealousy.
It was something that I struggled with since I was young.
I was grateful for it for saving my life that day.
AND I had to learn to love it even more.
At this conference, one of my friends from my speaking group also attended. He, like myself, was a first time speaker.
His speech was phenomenal! He nailed it!
This was where My Jealousy reared its ugly head!!
Right after his speech, my speaking coach literally jumped out of her seat! She was beaming, laughing, hugging him. She was SO proud of him!!!
I was really proud of him too! AND at the same time, disappointment and jealousy consumed my body!
I was disappointed in myself for blanking out! I beat myself up. Saying “You should have practiced more. Your lack of practice is what led you to this embarrassing situation!”
I believed I failed my coach. “Your coach said you’re one of her Rising Stars?! Really? What a joke! How stupid can you be to believe that?”
I could feel this two-faced creature rearing its head, pretending to be excited for my friend congratulating him! While at the same time, I hated him so much! (Not really true, but a part of me just wanted to take him down! Like, if I can’t have this, no one can have this!)
Throughout that day, my coach asked me a few times how I was feeling. I couldn’t bring myself to share anything with her. Because I knew once I start talking, everything will come crashing down. I would start crying, and I don't want to do that in front of her. I had to hold myself up.
So many times that day I was at the brink of falling apart.
Especially right after my friend’s speech. I almost had to walk out of the room. Because I felt my throat closing in and my tears welling up!
I truly believed I failed, and my coach was not proud of me.
That night when I was in my hotel, I was exhausted and drained. But I wanted to share my experience on instagram. So I started recording myself. And that was when the emotion train hit me.
I let myself ugly cry. And then I was able to see clearly.
I didn’t realize how much I had wanted to nail this speech.
To me, nailing the speech meant I am a professional speaker. Once I nail this speech, then I can start promoting myself, telling everyone about it, and feeling proud of myself!
I didn’t realize how much I wanted to make my coach proud.
I wanted her to jump up beaming! Telling everyone that I’m her Star Student!
It was exactly like how I always wanted my mom to be proud of me.
I wanted them to say, “This is my Star student!” “This is my amazing daughter! I’m so proud of her, look what she’s done!”
This experience made me see how much I depend on external experiences and results to validate me.
I wanted so desperately for others to see how great I am! I yearned for someone to tell me they love me, they are proud of me, and are excited for my accomplishments. So I relied heavily on other people.
And Yet! When they do, I didn’t actually believe them!
Like my husband always told me that he’s proud of me, but part of my brain didn't believe him at all. "Yeah yeah yeah... whatever you say."
*********
From this experience, I had to come face to face with all of these realizations. I had to go deep to acknowledge all of these.
Because it didn't matter if my coach was proud of me, or if she is disappointed in me. I have to be the one who’s proud of myself.
Even when I fail, I have to be the one to have my own back to say, “I see your effort! You’re amazing!”
Even when I blank out, I can still call myself a Professional Speaker! I'm an International Professional Speaker!
I’m sharing all these with you because I know we all desire to go after things deep in our hearts. We all want to do something that we can be proud of.
But we’re always concerned about what other people will say about us. Or we wonder if we have what it takes to go after it.
The truth is, whatever other people think or say about you, those don’t matter.
At the end of the day, YOU have to be the one who can stand up and say, "I'm proud of myself!"
Also, you have what it takes to go after what you want! You just need to learn the skills. You're going to suck in the beginning, and as you keep practicing, you'll be great at it!
You’re going to fail and fall flat on your face, but they don’t matter, because your dreams are more important!
When you love yourself, you’ll know that you’re worthy to go after your dreams and you'll be more willing to fail. Because you'll finally understand what it means when people say, failure doesn't define who you are.
So if you’re tired of caring about what other people say about you, if you’re tired of holding yourself back from doing what you want, then this article is your sign.
This is time for you to come out and say, I want what I want, and I want to have the courage to go after what I want.
Book a 60-min Jump Start session with me, and we can figure out what you truly want in life, and figure out what exactly you need to work on to go after it.
My son is finally back at school after a week off. We planned for a water park one day because Damien started swimming over the summer, so we thought he'd enjoy it! But because he got a little sick, so we couldn't go into the park itself. But since we've already booked a hotel stay in Niagara Falls, so we still went for our trip.
You can click here to see a video of our shinanigans
You know, as a woman, I find myself keep trying to fix things and trying to aniticpate for everything that may happen in the future.
Like for this trip, just the packing alone, I already didn't like packing for myself, but having to pack for another person (or two - son and sometimes husband) really ticked me off.
I did get agitated at one point, because here I was going around PACKING, and I kept seeing my husband being in front of the computer.
So my husband had to remind me again, that I shouldn't worry too much about it.
(Quick response: What do you mean I shouldn't worry too much about it?! If I don't worry about it then who will???!!!)
Right? Hahaha
But as maddening as it is, what he said was true. Because here's what's really happening within my head..
My agitation is not stemmed from me doing the packing, and my husband being in front of the computer.
My agitation stemmed from the pressure I put on myself for NEEDING to making sure everything is packed, that nothing is forgotten...
Because this is what happens when things get forgotten:
Someone will ask me where the item is.. Mom, did we pack this? Babe, did we pack that?
And this is how I feel when I get asked the question: I feel like I'm being blamed for forgetting it.
Because if I was a good mom, I wouldn't forget the item, right?
I had to learn to let this expectation go
When someone ask me for an item that's not packed, I had to learn to simply say, "Oh it's not here? Well, that was your responsibility."
And then smile and keep enjoying my time.
Now let's get a little deeper than that.
Because the real question is, why was I doing what I was doing?
Packing for everyone, believing that it's my responsibility to take care of everything, and feeling so much pressure and agitation?
It actually goes deeper than being a good mom.
At the end of the day, I just wanted to feel appreciated and loved.
"Look! My mom remembered this thing for me! Thanks mom! I love you, Mom!"
How do you feel from reading that response?
You feel like it's all worth it, right? (Or maybe you actually believe: if other people are happy, then I'm happy).
Listen to me, I call this BS.
Here's why:
Imagine you're a kid, you work so hard, you do things you don't like to please your parents, all because you want them to praise you, but you get no response.
And then you hear your mom mention how great of a daughter you are, so then you keep doing what she asks you to do even when you don't agree with her, even when you're doing something you don't like to do!
That's called manipulation. This is how we start people-pleasing!!
All you want are love and attention from your parents, but you had to bend over backwards to get them to love and appreciate you.
Just like in the previous scenario. You are taking on all this responsbility for everyone, you're hating what you're doing, and then suddenly your spouse or kids says, "Thanks Mom!" "Thanks Babe!" You melt and tell yourself, it is all worth it!
What's wrong with this picture?
Women had been programmed to sacrifice ourselves, abandon ourselves, do things we don't like, to please other people, in order for us to receive love and appreciation.
That's what's wrong.
What if we don't need to do that?
What if YOU can feel loved and appreciated, without doing more, without doing things you don't like, without sacrificing yourself?
AND you don't need other people to change their behaviors.
This is called Self-Love.
When you have the ability and capacity to love yourself, then you can be true to yourself.
You no longer need to bend over backwards to get other people to love you. You don't need to go against your values to get other people to appreciate you.
This means, you can simply let your husband and kids know that packing is their responsibility. And you can let everything go.
They may still forget to pack things. And when they ask where the item is, you can tell them, "Oh it's not packed? Well that was your responsibility." And be truly happy about it.
And I truly want this for you.
PS
When you're doing something that you don't really enjoy, ask yourself this question.
Why am I doing what I'm doing?
If you hear yourself say any of the following words, then watch out!
I need to...
I should..
I have to...
There is a secret programming in there.
One of the keys to learning to love yourself is to get to know yourself.
I'm offering 30 min free coaching call. And you can experience firsthand what coaching is like.
What happens during this call is that we'll take a look at some of the thoughts you are having, find out where they come from, and how they're affecting your life.
What we have in our life now, is a reflection of the beliefs we're holding in our brains right now.
If we can find out what these beliefs are, then we can learn to let them go, and create new thoughts and new results.
That is how I created the results in my life: I became a life coach, an international bestseller, an international speaker
Our brains are by far the most powerful tool we possess!!! We have this awesome tool! Let's learn to work with it to create the results we want!
So if you're interested to take a look at your brain, and see if coaching is right for you, I invite you to hop on a call with me
Looking forward to working with you!
Reflecting back, one of the themes that I kept encountering is feeling alone, or that I don't belong.
I remember the very first time that I felt this way was when my dad dropped me off at a new school when I was 5(or 6) years old.
The entrance to the school was down a set of stone steps, and he walked me down, and when I turned around, he said bye, and he was about to leave.
I started crying, and all I remembered was my dad turned back to look down at me from a few steps above, and he had this helpless smile on his face.
And then another dad was dropping his daughter off. When he saw me, he escorted me inside the school along with his daughter.
I had no recollection of what happened afterwards.
But this feeling stayed with me for a long time. I felt I was alone.
I had to do everything on my own, and I always felt like I had to carry a big weight on my shoulders.
But here's something beautiful after I worked through this story.
I am now focusing on the dad who brought me inside.
I didn't know him. But for a brief moment, he was there for me to get me to the next step.
And I have a lot of those people in my life too.
But what happened was, I was so focused on being abandoned, that I neglected the people who reached out to me.
We're sometimes in so deep of our stories, we failed to notice the bigger picture.
I want you to realize this, if you believe that you're all alone, I want to challenge you to see this wall.
Do you have a wall? A wall you'd built up because of your past painful experiences?
I'm sure you had endured a lot, had gone through a lot. And having a wall is natural.
It is meant to protect ourselves when we were younger.
But what this wall does, in addition to protect us, is it also blocks out other people from reaching out to us.
They may want to help us and support us, but they can't get through to us.
So to break through this wall, you have to learn to do 3 things.
- acknowledge that this wall is present
- learn to love yourslef
- start working on your beliefs to break this wall down
I have recorded a podcast episode about this. If you're interested in it, I'd love for you to have a listen to it!
And I'm excited to share with you that, I've officially changed the name of my podcast from Love Shine Flourish back to Extraordinary Asian Women.
It took me a long time to get back to embrace my root, which I am an extraordinary asian woman.
Also, IF you live in Toronto, and if you're an immigrant to Canada, I want to introduce you to an event!
The Immigrant Women in Business is hosting an event called Women's Empowerment, Social impact, Diversity, Equity & Entrepreneurship. It's an event for you if you want to network, and find a group of people who is more than willing to support you! I'm one of the sponsors for this event, so if you're interested in it, come talk to me!
I want you to know that you're not alone, you don't have to do this by yourself. There are people who are here for you, and I'm also one of them.
Book a session with me now if you want someone to help you break down this wall.
